Fox-hunting and historical pageantry...
...I know what you're thinking; how can I possibly link the two together? Well...
Over the last few days I have been reading various headlines (with a sense of disbelief that is strangely becoming common since about 8th May 2015) about the upcoming vote on the proposed Government amendments to the Hunting Act. As far as I can gather, the change will allow the traditional style of hunting to come in through the back door, on the pretence that it will be protecting livestock, game birds or wild birds. Sounds pretty tenuous to me, but there you go. But anyway, it reminded me of the Dorset Pageant of 1929 - staged at a time when hunting-as-sport was the subject of much debate. Historical pageantry, as we have been arguing, was an adaptive and responsive cultural form at least as much as a conservative one. This small event (2 performances in a single day), put on by the Dorset Federation of Women's Institute, demonstrates this entirely.
The foreword of the book of words explained that the ‘main purpose’ of the event was to ‘raise funds for the maintenance of its work… to improve and develop conditions of rural life.’ It went on to argue that the point of the Institution, in general, was to help ‘show how women can and do take their part as good citizens’ while avoiding ‘controversial’ subjects; ‘simplicity and good fellowship’ were always ‘among its chief characteristics.’ As the Bridport News elaborated, pageants were, therefore, ‘probably the ideal form of dramatic expression for Women’s Institutes’ since both sought to ‘bring a wider culture and a comradeship to the countryside’. This self-proclaimed purpose fits with more recent work that has seen the WI as a vehicle for fitting women into non-contentious active citizenship following suffrage extension in 1918 and 1928.
But, in terms of its content, the pageant didn't step away from all contentious issues. Most of the episodes were long, with lots of dialogue. Characters were drawn from the highest nobility to the stereotypical peasants, and a variety of viewpoints were vocalised – often determined by gender. One point made several times was that hunting was animal cruelty. Episode Three portrayed a hunting part of King John, a popular and uncomplicated scene in historical pageants - especially before the First World War. But, this time, there was more of a nuanced representation of the 'sport'. Sybilla de Glanville, one of the Ladies in the party, declared that it was ‘Sad that such a lovely place should be but a prelude to a cruel sport.’ This was followed by the ethereal appearance of the ‘Spirits of the Woods’, who judged the human folk as cruel for slaying deer, and ‘bringing Death and Destruction to the woods’, exclaiming ‘If men could only realise What these poor creatures feel! And put themselves into their place – and hear the mute appeal.’ It is perhaps telling that Sir John de Linde was then punished by the King for killing his idolised white stag, declaring at the end of the episode that he’d never shoot another while he lived.
In the sixth episode the bumbling character of Old Philip, the seneschal of the Castle, declared it a fair day for hunting. But he was quickly admonished by the more savvy Margery, a nurse in the castle, who finger-wagged: ‘There be you men! Never biding quiet, always settin’ out to kill something, and coming back as hungry as jackals in the wilderness, and us women folk be fair put to it, to get the victuals cooked.’
The cruelty of hunting was on the social agenda, and it is likely the Women’s Institute, as an organisation concerned with the countryside, was well attuned to the debates. In 1925 the League Against Cruel Sports was formed, following the demise of the Humanitarian League in 1919, and the frustration from members of the RSPCA at its lack of action on the hunting issue. It was the influence of this former association that led to the Labour Party adopting a formal position of opposition to blood sports in the 1920s, with Tom Williams, future Minister of Agriculture, successfully moving a resolution at the annual conference in 1928 that ‘Labour in their concern for the needs of workers and for the country generally is also alive to the need for further protective legislation for animals to prevent them from suffering needless pain.’
Whether the Dorset Federation was motivated by this movement is impossible to ascertain but, in the many other pageants that featured hunting, there seems to have been no similarly negative portrayal. In the Dorset Pageant it was lauded by men, but viewed as cruel by women - an interesting and forceful demonstration of how the WI actively performed gendered politics. As any good historian will tell you, we are not on an ever-improving march towards enlightenment - as, in my opinion, the support for a return to fox-hunting is showing. The good women of the Dorset WI in 1929 knew it!
*all opinions of the author, Tom Hulme, and not necessarily the other members of the project team, or their associated institutions*