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By Root 1172 0

a private investigation, which concluded that Silberrad had brought the administration into disrepute by ‘poaching’. Silberrad lost a year’s seniority and the Governor issued a circular to his officials, warning that, ‘morals apart’, such practices were ‘in every way detrimental to the interests of good government’. The punishment testifies to the distinct priorities of colonial administrators. But what outraged the Routledges was less the rights of Kenyans than the well-being of the empire. Mr Routledge refused to let the matter rest and wrote a letter to The Times outlining the facts of the case and claiming that ‘the interests of this country [are] suffering from the demoralization of native women by British officials’. This was precisely the sort of incident guaranteed to set off a bout of hand-wringing in Britain. A debate in parliament followed, which in turn obliged the Colonial Secretary, Lord Crewe (one of the most buttoned-up men ever to grace British public life – a cabinet colleague claimed to have a constituent who had lost her mind while listening to one of his speeches), to issue what became known as the ‘Concubine Circular’ in January 1909.

Formally, the document had no name, although the file for comments and replies was entitled ‘Immoral Relations with Native Women’. Crewe recognized that, as far as some long-established members of the service were concerned, he was whistling in the wind, and the Circular was never even sent to various empire territories, such as the West Indies and the Seychelles where intermarriage between black and white was far from rare. Two versions were eventually produced – one warning old hands of the danger to the empire posed by scandal, and another addressed to junior men, threatening fire and brimstone. Taking native mistresses was ‘injurious and dangerous’ and ‘disgrace and ruin’ awaited those who made the mistake of entering into ‘arrangements of concubinage with girls or women belonging to the native populations’. To make sure the parents of recruits were not scandalized, the document was issued to them only on arrival in the colony. Some of the colonial settlers found the celibacy now imposed upon officials a just reward for their exercise of an often resented authority. To the tune of ‘The Church’s One Foundation’ they showed their sympathy by singing:

Pity the poor Official

Whene’er he gets a stand,

He may not take a bibi

He has to use his hand.

And so he saves his money,

His character – his job,

And only has to answer for

His conduct to his God.

It was a small price to pay for the glory of the empire.

So what were girls to be told about their contribution to the empire? In September of the year of Lord Crewe’s circular, the organizers of the Boy Scout movement’s first large rally were slightly nonplussed by the arrival of small groups of young people claiming to be Scouts, but who were definitely not boys. What was to be done with them? Scouting was about toughening up boys and equipping them for life on the frontier, and if girls were to be considered for the same role, it would never succeed in instilling manly values.

Like many empire-builders, Robert Baden-Powell knew more about the natives of Matabeleland than he did about his fellow countrymen who happened to be devoid of the Y sex chromosome: he was fifty-two and would not marry for another three years (to a woman thirty-two years his junior). So he consulted his sister, Agnes, and invited her to take on the leadership of an organization to enable girls to do their bit. By the outbreak of the First World War the Girl Guides (they took their name from the famous regiment of Gurkha guides in India) had 40,000 members. ‘Guides! remember the future of our Empire lies in your hands,’ the B-Ps thundered. ‘It is in your power to make or spoil the British nation.’ This was, however, to be accomplished in a very different manner from the role assigned to boys. Their imperial destiny was to become healthy girls, loyal wives and moral mothers. ‘Britain has been made by her great