Humanities & Social Sciences
October 2025
Gender, empire and citizenship
British women and the South African War
by Eliza Riedi
When the South African War broke out in 1899 British middle-class women, already well-integrated into party politics and public life, were quick to respond. Women across a wide political spectrum, from jingo imperialists to 'pro-Boers', actively engaged in public debates over the war through meetings, speeches, petitions, electioneering, and the press. From the start pacifist women made important contributions to the anti-war movement, later providing vital backing for Emily Hobhouse's campaign to reform the concentration camps. Women imperialists supported the war effort through military philanthropy and imperial propaganda. Under Millicent Garrett Fawcett the government-appointed Ladies' Committee transformed the camps, while hundreds of British women were recruited as camps teachers and nurses. Fundamentally shaped by ideologies of gender and race, women's responses to this imperial war continued to influence women's public action and discourses of citizenship into the First World War.
