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Sir Henry Bartle Frere | |
|---|---|
_Bartle_Frere%2c_1st_Bt_by_Sir_George_Reid.jpg) | |
| Commissioner of Sind | |
| In office 1851–1859 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | Richard Keith Pringle |
| Succeeded by | Jonathan Duncan Inverarity |
| Governor of Bombay | |
| In office 1862–1867 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | SirGeorge Russell Clerk |
| Succeeded by | William Vesey-FitzGerald |
| High Commissioner for Southern Africa | |
| In office 1877–1880 | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Preceded by | SirHenry Barkly |
| Succeeded by | Henry Hugh Clifford acting |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 March 1815 Clydach,Monmouthshire, Wales |
| Died | 29 May 1884 (aged 69) Wimbledon, London, England |
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | East India Company College |
Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, 1st Baronet,GCB, GCSI, PC (29 March 1815 – 29 May 1884) was aBritish colonial administrator. He had a successful career inIndia, rising to becomeGovernor of Bombay (1862–1867). However, asHigh Commissioner for Southern Africa (1877–1880), he implemented a set of policies which attempted to impose a British confederation on the region and which led to the overthrow of theCape Colony'sfirst elected government in 1878 and to a string of regional wars, culminating in theinvasion of Zululand (1879) and theFirst Boer War (1880–1881). TheBritish Prime Minister,Gladstone, recalled Frere to London to face charges of misconduct;Whitehall officially censured Frere for acting recklessly.
Frere was born atClydach House,Clydach, Monmouthshire, the son of Edward Frere, manager ofClydach Ironworks, and Mary Ann Green. His elder sister, Mary Anne Frere, was bornc. 1802 in Clydach, and his younger sister, Frances Anne Frere, was bornc. 1819 in Clydach. He was the grandson ofJohn Frere and a nephew ofJohn Hookham Frere;William Frere;Bartholomew Frere;James Hatley Frere; and Temple Frere – canon ofWestminster Abbey. He was educated at theEast India Company College, the precursor ofHaileybury and Imperial Service College.[1]
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On 10 October 1844, he married Catherine Arthur, daughter ofSir George Arthur, 1st Baronet, who was theGovernor of Bombay and to whom he had been appointed private secretary two years earlier.
Their five children were:Mary Eliza Isabella Frere (born 1845 atBitton, Gloucestershire);Catherine Frances Frere (born 1849 in theEast Indies, who editedThe Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie in 1909);Georgina Hamilton Chichester Frere (born c. 1850 in the East Indies);Bartle Compton Arthur Frere (born c. 1855 inPaddington, Middlesex); andEliza Frederica Jane Frere (born c. 1857 inWimbledon, London).[2]
After leaving the East India Company College Frere was appointed a writer in theBombay Presidency civil service in 1834. Having passed his language examination, he was appointed assistant collector atPoona in 1835, and in 1842 he was chosen as private secretary toSir George Arthur,Governor of Bombay. Two years later he became a political resident at the court ofRaja Shahaji of Satara; on the raja's death in 1848 he administered the province both before and after itsformal annexation in 1849.[3]
In 1850 he was appointed chief commissioner ofSindh. In 1851 he reformed the Scinde District postal system on the model of the British postal service, to provide better service withRowland Hill's "low and uniform" postal rates. This system became the basis forIndia's postal system, designed to provide public service. In 1857, he sent detachments toMultan and toSir John Lawrence in thePunjab in order to secure those locations during theIndian Mutiny.[citation needed] These services were fully recognized, as he received the thanks of both houses of Parliament and was made a Knight Commander of theOrder of the Bath (KCB).[3]
As the chief commissioner of Sindh, in 1851, Frere issued a decree making it compulsory to useSindhi language in place of Persian in Sindh. The officers of Sindh were ordered to learn Sindhi compulsorily to enable them to carry on day-to-day work efficiently. A committee was constituted (1853) under Asst. Commissioner & Chief of Education Department, with an equal number of Hindu and Muslim members, which unanimously decided on the use of Persio-Arabic Sindhi script with slight modifications. Frere not only gave Sindhi language one script but he even published different Sindhi books related to various streams of the literature, which encouraged impetus to Sindhi writers to move quickly with literacy.
He became a member of theViceroy's Council in 1859, and in 1862 was appointedGovernor of Bombay, where he continued his policy of municipal improvements, establishing theDeccan College at Pune, as well as a college for instructing Indians incivil engineering. A 5-mile road inKirkee Cantonment was named after him circa 1865.[4] His order to pull down the ramparts of the oldBombay Fort allowed the city to grow, and theFlora Fountain was commissioned in his honour. During Frere's administration his daughter,Mary Frere, collectedOld Deccan Days (1868), the first English-language field-collected book of Indian folklore.[5]
In 1867 he returned to England, where he was madeGCSI, and given honorary degrees fromOxford andCambridge;.[6] He was also appointed a member of theCouncil of India.[3]
In 1872, theForeign Office sent him toZanzibar to negotiate a treaty with the sultan,Barghash bin Said, for the suppression of theslave traffic, theFrere Treaty. On 4 August 1873 he was sworn in as a member ofPrivy Council atOsborne House on theIsle of Wight.[7] In 1875, he accompanied thePrince of Wales to Egypt and India, with such success thatLord Beaconsfield asked him to choose between being made abaronet ora Knight Grand Cross of the Bath. He chose the former, butQueen Victoria bestowed both honours upon him.[3]
In 1877, Frere was madeHigh Commissioner for Southern Africa and governor of theCape Colony by the London-basedSecretary of State for the ColoniesHenry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, who continued to support the imposition of the unpopular system of confederation upon the southern Africa region. Frere accepted the position, on a salary double that of his predecessor, and with the understanding that successful implementation of confederation would result in his being appointed the first British Governor-General of a federated southern Africandominion.[8]
The idea of melding the states of southern Africa into a BritishConfederation was not new. It was seen as an easy way of uniting the region under British control, while preventing any future attempt among the remaining independent African states to unite against British rule. However an earlier plan by SirGeorge Grey for a federation of all the various colonies in South Africa had been rejected by the home authorities in 1858, as not being viable.[9]
Through Frere's elevation, Lord Carnarvon sought another attempt at implementing the ill-fated and locally unsupportedconfederation scheme, that was met with resistance by all the local groups involved. South Africans resented the perceived high-handed manner in which it was being imposed from London with little accommodation and knowledge of, or concern for, local conditions and politics. CapePrime Minister,John Charles Molteno, advised that under current conditions confederation was ill-suited to and badly timed for Southern Africa. It would lead to a lop-sided confederation with resulting instability and resentment. He advised that full union status was a better model, but only at a later date and once it was economically viable.
Timing was a key factor in the ensuing events, as the different states of southern Africa were at the time still suspicious and resentful after the last bout of British imperial expansion. TheAfrikaners resented the recent annexation of theTransvaal, did not support confederation, and would successfully rebel in theFirst Boer War. The various Black South African states were also suspicious of this new effort towards British expansion. The ill-advised policies of both Frere and his local ally,John Gordon Sprigg, ended up causing a string of wars across Southern Africa, culminating in the disastrousAnglo-Zulu andBoer Wars.[10]
The new governor was initially welcomed by the local (Molteno-Merriman) government of the Cape Colony, which was by far the largest and most powerful polity in the region.
However Frere soon encountered strong political resistance against the unpopular confederation project. In particular, the local Cape government took a non-interventionist approach towards the neighbouring Boer and Black African states of southern Africa. It was also relatively liberal in its domestic politics. Its formal response to Carnarvon's confederation model, conveyed to London via Frere's predecessor SirHenry Barkly, had originally been that any federation with the illiberal Boer republics would endanger the rights and franchise of the Cape's Black citizens, and was therefore unacceptable.[11] The Cape government also opposed Carnarvon's confederation plans, perceiving them as an attempt to override the Cape's constitution and extend British imperial control over the whole of southern Africa, which as they saw it would lead to an outbreak of conflicts between theBritish Empire and the remaining independent states in the region, such asZululand and theTransvaal (something the Cape government was adamantly opposed to).[12] The summary of Molteno's message was that "the proposals for confederation should emanate from the communities to be affected, and not be pressed upon them from outside."[13]
At the time, the subcontinent was being afflicted by the worst drought in its recorded history and, as the historian De Kiewiet memorably said:"In South Africa, the heat of drought easily becomes the fever of war."[14] It had begun in 1875, and by 1877 it was affecting the greater region. In September 1877, a minor tribal conflict erupted on the Cape frontier, between theMfengu andGcaleka tribes. The Cape government viewed the dispute as a local police matter, but Frere immediately traveled to the frontier and declared war on the neighbouring independent state ofGcalekaland. Frere saw the dispute as an opportunity to annex Gcalekaland for the planned confederation. Frere also expressed concerns that the continued existence of independent African states posed in his words an ever-present threat of a "general and simultaneous rising of Kaffirdom against white civilization". The9th Frontier War soon broke out.[15]
TheTranskeiXhosa were defeated and annexed early in 1878, byLord Chelmsford and a small force of regular and colonial troops.[3][16]
Frere appealed (February 1878) and received the authority from theColonial Office to dismiss the Cape's elected government. He then asked his political ally,John Gordon Sprigg, to form apuppet ministry. This unprecedented move solved his constitutional hindrances in the Cape, but was overshadowed by a growing set of conflicts across Southern Africa and Lord Carnarvon's resignation in early 1878.[17]
The Zulu Kingdom under KingCetshwayo remained independent of British control but Frere impressed upon the Colonial Office his opinion that if confederation was to succeed, Cetshwayo's forces had to be eliminated and Zululand annexed. While Carnarvon remained as Colonial Secretary in London the view had support but his replacement, SirMichael Hicks-Beach strongly wished to avoid any war in southern Africa. Frere nonetheless used the delay in mail between London and Cape Town, to time his letters so as to circumvent the Colonial Office's opposition to war. Frere then sent Cetshwayo an impossible ultimatum in December 1878, effectively declaring war.[18]
Cetshwayo was unable to comply with Frere's ultimatum – even if he had wanted to; Frere orderedLord Chelmsford to invadeZululand, and so theAnglo-Zulu War began. On 11 January 1879, British troops crossed theTugela River; fourteen days later the disaster ofIsandlwana was reported, and that was enough for theHouse of Commons to demand that Frere be recalled. Beaconsfield supported him, however, and in a strange compromise he was censured but asked to stay on. Frere had severely underestimated the Zulus, whom he had characterized as "a bunch of savages armed with sticks."[19]
The Zulu trouble, and disaffection brewing in theTransvaal, reacted upon each other most disastrously. The delay in giving the country a constitution afforded a pretext for agitation to the resentfulBoers, a rapidly increasing minority, while the defeat at Isandlwana had badly tarnished the reputation of the British Empire in the region. Owing to the Xhosa andZulu wars, Sir Bartle had been unable to give his undivided attention to the state of things in the Transvaal until April 1879, when he was at last able to visit a camp of about 4,000 disaffected Boers nearPretoria. Though conditions were grim, Frere managed to win the Boers' respect by promising to present their complaints to the British government, and to urge the fulfilment of the promises that had been made to them. The Boers did eventually disperse, on the very day upon which Frere received the telegram announcing the government's censure.[20] On his return to Cape Town, he found that his achievement had been eclipsed—first by 1 June 1879 death ofNapoleon Eugene, Prince Imperial in Zululand, and then by the news that the government of the Transvaal andNatal, together with the high commissionership in the eastern part of South Africa, had been transferred from him to SirGarnet Wolseley. Meanwhile, growing Boer resentment at Frere's policies erupted in December 1880 into the disastrousFirst Boer War. The First Boer War, with the British defeats atBronkhorstspruit,Laing's Nek,Schuinshoogte and a decisive defeatat Majuba Hill led to the confirmation of the Boer Republics' independence and the final end of Carnarvon's confederation scheme.
Basutoland, home of theBasotho people, had been under the nominal control of the Cape Colony since 1872. However the Cape government had allowed the Basotho leadership to keep much of their traditional authority and independence. As allies and trading partners of the Cape, the Basotho were also well-equipped with firearms.
Frere pushed "The Peace Protection Act" (1879), during the Xhosa Wars, and decreed that all those of African descent had to be disarmed. TheBasuto Gun War (1880) followed, as the Basothos rebelled at what they saw as a racist and high-handed ruling. PremierJohn Gordon Sprigg's unpopular attempt to enforce this disarmament of the Basotho was aggravated by his setting aside of Basotho land for white settlement.
The resulting war led to British defeats such as that at Qalabani, and ended in 1881 with a stalemate and a treaty that favoured the Basotho. The rebellion is a primary reason whyLesotho is now an independent country and not part of surrounding South Africa. At the same time as the Basuto Gun War broke out, unrest flared up once again among theXhosa of theTranskei.
In 1880 Frere was recalled to London to face charges of misconduct. WhenGladstone's ministry first came into office in the spring of 1880,Lord Kimberley originally had no intention of recalling Frere. In June, however, a section of theLiberal party petitioned Gladstone to remove him, and the prime minister soon complied (1 August 1880).[21]
The disaster of Isandlwana was compounded by the humiliating defeats of theFirst Boer War. He was replaced by SirGarnet Wolseley, then charged with having acted recklessly, and censured by Whitehall.[9]
Upon his return, Frere replied to the charges relating to his conduct with regard toAfghanistan as well as South Africa, previously referred to in Gladstone'sMidlothian speeches, and was preparing a fuller vindication when he died atWimbledon on 29 May 1884.[21] He was buried inSt Paul's Cathedral.[22]
Frere was the founder and first president of theRoyal Society of South Africa 1877.[23]
Frere Hall inKarachi was built in his honour. The city also named a road, street and town after him.Karachi Grammar School's Frere House is named after him. In 1888, thePrince of Wales unveiled astatue of Frere on the Thames embankment.Mount Bartle Frere (1622m), the highest mountain inQueensland, Australia, is named after him, as is a boarding house atHaileybury. A road inParktown, Johannesburg, is also named after him. (Frere Road was also the home ofNadine Gordimer, the Nobel Prize-winning author). InDurban, two roads honour him: Frere Road which later transforms into Bartle Road. Freretown, a district of the Kenyan city ofMombasa, is also named after him.Mount Frere (Now known as KwaBhaca) in theEastern Cape also was named after him in the 19th century.
The botanist, N. A. Dalzell (1864) named the plant genusFrerea to commemorate H. B. Frere. It is a monotypic plant genus known by a single species, viz.Frerea indica Dalzell. Dalzell stated "Sir H. B. E. Frere, not only as a mark of esteem and respect, but also because he always has been the enlightened encourager and promoter of scientific researches in India, and is himself a close observer of nature."[24]
For the South African anti-confederation view, see P. A. Molteno'sLife and Times of Sir John Charles Molteno (2 vols., London 1900).[21]
A more recent work on Bartle Frere's life,The Zulu and the Raj; The Life of Sir Bartle Frere by D. P. O'Connor,[25] examines details of Frere's life and motives more fully than was permissible in Victorian times when Martineau was writing. In particular, O'Connor points to Frere as a leading thinker on imperial defence. He sets the Zulu war in the context of the overall global crisis, contingent on theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878), which was widely expected to result in war between Britain andRussia. Frere was sent to South Africa to turn this vital area into a secure bastion on the route to India, but was distracted from the task by the routine instability of the South African theatre.
Frere was played by SirJohn Mills inZulu Dawn. His portrayal in the film is negative.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Frere, Sir Henry Bartle Edward".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 206–207.
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Commissioner in Sind 1851–59 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Governor of Bombay 1862–67 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Governor of Cape Colony High Commissioner for Southern Africa 1877–1880 | Succeeded by |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New title Granted by Queen Victoria | Baronet (of Wimbledon) 1876–1884 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
