There will be great rejoicing in Cornwall and beyond at the opening up of the home of the courageous pacifist and human rights activist Emily Hobhouse, who campaigned so nobly against British atrocities on the veldt, in their concentration camps, during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 (Anglo-Boer war whistleblower Emily Hobhouse celebrated in Cornish home, 8 April). She was strangely absent from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography but the then editor, Colin Matthew, readily agreed to include her when I suggested it. She is certainly a figure of national importance, whose articles had a profound impact on radical opinion during the 1906 general election. David Lloyd George introduced her to the then Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who spoke of the “methods of barbarism” used on the veldt. Hobhouse’s record of British army barbarities in South Africa shifted national opinion, and I have a card of one of her pictures of the Transvaal in my home (she was also a skilled artist). It is a constant inspiration.
Kenneth O Morgan
Labour, House of Lords
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
