ABSTRACT
The book is an attempt to understand the languages used by elite Britons, between about 1860 and the outbreak of World War One, to justify acquiring, extending and ruling the empire. It does so by examining the Victorian and Edwardian idea of ‘character’ as a moral marker among elites and showing how it was applied to empire. Character was a complex concept derived from two main sources. Britain’s rapid economic growth supplied a number of ‘industrial’ elements to the concept, such as energy, thrift and honesty. But, for the elites who were mainly concerned with empire, the industrial qualities were reinforced by others derived from classical and Christian culture, and modified by the ‘civic humanist’ discourse, that were diffused via the public schools. They included duty, honour, public service and self-sacrifice. This ‘character talk’ had a powerful presence among British male elites and shaped the thinking of some of the fiercest critics of contemporary British culture, such as Matthew Arnold. How it affected debate about the meaning and purpose of empire is the subject of the following chapters.
