The Report that saved lives

 After Emily Hobhouse travelled for four months during the Anglo-Boer War between several British concentration camps, she made the difficult decision to return to London. She knew she could not stay in South Africa and that more help was needed to alleviate the suffering.

Armed with her eyewitness accounts and drawing on the numerous interviews she conducted with women, she began writing her report on the ship, the Saxon. On the 24th of May, 1901 she was back home in Chelsea.

She had enough insight into the workings of politics – and experience of important men’s egos – to know that she had to use her evidence of the conditions in the concentration camps judiciously and in a way that would have the most significant impact.

On 4 June, Emily was granted an hour to speak to St John Brodrick, the Secretary for War. He had already declared in the House of Commons that the Boer Women came to the camps voluntarily and that they and their children were not in want of anything.

Brodrick asked her to put her recommendations for improvements in writing. She delivered her response to the War Office the same afternoon. She was ready with her recommendations, and she promptly followed through.

Without Emily’s knowledge, Brodrick immediately forwarded her report to Alfred Milner, governor of the Cape Colony, who had already referred to her as “pro-Boer and a screamer”.

He now responded in the same vein: “I should advise her not to return (to SA) and nobody else being sent. Of course, there will be a howl, but the pro-Boers will howl whatever we do … I have myself to write to Miss Hobhouse and tell her whether she is allowed to return. If she does not, she will doubtless make all possible mischief in England … As long as she is working in the camps, she will not be able to carry on a crusade in England, though of course she can write mischievously.”

On the 18th of June 1901, Emily’s 40-page printed report, which included her recommendations to Brodrick, was published in England. In addition, a condensed 18-page version, summarising her letters, was distributed to members of both houses of Parliament.

Her report caused an outcry in England and gave the liberals more ammunition. David Lloyd George, an MP for the liberal party, accused the government of following a “policy of extermination” in South Africa. Brodrick retaliated with the defence that “war is war”, and that the concentration camps were places of refuge for destitute people.

Emily found herself at the centre of a political war, which was by its nature a war with few rules. Many Britons resented her for her “unpatriotic conduct”, the jingoes denounced her as a traitor to her country, and most newspapers wrote scathing reports about her. To her great shock, the majority of the English public showed no sympathy for the destitute women and children in the camps.

The Times criticised her report, stating that instead of conducting a thorough investigation, she had taken the women’s stories at face value.

Why did the Times not rather publish the full medical report of Dr Henry Becker, the camp doctor in Bloemfontein? Then the readers would be able to draw their own conclusions, Emily suggested in a letter.

Three weeks after the government received Emily’s recommendations, Brodrick wrote to Emily that they were considering her recommendations and that they had been forwarded to Lord Kitchener, military commander in South Africa.

“The government have made me various concessions,” Emily wrote to Caroline Murray, a friend in Cape Town, “but they are furious at me, I am told, and regard me as a thorn in their side.” Brodrick refused to allow her to visit the camps ever again. “Have had some splendid meetings but still have to be very careful in my presentment of the subject.”

The criticism was either aimed at her as an individual, sexist, questioning her abilities as a woman, or at justifying the existence of the camps. In many places, she was reviled as “a traitor and rebel” and “a disseminator of inaccurate and blood-curdling stories.” At the same time, her report, Emily said, “was described as a weapon used wherever the name of England was hated”. However, all of this was done to minimise the impact of the report. Denying the facts.

On 18 July 1901, Emily again had a meeting with Brodrick to impress upon him the distress in the camps. But later that same day he informed her that the government would not accept her services for further camp visits. He also levelled the accusation at Emily that her actions had prolonged the war.

He had already devised another plan, which he announced publicly soon afterwards: a commission comprising other women would be sent to South Africa to investigate the conditions in the camps.

“We are sending out no one specifically identified with any form of opinion…” This was clearly a barbed reference to Emily and her alleged pro-Boer sympathies. Commission would be headed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.

As Parliament was in recess, Brodrick could not be called to account publicly for several months. Accordingly, Emily resorted to writing an open letter to him on 29 September (1901). It was her last appeal to Brodrick:

“Three months have passed since I approached you on the subject of the concentration camps in South Africa, three terrible months in the history of these camps In August alone 1878 people had died, 1545 of whom were children.” A total of 3245 children had died in the three months since her first conversation with Brodrick.

“Daily children are dying and unless the rate is checked a few months will suffice to see the extermination of the majority. Will nothing be done? Will not prompt measures be taken to deal with this terrible evil?”

She pleaded for the children in particular: “For the men of either side I say nothing. They have chosen their part and must abide by it. For the women also I do not now plead, they are always strong to endure. But I do ask in the name of the innocent and helpless children that England’s humanity may triumph over the policy so that the sacrifice of the children may be stayed.”

The recommendations of the commission were implemented by November (1901) and the mortality rates started falling, especially after Milner took over the administration of the camps. Some improvements had already been made earlier thanks to Emily’s report and campaigns, even before the arrival of the Ladies’ Commission in South Africa.

In essence, their findings were the same as those of Emily, yet they never mentioned her groundbreaking work in their report. Nor was she formally acknowledged in her own country for her work.

Fawcett and her commission were the ones who received recognition for the improved conditions in the camps, not Emily. Brodrick himself wrote an official letter to thank them for their good work.

The tragedy is that so many more lives could have been saved if he and the British authorities had heeded Emily’s findings and advice at an earlier stage.