Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 1-18

3. Symptoms of Empire

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 19-35

4. The Waikato War: Settler Rights and Production

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 37-60

5. The Waikato War: Philanthropy and the Settler Fantasy

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 61-81

6. The Sudan Crisis: Displays of Unity

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 83-110

7. The Sudan Crisis: Creating Historical Memories

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 111-131

8. The South African War: Trying Again

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 133-160

9. The South African War: Points of Fracture

   • Sam Hutchinson

   Pages 161-186

10. Conclusion

    • Sam Hutchinson

    Pages 187-196

11. Back Matter

    Pages 197-288

    PDF

This book explores how public commentary framed Australian involvement in the Waikato War (1863-64), the Sudan crisis (1885), and the South African War (1899-1902), a succession of conflicts that reverberated around the British Empire and which the newspaper press reported at length. It reconstructs the ways these conflicts were understood and reflected in the colonial and British press, and how commentators responded to the shifting circumstances that shaped the mood of their coverage. Studying each conflict in turn, the book explores the expressions of feeling that arose within and between the Australian colonies and Britain. It argues that settler and imperial narratives required constant defending and maintaining. This process led to tensions between Britain and the colonies, and also to vivid displays of mutual affection. The book examines how war narratives merged with ideas of territorial ownership and productivity, racial anxieties, self-governance, and foundational violence. In doing so it draws out the rationales and emotions that both fortified and unsettled settler societies.

• imperial military endeavours
• print culture
• wakaito war
• sudan crisis
• south african war

“Hutchinson has drawn together a deeply researched and broadly sourced study of the settler colonial and metropolitan press. … Hutchinson has created a carefully plotted genealogy for mediated discourses on colonial dispossession … . Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press delivers an innovative model to uncover the logics and affective character of the settler colonial project in the digital newspaper archive.” (Keir Wotherspoon, Australian Historical Studies, July 11, 2022)

“Hutchinson has produced a commendable piece of imperial history, tracking Australians to three key nodes of the British Empire. This book serves as a great example of a transnational study of Britain and the world. … It is a welcome addition for any scholar or student of the empire, Australia, or the natureof the press in our interpretation and understanding of imperial history.” (Jacob Ivey, Britain and the World, Vol. 14 (1), 2021)

“Hutchinson’s combination of poststructuralist complexity and broad scope makes for fast-paced, pleasurable reading, … this ambitious, rich, and altogether fascinating book should prove a springboard for a succession of further studies.” (Kate Campbell, Victorian Studies, Vol.62 (4), 2020)

“Hutchinson’s detailed content analysis of the Australian and British press, through well-chosen case studies, bears fruitful results. He successfully shows the interplay between rational calculation and affective belonging in the construction of multivalent identities during a formative period in the making of Australia. … Hutchinson’s book will be especially valuable for those interested in journalism history, the making of the ‘British world,’ or constructions of whiteness.” (Mark Hampton, American Historical Review, Vol. 125 (2), April, 2020)

“Sam Hutchinson’s Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press defies the ‘retroactive muting of Australian military history prior to 1915’ … by using colonial troops’ involvement in overseas conflicts to conduct a nuanced and sophisticated examination of the settler colonial psyche. … His sensitive reading and articulate prose afford rich insights into the ways that newspaper rhetoric served the shifting forms of nineteenth century settler colonialism.” (Carolyn Holbrook, Limina, Vol. 24 (2), 2019)

“Apart from the scrupulous analysis and convincing arguments, an evident advantage of this book lies in its deep contextualisation. Written in a literary fashion, relevant historical backgrounds are clearly described, which makes the book also accessible to readers with limited knowledge of colonialism and Australian history. This is a well-researched and thoughtfully argued book, deserving of a wide readership.” (Yi Guo, Media History, Vol. 25 (3), 2019)

“Hutchinson always plucks the right quote from a report, leader or letter to an editor, teases its meanings out at just the right length, and comments insightfully on them. … Hutchinson does more than simply point to yet another reason for colonial Australians forming and joining military expeditions. He unites the normally segregated histories of Australian frontier conflict and Australian expeditionary wars … .” (Craig Wilcox, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 104, 2019)

“Hutchinson’s new book, as part of an important series on the subject, necessarily involves a sustained literature review, while drawing together earlier concepts and new insights. … a thorough and penetrating study.” (Denis Cryle, Australian Journal of Politics and History, March 12, 2019)

“Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press is a true heir of the New Imperial History, and builds on the work of Simon Potter, Alan Lester and Tony Ballantyne. … I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone with an interestin the history of British settler colonialism, print culture, nineteenth-century Australia and frontier violence with Indigenous peoples.” (Kenton Storey, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 20 (1), Spring, 2019)

“A focused reading of Victorian newspapers to consider the uncertain position of British settlers on the periphery of empire. … reads Australian engagement in the press as a continual series of shifting negotiations, with settlers always navigating between presenting themselves as servants of empire and independent agents in the imperial project.” (Jennifer Fuller, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 51 (4), Winter, 2018)

“What is particularly valuable in Hutchinson’s analysis is its explanation of the press as a vehicle for the expression of collective emotion. … Hutchinson is able to enrich the explanatory power of Patrick Wolfe’s description of settler colonialism … . Taken together Hutchinson’s conception of these events within public discourse outline the unsettling contours of the emotional needs that the Australian colonies sought to satisfy through their involvement … .” (Mick Warren, Postcolonial Studies, November, 15, 2018)

“Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press is a valuable addition to the Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series and is, in a myriad of ways, an important contribution to Australian colonial history. Through a careful analysis of Australian colonial reporting of imperial conflicts, Hutchinson has shed light on the ways newspapers both shaped and reflected the sentiment and value of their readers over time.” (Nathan Wise, Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol. 20, 2018)

​ “Settlers, War, and Empire in the Press deftly explores a long sequence of debates over the nature of empire, the consequences of colonialism, and the boundaries of community triggered by wars on the frontiers of empire. It offers a compelling reading of the centrality of newspapers in the culture of the Victorian empire, reconstructing the operation of a vigorous, expansive and often fractious imperial public sphere in an age of recurrent colonial conflicts.” (Tony Ballantyne, Professor of History, University of Otago, New Zealand)

“In its detailed exploration of settler discourses, anxieties, emotions, and enthusiasms, set alongside British newspaper coverage of Britain’s settler colonies, and a broader structural account of settler colonialism, this book builds on existing scholarship and breaks new ground.” (Ann Curthoys, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Australia)

“In this masterly study of martial enthusiasm (and anxiety) in the High Imperial era, Hutchinson lays bare the instrumental role of the press in imperial social formations. His insightful analysis of British and Australian newspapers pushes war outside the narrow boundaries of military history and into the heart of our understanding of these societies.” (Kirsten McKenzie, Professor of History, University of Sydney)

“This book not only informs us about Australian perspectives on imperial wars, it also enhances our understanding of the imperial press system as one of the cornerstones of the British Empire as a whole.” (Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex, UK, and Research Professor in History, La Trobe University, Australia)

“This timely and ambitious book re-examines settler press accounts of noted British Empire wars: highly charged events to bring to bear historical and theoretical analyses of settler colonialism and print culture. This is the best kind of postcolonial cultural studies: rigorous in its archival depth, demanding in its argumentative reach, and theoretically sophisticated. Language and material power, print and feelings, the quotidian and the epic, the national and the global: each are brought together in productive tension in Hutchinson’s insightful analysis.” (Anna Johnston, Associate Professor, ARC Future Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia)

• Independent Scholar, Mt Victoria, New Zealand

  Sam Hutchinson

Sam Hutchinson received his PhD from the University of Western Australia in 2015. He is currently employed as a historian in Wellington, New Zealand.

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