Patriotic souvenir from the war in which the British introduced concentration campsThis biscuit is typical of the patriotic souvenirs brought back to England after the jingoistic celebrations after the relief of Mafeking (which made a national hero of Baden-Powell) on 18 May 1900. It would have disgusted Cornish heroine-in-waiting Emily Hobhouse (1860-1926). Hobhouse was an ardent pacifist. Born a clergyman's daughter at St Ives in Cornwall, she visited South Africa during the Boer war. Here she discovered concentration camps run by the British, where women and children were dying in their thousands. When she tried to publicise these war crimes she was forcibly deported back to Britain. After the war ended in 1902 she returned to help the starving Boers and set up industries for the women.
Boer War biscuit
Contributed by Royal Cornwall Museum
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- Location
- Culture
- Period
-
Siege of Mafeking Oct 1899 - May 1900.
- Theme
- Size
-
- H:
- 25.2cm
- W:
- 25cm
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Comments
Emily Hobhouse was born in St Ive (without an S), a village near Liskeard, where she was brought up and spent the first half of her life, not in St Ives (with an S) although she did live there briefly in later years. Your correspondent is otherwise right in suggestingb thatb she was a remarkable and forceful woman. We recently had a display in her honour in Liskeard museum.