Emily Hobhouse

Emily Hobhouse (April 9th 1860 - June 8th 1926) was a Infirmière Britannique, militant Progressiste and known Pacifiste for the active campaign which it conducted against the Concentration camps British during the Guerre of Boers.

Youth

Born with Liskeard in the Cornouailles, it was the girl of Reginald Hobhouse, a vice-chancellor Anglican and of Caroline Trelawny.

A devoted nurse and a militant progessist

His/her mother died whereas it was 20 years old and it spent the 14 following years to deal with her father of fragile health. When this one died in 1895, it left the England for the Minnesota as nurse near the minors. She became engaged to a called John Carr Jackson with whom she bought a ranch with the Mexico. Ruined, the couple separated and it returned to England in 1898.

It was implied in political activities as a member of the liberal party. With his brother, Léonard Hobhouse, it militated like Suffragette for the Right to vote of the women

The war of Boers

After the release of the War of Boers in South Africa in October 1899, it was indicated by the liberal deputy Leonard Courtney, to take the direction of the female branch of the commission of South-African conciliation.

Learning at the end of the summer 1900 that several hundreds of civilians, women and children Boer S, had been victims of military operations and lived in the greatest destitution, it set up funds of assistance to the women and to South-African children in distress. It went as of the end of the year to South Africa in order to supervise the distribution of the assistances.

On its arrival, she discovered the existence of 34 British concentration camps in which thousands of women and children boers were imprisoned. She obtained from the governor of the Colonie of the Cape, Alfred Milner, the provision of two coaches of railroads to provide for the needs for the imprisoned families. She obtained from Lord Kitchener the authorization to travel until Bloemfontein.

The concentration camp of Bloemfontein

She visited the concentration camp of Bloemfontein the January 24th 1901 where she was shocked by the living conditions of the imprisoned civilians, in particular by their physical status, insalubrity and by the devastations caused by the Bronchite S, Pneumonie S, Dysenterie S and Typhoide S. She was particularly touched by the martyrdom of small Lizzie van Zyl, an young child boer famished with the threshold of dead the " for the only pretext which his/her father was a combatant boer who refused rendre". The little girl expressing itself only in Afrikaans, none the anglophone doctors of the dispensary of the camp could in addition communicate with it.

Deeply scandalized, Emily Hobhouse tried to relieve miseries and to improve the daily newspaper of the internees, claiming soap (which initially were refused to him because regarded as a luxury article) as of advantage of rations of drinking water, tents and products of first needs.

Hobhouse still visited the camps of Norvalspont, Aliwal North, Springfontein, Kimberley and those of the Orange river where everywhere it attended the same scenes of despair and miseries.

In May 1901, whereas it regained the city of the Cape, it was particularly moved by a woman boer who, her dead child in the arms, awaited in station of Springfontein a train which was going to lead it towards a concentration camp.

The Fawcet commission

Of return in England to try to sensitize the British opinion, it faces important criticisms and with the hostility of the newspapers and government. She is then shown to betray the national effort of war. Nevertheless, its countryside started to shake the certainty of part of the public opinion, shocked by description which it had made of the South-African concentration camps. It then accepted more and more financial support for its funds with the assistance with the war victims.

Following the ratio of 15 pages of Emily Hobhouse, the British government was solved with missionner a commission under the responsibility of Millicent Fawcett, to inquire into the living conditions in the concentration camps. The commission confirmed the charges of Emily Hobhouse and made many recommendations, such as the improvement of the food mode and medical equipment.

Emily Hobhouse returned to the Cape in October 1901 but it was not authorized to unload. It was even driven back and repatriated in England. It settled then in France where it wrote its book " The Brunt off the War" on its South-African experiment.

Rehabilitation & Reconciliation

Later, at the time of its meeting with generals boers, Hobhouse learned his description of the distress of the internees of the camps had contributed to the final decision of the latter to sign the Traité of Vereeniging.

In 1903, it returned to South Africa in the hope to make progress the rehabilitation and the reconciliation between the South-African ones. But for health reasons, it must leave South Africa in 1908 and return to England.

In 1913, it accomplishes a new voyage to come to inaugurate in Bloemfontein the national monument with the women but, patient, it must stop with Beaufort West and defer the continuation of his tour.

End-of-life

Hobhouse was pacifist which tried to be opposed to release First World War. Following this one, it is under its initiative that several thousands of women and children of Central Europe were helped during more than one year in order to avoid an epidemic of famine.

Hobhouse died with London in 1926 and its ashes laid out in a niche arranged in the national monument with the women of Bloemfontein.

South-African homages

Emily Hobhouse received many homages on behalf of the South-African ones, especially of Boers, usually anglophobes, but who venerated it. It was made citizen of honor for her humanitarian action and a popular subscription within the population afrikaner contributed to enable him to buy a house with St Ives in Cornouailles, integrated today into the hotel of Porthminster.

A city of the free State of Orange was baptized in its honor as well as a submarine of attack.

Works

"The brunt off the war and Where It Fell " , (1902), Methuen + Co, London

External bonds

Biography of Emily Hobhouse
Article on the role of Emily Hobhouse
Speech of [[Thabo Mbeki] in 2004 mentioning Emily Hobhouse]
Biography of Emily Hobhouse on a South-African site

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