Welcome to the Late-Summer 2026 History Reclaimed newsletter.
The empire, and the distortion of its history, is never out of the news and we begin by drawing your attention to Robert Tombs’s piece on the Scottish role in the making of the British empire. https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/scots-in-the-british-empire/
This was written after King Charles was forced to sit through a nonsensical play entitled Through the Shortbread Tin at the opening of the Scottish Parliament this summer. Performed by young actors, it supposedly satirised Scottish identity, and contained all the expected criticisms of empire. So there can be no doubt, Robert reminds readers of the enthusiasm with which the Scots helped build the empire as soldiers, statesmen, merchants, engineers and emigrants. Even the MSPs at Holyrood will have difficulty erasing such a vast national contribution over three centuries.
Robert’s essay prompted two responses. One questioned the number of indigenous people killed by the so-called Highland Brigade at Warrigal Creek in Victoria, Australia in 1843, suggesting that the number of victims has been exaggerated.
The other, by our frequent and admired correspondent Bilal Haider Junejo, gave further evidence of the prominent role of the Scottish and Irish in the administration of India.
Alistair Parker has contributed a major new study of the Second Boer War which revises much of what is thought and written about the conflict between Britain and the Boers between 1899-1902.
Based on thorough and careful use of official reports and archives, Alistair questions the received wisdom that Britain, rather than the Boers, sought the conflict; that it was a tactical disaster on the part of the British forces who were out-manoeuvred by the Boers; and that the so-called ‘concentration camps’ where Boer prisoners and refugees were housed were an assault on human rights and dignity and a foretaste of what was to come elsewhere in the 20th century. The history of the war was set down and written by opponents of the British. It is much the same today.
We also publish three essays on the empire in the 1940s. One is on Clement Attlee and Empire, a study of the policies of the post-war Labour governments.
As our author makes clear, the oft-repeated claim that Labour was an anti-colonial party requires revision. Yes, parts of the empire had to be given their freedom immediately after 1945 because the costs – financial and reputational – were too great to bear and the potential for disaster in places like India and Palestine ever-present. But Labour worked to the principle that other parts of the empire, notably those with economic potential, could be invested in, modernised and kept within the imperial framework. The British left’s anti-colonialism is much more recent than many might care to recall.
Rohan Fernando contributes another of his careful studies of India, this time examining a wrinkle in the history of partition itself in 1947.
The man responsible for drawing the borders between India, and West and East Pakistan, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, has often been presented as leaving the subcontinent in a great hurry to escape the ‘shame’ of partition and save his own skin. But as Rohan shows, this is a myth. He took his time, left with dignity, and wrote a reflective account of his experiences as mapmaker on his return to Britain. Today, it is common to blame partition for the subcontinent’s ills. At the time those involved were not ashamed of their handiwork.
We are also forced to return to the subject of the Bengal Famine of 1942-4 in the midst of the Second World War.
Churchill wasn’t the villain of the Bengal Famine. Japan was.
The canard that Churchill let two million Indians die does not die itself. History Reclaimed has dealt with this issue before, but it resurfaced recently in an installation (sic) at the National Portrait Gallery by the artist, Helen Cammock, who took many ill-directed sideswipes at British history and some of its most famous figures. We’re glad to report that the installation was taken down quickly once the story broke and we, and others, showed what nonsense it is to blame Churchill personally, or the British administration. See https://www.thetimes.com/culture/art/article/churchill-display-withdrawn-national-portrait-gallery-g7ddhwvt7
The affair also allowed Robert Tombs to speak up for Oliver Cromwell, another of those great figures from the British past falsely impugned by Ms Cammock.
Why do our museums and galleries allow this kind of thing to go on? Is there no quality control, no fact checking?
Mark Frankel has contributed an essay on the recent treatment of the history of the Quakers, a sect whose contribution to human improvement and welfare over the past three centuries could hardly be bettered;
In his review of a recent book, The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity 1830-1937, Mr Frankel skewers the hyper-critical historians and moralists of today for whom no good act is ever good enough.
We’re delighted to publish another essay by one of HR’s founders, Elizabeth Weiss. An anthropologist by training, she adds a further contribution to our coverage of other historical disciplines severely affected by contemporary ideological distortions.
Elizabeth explains what has gone wrong in anthropology, a great intellectual product of the European Enlightenment, as its scientific foundations have been overwhelmed by preoccupations with the supposed rights of the living to control the study of the past. If all the communities being studied are seen, from the outset, as the victims of colonialism and westernisation, what hope is there for objective academic scrutiny of these societies?
At a time when Britain appears to be defenceless, ‘without the ships, the men and the money too’ (as the 1878 music hall song went) and entirely unprepared for military conflict, Marcus Scriven writes here about the film that he and others are making, Born of War.
It tells the personal stories of those who served in British forces in the twentieth century. We are in danger of forgetting them and overlooking what we owe to those who fought. Marcus’s article, explaining the film, reminds us of the sacrifices of previous generations. Readers may also wish to contribute towards the production costs of the film.
Finally, we draw your attention to an update on the scandal of Canada’s residential schools. The scandal concerns, of course, the manner in which the Canadian political and cultural establishment has sought to rewrite the history of this benign movement to educate and integrate indigenous children into Canadian society. History Reclaimed has followed this story closely because it shows both ignorance of the past and intolerance in the present – ignorance of the prevailing views on education and socialisation a century ago when these schools functioned uncontroversially, and intolerance of people who try to point this out and address the facts. This summer, Canada’s leading daily newspaper, The Globe and Star, admitted that for five years it had pursued this story without evidence. It offered a derisory apology for believing myths about the mass graves of indigenous children, failing to seek the truth, and misleading the Canadian public. Our friend and colleague – and long-time believer in truth – Nina Green, skewers the journalists here:
Canada’s Residential Schools: The Globe and Mail Get it Wrong Again
Look out for two forthcoming articles. One is on the role of history in maintaining national cohesion, and the other on the mangling of the history of Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire, and of British colonialism in West Africa, by the National Trust.
We hear rumours of ideologically-inspired revisionism at the State Library of New South Wales about Joseph Banks, the great naturalist who accompanied James Cook on The Endeavour. Apparently ‘his legacy for many First Nations and Indigenous Peoples is one of cultural theft, colonial violence and enduring loss’. He was also President of the Royal Society, a founder of Kew Gardens as a centre for botanical research, a supporter of international scientific collaboration, the man who introduced many different Australian plants to the western world, and an advocate of the settlement of New South Wales.
Please let us know about the distortion of history near you.
History Reclaimed depends on the contributions of friends and supporters. In recent months these have helped us begin a project to redesign the History syllabus in British schools. Watch this space and thank you for your donations. Please keep them coming.
Lawrence Goldman, Executive Editor
Robert Tombs
Alex Gray
Zewditu Gebreyohanes
