An 'Incalculable Blunder': Empire and the British Public School, 1896–1914.

This paper examines Edwardian public schools' relations with Empire. It does so by focusing on their students' perceptions of the imperial enterprise and participation in Empire-relevant schemes. For, current scholarship has, almost without exception and in-depth investigation, presumed the Empire's popularity and pre-eminence within such institutions. However, this paper, drawing on new archival research and Eton College source material, argues a strong anti-Empire minority was present among public school students. Likewise, it suggests various imperial schemes and institutions, impacting public schools, met significant student detachment or subversion. These conclusions, then, inform and enhance the historiography of British imperialism. In particular, they indicate that Edwardian imperialist propaganda was, in the public school case, unable to entrench a ubiquitous, pro-Empire ideology. Moreover, Britain's upper and upper-middle classes, as embodied by Edwardian public school students, comprised not only reluctant or 'secondary' imperialists, but also multiple anti-Empire advocates. Therefore, this presents Edwardian British society's Empire-engagement as much more amorphous and fragmentary than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]