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Now virtually forgotten, Emily Hobhouse was in her time one of the most controversial figures in the world, hailed as a second Florence Nightingale yet denounced as a traitor to her country. To Lord Kitchener she was always "that bloody woman" but to her friend Gandhi she was "one of the noblest and bravest of women". A handsome, restless, highly-strung spinster from a genteel Cornish rectory, she exposed the concentration camps set up in South Africa during Britain's conflict with the Boers and embarked on a secret one-woman peace mission to Berlin at the height of the First World War. A whirlwind of contradictions, she was a pacifist with a weakness for generals, an evangelist who shrank from talk of God, a feminist who craved wedded bliss and babies. Intense, vulnerable and defiant, she revealed flaws on the same heroic scale as her virtues, but her towering courage saves thousands of lives - mostly of women and children - at the cost of her health, fortune and reputation. This definitive account of a tragic but inspiring life uncovers remarkable links between Emily Hobhouse and her great adversary Lord Kitchener and suggests why this astonishing woman is denied her rightful place in history to the present day.
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A first class biography of Emily Hobhouse - long forgotten in England but a household name, admired and reviled in equal measure, at the time of the Boer War. She brought relief to the women and children imprisoned in British concentration camps in South Africa, where her name is still revered. John Hall wears his impressive depth of research lightly, tracing parallels between the career of Hobhouse and her implacable opponent, Kitchener. This extraordinary story of an 'impossible' woman is illustrated by many previously unpublished photographs. Highly recommended.
The cool, elegant style of this study of Emily Hobhouse is a reproach to the overblown journalese of the sort of historical biographies which tend to make the best-seller lists today. And how extraordinary that such an amazing woman is almost forgotten. This fine book tries to make amends and is surely destined to remain the definitive portrait. The unsuspected links betwen Hobhouse and her arch-enemy Lord Kitchener are told for the first time and provide perhaps the most enthralling part of the story - above all, there is the spooky description of how their two coffins were briefly reunited at Southampton, ten years after Kitchener's death. Altogether, a gem of a biography.
I think it a terrible shame that most of the British puplic have never heard of this remarkable woman. As per usual, I suppose, she represented the "losing" side and was castigated for her views. If you have any humanity in you at all, you can't not be moved by her efforts to help Boer women and children, and the way the mighty British Empire treated her. It is all the more remarkable because she was one of "them". The fact that there is no memorial to her (that I am aware of) in this country is nothing short of a disgrace. She was a heroine in the same sense as Florence Nightingale, (who everone has heard of) and Violette Szabo who probably only came to the fore following the film "Carve Her Name with Pride". So,to anyone out there in the film production world her story would make a fascinating feature film, and bring her to the attention of a much greater audience.
