Globalizing St George: English associations in the Anglo-world to the 1930s

While English nationalism has recently become a subject of significant scholarly consideration,relatively little detailed research has been conducted on the emigrant and imperial contexts,or on the importance of Englishness within a global British identity. This article demonstrateshow the importance of a global English identity can be illuminated through a close reading ofethnic associational culture. Examining organizations such as the St George’s societies andthe Sons of England, the article discusses the evolving character of English identity acrossNorth America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Antipodes. Beginning in the eighteenth century,when English institutions echoed other ethnic organizations by providing sociability and charityto fellow nationals, the article goes on to map the growth of English associationalismwithin the context of mass migration. It then shows how nationalist imperialism – a broadbasedEnglish defence of empire against internal and external threats – gave these associationsnew meaning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article alsoexplores how competitive ethnicity prompted English immigrants to form such societies andhow both Irish Catholic hostility in America and Canada and Boer opposition in South Africachallenged the English to assert a more robust ethnic identity. English associationalismevinced coherence over time and space, and the article shows how the English tapped globalreservoirs of strength to form ethnic associations that echoed their Irish and Scottish equivalents by undertaking the same sociable and mutual aspects, and lauded their ethnicity in similarfashion.