Description
This paper considers the experiences of working-class British men who fought in multiple colonial “small wars” of the late nineteenth century, and who often went on to also experience WWI later in their lives. They represent one type of British multi-war veteran – a group that included military officers, colonial subjects, nurses, and military families. Participation in the violence of empire could transform the lives of working-class men and their families. Yet, the influence of colonial military service is curiously absent in the memory and afterlives of the military service of working-class men. Utilizing the archives of various regimental associations and as well as family histories, oral histories, and soldiers’ tales produced by the children and grandchildren of working-class multi-war veterans in the late-twentieth century, this chapter builds on the important place of working-class life writing and autobiography in British historiography in order to identify and understand the erasure of empire in the memory of working-class veterans and their families.
About the Speaker
Taylor Soja is an assistant professor of history, director of European studies, and WGSS faculty affiliate at Illinois State University, where she studies the history of colonial war in the British empire. This paper is a chapter from her forthcoming book, Little Wars of Empire: British Veterans in a Colonial World c. 1885-1918, which will be published by Manchester University Press in June 2026. Her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and Council for European Studies, as well as the North American Conference on British Studies and the Indiana University Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute. Her research has previously appeared in Gender & History, Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom, and in the edited volume Homecoming Veterans in Literature and Culture: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
About the British Studies Seminar Series
The British Studies Seminar brings together scholars to discuss work that addresses the history of Britain and the British Empire from the early modern period to present day. The seminar is co-sponsored by the Graduate Cluster in British Studies at Northwestern, Northwestern History, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies at the University of Chicago.
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