It was July 1900 and a public meeting was underway. Liskeard Town Hall was packed and two passionate speakers prepared to address the crowd.
An angry tirade of boos rang out as liberal politician David Lloyd George attempted to speak. Unable to utter a word he returned to his seat.
Uproar and confusion followed. A young crowd attempted to storm the platform, union flags flew, accompanied by singing, stamping and whistles.
During a lull in the disorder, a woman stood “I think you will agree with me” her voice rung out “that if her majesty the Queen to whom you have sung were present now she would be heartily ashamed…will you listen to me.” It was to no avail. Chairs and objects were hurled at them and the speakers were ushered swiftly away.
The woman’s name was Emily Hobhouse and the subject on which they had chosen to speak was the desperate plight of the women and children who were suffering in South Africa as war raged.
The meeting had failed, but Emily was to become known as “that bloody woman,” by the British Establishment. To the Boer people however she would become “The Angel of Love” and her story was just beginning.
Emily Hobhouse was born on 9 April 1860 into a privileged family in the tiny village of St Ive, in Cornwall. Her father Reginald was the Archdeacon of Bodmin and her mother Caroline was an heiress, devoted to the education of their six surviving children.
Emily and her brothers and sisters spent happy times with ‘Old Rodge,’ a curate at the church with whom they would play hide and seek, badminton and grow vegetables. Emily, the fifth child, became known as “The Missis,” a nickname that remained throughout her life.
Emily’s brothers were sent away to public school and then on to Oxford university, but as was usual at the time Emily and her sister were home educated, learning skills such as sewing, singing, piano and French.
But she was intellectually curious and frustrated. She wrote later that “they never taught me the things I wanted to know. If you asked, you were told: “Little girls should not ask questions.””
At 16 she went to a finishing school in London, where she learnt how to be a ‘good wife’. She was bitter and resentful and later in life blamed her inadequate education as “the root cause of many of my mistakes.” Even this education was cut short by the death of her sister Blanche in 1876. She returned home and a few years later her mother died of a brain tumour.
In St Ive Emily taught Sunday school lessons, sang in the church choir and played the organ. She visited destitute families in the area and did her best to assist them, but she yearned for a life beyond her small village and was developing liberal political views.
She cared for her father whose health had deteriorated which made her felt isolated and depressed and she would later described this as a period of torture. When her father died in 1895 all the family possessions were auctioned, so at the age of 35, with an inheritance of £5300 she packed her bags and left St Ive, never to return. She knew only two things; she wanted to see the world and she wanted to help people.
Thousands of Cornish miners had emigrated to America for a new life and Emily resolved to follow them. She arrived in New York in July 1895 and was enthralled, writing to her sister Maud she said that she felt she had landed in fairyland or the Arabian Nights.
She made her way to a mining town in Minnesota and started to work in the community. She opened a library and a recreation hall, founded a choir and a Sunday School and started a temperance society. She taught adults to read and write, helped with the sick and even allowed those in need to sleep on her floor.
She was well loved by the townspeople, but here she discovered that her good intentions were not always appreciated and were often seen as a threat by those in positions of authority. In fact conflict with the local reverend was such that he preached against her at church.
She fell in love and became engaged to the town’s mayor, John Clark Jackson. Sadly for Emily it was to be an ill fated match. The town’s mines were closing down and Jackson appears to have got into financial difficulties. Despite this they planned to settle down on a farm in Mexico. She travelled there to wait for him, but he failed to arrive and devastated, she returned to London alone. She never wore her fine lace bridal veil, but she kept it for the rest of her life.
One summer morning in 1899 Emily read of the impending war in South Africa. Tensions in the region had been growing for some time and the British were pushing for control of the gold mines of the Transvaal.
On 8th September, 10,000 British soldiers were sent to Natal, followed by a further 47,000 troops later that month. On October 11th The Boer Republics invaded the British colonies and what became known as the Second Boer War had begun.
Three weeks after war broke out, the South African Conciliation Committee was launched in England by liberals who opposed the war and wished to promote peace.
Emily became honorary secretary of the women’s branch and her flat in Chelsea became the headquarters where she and the other women would work long hours to mobilise resistance against the war.
On 24 May 1900 the Orange Free State was annexed by the British, followed two weeks later by the Transvaal and martial law was declared. The Boer forces, not recognising these as legitimate conquests embarked on guerrilla warfare.
Commander-in-chief, Lord Roberts warned that if the Boers continued to fight then their farmhouses and all the contents were to be burnt down and their animals slaughtered. The ‘scorched-earth policy’ had begun. Whole towns were to be destroyed as punishment for continued resistance against the new British regime.
In London a demonstration was held by women to protest at “a policy was bringing ruin and desolation.” A resolution which expressed sympathy with the women of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had been drafted and was read out by Emily.
She attended the disastrous meeting in Liskeard and now found that she was snubbed by family and friends and felt their loss keenly. But faced with the increasing reports of the burning and blowing up of farm houses and the image of desperate women and children, she felt possessed with the idea that she had to help in some way. She had to go over there and make a difference.
She started to raise money for the trip and set up the South Africa Women and Children Distress Fund, whose object was to feed, clothe, shelter and rescue Boer and British women and children, who had been rendered destitute by war.
Emily worked for 6 months to gain support for her project amongst the influential people of Britain and South Africa. She was horrified by the cynicism and chilling attitude of many, but having raised £300 for the trip, she booked her second class ticket on the Avondale Castle, which departed for the Cape on 7 December 1900.
On board Emily read books on South Africa and learnt some Afrikaans from the other passengers. She was a 40 year old woman alone, travelling into the heart of a war zone to a world of which she knew nothing, but she was called and had an unwavering belief that what she was doing was right.
The new Commander-in-chief in South Africa, Lord Kitchener was well known for his animosity towards women. As Emily headed for Capetown he issued a memorandum to his officers that the women and children of those still fighting the British were to be known as ‘Undesirables’ and were to be sent to camps.
On her arrival Emily was overwhelmed by the beauty of Table Mountain in ‘the rosy gold of early dawn.’ She stayed with friends, but knew she needed to get north as soon as possible. She had heard the news that 4000 women and children were being held in camps in Johannesburg and that 600 farmhouses had been burnt down in the last week alone. No-one appeared to know about the conditions there and she knew she must get to them.
Carrying letters of introduction she lunched with the High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner which apparently caused her to feel sick with nerves. She wrote that they went ‘hammer and tongs’ as she put in her requests and countered his arguments.
At last he agreed to allow her to visit the camps (which were now known as “concentration camps”) to see the conditions for herself and to take supplies for food and clothing with her. Kitchener agreed and in trepidation she set off to the war stricken north with the supplies, a kettle, a food basket of jam and bread and fruit for the journey.
This new world was hot, dusty, barren and silent with intermittent dust storms and thunderstorms. Sand covered everything and made her hair red. Carcasses of horses, cattle and mules littered the landscape.
In Bloemfontein she found the city under martial law controlled by the British authorities. The officers appeared to have no plan for providing the women with clothing and she found she was met with “crass male ignorance and helplessness, but willing to admit that the whole thing had been a huge mistake.”
The concentration camp at Bloemfontein was about 2 miles from the city. There she found 2000 women, 900 children and a few men who had voluntarily lain down their arms. The women gathered to tell Emily their stories, but apparently as they did so a puff adder appeared in the tent and she immediately attacked it with her parasol.
She heard first hand from the women how their farmhouses and crops had been burnt, livestock killed and how they had been transported for days on wagons and forced into the camp. The camp housed about 50,000 people and very few were there of their own free will.
There were not even the basics. There were no candles or soap, and no wood or coals to boil water or for food. Everything was thick with flies, there was terrible overcrowding and no school for the children.
The people were hungry, water was limited, typhoid was rife and the sanitation facilities horrified her. The slop buckets were unemptied and the stench was horrendous. Without even a mortuary tent, the dead lay out amongst the living until they were buried. By the end of that winter a third of the people in the camps would be dead, most of them children, many more than on the battlefields.
Emily wrote the women’s stories down, which she aimed to use in evidence and she walked endlessly from tent to tent recording what she saw - babies dying, children so weak they were unable to walk.
She was appalled and asked how long could this cruelty could be tolerated? But she was regarded by the British soldiers as ‘a fool, an idiot and a traitor combined.”
But she set about doing what she could and threatened the authorities that if they didn’t display compassion she would hold them responsible. A bucket was provided for each tent and the water was to be boiled. Washhouses were installed, trained nurses arrived and soap and mattresses were supplied.
The learnt that the concentration camps for black people were separate. Unable to focus on these as well, she instead sent the Loyal Ladies League of Bloemfontein to investigate and they were met with terrible sickness, suffering and death.
Meanwhile she travelled south to the small camp at Springfonteine and found the inmates were the most destitute she had yet seen and so she set to work. Emily’s compassion for the Boer people was becoming known, but to the British she was a pariah.
The travelling was tough, but she was indomitable. Only once did she write of her vulnerability, when one night a guard on a train offered her his bed and a bath and later when she was alone she burst into tears.
When Emily returned to Capetown she found that the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa were working hard against her and she was accused of sewing discontent and dissatisfaction amongst Boer women.
And back in Britain the Government were asserting that people in the camps were comfortable and that Emily’s stories were fabrication. She was seen as a traitor by many. The bitter truth was that over 250,000 mainly women and children were being held in these horrific camps against their will and the only person prepared to go out and do something was Emily Hobhouse.
Emily was realising that her ability to help was limited and she would need to return to England to tell people what was happening herself.
Back in London she published a 40 page report and travelled around Britain fighting her cause. There was an outcry and the report was met with denial. Her loneliness and isolation can only be imagined.
However, the Liberal party were determined the report should be debated in the House of Commons and this forced the Government to act. A committee of enquiry, headed by Millicent Fawcett, was sent over to South Africa to investigate conditions in the camps. They confirmed Emily’s findings and made similar recommendations. Finally improvements were being made and deaths began to decrease.
At his point Emily decided to go back to South Africa herself, but on arrival in Capetown she was not allowed to get off the ship and was forced to turn back to England.
In Spring 1902 the Boers laid down their arms and on 31 May, after almost 3 years, a peace treaty was signed in Pretoria. The Boer republics had agreed to come under the sovereignty of the British Crown.
The statistics are horrifying. Of the 250,000 people interned in 50 white and 64 black concentration camps 55,000 would die. 80 percent of them were children, many more than those who died on both sides in the fighting.
In the aftermath the British parliament voted that millions of pounds should be used to rebuild the farms, though in fact very little was ever paid over; another truth which Emily would inconveniently reveal.
After the war, Emily wrote a book about her experiences. The royalties were used to fund the reconstruction of Boer homes and as the country returned to peace the Boers reached out to thank her. Strength of feeling was such that they even collected money with which she bought a cottage in St Ives in Cornwall.
In 1903 she returned to South Africa and was cheered by the people. On this visit she met Jan Smuts. Heartbroken by the loss of his country, he honoured her by asking her to stay at this house.
Emily raised money to set up schools and home industries that would provide rehabilitation for Boer families affected by the war.
Kitchener’s scorched-earth policy had ensured that the land was completely swept bare. She realised that the farmers needed to plough and plant their land, but lacked the means to do so and without this ability they would starve.
Ploughing teams were set up to move through the districts and plough where rain had fallen. It was a brilliant scheme and gave the farmers the ability to get back on their feet and feed their shattered and starving families.
In 1913 the Boer people had constructed a monument at Bloemfontein dedicated to the memory of the women and children who had died in the concentration camps. Emily was invited to unveil the sculpture and sailed to Africa. By now though she was seriously ill with arthritis and had recently suffered a heart attack.
As she travelled from the Cape toward Bloemfontein, she became too weak to continue. However the speech she prepared has survived “Alongside the honour we pay the sainted dead,” she wrote “forgiveness must find a place. I have read that when Christ said ‘forgive your enemies,’ it is not only for the sake of the enemy he said so, but for ones own sake, because love is more beautiful than hate. As your tribute to the dead, bury unforgiveness and bitterness at the foot of this monument forever.”
Emily’s activism was not limited to Boer women and children, it extended to all South Africans. Years later she was to protest vigorously against WW1. Her pacificism would take her to Belgium and Germany and in spite of parliamentary calls for her to be tried for treason and executed, she was undeterred.
She returned to Leipzig after the armistice to feed thousands of women and children every day for over a year. South Africa contributed liberally towards her efforts. In gratitude Emily was awarded the German Red Cross.
Emily Hobhouse in the face of so much opposition recognised that the burden of war falls on women and children. She blew the whistle and fought tirelessly for what she knew to be right. Her fight for justice would continue until the end of her life and hated by successive British administrations, when she died in 1926, her death went unrecorded.
Her body was cremated and her ashes taken by sea to Capetown. From there they were taken with ceremony to Bloemfontein and at the foot of the memorial to the women and children Emily was buried.
Jan Smuts spoke over her grave and said “we stood alone in the world, friendless among the people. The smallest nations ranged against the mightiest empire in the world. Then one small hand, the hand of a woman, was stretched out to us. At that darkest hour, when our entire race seemed doomed to extinction, she appeared as an angel, as a messenger from heaven and strangest of all, she was an Englishwoman.”