The women pro-Boers: gender, peace and the critique of empire in the South African war

Abstract

Despite a substantial historiography on the ‘pro-Boers’, the role of women in the British campaigns against the South African war has never been systematically examined. This article discusses women's activism through the two main pro-Boer organizations, the Stop the War Committee and the South Africa Conciliation Committee, and through Liberal women's organizations. It examines women pro-Boers' arguments and attitudes to both pacifism and imperialism. Finally it considers the gender aspects of the pro-Boer campaigns, the development of distinctively feminist arguments against war, and the effects of the war on the British women's suffrage movement.