The Scottish soldier and Empire, 1854-1902 - Reenactor.ru

116 The Scottish Soldier and Empire
with the image of the Highland soldier (though Campbell’s charge of
impulsiveness seemed replicated at the battle of Tamai). For potential
officers, these qualities were thought to be inculcated in Victorian
public schools like Loretto School near Musselburgh, under its headmaster
Hely Hutchinson Almond, where the playing of team games,
and learning to ‘play the game’, were thought to develop hardiness,
team spirit and ‘character’. Former pupils were expected to emerge
with gentlemanly ideals, a sense of noblesse oblige and a chivalrous
code of conduct. This public school ethos, linked to notions of imperial
service, was popularised and promoted through adventure books
and boys’ magazines. 19
Admittedly, this literature may have served as an ‘escapist narcotic’
for many lower middle or working-class readers whom, in later life,
neither rushed to the colours in peacetime nor emerged as ardent
imperialists. 20 It confirmed nonetheless popular stereotypes, including
the ‘Scots as warlike’, and contributed, as Dave Russell argues in
respect of the writers of popular patriotic songs, towards a ‘positive
acquiescence’ in imperial sentiments and so ‘constructed, reflected
and reinforced’ popular attitudes. 21 The more specific image of the
heroic, chivalrous Scottish soldier was disseminated on the stage, in
the music hall, in songs, poetry, popular art, engravings and advertisements.
If the lavish spectacles that transmitted images of the
Crimean War in mid-century were less prominent by the 1890s, 22
melodrama with its strong passions, vigorous action and moral
themes remained immensely popular. Highland heroes appeared in
several productions, with the poster for One of the Best, performed
at the Adelphi theatre, London in 1895, showing a Highland soldier
proclaiming ‘You can take my life – But you can never take from me
my Victoria Cross’. 23 In The Girl I left Behind Me, a balletic version
of a Drury Lane melodrama, the hero, who is ruined by gambling on
horses, enlists in a Highland regiment to sail for Burma and win the
Victoria Cross and later the hand in marriage of his faithful girl. The
‘military evolutions of the mimic Highlanders’, wrote the critic of
The Times, earned ‘unstinted’ applause from the audience on opening
night (27 September 1893) and the production ran for fifty-three
weeks. 24
Highland soldiers featured in various jubilee productions, including
Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Victoria and Merrie England (25 May 1897)
and the Empire theatre’s Under One Flag (21 June 1897). Scottish
military bands performed across the country at exhibitions, tattoos
and the Military Tournament. In the heyday of the music hall and