‘A united South African nation and not merely a South Africa peopled by Africanders and English’: the Earl of Athlone and the attempt to forge a Dominion South Africanism in the 1920s

Abstract

Concepts of both metropoli tan and imperial Britishness have come under considerable scrut iny in recent years. In a previous article I discussed the concept of Britishness in a South African context and examined its relationship with the South Africanism which played so impor tant a role in South African politics during the first half of the 20th century. 1 I was part icular ly interested in the way in which a strong South Africanist sentiment developed amongst some white English-speaking South Africans. I used the term 'Dominion South Africanism' to stress that while this South Africanism was broad enough to embrace both white language groups, it was essentially underpinned by notions of British cultural superiori ty and predicated a South Africa loyal to the British Crown and an integral par t of the British Empire. In the view of Sir Patrick Duncan, the first South African to be appointed Governor-General, it implied a united white nation on terms ' favourable to the Empire and to the English in South Africa'. 2 This stress on the British connection made Dominion South