Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors
Introduction. Locating the English Diaspora: Problems, Perspectives and Approaches - Tanja Bueltmann, David T. Gleeson and Donald M. MacRaild

1. Mythologies of Empire and the Earliest English Diasporas - Glyn Parry
2. The English Seventeenth Century in Colonial America:The Cultural Diaspora of English Republican Ideas - David Walker
3. Fox Hunting and Anglicization in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia - Doreen Skala
4. The Hidden English Diaspora in Nineteenth-Century America - William E. Van Vugt
5. An English Institution? The Colonial Church of England in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century - Joe Hardwick
6. The Importance of Being English: English Ethnic Culture in Montreal, c.1800–1864 - Gillian I. Leitch
7. Anglo-Saxonism and the Racialization of the English Diaspora - Tanja Bueltmann
8. ‘The Englishmen here are much disliked’: Hostility towards English Immigrants in Early Twentieth-Century Toronto - Amy J. Lloyd
9. Cousin Jacks, New Chums and Ten Pound Poms: Locating New Zealand’s English Diaspora - Brad Patterson
10. ‘Cooked in true Yorkshire fashion’: Regional Identity and English Associational Life in New Zealand before the First World War - James Watson
11. Englishness and Cricket in South Africa during the Boer War - Dean Allen
12. An Englishman in New York? Celebrating Shakespeare in America, 1916 - Monika Smialkowska
13. The Disappearance of the English: Why is there no ‘English Diaspora’? - Robert J.C. Young

Index

About the Author

Dr Tanja Bueltmann is Senior Lecturer in History at Northumbria University and co-editor of Locating the English Diaspora, 1500-2010 (LUP, 2012). Dr David T. Gleeson is a Reader in History at the University of Northumbria. Don MacRaild is Professor of British and Irish History at the University of Ulster.

Reviews

Very little has been written about the English overseas, and there are several really novel and informative essays in this collection. It should prompt much scholarly interest. The English diaspora is a surprisingly understudied phenomenon. English migration spurred the origins and integration of the English Atlantic and the late nineteenthcentury British World. Yet, beyond the much-storied accounts of English Quaker crossings to the American colonies, standard historical accounts tend to either downplay English ethnicity next to its Scottish or Irish cousins or view English colonisers as a passive 'other' against which outsiders were defined. Locating the English Diaspora is an ambitious work that aims to bring Englishness back into view and refurbish our understanding of this hitherto 'hidden Diaspora' (3). Thirteen essays cover a staggering time period that ranges from the sixteenthcentury origins of the English empire until the present day, and features case studies of communities across three continents (though Australia is a noticeable absence), in addition to thematic treatments of republicanism, race and religion. The editors make a powerful case for unifying these vastly different approaches through a broad application of the term diaspora. The term's use in relation to English migrants, the editors argue, has suffered 'from the weak and bitty nature of Englishness at home' (4) and because English colonists 'played a founding role in the forging of colonial societies around the globe' meaning they 'have never been seen as a Diaspora' (13). Used here, diaspora refers to 'an international community of people with shared ethnic-national roots and a heightened, potentially politicized sense of common identity' (8). These communities are measured both empirically and conceptually. Of the former, William Van Vugt outlines the contours of the English in the USA, by far the largest recipient of English migrants (Chapter 4); Gillian Leitch does the same for Montreal (Chapter 6); and Brad Patterson for New Zealand (Chapter 9). The volume works best, however, when the conceptual meanings of 'Diaspora' are teased apart within the bounds of a specific community. Several essays do so by tracing the maintenance of English communities through their social calendar, customs and sports, and institutions such as the Anglican Church and St George's Clubs. In Montreal, English migrants expressed their identity through cultural markers such as St George's Day; in South Africa, the knock of leather on willow defined the expression of Englishness; meanwhile, in New Zealand, the preponderance of Yorkshire migrants resulted in a brand of Englishness 'cooked in true Yorkshire fashion' through rural social associations. The geographic breadth of Locating the English Diaspora therefore allows the volume to play close attention to the local contexts in which English ethnicity evolved. At other times, however, such a loose definition of diaspora makes it hard to distinguish whether the contributors are in reality discussing the processes of cultural diffusion. Doreen Skala's essay on fox-hunting in Philadelphia (Chapter 3) and Dean Allen's on South African Cricket during the Boer War (Chapter 11) stand out in this regard. Skala, for instance, recovers the attempts of wealthy Philadelphians to attain a brand of elite English refinement through blood sport. But, although the essay offers new insights into the diffusion of transatlantic codes of civility, its relationship to a wider English community or sense of English ethnicity seem somewhat enigmatic. The capacious meanings of 'English' pose challenges for the volume as a whole. The authors of these essays walk a tight rope in which the desire to identify the markers of English ethnicity needs to be balanced against the danger that the category of 'English' might itself ossify - especially in the presence of class distinctions. Generally, they are successful. Tanja Bueltmann's sophisticated analysis of Anglo-Saxonism deals deftly with the branching nature of English identity (Chapter 7). Her study highlights that the racial ideology buttressing English ethnicity 'was not ... exclusively English' (125). Similarly, Brad Patterson pulls apart the capaciousness of the English, arguing that New Zealand's Cousin Jacks and Ten Pound Poms 'were not simply transplanted English' but 'part of an international family, the British' (151). Locating the English Diaspora opens up a rich seam of research that teases apart historians' understanding of English ethnicity over six centuries in addition to a challenging reconsideration of the term 'Diaspora'. The above could only ever be a precis of what is a broad and thought-provoking exploration spanning British and US historiographies of migration and ethnicity. Locating the English Diaspora opens up a rich seam of research that teases apart historians' understanding of English ethnicity over six centuries in addition to a challenging reconsideration of the term 'Diaspora'. The above could only ever be a precis of what is a broad and thought-provoking exploration spanning British and US historiographies of migration and ethnicity.