The Branch Life of Empire: Imperial Loyalty Leagues in Antipodean Cities – Comparisons and Contrasts with the British Model

Abstract

This article examines the developmental trajectory of a cluster of Antipodean imperial loyalty leagues, several of which were branches of British based leagues, which were formed and operated in the first half of the twentieth century. It is argued here that the thesis of the success of leagues which exhibited ‘feminine’ characteristics and the relative failure of those which demonstrated ‘masculine’ characteristics after 1918 largely holds good for this region of the British Empire, although some of the ‘masculine’ leagues managed to traverse such gender boundaries and are, as a result, more problematic to categorise. The general picture of league operations across the period under scrutiny, when viewed from both within (through league archives) and without (through newspaper reports of their activities) should however, perhaps stress their relative failure to act as imperial propaganda mechanisms and they did not for the most part, ignite the enthusiasm of the wider city populaces for an imperial identity. Possible reasons for their failure are advanced and comparisons made with County Societies with which they were contemporaneous.