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^^КФУ Гуманитарные и юридические исследования. 2023. Т. 10 (3)
Научная статья УДК 94(410)
https://doi.org/10.37493/2409-1030.2023.3.10
ПОДГОТОВКА УПРАВЛЕНЧЕСКОЙ ЭЛИТЫ ДЛЯ БРИТАНСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ ЧАСТНОЙ ШКОЛЫ КОЛЛЕДЖ ЮНАЙТЕД СЕРВИСЕС)
Татьяна Викторовна Пантюхина1
1 Северо-Кавказский федеральный университет (д.1, ул. Пушкина, Ставрополь, 355017, Российская Федерация) Кандидат исторических наук, доцент
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4147-3690 E-mail: pantyukhina@rambler.ru
Аннотация. Введение. Актуальность темы исследования определяется ее слабой изученностью в отечественной исторической науке. Между тем успешный опыт подготовки эффективных управленческих кадров в Англии в последней трети XIX - начале ХХ вв. представляется достойным для изучения и осмысления. Целью данной статьи является исследование проблемы на основе истории Колледжа Юнайтед Сер-висес и биографий ее наиболее выдающихся выпускников. Новизна исследования определяется тем, что данная проблема не была предметом специального исследования в отечественной историографии. Материалы и методы. Основной массив источников составили документы по истории школы, мемуары выпускников. Использован роман Киплинга «Сталки и Ко.», основанный на школьных годах писателя, материалы «Общества Киплинга». Были задействованы следующие методы: нарративный, дескриптивный, компаративный, ситуационное исследование («кейс стади»). Анализ. Колледж Юнайтед Сервисес был основан в 1874 г. с целью предоставления сыновьям военнослужащих сравнительно недорогого школьного образования и их подготовки к поступлению в военные училища. Миссия школы состояла в том, чтобы формировать «людей действия», учить патриотизму, командному духу, лидерским качествам. Учащихся воспитывали так, чтобы они стали практичными, действенными, смелыми и результативными лидерами. Правила поведения были жесткими, физические наказания были общепринятым методом обучения, а буллинг - обычным явлением. Послешкольные карье-
Research article
ры выпускников свидетельствуют об эффективности подготовки молодых людей к их будущей службе на благо империи. Результаты. Несмотря на довольно краткую историю, Колледж подготовил большое количество военного и гражданского персонала. 468 выпускников вступили в британскую армию, почти все служили в колониях. 198 выпускников поступили на службу в индийскую армию, 51 проходил службу в Королевском флоте, 308 выпускников работали за границей на колониальной службе, некоторые выпускники достигли высоких званий адмирала или генерала. Во время Первой мировой войны выпускники USC получили множество наград. Многие из них, включая двух генералов, погибли на войне. Карьера самых выдающихся выпускников USC: Киплинга и Данстервил-ла - служит примером способности школы эффективно готовить молодых людей к будущему.
Ключевые слова: Колледж Юнайтед Сервисес, Британская империя, военные и гражданские кадры, частная школа, Киплинг
Для цитирования: Пантюхина Т. В. Подготовка управленческой элиты для Британской империи (на примере частной школы Колледж Юнайтед Сервисес) // Гуманитарные и юридические исследования. 2023. Т. 10 (3). С. 440-446. https://doi.org/10.37493/2409-1030.2023.3.10
Конфликт интересов: автор заявляет об отсутствии конфликта интересов.
Статья поступила в редакцию: 17.05.2023. Статья одобрена после рецензирования: 19.06.2023. Статья принята к публикации: 29.07.2023.
TRAINING OF THE MANAGERIAL ELITE FOR THE BRITISH EMPIRE (A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL THE UNITED SERVICES COLLEGE)
Tatiana V. Pantyukhina1
1 North-Caucasus Federal University (1, Pushkin St., Stavropol, 355017, Russian Federation) Cand. Sc. (History), Associate Professor
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4147-3690 E-mail: pantyukhina@rambler.ru
Abstract. Introduction. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the fact that it has not been studied in the national historical science. Meanwhile, the experience of training effective managerial personnel in England in the last third of the XIX - early XX centuries seems worthy of study and reflection. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the problem on the case study of the United Services College, its history and biographies of its most prominent graduates. The novelty of the research
© naHTioxMHa T. B., 2023
is determined by the fact that this problem has not been the subject of special research in Russian historiography. Materials and Methods. The sources used for the analyses consist of documents on the history of the school, memoirs of its graduates, Kipling's novel "Stalky and Co." based on the writer's school years, documents of the "Kipling Society". The following methods were used: narrative, descriptive, comparative. Analysis. The United Services College was founded in 1874 with the aim of
providing the sons of military personnel with inexpensive school education and prepare boys to go on to cadet colleges to train for a military career. Mission of the school was to mold "men of action", to teach patriotism, team spirit, leadership skills. Students were brought up to become practical, efficient, brave and effective leaders. Extra curriculum activities were consistent with these purposes. The rules were strict, physical punishment was an accepted teaching method and bullying was common. The examination of the USC graduates' careers is essential for assessing the effectiveness of students' preparation for their future services. Results. Despite a rather short history the United Services College provided the country with a large number of military and civil personnel. 468 graduates joined the British Army, nearly all served throughout the Empire. 198 graduates joined the Indian Army, 51 did service in the Royal Navy and associated forces, 308 USC's graduates worked abroad in civil organizations, often in Colonial Service Some graduates
Introduction. The experience of training effective managerial personnel in England in the last third of the XIX - early XX centuries seems worthy of study and reflection. The expansion of the British Empire in the middle of the XIX century caused an increasing demand for well-qualified administrators with the specified skills, views, manners and beliefs. The mission of training the managerial elite to fill civil and military positions in the British colonies was performed by public schools. An integral element of the English educational system for several centuries, the public school in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries became the educational institution where the colonial elite was brought up. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the problem on the case study of the United Services College, its history and biographies of its most prominent graduates.
The novelty of the research is determined by the fact that the problem has not been the subject of special research in Russian historiography. Some aspects of the topic were studied by D. I. Shendygaev and K. B. Egorov. D. I. Shendygaev examined the history of training officers for the British Army and Navy in the late XIX - early XX centuries [3]. The author focused on the history of well-known cadet colleges such as the Military College in Sandhurst, the Military Academy in Woolwich and the Naval College in Greenwich. Egorov K. B. studied the role of the officer corps in the imperial policy in the second half of the XIX century [2]. He identified the spheres of influence of the military elite in the implementation of imperial policy. As for the British historiography, the history of public schools is focused on the most famous educational institutions like Eton. Meanwhile, the much less well-known United Services College made a significant contribution to providing the Empire with managerial personnel, which is proved by lists of its graduates and their services to the Empire. Another aspect that determines the research novelty of this paper is the attempt to assess the effectiveness of the training at the United Services
reached high ranks of Admiral or General. During World War I USC's graduates earned numerous awards and decorations. Many of them including two Generals, died in the war. The careers of the most distinguished USC's graduates: Kipling and Dunsterville provide an example of the school's capacity to effectively train boys for the future.
Keywords: United Services College, British Empire, military and civil personnel, public school, Kipling
For citation: Pantyukhina T. V. Training of the managerial elite for the British Empire (a case study of public school the United Services College). Humanities and law research. 2023;10(3):440-446. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.37493/2409-1030.2023.3.10
Conflict of interest: the author declares no conflicts of interests.
The article was submitted: 17.05.2023.
The article was approved after reviewing: 19.06.2023.
The article was accepted for publication: 29.07.2023.
College through the examination of the post-school careers of its graduates. The paper focuses on the life paths of the most distinguished school graduates: writer Rudyard Kipling, General Lionel Dunsterville and photographer George Beresford.
Materials and Methods. The main body of sources consists of documents on the history of the school, collected and published by its graduate and the author, Colonel H. Tapp. The collection was compiled as a supplement to the history of the school, which he authored and published in 1933, and came out after Tapp's death, in 1960 [20; 21]. It contains photos, drawings of the campus, lists of graduates. The latter are of particular value, since Tapp grouped them according to their professional spheres and the geography of the service. Another informative source is the lists of graduates' achievements in professional fields, as well as in sports. Documents about the participation of school graduates in the First World War are also important. The second group of sources was made up of memoir literature, primarily memoirs and biographies of three outstanding graduates: Rudyard Kipling, Lionel Dunsterville and George Beresford [15; 10; 4]. The documents of the Kipling Society and Kipling Journal, the periodical of the Society, were also used [16]. R. Kipling's novel "Stalky and Co.", based on the school years spent by the writer in the company of Dunsterville and Beresford at the United Services College provides valuable information about the atmosphere at school, its rules and relations among students and masters [14]. The following methods were used to perform the research tasks: narrative, descriptive, comparative and case study.
Analysis. The United Services College (USC), despite its short existence as an independent educational institution (1874 - 1903), made a mark in the history of English education. It was founded in 1874 at Westward Ho!, North Devon. At that time, in the heyday of the British Empire, large numbers of Englishmen lived abroad working to run the
Empire around the world, in the Armed Forces or in civil organizations. Many wished their children to be educated in England. Besides, for those who pursued a military career a good education became an entry requirement since Army Regulation Act of 1871 abolished the purchase of commissions and introduced examinations to become an officer in the navy or army. Before this, officer promotion was based on wealth instead of military skill [7]. The problem was that many officers were not financially able to send their sons to a public school so that their subsequent entry into the cadet colleges could be ensured. That is why a group of serving and ex-army officers founded the Limited Company, the shareholders in which could have their children educated at a moderate fee. That way the United Services College was founded. Its mission was to provide the sons of military personnel with rather inexpensive school education and prepare boys to go on to cadet colleges to train for a military career.
The USC 's first Headmaster was Cormell Price, a remarkable man with liberal views. Educated at Oxford, he was a Senior Master at Haileybury College, which was often referred to as the "School for Empire". Due to his notable achievements with the Haileybury Army Class he secured the position at the USC. Cormell Price turned out a perfect choice. He ran the college for 20 years and resigned in 1894. In Army circles the USC was held in very high esteem largely due to the personal character of Cormell Price, who made the School a great success [20, p. 1].
The USC opened in September 1874 with 60 pupils mostly boarders and a well-qualified staff. The playing fields stretched down from the college to the sea, the cricket field is still in use today. The college numbers grew to about 200. 75% of the parents were abroad in the services, many in India.
The new institution developed into a real "family" school as several families sent five or more sons to the USC. According to Colonel H. Tapp, "there were seven Maxwell's, seven Molesworth's, six Capel's, six Pike's, five Bacon's, five Grimston's, five Hinchliffe's, five Jones' and five Scott's. In addition, fourteen families each sent four sons to the College" [21, p. 5].
The boys were divided into "houses", each under a House Master. Houses were tribal and there was great competition between houses in both sports and academic fields, with trophies regularly competed for. Subjects taught were Latin, Greek, Mathematics and the Sciences. When the boys became seniors, they were given individual tutoring to prepare them for Army Entrance examination.
As for the curriculum, students in the USC, like in other English public schools, were not supposed to be taught any specific professional knowledge or practical skills which could be useful in future occupations. Educational institutions were aimed to mold "men of action". They constructed a privileged society of ingenious, daring, hardy future rulers. Mission of the public school was to teach patriotism,
team spirit, leadership skills. Students were brought up to become practical, efficient, brave and effective leaders. Extra curriculum activities were consistent with these purposes. Cricket and football played an important role in students' school life but "the game of the College" was rugby, "always played with the greatest keenness" [20, p. 18]. The USC had quite a strong rugby team and successfully competed with other public schools' teams including celebrated Iton. Other sports done at USC were golf, boxing and fencing. Swimming and cross-country running competitions were regularly held. Besides sports the students took part in cultural activities. The choir and string band of the Musical Society provided evening's entertainments. There were term-end concerts, meetings of the Natural History and Debating Societies [20, p. 6-7].
No USC's graduate became Prime Minister or Archbishop. The person who brought fame to the College was Rudyard Kipling, the most distinguished USC's graduate. He was admitted to the College because the Headmaster, Cormell Price, was a family friend. Obviously, the College aimed at preparation for military training was not suitable for the artistic boy with some physical disabilities. He had extremely poor eyesight, therefore, he was physically unable to excel in major school activities. The USC, like all other public schools was focused on sports, which Kipling was hopeless at and uninterested in. The intellectual and cultivated young person with interests in aesthetics and poetry, he had no chances to win admiration and reach leading positions among his classmates. In order to become the school idol a person had to be an outstanding athlete possessing qualities associated with masculinity: powerful personality, physically fit body and strong will. Kipling seems to have been a sort of outsider, "an artist in the wrong place". As Philip Mason, a literary critic, puts it, "trained as an officer who could never have a regiment, a ruler with no one to rule" [17, p. 310].
It cannot truthfully be said that Kipling was popular among his school fellows. As one of his schoolmates remarked later," He was too clever for us." Still, Kipling achieved a measure of success in the literary world. The USC first Headmaster, C. Price recognised Kipling's early literary talent and appointed him to edit the school magazine, "The United Services College Chronicle". Moreover, Price gave him the run of his library. In his memoirs "Something of myself" Kipling admitted, "Many of the students loved the Headmaster for what he had done for them, but I owed him more than all of them put together" [15]. When the seventeen-year-old Kipling started out on his career as a journalist in India, he began a correspondence with his old headmaster which lasted until Price's death in 1910. "Stalky and Co.", which Kipling conceived as a tribute to his education at the USC, was dedicated "To the Memory of Cormell Price." Kipling maintained the link with Price's family as unofficial guardian until his death in 1936.
Talking about Kipling's school years, it is necessary to turn to the novel "Stalky and Co". The piece of work is practically unknown in Russia but it has been translated into many languages. Interestingly enough, a German copy of the book was found during WWI by an English officer in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital town of German East Africa. The officer sent the copy to General Dunsterville, Kipling's friend, with a remarkable note: "I was so glad to see the Hun appreciated Kipling, that I kept it" [11, p. 6].
In Britain the book remained the most popular adventure novel about the life of schoolchildren until the publication of the famous saga by J. Rowling on Harry Potter. However, many adult readers and literary critics believe that "Harry Potter" is incomparably worse than the Kipling novel. Stories about the life of teenagers in a closed private school, which R. Kipling published in various magazines in different years, were published by him in the form of a novel "Stalky and Co." in 1899. The book is a collection of short stories united by common characters and setting. The action takes place in a public school in a seaside town on the coast of North Devon. The main characters are Stalky, a charismatic sly fellow, artistic Beetle and McTurk.
The original of Stalky was L. Dunsterville, Kipling's school friend. The prototype of Beetle was probably Kipling himself. McTurk possesses many features of another Kipling's school mate - G. C. Beresford. The trio of boys are constantly making up clever tricks to roil strict teachers or school bullies. At the same time, they behave with honor and arrange real dirty tricks only in self-defense or in defense of others.
The stories have elements of cruelty, violence, bullying, as well as hints of sexuality, which distinguish them from the typical school stories in the works by English authors of that time. Before the publication of "Stalky & Co.", the genre of school prose had already established itself in English literature as a powerful tradition. In the idealized world of school stories, the biggest sin of the character could be an addiction to sweets. It is not surprising that the English reading public was both shocked and outraged by what they read from Kipling [10, p. 25]. Even these days "Stalky & Co." causes negative remarks. The question of violence within the text is one that often focuses this extremity [19].
Meanwhile, the author did not exaggerate anything, he told everything as it was. There was neither fagging nor homosexual relations at the USC but teenage cruelty was common there. The prototype of the main character, L. Dunsterville, in "Stalky's reminiscences" stated: "Although the novel is not historically reliable, it accurately conveys the atmosphere of an educational institution" [10, p. 25]. The same idea Dunsterville expressed in his paper "Stalky's Apologia", published in Kipling Journal in 1945: "Like all good fiction, however, the impression given is not a false one, for it presents a very fair, if highly coloured, picture of actual events" [11, p. 3-4].
The School was like that in Kipling's day and "Stalky & Co." reflected the reality. The atmosphere in the USC differed to that of the typical public school. There were no compulsory parades, uniforms, bands and flags. There was no fagging [18].
At the same time "Stalky & Co" reflects some characteristic features of an average public school. It took boys out of home and subjected them to strict discipline and rule-ridden system of training. The domestic, the feminine, everyday aspects of boys' being were discarded and life was lived in dramatic, highly charged, competitive circumstances where keeping one's end up mattered supremely. Loneliness, lack of comfort, responsibilities, urgencies and decisions that would be part of an administrative or military life in the Empire were all the school life reality. Self-respect, a proud reserve, a decent degree of loyalty, keeping one's mouth shut when necessary: these counted.
The prototype of Stalky, Lionel Dunsterville, is another prominent graduate from the USC. He was born in 1856 into a family whose roots went back to the XIII century. His father and grandfather were officers of high rank - Major Generals, like Lionel Dunsterville himself. In his autobiography, he recalled that because of his father's profession, which involved service in different parts of the vast British Empire, he was deprived of the advantages of childhood in a settled home. Like most boys of his social standing, at an early age - 10 years old - he was taken out of home and sent to the public school.
The future General studied at the United Services College at the same time as Rudyard Kipling. Their lifelong friendship began there. General Dunsterville did not object to the fact that after publication of "Stalky & Co" the nickname "Stalky" was fixed for him and he was strongly associated with Kipling's character. It is noteworthy that Dunsterville called his autobiography « Stalky's reminiscences».
The first years at school were a test for stamina for Dunsterville. Being the youngest and at the same time the smartest, he was a target for bullying by senior students. Cruel tricks, such as holding the boy out of a top-storey window by the ankles, were supplemented by cane blows from teachers as a way of punishing for wrongdoing. The latter was a common and recognized method of punishment in public schools as a way to mold a firm character and masculinity. Dunsterville recalled that in the early years of his studies, his body was always covered with bruises. Kicks and punches did not cause serious bodily injuries, but moral effect was depressing. Some teaching methods were rather cruel as well. Dunsterville recalled the way he was taught swimming: thrown into the deep end and allowed to sink twice [10, p. 34]. However, looking back on his school years General wrote that all this ultimately benefited him: he developed the qualities of character necessary for survival [10, p. 31].
A new stage of the boy's school life began in year three, when he made friends with two schoolmates: R. Kipling and G. Beresford. He wrote that all three were very different, but perfectly complemented each other. L. Dunsterville brought to the company the experience of survival in a severe school environment, R. Kipling with his shrewdness and analytical thinking became the intellectual center of the company, and Beresford added to the company "an extraordinary mature judgement combined with malicious ingenuity." Together they formed "a trio that was very difficult to deal with" [10, p. 25].
Similar descriptions of school years could be found in memoirs by R. Kipling. The writer admitted that he had many trials to go through during his first year. Among many was "persistent bullying which came less from the bigger boys, who merely kicked and passed on, than from young devils of fourteen acting in concert against one butt" [15].
R. Kipling's school life turned for the better after the "Triple Alliance" - Dunsterville, Beresford and himself - was established. Kipling gave Dunsterville credit for "executive capacity, the organisation of raids, reprisals, and retreats" referring to him as "our Commander-in-Chief" and "Chief of his own Staff". The third member of the Alliance, Beresford, with the aesthetic interests, was the study decorator, the acknowledged expert on visual matters.
In addition to the teenage-style adventures, the boys studied hard, read a lot beyond the school curriculum which was focused on ancient classics. Under the guidance of R. Kipling, L. Dunsterville's reading interests shifted from adventure novels to serious literature: J. Ruskin, T. Carlyle, Walt Whitman. All three were fond of Sciences and participated in the activities of Natural History and Debating Societies. Their other common hobby was a Literature Society [10, p. 49]. Cricket and football played an important role in the school life of Dunsterville and Beresford while Kipling was keen on swimming.
Both L. Dunsterville and R. Kipling gave similar descriptions of the rules at the USC. The rules were typical of all public schools at that time. The discipline was strict and punishments for breaking the rules were severe. The use of the cane was essential but, surprisingly enough, the boys accepted their punishment. "We were frequently caned, and bore no grudge on that score, knowing well that we deserved far more than we were getting," Dunsterville admitted. "We did smoke a good deal, and suffered "inconvenience" as a natural result", he wrote. "Inconvenience" meant punishment in a form of mere berating as smoking was not considered a severe offence [11, p. 4].
Colonel H. Tapp mentioned another form of punishment - penal drill. It was also customary to gauge the behaviour of the School by a system of awarding "log marks" for class work and behaviour. Good marks would earn an extra half-holiday [20, p. 10].
An account about the College does not seem complete without a narrative about careers of its graduates. It is interesting to find out how they applied the knowledge, skills and experience acquired during school years to the world of warfare and imperial administration. After graduating from United Services College, the three teenagers' life paths went different directions, although they maintained friendly links throughout their lives. Dunsterville went on to Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Upon graduation he entered the Army, served in India, Waziristan, on the North-West Frontier, in China and rose to the rank of Major-General. During World War I he commanded a Special Force Unit which was named after him "Dunsterforce". The Unit carried out a special mission in the Middle East and the Caucuses region in the 1918.
What was the mission like? On the eve of the War, Great Britain actually controlled the production and refining of oil in Persia. With the outbreak of the War, British interests in the region were threatened by Germany and the Ottoman Empire, which sought to challenge the British monopoly on Persian oil. Despite the fact that the territory of Persia remained away from the major battlefields of the World War I, the country was a strategically important theater of military operations for Great Britain. The British troops stationed in Persia controlled the territory of southern Persia, while the north of the country was controlled by Russian troops. After Russia's withdrawal from the war at the end of 1917, there was a threat of strengthening the Turkey's positions and its allies in Persia and their advance to the Caucasus, to the oil fields of Baku. To remove the threat, a special military unit was formed, called «Dunsterforce» (Dunsterville troops) [22, p. 93-94]. During its 8-month stay in Persia, Dunsterforce strengthened the British position in the country, successfully suppressing anti-British forces with weapons, diplomacy and the pound sterling. However, the Dunsterforce task force failed to protect Baku from capture by the Turks in September 1918 [22, p. 101-105].
Leaving out military aspects of the Dunsterforce in Persia and Baku, I would like to focus on the General's role as the head of the mission. It was during the mission that L. Dunsterville's outstanding personal qualities manifested themselves, due to which he earned the admiration of his colleagues and contemporaries. The General and his Unit faced plenty of obstacles: limited number of soldiers, remoteness from the main bases, hundreds of miles of impassable roads, scarce food and gasoline supplies, brutal weather, hostility of the local population [].1 The circumstances in which L. Dunsterville found himself were similar to the situations in which the characters of Kipling's colonial novels had to act. Major M. Donohue, a member of the Unit, described the General in his memoirs as follows: "Stalky" had no fear of personal danger. He was an optimist who always saw a diamond-studded lining to the blackest of cloud" [6, p. 130].
In Persia, L. Dunsterville found himself among the anti-British population. Acts of sabotage performed by Turkish and German secret agents, intrigues of Persian officials, politicians and businessmen, open hostility of the revolutionary regional authorities: Russian Bolsheviks and Persian nationalists - all were directed against L. Dunsterville and his small Unit, limited in terms of human resources and logistics. Major M. Donohue was convinced that no Insurance Company would have agreed to insure his life "in those dark days when he was in Persia, waiting for the inglorious but picturesque death that the local Democrats so fervently promised him" [6, p.115].
In such a difficult situation, the extraordinary personal attributes of the original of Stalky manifested themselves. The General showed the ability to survive, dexterity and stamina. To this should be added his skills to get along with people. As he always did in a new host country, he started his mission by studying the country. L. Dunsterville and the officers of his Unit studied Farsi, learnt Persian customs and traditions, made acquaintances with local officials, landowners and businessmen. All this helped the British to overcome the hostility of the locals and to ease the problem of supplying Dunsterforce with food and gasoline [8, p. 62-64; 92-97].
Summerising his efforts to gain the support of the local population, L. Densterville wrote in a letter dated May 18, 1918: "Being practically without troops my weapons have been propaganda, winning over leaders by personal methods. All of these have been successful and have resulted in turning the inhabitants of this district from an attitude of hostility to one of marked friendliness" [8, p. 119-120].
L. Dunsterville ended his military career in India, where he was transferred in 1918 after the Dunsterforce mission. Two years later, in 1920, the General retired and devoted himself to literature. Possessing an undoubted literary talent, power of observation and a dry sense of humor, Dunsterville succeeded in the literary field. In 1920, his memoir about the mission in the Middle East and Caucasus was published under the title "The Adventures of Dunsterforce". The book contains maps, photographs and original documents, which makes it a valuable historical source. It is worth mentioning that 100 years after the first publication of "The Adventures of Dunsterforce" the book was translated into Russian [1]. It has not lost its significance in the UK as well: in 2007 it was republished as an important source for studying the little-known British military campaign of the First World War [9]. The second book of the General's memoirs, "Stalky's reminiscences", covers his biography up to his retirement in 1920. This is not only a historically reliable work, but also a wonderful piece of literature, which has artistic merits due to colorful descriptions of places, vivid portrait characteristics of people with whom he happened to meet, and excellent language.
Dunsterville valued his life-long association with Kipling. Over the years he amassed a collection of letters and documents relating to his school days and his school friendships. Dunsterville was a joint founder and first President of the Kipling Society, inaugurated on 4 February 1927. In an article "Kipling's Schooldays" published in the first issue of the Kipling Journal in 1927, he wrote, "I have never met anyone who revealed future greatness so clearly as did Kipling. At the age of twelve his literary future was already in flower. Merely to say that he was deeply read would be inadequate. He had already moved off the main road of academic reading into curious and learned bypaths of letters" [12, p. 17].
As for R. Kipling, on graduation from the USC in 1882 he worked India as a journalist. During the Boer War in 1899 Kipling spent several months in South Africa. In 1902 he returned to England. His autobiography "Something of Myself was written in 1936, half a year before his death, and came out in 1937.
The third member of the "Triple Alliance", Beresford, also served the Empire. On leaving the USC in 1882 he went on to the Royal Indian Engineering College. He worked in India as a civil engineer. Due to health problems he had to leave India and returned to England. The rest of his life Beresford devoted to art, in which he achieved popularity. His images of British celebrities were published in many English papers and magazines.
G. C. Beresford wrote autobiography "Schooldays with Kipling" with a preface by L. Dunsterville, and published it in 1936. According to the critics, the memoirs are not of great value [13].
The School, which brought up such extraordinary personalities, closed in 1903 due to financial difficulties. Its students were absorbed by St Mark's School, Windsor. That was soon renamed as Imperial Service College, which in 1942 merged with Haileybury College, existing to this day.
Results. The analysis of the historical sources and literature lead to the following conclusions. Despite rather a short history, the United Services College provided the country with a large number of military and civil personnel. All in all, 468 graduates joined the British Army, nearly all served throughout the Empire. 198 graduates joined the Indian Army, 51 did service in the Royal Navy and associated forces, 308 USC's graduates worked abroad in civil organizations, often in Colonial Service [21, p. 24]. Some "Old Boys" reached high ranks of Admiral or General. During World War I USC's graduates earned numerous awards and decorations. Many of them died in the war. It is known that nine members of the 1911 USC rugby team died by the end of 1916. Among fatal War casualties of USC's graduates were two Generals: H. I. W. Hamilton and F. A. Maxwell [20, p. 50-57].
The careers the USC's graduates, particularly those of Kipling, Dunsterville and Beresford - provide a remarkable example of the school's capacity to train boys for the future; in Dunsterville's case, a remarkable example of stalkiness in real life.
^^КФУ Гуманитарные и юридические исследования. 2023. Т. 10 (3)
Литература
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