Teaching & Learning Guide for: What Should Historians Do with Heroes?: Reflections on Nineteenth‐ and Twentieth‐Century Britain
Authors: Jones Max 
Published: August 2007

Author's Introduction

This article arose out of my development of undergraduate courses related to my research on national heroes. An effective course needs to encourage students to move beyond the narrow ‘debunking’ approach to heroes frequently adopted in popular biographies and television documentaries, and situate the heroes of the past in a broader historical context. Students should be asked why certain individuals were invested with special symbolic significance in the past? What forms this investment took? And how the forms and purposes of this investment changed over time? Geoffrey Cubitt's definition of a hero provided a useful starting‐point, but first‐year undergraduates found the essay in which Cubitt presented his definition challenging. I was therefore delighted to accept History Compass's invitation to write an introduction to the analysis of heroes aimed primarily at undergraduates. I also took the opportunity to identify what seemed to me to be a significant shift in scholarly approaches to heroes over the last thirty years, from an initial preoccupation with the function of heroes as tools of nationalist and imperialist ideologies, to broader analyses of the range of gendered meanings encoded in heroic reputations.

Author Recommends:

1.
 Geoffrey Cubitt, ‘Introduction: Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives’, in Geoffrey Cubitt and Allen Warren (eds.), Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 1–26.

Cubitt's ‘Introduction’ to this eclectic collection remains one of the most wide‐ranging and perceptive meditations on heroic reputations. His definition of a hero features prominently in my viewpoint article. Although challenging for first‐year undergraduates, the main body of the essay offers a wealth of insights, especially on the tensions within the classical heroic ideal (the hero between divinity and humanity), on the exemplary functions of heroic reputations, and on different conceptualisations of the role of the hero within the historical process. Cubitt's forthcoming book with Manchester University Press, History and Memory, will surely make a further significant contribution to the field.

2.
 Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Mass‐producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge/New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 263–307.

Hobsbawm's classic essay remains a useful preliminary text, which interprets the rise of hero‐cults as a feature of the emerging nation‐state. The essay both emphasises the role of the state in promoting heroes through public monuments, ceremonies and schooling, and shows how distinctive national stories were part of a broader global process. Hagemann's essay below, and works by Linda Colley and Kathleen Wilson among others, which examine the public commemoration of heroes from the mid‐eighteenth century, can be used to challenge Hobsbawm's chronology.

3.
 John M. MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire’, in John M. MacKenzie (ed.), Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 109–37.

Inspired by Joseph Campbell's writings on myth and the narrative structure of the quest, MacKenzie examines the veneration of four heroes of the British empire: Henry Havelock, David Livingstone, Charles Gordon and T. E. Lawrence. MacKenzie draws on a wide range of sources to argue that the first three were raised as heroes to imbue the expansion of the British empire with moral legitimacy. Lawrence is presented as a more ambiguous figure for a more secular and less confident inter‐war empire. With a concise methodological introduction, and a clear argument, MacKenzie offers an excellent introduction to scholarship on heroes.

4.
 Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London/New York, NY: Routledge, 1994).

Dawson's innovative Soldier Heroes is divided into four parts. Part one establishes the conceptual framework for the book. In addition to discussions of gender, nation, the pleasure culture of war, and the quest structure of heroic narratives, Dawson draws particular inspiration from the psychoanalytic concepts developed by Melanie Klein. Part two looks in detail at the reputation of Henry Havelock, British hero of the Indian Rebellion, while part three, focuses on ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Finally, part four draws on Dawson's own childhood to explore boyhood masculinity and the pleasure culture of war at the end of the twentieth century. Many undergraduates find the more theoretical chapters challenging, but chapter 4 on Havelock and chapter 6 on Lawrence, in particular, offer a more accessible introduction to a richly rewarding book. Both the engagement with concepts drawn from psychoanalysis, and the detailed textual analysis of press reports of Havelock, offer a contrast with MacKenzie's article.

5.
 Max Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

The Last Great Quest locates ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ as the last of a line of Victorian and Edwardian explorers despatched by the Royal Geographical Society, whose expeditions combined scientific research, imperial theatre and heroic adventure. Scott's death at ‘empire's farthest post’ generated a range of responses throughout Britain. In contrast to MacKenzie, The Last Great Quest emphasises contests over a hero's reputation. But commentators from diverse social and political backgrounds united in praise of Scott's ‘Message to the Public’, the ultimate expression of self‐control in the face of death. Illustrated with 56 plates, one of the book's strengths lies in its attempt to encompass the diversity of responses to Scott's death in newspapers, sermons, books, postcards, portraits, public monuments, etc.

6.
 Timothy Jenks, ‘Contesting the Hero: The Funeral of Admiral Lord Nelson’, Journal of British Studies, 39/4 (2000): 422–53.

Jenks's detailed analysis of Nelson's funeral offers a useful counter‐point to MacKenzie's ‘Heroic Myths of Empire’. Where MacKenzie emphasises the coherent ideological message delivered by his ‘heroic myths of empire’, Jenks's article, as the title suggests, emphasises how a range of groups, including the monarchy, the government, the City of London, and the crew of the Victory competed, to exploit Nelson's reputation. Also see Jenks's recent Naval Engagements: Patriotism, Cultural Politics, and the Royal Navy 1793–1815 (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

7.
 Sonya Rose, Which People's War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939–1945 (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Rose presents a penetrating analysis of the tensions surrounding class, race and gender, which the Second World War generated in Britain. For our purposes chapter 5 ‘Temperate Heroes’ is of particular interest. In contrast to many of the texts recommended in this section, Rose does not engage with a particular heroic reputation. Rather, she exposes the tensions surrounding British masculinities during the war, when the ideal of the soldier‐hero circulated alongside a more temperate model of British masculinity defined against a militaristic German enemy. Rose offers clear and sophisticated definitions of key concepts throughout the book (for example of citizenship and national identity in the introduction, and of masculinity at the beginning of chapter 5).

8.
 Karen Hagemann, ‘German Heroes: the Cult of the Death for the Fatherland in Nineteenth‐Century Germany’, in Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann and John Tosh (eds.), Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (Manchester/New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 2004), 116–34.

Hagemann presents a concise overview of the origins and development of the ideal of the German soldier‐hero, arguing that, through the long nineteenth century, the military concept of valour established dominance over its civic counterpart. Symbols, rituals and ceremonies aimed at young men promoted a new model of ‘“patriotic valorous masculinity” . . . securing male power in the state by tying the political rights of the citizen to military service’ (130). Hagemann's emphasis on the wars against Napoleon (1806–15) as a key moment when this new model emerged offers a useful counterpoint to Hobsbawm's emphasis on the later nineteenth century.

9.
 Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (London: Granta, 2004).

Among the vast literature on Napoleon, Hazareesingh's recent work offers a lively tour through the myriad manifestations of the legend of Napoleon in nineteenth‐century France. Hazareesingh sets contradictory images of Napoleon –‘Prince of Liberal Ideas’ and ‘Imperial Legend’– against the changing backdrop of French politics in the nineteenth century. The book reproduces 26 illustrations, and Hazareesingh offers fascinating analyses of the objects and images which sustained the cult of Napoleon.

Useful Links

1.
 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription required)

http://www.oxforddnb.com/

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography offers an indispensable source of biographical information about over 55,000 people. In addition to individual biographies, the ODNB also publishes a range of resources, including ‘Feature Essays’ such as Felix Driver's ‘The Active Life: The Explorer as Biographical Subject’.

2.
 Project Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Project Gutenberg provides access to a vast wealth of primary texts for the study of heroes, including numerous works on Napoleon and Nelson, many classic expedition narratives (e.g. by David Livingstone, Robert Peary, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Henry Morton Stanley), over 60 novels by prolific children's adventure‐story writer G. A. Henty, and Lytton Strachey's classic Eminent Victorians.

3. The Times Digital Archive, 1785 to 1985 (subscription required)

http://www.galeuk.com/times/

This invaluable resource provides access to every page published by The Times newspaper (London) between 1785 and 1985. The archive offers a range of search options, including searches for keywords within articles. In addition to leading articles and general reports, transcriptions of speeches and sermons delivered at memorial services, for example, or the unveiling of monuments, are particularly useful for the student of heroic reputations. I have also found The Times Digital Archive useful for identifying precisely when a particular event featured in the press. The identification of key dates is helpful for subsequent research in newspapers and periodicals which do not include indexes.

4. Daily Mirror Online Archive, 1903 to the present (subscription required)

http://www.arcitext.com/arcitext/index.html

Launched in 2007 by Arcitext, this online archive of every page of the Daily Mirror since its first printing in 1903 offers a wonderful aid to historical research. The Daily Mirror archive offers a useful counterpoint to The Times, as students can now easily contrast reports of the same event aimed at very different audiences. The Daily Mirror archive also offers a wealth of striking visual images for analysis.

5.
 National Portrait Gallery Online Collection

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/collect.asp

London's National Portrait Gallery supports a searchable collection of over 96,500 portraits, with nearly 51,400 online images. This resource is a particularly useful aid to the analysis of the generic conventions which shaped portraits of engineers, of African explorers, of politicians, etc.

6.
 Courtauld Institute of Art, Art and Architecture Web site

http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/index.html

This searchable database of more than 40,000 images includes numerous images of portraits and public monuments for figures such as Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, General Gordon and Florence Nightingale. The site is arranged to link to numerous sources of background information.

7.
 ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ Web sites

http://www.telawrence.info

http://www.telawrence.net

Thanks to the efforts of his authorised biographer, Jeremy Wilson, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ is particularly well served on the Web. The ‘.info’ Web site offers a wealth of information about Lawrence, including a biographical summary, maps, photographs, bibliography and Wilson's analysis of the historical accuracy of David Lean's classic 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. The related ‘.net’ Web site is part of Wilson's ongoing project to create (a) a searchable database of all Lawrence's writings that were out of print on 1 Jan. 2006; (b) a complete bibliography of all Lawrence's writings still under UK copyright. Wilson also intends to launch an online journal about Lawrence in 2007 at http://www.telawrencestudies.org. The combination of these Web resources, with extensive academic scholarship (Dawson, MacKenzie, Joel Hodson, etc.) makes Lawrence an attractive figure for study.

8. Time Magazine's 100 ‘Most Important People of the Century’(1999)

http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/index.html

Time Magazine's eclectic collection of the 100 ‘Most Important People of the Century’ in 1999 was arranged into five categories: ‘Leaders and Revolutionaries’, ‘Artists and Entertainers’, ‘Builders and Titans’, ‘Scientists and Thinkers’ and ‘Heroes and Icons’. The site includes features on each of the 100 individuals, and links to related articles and covers from the Time Magazine archive. Albert Einstein was Time's ‘Person of the Century’. The site offers a useful starting point for discussions of attitudes to heroes at the end of the twentieth century.

Sample Syllabus

The Rise and Fall (?) of the National Hero in Britain,

c.

1805–1939

The following syllabus suggests core readings for an upper‐level or Master's course unit.

Weeks 1–2: Approaches and Definitions

Max Jones, ‘What Should Historians Do With Heroes?: Reflections on Nineteenth and Twentieth‐Century Britain’, History Compass, 5/2 (2007): 439–54, DOI: 10.1111/j.1478‐0542.2007.00390.x.

Joan Scott, ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, American Historical Review, 91/5 (1986): 1053–75.

John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth‐Century Britain’, History Workshop Journal, 38/1 (1994): 179–202.

Geoffrey Cubitt, ‘Introduction: Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives’, in Geoffrey Cubitt and Allen Warren (eds.), Heroic Reputations and Exemplary Lives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 1–26.

Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Mass‐Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge/New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 263–307.

Weeks: 3–4: The Rise of the National Hero (18th‐C. Origins; Nelson & Wellington)

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991).

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 1992).

Timothy Jenks, ‘Contesting the Hero: the Funeral of Admiral Lord Nelson’, Journal of British Studies, 39/4 (2000): 422–53.

John Wolffe, Great Deaths: Grieving, Religion, and Nationhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Courtauld Institute of Art, ‘Nelson & Wellington Monuments’, Art and Architecture Web site, http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/index.html.

Weeks 5–6: Christian Soldier‐Heroes (Pleasure Culture of War; Havelock and the Indian ‘Mutiny’; General Gordon)

John M., MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire’, in John M. MacKenzie (ed.), Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 109–37.

Olive Anderson, ‘The Growth of Christian Militarism in Mid‐Victorian Britain’, English Historical Review, 86/338 (1971): 46–72.

Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London/New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), chs 4 and 5 on Havelock.

Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London: Reaktion, 2000), chs 1, 2.

Samuel Smiles, Self‐Help: With Illustration of Character and Conduct (London: John Murray, 1859), extracts from ch. 8 on Indian Rebellion, available through Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Courtauld Institute of Art, ‘Havelock & Gordon Monuments’, Art and Architecture Web site, http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/index.html.

Weeks 7–8: Explorer‐Heroes (Africa: Livingstone & Stanley; Antarctic: Scott & Shackleton)

Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark Continent’. Critical Inquiry, 12/1 (1985): 166–203.

Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 1988).

Felix Driver, Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).

Beau Riffenburgh, The Myth of the Explorer: The Press, Sensationalism and Geographical Discovery (London: Belhaven, 1993).

Max Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Horace Waller (ed.), The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to His Death, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1874); Robert Falcon Scott, Scott's Last Expedition, Vol. 1 (London: Smith Elder, 1913), both available through Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Weeks 9–10: The Nurse as Hero (Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole)

Mary Poovey, ‘A Housewifely Woman: The Social Construction of Florence Nightingale’, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid‐Victorian England (London: Virago, 1989), 164–98.

Martha Vicinus, ‘“Tactful Organising and Executive Power”: Biographies of Florence Nightingale for Girls’, in Michael Shortland and Richard R. Yeo (eds.), Telling Lives in Science: Essays on Scientific Biography (Cambridge/New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 195–213.

Helen Rappaport, ‘The Invitation that Never Came: Mary Seacole after the Crimea’, History Today, 55/2 (2005): 9–18.

National Portrait Gallery Online Collection, http://www.npg.org.uk/live/collect.asp for images of Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not (1860), available through Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Weeks 11–12: Sacrifice and Slaughter in the First World War (Edith Cavell; Charles Fryatt; Shell‐Shock)

Nicoletta Gullace, The Blood of our Sons: Men, Women, and the Re‐Negotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War (Basingstoke/New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

Sue Malvern, ‘“For King and Country”: Frampton's Edith Cavell (1915–20) and the Writing of Gender in Memorials to the Great War’, in David J. Getsy (ed.), Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c.1880–1930 (Aldershot/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 219–44.

Phyllis Hall, ‘Pirate or Patriot: The Strange Case of Captain Fryatt’, History Today, 38/8 (1988): 43–8.

Ted Bogacz, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914–22’, Journal of Contemporary History, 24 (1989): 227–56.

Max Jones, ‘“So Many Heroes”’, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 253–83.

Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (1918) available through Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Courtauld Institute of Art, ‘Cavell Monuments’, Art and Architecture Web site, http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/index.html.

Weeks 13–14: The Death of the Hero? (Aviators; Amy Johnson; Lawrence of Arabia)

Susan Kingsley Kent, Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London/New York, NY: Routledge, 1999), chs 11, 12.

Max Jones, ‘War and National Identity since 1914’, in Francesca Carnevali and Julie‐Marie Strange (eds.), 20th‐Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change, 2nd ed. (Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2007), 79–94.

Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London/New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), chs 6, 7, 8 on Lawrence.

Bernhard Rieger, ‘“Fast Couples”: Technology, Gender and Modernity in Britain and Germany during the Nineteen‐Thirties’, Historical Research, 76/193 (2003): 364–88.

Michael Roper, ‘Between Manliness and Masculinity: The “War Generation” and the Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914–1950’, Journal of British Studies, 44/2 (2005): 343–62.

‘Lawrence of Arabia’ Web sites, http://www.telawrence.info and http://www.telawrence.net.

Weeks 15–16: Comparative Perspectives & Course Review

Martin Francis, ‘The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth‐ and Twentieth‐Century British Masculinity’, Historical Journal, 45/3 (2002): 637–52.

Avner Ben‐Amos, Funerals, Politics and Memory in Modern France, 1789–1996 (New York, NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Kevin Grant, ‘Bones of Contention: The Repatriation of the Remains of Roger Casement’, Journal of British Studies, 41/3 (2002): 329–53.

Karen Hagemann, ‘German Heroes: the Cult of the Death for the Fatherland in Nineteenth‐Century Germany’, in Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann and John Tosh (eds.), Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (Manchester/New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 2004), 116–34.

Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (London: Granta, 2004).

Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1986).

Focus Questions

In what ways and why did the image of the soldier‐hero change between 1805 and 1939?

Assess the significance of a ‘good death’ to the making of a national hero.

How have developments in transport, communications and weaponry shaped heroic narratives?

What does the study of national heroes reveal about the changing pattern of British masculinities between 1805 and 1939?

Evaluate the significance of women in narratives of male heroism.

Seminar Activity

For a seminar intended to introduce new undergraduates to the historical analysis of heroes:

Divide students into small groups and ask them to identify and discuss their heroes. Convene whole class discussion.

Ask groups to discuss what the individuals selected reveal about the society in which they live. If required, prompt students by asking them to consider the activities in which their heroes are engaged; what their heroes tell us about gender stereotypes, attitudes to war, to the armed forces etc. Convene whole class discussion.

Ask groups to compose a definition of a hero. Convene whole class discussion.

Present and explain Cubitt's definition of a hero.

Ask groups to consider what indicators they would look for to assess whether an individual was invested with special symbolic significance in the past. Convene whole class discussion.

Conclude seminar by asking groups to analyse a particular representation, or set of representations, of a well‐known figure (e.g. Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square).

Project Ideas

1. Monument Project

Assign students roles (e.g. national politician, local councillor, non‐conformist clergyman, charity worker, etc.) and ask groups to work together to design a monument for a particular hero. What are the purposes of the monument? What form will the monument take? Where will the monument be placed? What form will the unveiling ceremony take?

2. Dissertation Project

I have found that heroes offer excellent topics for undergraduate dissertations. Students at Manchester have, for example, written dissertations: on the changing reputation of Nurse Edith Cavell, based primarily on an analysis of published pamphlets and biographies; on the funeral of the British army officer Douglas Haig in 1928, based primarily on national newspaper reports; and on the statue of Victorian politician Richard Cobden in Stockport, based primarily on local newspapers and local council records. Students have benefited from the clear focus for their research offered by a particular individual, ceremony or public monument. For a dissertation project based on primary sources, therefore, students could be directed to examine a particular representation, or set of representations of a national figure (e.g. book, play, film, documentary, statue, museum, etc.), or to investigate a local hero.