The Crimea and Indian Mutiny Veterans Associations of the 1890s

Fisher, Glenn 2020. The Crimea and Indian Mutiny Veterans Associations of the 1890s. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The 1890s saw the establishment of Crimea and Indian Mutiny Veterans Associations in some cities and towns across the British Isles. They came into existence because of the convergence of popular agitation, a sympathetic local and national press and growing sense of national shame, regarding the treatment of these veterans. At the same time, the public regard for soldiers showed a contradictory ambivalence that had waxed and waned since the creation of a regular standing Army in the seventeenth century. The Crimean War saw the elevation of the enlisted common soldier to the ‘noble hero’ suffering for Queen and Country. This thesis is the first to describe, explore and explain how The Crimea and Indian Mutiny Veterans Association Bristol, came into being and became a nationally recognized exemplar of good practice. The administration of private philanthropy, targeted to ‘deserving’ poor veterans, is contextualised within the debates about the obligations of the State towards its former servicemen. The immediate local imperatives of the relief of impending destitution took precedence over the radical, national objectives for all veterans. The discovery, in Blaise Castle Museum, of the most complete archive of a Veterans Association, has enabled a detailed analysis of the organisation and its membership and practices. Across three centuries the veteran was a useful, malleable abstraction to be shaped and exploited by political, economic, social and cultural trends and pressures. The two World Wars of the twentieth century, with mass conscription and ‘total war’, deviated from this trend. The return to a small, professional Army in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, fighting controversial wars abroad, has seen a return to the old ambivalences regarding soldiers and veterans. The emergence of ‘The Military Covenant’ has re-opened debates about moral and political obligations between Government, people and its armed forces.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 January 2021
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2022 02:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/137842

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