Friday - Boer War Cartoon

My 4^th Tenniel cartoon from the Boer War is this one titled “The Sinews of War”. It was published in Punch magazine on 18^th October 1899, exactly one week after war was declared.

JOHN BULL. “FIRE AWAY JOE! I’M WITH YOU! I’LL LOOK AFTER THE AMMUNITION!”

You can see John Bull (for more about this allegorical personification of England see my previous post) standing behind a British soldier, sat at his machine gun, in what is presumably a South African landscape. The caption reads,

JOHN BULL. “FIRE AWAY JOE! I’M WITH YOU! I’LL LOOK AFTER THE AMMUNITION!”

This pretty much reflects a few beliefs about the situation at the outset of the war. The British public were overwhelmingly in support of the war when this cartoon was published, but as the war progressed the tide of opinion would turn against it, especially when Emily Hobhouse published her findings on the concentration camps in 1901. In the second half of 1900 support was strong enough to see the Conservative Party win what was nicknamed the Khaki Election on the back of recent victories, but when it became clear that the war was not over and the Boers were continuing to fight, public support waned.

As regards weaponry and ammunition, there is some justification to the claim asserted here that Britain would supply the army well. The guns and artillery was probably as good as the German weaponry with which the Boers had rearmed during the build up to the war. Crucially though it wasn’t significantly better, while this cartoon reflects the mistaken belief that the British army would have a technological advantage.

Today's Boer War Cartoon

 It is with a sense of relief that I finished today’s copy of a Tenniel Boer War cartoon. I made yesterday’s copies before having a second laser operation on my eye, and after a night’s sleep it seems as if everything is as it was and I have been able to make a decent enough fist of a sketch. Here it is.

JOHN BULL (TO BOER) – “AS YOU WILL FIGHT, YOU SHALL HAVE
IT. THIS TIME IT’S A FIGHT TO A FINISH.” October 1899

 

This one appeared in October 1899, the year that the war broke out. The picture shows John Bull squaring up to a Boer farmer ( the word Boer itself means farmer). John Bull was/is an allegorical personification of England. Ironically he was created by a Scottish writer, John Arbuthnot, in 1712, to satirise the English nation, but something about the character appealed to the English nation (or an influential part of it) and its view of itself. John Bull was one of three allegorical personification of Britain, not just England, although one often suspects that for Tenniel, Britain was England. The other two were Britannia, and the British Lion. Britannia he used when trying to show Britain’s compassion and sympathetic aspects – hence his use of the figure in yesterday’s cartoon, Britannia Consolatrix. The British Lion he used to symbolise the might of the British Empire, and he did use it in several of his cartoons regarding the war. John Bull here stands for the solid, dependable qualities of the people of Britain, small c conservative, fair, slow to anger but steadfast in the defence of what he sees to be right.

The title is “Plain English” while beneath this there is the caption :-

“JOHN BULL (TO BOER) – “AS YOU WILL FIGHT, YOU SHALL HAVE IT. THIS TIME IT’S A FIGHT TO A FINISH.”

This needs some explanation. It’s probably best that I start with a slight digression. When I wrote yesterday of the Boer War as an unjust and unnecessary war, this is what I really feel about it. Which does not mean that I’m trying to paint the two Boer Republics as admirable nations. Their attitudes towards black native African nations was awful, for example.

So, as a background to the cartoon, Great Britain annexed the two Boer republics in the 1870s. Despite repeated attempts at negotiating a peaceful solutions, Boer representatives were rebuffed time after time, and this led to rebellion and the first Boer War in December 1880. Superior tactics, and a British army that was poorly led and equipped , along with Prime Minister William Gladstone’s sensible refusal to allow the war to escalate into a more costly and wasteful conflict led to the war concluding in March of 1881 and a treaty which led to the reestablishment and independence of the two Boer Republics. So that’s what Tenniel means when he says ‘THIS time’.

Had gold not been discovered in the Transvaal, then the conditions that led to the Second Boer War may never have arisen. In the 1890s, the Uitlanders – a Boer term for foreigners, that is, prospectors and gold miners lured by the gold rush,- chafed at what they saw as the exorbitant taxes they had to pay, bearing in mind that they were ineligible to vote until they had lived there for 14 years. The Boer governments were willing to enter into negotiation with the British government which took up their cause and proved willing to move on this. However the inflexibility of the British convinced them that war was inevitable, even though Transvaal premier Paul Kruger would say that declaring war on the British Empire was like defending yourself against a lion with a pocket knife. So strictly speaking Tenniel was not incorrect to suggest that the Boer republics started the fight – they declared war – but they really were given no choice, despite knowing that their chances of success were limited.

The overall sense of the cartoon, although very much in line with public opinion in Britain at the time, for Tenniel had an instinctive feel for this, is unfair, presenting Britain as a long-suffering injured party. 

Return to the Sketchbook challenge

Yeah, I know. It has actually been several weeks since I last did any drawings at all. Why? Well, if a personal challenge is becoming a chore sometimes you’re just as well giving yourself a little break from it, rather than risk giving it up entirely. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Still, yesterday I did pick up my pens and my sketchbook. So what have I been doing.

Well, to start with I made 2 sketches of London featuring buses and trams of years gone by. To be honest with you I wasn’t that impressed with the first that I made. The second was better, but took ages. So I decided to fall back on an old favourite and made a copy of a John Tenniel cartoon from Punch. This one depicts Old Father Thames, although I do believe that it is from some time after the Great Stink, bearing in mind that looks like the Embankment.

This morning I thought, I wonder what Tenniel made of the (2^nd) Boer War? Bearing in mind that while I love his skill and artistry, politically I am poles apart from Tenniel, I wasn’t expecting to like what I found that much. So far I have copied two of his cartoons made in 1899 at the outset of the Boer War. The first is called Kruger’s Vision.

Paul Kruger was President of the Transvaal, one of the two Boer Republics. The caption is “What, will the ‘thin red’ line stretch unto the crack of doom?”. This is an adaptation of a quote from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. In the play, on his second visit to the witches, he insists that they show him whether Banquo’s descendants will ever rule. At first they refuse, but he insists and they show him a line of kings descended from Banquo, and he asks the question.

In Tenniel’s cartoon, Kruger is not seeing kings, but columns of British and Empire troops, showing him the irresistible might of the forces ranged against him, and also subtly suggesting that Kruger and the Boers are just as doomed as Macbeth, considering the overwhelming weight of numbers able to be brought against them.

What the cartoon and Tenniel ignored was that in 1881, a few years earlier, the same British and Empire army were defeated by the same Boer Republics in the first Boer War, where superior tactics and marksmanship had prevailed, the same superior tactics and marksmanship that would cause huge setbacks to the British and Empire army in the early stages of this second Boer War.

This second cartoon depicts a scene where a troopship in the distance is setting sail for South Africa, and Britannia is consoling a wife and children, whose husband, presumably, is on board the ship. The title is “Britannia Consolatrix” and the caption beneath reads:- ‘I will take care of you! Your man has gone to do his duty – and I will do mine!’ There’s a lot I don’t like about this. Firstly, the idea that it was anyone’s duty to go and fight in South Africa. Even judging by 19^th century standards this was an unjust and unnecessary war.

Then there’s the idea that Britain, represented by the allegorical figure Britannia, would do its duty, and take care of the casualties of war and their families. Now, I will admit that it was in 1901 that pensions were paid to war widows of NCOs and other ranks. But this had not been on the table in 1899 when the cartoon was made. Nor was it very generous when it was made, and it was subject to strict conditions regarding conduct and being of good character. Should a war widow remarry, she would receive a very small sum and the pension would cease.

Even in the 21^st century we see British army veterans having to accept help from charities because of the injuries, mental and physical, that they received in the name of our country which are not catered for by the Ministry of Defence. So you can imagine just how little real help was available to veterans of the Boer War on their return to Britain.

Cadbury's - Not flavour of the month with Charlie

When you get right down to it, it’s very difficult to know what members of the Royal Family really feel about things. The higher you go up the pyramid, the less scope that they have to be partial. So I don’t actually know if His Majesty the King really doesn’t like chocolate. But buying the Rowntree’s Edward VII Coronation tin has made me do a little bit of light research about the connection between the royal family and chocolate. What do you know, I found out that King Charles has withdrawn the Royal Warrant from Cadbury’s chocolate, and if I’m correct this is the first time they haven’t had one for over 170 years.

Queen Victoria first granted the Royal Warrant in 1854. We can be pretty certain that she was a bit of a fan from the way that Cadbury’s were her first port of call when she wanted to send a present of the finest British chocolate to soldiers fighting in the Boer War.

The Royal household doesn’t go into details about why companies lose their warrant, but since 2010 Cadbury’s have been owned by US based Mondelez International. It’s believed that the King faced calls to withdraw warrants from companies still operating in Russia, as does Mondelez. Has it made a material difference to Cadbury’s? I doubt it. All it means is a certain loss of cache, no invitation to warrant holder shindigs and having to remove the crown logo from packaging.

The silly thing about all of this is, I can’t eat chocolate now because my blood sugar is way too high as it is!

Tin Tales - Supplemental

Oh dear, I’ve been buying tins again. Or to be specific, a tin. I didn’t actually plan to. But if you ‘suffer’ from having a collector’s gene, you’ll maybe understand how it is. You see, since completing my Victoria tins collection, I’ve been doing the odd bit of research, sniffing around the subject. I was researching just what sort of tins each of the three chocolate companies was producing on or after the turn of the 20^th century. I came upon a Rowntree’s chocolate tin made for the 1902 coronation of King Edward VII (God Bless ‘Im!) and Queen Alexandra. I was interested in what seemed to me to be clear similarities in design to the Victoria tins.

So, as you do, I thought to myself, well, I wonder how much they go for on Ebay and I had a look. And without boring you with figures, you can pay a lot for a particularly fine one, but a decent one will set you back quite a bit less than a decent Victoria tin. So I thought – that’s interesting – and went on my way.

Now, if you’re not an ebayer you might not be aware of this. When you are the first person for ages to show interest in an item with a long listing, the dealers get alerted and will sometimes knock a bit off the price and offer it to you for a limited time. It happened to me with the Rowntree’s coronation tin and before I came to my senses, I bought it. It arrived today. Here it is:-

Rowntree's 1902 Edward VII Coronation Commemorative chocolate tin. If you've been following my posts about the Boer War Chocolate tins, this surely looks familiar to you as well.

Now the red background and the blue border are very reminiscent of the Victoria tin. That’s surely deliberate. When there’s nothing to compare it with in the photograph it’s difficult to get a feeling for the tin’s dimensions. To me it looked to be a similar size to the Cadbury’s Boer War Tin. Well, that was wrong. Here it is compared with the Rountree’s Boer War Tin.

Above - Rowntree's Boer War Chocolate tin. Nowhere does it actually say Rowntree's but there are a couple of distinguishing marks.
Bottom - Rowntree's Coronation commemorative chocolate tin - this is actually stamped Rowntree's on the bottom of the tin.

What you can’t see from the picture is that it’s very thin too. Well, it’s a nice thing. I don’t plan to start collecting coronation and other royal commemorative items. But as everyone with a passing acquaintance with the collector’s gene knows, never say never.

Tin Tales - Collection complete

Yes, I have bought a Fry’s 1900 Queen Victoria Boer War chocolate tin. Yes, I paid more for it than I paid for either the Rowntree’s or Cadbury’s tins, but I was comfortable with the price and it completes the set.

Top - Cadbury's
Middle - Rowntree's
Bottom - Fry's

In case you haven’t read any of my previous posts on the subject, I became interested in the gift tins ent by the Royal Family to members of the Armed Forces during both the First World War and the Boer War. Queen Victoria decided in 1899 that she wanted to send a gift to each soldier, NCO and officer serving in South Africa in the Second Boer War. The gift would take the form of ½ lb of finest British chocolate in a presentation tin. She originally commissioned Cadbury’s. They, being a quaker firm, did not want to profit from war, but a commission from Queen Victoria was a difficult one to refuse.In the end, they shared the commission with fellow quaker firms Fry’s and Rowntree’s. The three firms would donate the chocolate, while Victoria would pay for the making of the tins and the shipping to South Africa. The firms refused to put their names or logos on the tins, although Victoria insisted that the firm’s name would be stamped on the chocolate, so that her boys would know she was sending them the best British chocolate.

Each firm used its own manufacturer to make the tins. They all followed the same design, but there are differences to be seen between the tns used by the three manufacturers. And this is why I now have three tins and not just the one. The collector’s gene compels me.

Now, the three tins are in different conditions, so I won’t point out any of the differences in shade of colour because this could just be a matter of condition. But here’s a few of the features of difference between the tins.

The most obvious difference which you can see from the photo of all 3 tins is that the Cadbury’s tin is slightly longer and slightly narrower than the others. The Rowntree’s and Fry’s have almost identical proportions to each other.

The medallions of Queen Victoria in the centre of the tins help us to distinguish.

Rowntree's

Fry's

Cadbury's

Now, try to ignore the fact that each of these as a different amount of gilding remaining. If you look at the top photo of the 3, the Rowntree’s tin, close up, you can see that the beads around the edge are almost square, compared to the beads on the middle photo the Fry’s tin. These are more oval and slightly bigger. I’m not suggesting you should count them, but if you did you’d see there are more beads on the Fry’s. On the bottom photo of the Cadbury’s tin you can see that the beads are small, but there is a prominent raised and bevelled edge around them.

If you look at the black ovals I have drawn on the first two photographs, they highlight that the image of the Queen on the Fry’s tin is much closer to the beading than it is on the Rowntree’s tin. The Cadbury’s is close to the beading too.

Each tin bears a printed message of New Year’s good wishes with Queen Victoria’s signature.

Rowntree's

Fry's

Cadbury's

Comparing the signatures on the Rowntree and Fry tins, the most obvious difference is that the signature on the Rowntree’s slants upwards. As for the Cadbury’s, the signature appears smaller and more compact.

Well, that's it. The collection is now complete and the collector's gene should be satisfied.

Nassau v. W.H.Smith own brand - comparison

Yesterday I used the 40^th page in my Crawford and Black sketchbook. This means there are only 120 pages left in it which I think is reasonable if I decide to use it as the next sketchbook in the sketchbook challenge. I’ve got 39 pages left in the Nassau now which means we should be finished with it in a fortnight. I decided to put the Crawford and Black to one side for the time being and to switch to the WH Smith I bought last week as secondary sketchbook.

I thought I’d do some testing on the WH Smith. It already had the old bus sketch that I made last week. I decided to make a picture using coloured fineliner. Then it occurred to me this morning to make a comparison picture n the Nassau – same coloured fineliner, similar subject. Here they are.

Top - W.H.Smith own brand
Bottom - Nassau 

In terms of quality it’s not easy to say that either one is much better than the other. Maybe it’s because of the paper colour but the lines on the Nassau do seem to merge together more making the picture a little less distinct than the picture in the WH Smiths. I found this happened when I used coloured fine liner in the Royal Talens which also had off white paper. I made the point that the paper in the WH Smiths book reminds a lot of the paper in the Derwent Academy and again, when I made this sketch I really enjoyed the feel of the pen on the paper. With the W.H. Smith you can only see a few dots where the ink has gone through to the other side of the page. With the Nassau it’s far worse.

In the same spirit of investigation I took today’s photo prompt on Faacebook’s Daily Drawing challenge and did it in watercolour in both books. I used the same photo promt, the same set of paints and even the same brush. Here they are:-

Top - WH Smith own brand
Bottom - NAssau

Again, I would not say that there is really a great deal in it. The colours in the Nassau book look a little warmer than in the Smiths. That’s probably the effect of the off white paper on the tonal values. It was the Nassau version that I posted in the Facebook group because I think it’s slightly better.

Where the WH Smith book is clearly superior you can see when you turn the page over. With the Smith book there’s just a tiny bit of buckling but the other side of the page is perfectly usable. In the Nassau book, where I painted the peppers the other side of the page and to an extent the page underneath it has waffled and cockled very badly, so much so that the page looks as if it will be extremely unpleasant to draw upon.