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After a long break, we are very pleased to resume Imagining Arabia. The challenges of teaching and researching through the last two years have been substantial, but we are making progress with the research and hope to be bringing you more snippets from the archives as 2022 progresses.
There is good news in the research team: Josh King has an article forthcoming in the Journal of Religious History on NZ soldiers encounters with Islam during WWII, and has become a dad! Kate has published an article with her Honours Student, Emma Ward, on New Zealand women's pages after the armistice in First World War Studies. With the borders opening, she is looking forward to getting back to the archives in Australia. We are re-starting the blog with a post about the crusading imagery in the war memorial window at Victoria University of Wellington | Te Herenga Waka.
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In the Victoria University of Wellington Council Chamber, in the old Hunter Building, is a magnificent stained glass window. Unveiled on 18 April 1924, the window was the centrepiece of the new First World War memorial at Victoria College, as it was then known. On the walls and pillars surrounding the window are mounted brass plaques, bearing the names of those Victoria staff and students who served in the First World War, and those who died. The relatives of 'the fallen' were in attendance that April day in 1924, Good Friday, to join the university in paying respect to their kin. The window was designed by a Dunedin based glass artist, Frederick Vincent Ellis, himself a First World War veteran from Yorkshire, who had emigrated to New Zealand after the war. The window features panes for all New Zealand’s main campaigns of the war, surrounding two central figures. One is a New Zealand Expeditionary Force soldier, wearing his distinctive lemon squeezer hat and holding a rifle with fixed bayonet. The other is English King Richard the Lionheart, famous for this role in the Third Crusade, crowned and raising his sword in the symbol of a crucifix. Both Richard and the New Zealand soldier wear capes and the Cross of Saint George, and the soldier also wears a mail coif under his hat, while his greatcoat hangs down below his knees to match the English king’s tabard. The message here is plain – the window equates New Zealand’s war with the Christian Crusades to the Middle East in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  The Crusader associations don’t stop there. The campaigns commemorated across the top of the window are those in Palestine, Gallipoli and France, but there is also an equally sized pane representing the siege of Acre in the Third Crusade, on which an English knight rides to meet the mounted New Zealand soldiers on the opposite pane. The campaign in France is given no special prominence on the window over those in the Middle East (in Egypt, Sinai, Gallipoli and Palestine), even though it was New Zealand’s longest and costliest campaign of the war. In fact, one could argue that the Middle Eastern campaigns are more central to the window as these are the campaigns to which the crusader associations are closest.
Interestingly, a second window design was submitted to the university by Smith and Smith that featured France far more prominently. Its central figures were a helmeted New Zealand soldier showing a Western Front battlefield to the goddess Zealandia. However, this design was rejected by the university council. While it is unlikely that they rejected the design for focussing too much on the war in Europe, the council’s decision means that we are left with a memorial with an unusual amount of emphasis on the Middle East – a rarity for First World War memorials in New Zealand. The crusader imagery is unsettling but has not - so far - sparked controversy that engulfed the Crusaders rugby team after the Christchurch terror attack in 2019. (https://www.newsroom.co.nz/podcast-the-detail/re-branding-the-crusaders) The university has been fortunate in this regard, as have other war memorials that reference crusading imagery. It is important to reflect, however, on the meanings of such war memorials and their images in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society of the 21st century. Shopping seems both a frivolous preoccupation in late 2020 and a totally appropriate topic to be thinking about when so many people around the world find even the most basic of shopping trips difficult to complete. Here in New Zealand, we are so fortunate to be able to work and shop almost normally at the moment. The Imagining Arabia Summer Scholar, Katy White, has been researching shopping in New Zealand's department stores in the interwar years looking at the influence of 'Egyptomania' on some of New Zealand's largest stores. We would like to thank the enormously helpful staff at National Library of New Zealand for their assistance in this project. Katy's findings have not been what we expected! Read on... Egyptomania in New Zealand Department Stores between the Wars - part I |
 Evening Post, 6 July 1923. |  Ashburton Guardian, 18 April 1923. |
New Zealand was no exception. Both large department stores and smaller retailers utilised the Boy King to sell their goods. This use varied widely and sometimes veered into the ridiculous, with Ford advertisementss in the early 1920s making much of the fact that theirs was the car Lord Carnarvon had used around Luxor. Yet while Tutankhamen - and Egypt in a broader sense - appeared in advertising in New Zealand, the timing was significant. The bulk of Egyptian imagery was not used here until mid- to late- 1923, by which time the craze was already beginning to ebb away in the northern hemisphere.
New Zealand was at the end of the fashion supply chain. The Antipodean seasonal shift meant that what had been popular in the northern-hemisphere spring would not reach New Zealand until several months later. This did not mean that the New Zealand public were unaware of the trends occurring overseas: in fact, they were widely reported. Women’s magazines like the Ladies’ Mirror kept readers up to date with fashions from society events, particularly in London (this was still the era when Britain was referred to by many as “Home,” even if they had never set foot in the UK).
New Zealand was at the end of the fashion supply chain. The Antipodean seasonal shift meant that what had been popular in the northern-hemisphere spring would not reach New Zealand until several months later. This did not mean that the New Zealand public were unaware of the trends occurring overseas: in fact, they were widely reported. Women’s magazines like the Ladies’ Mirror kept readers up to date with fashions from society events, particularly in London (this was still the era when Britain was referred to by many as “Home,” even if they had never set foot in the UK).
Advertisement in New Zealand Herald, 11 August 1923.
This reporting created a number of problems for New Zealand department stores. They were constrained in their advertising of many of their goods because women customers were reluctant to wear fashions that had been widely seen even if only by reporters for overseas newspapers. As a result, New Zealand stores were quite conservative in their stocking of women’s fashions.
Wellington store Kirkcaldie and Stains found this conservatism an increasing problem during the 1920s. Already deeply affected by the recession of 1921-2, the store’s policies meant they struggled to attract younger clientele through its doors, a problem that persisted until their 1931 takeover by British Overseas Stores. In 1932, James Crosser at Kirkcaldie & Stains complained that he could not understand “why no provision [had] been made in the past to cater for the younger girl and the average flapper.” While this was a pressing issue for Kirkcaldie and Stains, it is unclear to what extent a similar lack of engagement from young people plagued the large department stores in Auckland and Christchurch. Smith & Caughey, for example, emphasised “Latest Fashion Novelties From London and Paris,” but it is unclear if this translated into younger, more modern customers. They also made note of the pervasiveness of the Egyptian influence within the store (see above) but it is clear that Egyptian ‘trimmings and linings’ were much more common than ‘complete’ garments, and the advertisement is conveniently vague about what ‘more or less’ Egyptian vogue might mean.
New Zealand department stores were heavily influenced by trends overseas, but it is difficult to research links between them. Advertising captures some of the ways department stores presented themselves to their customers, but records of stock or product lines, of window displays and in-store promotions are rare for the inter-war period. What is clear is that by the mid-1920s, the Egyptian craze was well and truly past in the northern hemisphere, and by 1925 Egyptian imagery in New Zealand was being used to advertise church events – rarely regarded as the cutting edge of high fashion (see below). The short-lived nature of Egyptomania has been attributed to fears around “Tutankhamen’s Curse” following the death of Lord Carnarvon, one of the main backers of the expedition, while others suggest that it was a reflection on the fleeting and ephemeral nature of the era, in which the new and exciting was being continually sought out. Was Tutmania in New Zealand simply an echo of the same trend overseas? In an era marked by its constant search for modernity, trends turned over fast, but a distinctly New Zealand sense of Egyptomania proves still elusive.
Wellington store Kirkcaldie and Stains found this conservatism an increasing problem during the 1920s. Already deeply affected by the recession of 1921-2, the store’s policies meant they struggled to attract younger clientele through its doors, a problem that persisted until their 1931 takeover by British Overseas Stores. In 1932, James Crosser at Kirkcaldie & Stains complained that he could not understand “why no provision [had] been made in the past to cater for the younger girl and the average flapper.” While this was a pressing issue for Kirkcaldie and Stains, it is unclear to what extent a similar lack of engagement from young people plagued the large department stores in Auckland and Christchurch. Smith & Caughey, for example, emphasised “Latest Fashion Novelties From London and Paris,” but it is unclear if this translated into younger, more modern customers. They also made note of the pervasiveness of the Egyptian influence within the store (see above) but it is clear that Egyptian ‘trimmings and linings’ were much more common than ‘complete’ garments, and the advertisement is conveniently vague about what ‘more or less’ Egyptian vogue might mean.
New Zealand department stores were heavily influenced by trends overseas, but it is difficult to research links between them. Advertising captures some of the ways department stores presented themselves to their customers, but records of stock or product lines, of window displays and in-store promotions are rare for the inter-war period. What is clear is that by the mid-1920s, the Egyptian craze was well and truly past in the northern hemisphere, and by 1925 Egyptian imagery in New Zealand was being used to advertise church events – rarely regarded as the cutting edge of high fashion (see below). The short-lived nature of Egyptomania has been attributed to fears around “Tutankhamen’s Curse” following the death of Lord Carnarvon, one of the main backers of the expedition, while others suggest that it was a reflection on the fleeting and ephemeral nature of the era, in which the new and exciting was being continually sought out. Was Tutmania in New Zealand simply an echo of the same trend overseas? In an era marked by its constant search for modernity, trends turned over fast, but a distinctly New Zealand sense of Egyptomania proves still elusive.
Church Fundraiser pamphlet. ATL Ephemera Collection.
The June issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies features an article by Josh, entitled '"Certainly getting about the world": New Zealanders' Experience of the Middle East as a Place during the Second World War'.
The article uses diaries, letters and soldier publications, and focuses on how New Zealanders saw the Middle East as a place, through the lenses of the desert, the city, the Holy Land and the ancient world. When New Zealand’s Middle Eastern war is discussed, the focus is usually on combat and the lives of New Zealanders on the battlefield. The limited discussion of life behind the lines is dominated by a picture of racism, drunkenness and debauchery with its focal point in Cairo. Josh argues that this is an entirely inadequate representation of New Zealanders' engagement with the Middle East during the war. Instead, his article reveals a complex and rich picture of respect and loathing, delight and disgust, wonder and disillusionment.
The article is available to read and download for free here: https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article/view/6501
The article uses diaries, letters and soldier publications, and focuses on how New Zealanders saw the Middle East as a place, through the lenses of the desert, the city, the Holy Land and the ancient world. When New Zealand’s Middle Eastern war is discussed, the focus is usually on combat and the lives of New Zealanders on the battlefield. The limited discussion of life behind the lines is dominated by a picture of racism, drunkenness and debauchery with its focal point in Cairo. Josh argues that this is an entirely inadequate representation of New Zealanders' engagement with the Middle East during the war. Instead, his article reveals a complex and rich picture of respect and loathing, delight and disgust, wonder and disillusionment.
The article is available to read and download for free here: https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article/view/6501
Australians in the Middle East - musings on a complex relationship
In December 1942, shortly before the last Australian soldiers finished their time in the Middle East, a private who had served through tough campaigns in Libya and Egypt wrote home: 'Am just about sick of the Middle East and the dirty wogs not forgetting the robbing Jews. I know where these dirty robbing b____ would have been only for the New Zealanders and Australians'. His notion that the inhabitants of the Middle East were ignorant and unworthy of the protection that British Commonwealth forces had given them was a common one. A prominent part of this worldview was apparent when another Australian who had just visited Cairo's bazaars and brothels nominated the latter one of the lowest places on earth and declared 'proves just how fortunate we are to be British'.
There are many more quotations that reflect attitudes that are now considered shockingly racist. Yet Australian attitudes to the local people of the Middle East were complex and, in many cases, included considerable compassion. For example, Eric Lambert, an Australian machine-gunner who would after the war become a respected novelist, wrote in late 1941, 'A Gypo kid begged food I had to give. There was all his soul in that begging'. One of the battalion histories said of a time in 1942 when the 9th Australian Division was in Syria: 'How they loved to visit us from whatever village we happened to be near, all these bright little Arab children and, though we were strong rough he-men, who would not have admitted how we loved all of those kids'.
There are many more quotations that reflect attitudes that are now considered shockingly racist. Yet Australian attitudes to the local people of the Middle East were complex and, in many cases, included considerable compassion. For example, Eric Lambert, an Australian machine-gunner who would after the war become a respected novelist, wrote in late 1941, 'A Gypo kid begged food I had to give. There was all his soul in that begging'. One of the battalion histories said of a time in 1942 when the 9th Australian Division was in Syria: 'How they loved to visit us from whatever village we happened to be near, all these bright little Arab children and, though we were strong rough he-men, who would not have admitted how we loved all of those kids'.
 Australian soldiers often showed pity for Arab children, and delight in the groups of 'Arab kiddies' who followed soldiers around camp.  A family portrait taken by an Australian soldier in the Middle East. | Attitudes to the local adult population were more problematic, but they too reflected an egalitarianism that was stronger than that of the British Army that oversaw administration in Palestine, Egypt and Syria. If they thought about politics, which many Diggers did not, a widespread Australian worldview put 'we British' at the top in a hierarchy that was racist. However, when it came to personal interaction with local people, another veteran soldier Charlie Lemaire was not being insincere or entirely inaccurate when he asserted that the typical Australian attitude to Arabs and Jews was 'generally good natured and tolerant'.  The photographer's caption to that portrait. |
Dr Mark Johnston, Scotch College, Melbourne.
Author of Anzacs in the Middle East: Australian soldiers, their allies and the local people in the Middle East in World War II, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne 2013.
All photos from Mark Johnston's collection.
Author of Anzacs in the Middle East: Australian soldiers, their allies and the local people in the Middle East in World War II, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne 2013.
All photos from Mark Johnston's collection.
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