Robert Eales - The Compassionate Englishwoman: Emily Hobhouse in the Boer War

In London, the upper class Emily Hobhouse hears that women and children caught in the Boer War are having a difficult time. Concerned, she goes to South Africa - by herself and at her own initiative - to investigate and assist. She travels thousands of kilometres through the war and what she finds is disturbing. The British Army is clearing the land and herding hundreds of thousands of people into concentration camps where the conditions are putting their lives at risk. She urges the local authorities to provide better care and support - to no avail. Deeply concerned, she returns to Britain to plead that immediate action be taken. She is in for a shock. She meets with studied indifference from the government and is attacked in the press. Eventually her work saves many lives, but not before tens of thousands have died. This remarkable woman was on the wrong side of history. Though she was focussed on a humanitarian cause, her heroic mission could bring down the government. Acknowledgement that a war which was becoming steadily less popular was being waged inhumanely would mean electoral disaster. Her story had to be disparaged and smothered at every opportunity.