The Making of the Rough and the Respectable: The Imperial Garrison and the Wider Society in Colonial Natal

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Periodical article

Title:	The Making of the Rough and the Respectable: The Imperial Garrison and the Wider Society in Colonial Natal
Author:	Dominy, Graham
Year:	1997
Periodical:	South African Historical Journal
Issue:	37
Pages:	48-65
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Natal Great Britain
Subjects:	colonialism colonial forces History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582479708671291
Abstract:	There is often an emphasis on the separation between military and civilian life in the social history of the Victorian military in the United Kingdom, whereas in colonial Natal, South Africa, the garrison was crucial to the reproduction in the African context of an English-speaking settler oligarchy. Garrison activities in Natal were well integrated into the wider social and cultural life of both settler and African society, but the military also maintained their own introverted 'interior' lives. The effect of the military on social relations in colonial Natal was therefore considerable and varied. Temperance and chapel reinforced the social order while drunkenness and desertion weakened colonial society. In many ways, the identity of colonial Natal, and the later English-speaking community in Natal, was shaped by the military. Notes, ref.