Patriotic Rallies and Popular Responses in the City: Recruitment Campaigns at the Outbreak of the First World War

Brad Beaven

Assessing his own contribution to the imperial project, Lord Meath proudly boasted that Empire Day had instilled a sense of patriotism in the English population that had paved the way for the ‘rush to colours’ at the outbreak of war in August 1914. While Meath may well have over-stated his case, the belief that Edwardian society had inculcated the volunteers with imperial patriotism is often the message portrayed in popular histories of the First World War [1]. More recently, historians have taken a rather more sceptical view on the working-class’ conversion to an imperial conflict, and have instead questioned the effectiveness of propaganda and the volunteers’ motivation for enlisting [2]. Moreover, historians are increasingly seeing the value of investigating localities in a bid to build a more nuanced picture of Britain on the eve of war. Indeed, Helen McCartney’s research on volunteer armies in Liverpool revealed that people’s experiences were often determined by local issues since the central state exercised little influence over the lives of the general public. Working-class engagement with the war and empire, then, was less the product of state inculcation through the national press and education systems, but instead rested more upon a synergistic relationship between a town’s citizens, the local press and urban elite [3]. However, while there has been a growth in the number of important local case studies, Bonnie White has recently noted that "there is still very little understanding of the impact of the recruitment campaigns at a local level." [4] In assessing war enthusiasm, this essay will explore the processes of imperial and patriotic dissemination and identify a selection of the sources from both national and local archives available to the historian [5].

The essay will draw on the experience of three English communities at the outbreak of the First World War. Portsmouth, Coventry and Leeds were chosen primarily for their contrasting civic, industrial and cultural identities and differing geographical locations [6]. While Leeds represented the larger Edwardian city, with a population of approximately 500,000, Coventry and Portsmouth were medium-sized communities of between 120,000 to 230,000 residents in 1911 [7]. The significant physical and cultural naval presence in Portsmouth ensured that its local economy and national portrayal were bound tightly to imperial grandeur [8]. Alongside the naval influence, the city possessed a strong civic culture and an increasingly important skilled working-class sector employed in the Royal Dockyard [9]. Coventry, on the other hand, had neither an obvious imperial identity nor a strong civic culture. Between 1870 and 1939, the city emerged as an industrial boom town due to the bicycle and car trades employing vast armies of migrant semi-skilled workers [10]. Finally, Leeds represented the older manufacturing city that was at the forefront of disseminating the civic ideal through architecture and schemes of social citizenship [11]. The city developed rapidly through the industrial revolution and built its manufacturing base and wealth on the dress trades and mechanical engineering [12]. In addition, Leeds had a greater ethnic diversity than both Portsmouth and Coventry since the city accommodated a significant Eastern European Jewish community by 1914 [13].