Table Of ContentSaving the Children
Berkeley Series in British Studies
Edited by James Vernon
1. The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain,
edited by Simon Gunn and James Vernon
2. Dilemmas of Decline: British Intellectuals and World
Politics, 1945–1975, by Ian Hall
3. The Savage Visit: New World People and Popular Imperial
Culture in Britain, 1710–1795, by Kate Fullagar
4. The Afterlife of Empire, by Jordanna Bailkin
5. Smyrna’s Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth
of the Middle East, by Michelle Tusan
6. Pathological Bodies: Medicine and Political Culture,
by Corinna Wagner
7. A Problem of Great Importance: Population, Race, and
Power in the British Empire, 1918–1973, by Karl Ittmann
8. Liberalism in Empire: An Alternative History,
by Andrew Sartori
9. Distant Strangers: How Britain Became Modern,
by James Vernon
10. Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire,
by Daniel I. O’Neill
11. Governing Systems: Modernity and the Making of Public
Health in England, 1830–1910, by Tom Crook
12. Barbed- Wire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps,
1976–1903, by Aidan Forth
13. Aging in Twentieth- Century Britain,
by Charlotte Greenhalgh
14. Thinking Black: Britain, 1964–1985, by Rob Waters
15. Black Handsworth: Race in 1980s Britain, by Kieran Connell
16. Last Weapons: Hunger Strikes and Fasts in the British
Empire, 1890–1948, by Kevin Grant
17. Serving a Wired World: London’s Telecommunications
Workers and the Making of an Information Capital,
by Katie Hindmarch- Watson
18. Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British
Empire, by Caroline Ritter
19. Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism,
and Empire, by Emily Baughan
Saving the Children
Humanitarianism, Internationalism,
and Empire
Emily Baughan
University of California Press
The publisher and the University of California Press
Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of
the Ahmanson Foundation Endowment Fund in Humanities.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Emily Baughan
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Baughan, Emily, 1988- author.
Title: Saving the children : humanitarianism, internationalism, and empire /
Emily Baughan.
Other titles: Berkeley series in British studies ; 19.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2022] |
Series: Berkeley series in British studies ; 19 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021014315 (print) | LCCN 2021014316 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780520343719 (cloth) | ISBN 9780520343726 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780520975118 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Save the Children Fund (Great Britain)—History. |
Humanitarianism—Political aspects—20th century.
Classification: LCC BJ1475.3 .B37 2022 (print) | LCC BJ1475.3 (ebook) |
DDC 361.2/6—dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2021014315
LC ebook record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2021014316
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my mum
Annie Baughan (née Rutherford)
1958–2019
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 • British Internationalisms and Humanitarianism 18
2 • The Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child
and Stateless Children 50
3 • Empire, Humanitarianism, and the African Child 78
4 • Protecting Children in a Time of War 105
5 • Hearts and Minds Humanitarianism 138
6 • War, Development, and Decolonization 169
Conclusion: One Hundred Years of Saving Children 206
Notes 217
Bibliography 263
Index 291
Acknowledgments
A monograph—especially one that has taken this long—is a scrapbook of
formative conversations, intellectual communities, and treasured friendships.
Many will recognize their contributions folded into the text and its notes. It
is a pleasure to make these, and my gratitude, more visible.
This book’s series editor, James Vernon, made it a more ambitious project
than I had originally imagined and pushed me to say what I meant. I am
grateful for everything, especially his kindness and patience when life delayed
writing. The very first iteration of this project was forged in conversation with
my PhD supervisor, James Thompson. I would never have considered post-
graduate study, much less a career in academia, without his encouragement.
My co- supervisor, Kirsty Reid, modeled how to live authentically within
and beyond the university—a lesson as valuable as her contribution to this
project’s beginnings. Seth Koven and Robert Bickers, who examined my PhD
thesis, raised fresh questions and possibilities.
The Department of History at the University of Bristol made me a histo-
rian. I arrived there as an undergraduate and left as a lecturer, having learned
so much about the scholar, teacher, and colleague I wanted to be. I am grate-
ful to the entire department—rare in its commitment to distributing time
and resources downward—and especially to Tim Cole, Su Lin Lewis, Josie
McLellan, Margery Masterson, and Rob Skinner. Jess Farr- Cox read and
edited every word of this book: I could not have finished it without her.
At the University of Sheffield, my enthusiasm for this project was reawak-
ened by the History, Politics and Culture Reading Group, and the Red Deer
Writers’ Collective. Exploring the contours of work, life, politics, and schol-
arship together was the encouragement I needed to finish this project, and it
sparked my excitement to move on to new questions. I am especially grateful
ix
for the commentary and camaraderie of Eliza Hartrich, Tom Johnson, Rosie
Knight, Erin Maglaque, Chris Millard, Simon Toner, and James Yeoman.
During my time at Sheffield I have learned as much standing outside the
university as I did inside. I have our local UCU branch and its members to
thank for that. I am grateful to Adrian Bingham for his support as head of
department and his insight as a reader of this book. Dan Brockington and
Amy Ryall made it possible for me to have conversations about this work
beyond the department and the university.
Both Bristol and Sheffield were springboards for the international travel
and academic fellowships that made writing and researching this kind of
history possible. I acknowledge the support of the Fulbright Commission,
the Worldwide Universities Network, the Mellon Foundation, the Arts and
Humanities Research Council, the British Institute of East Africa, the Max
Batley Peace Studies fund, the Economic History Society, and my unearned
privilege in benefitting from these awards. I am especially grateful to men-
tors across the world, and the energy they poured into this project. Vivian
Bickford- Smith was a generous host at the University of Cape Town in 2013.
It was a dream to study with Susan Pedersen at Columbia University in
2013–14. I had to pinch myself often during a summer spent on Capitol Hill
with the Decolonization Seminar in 2015. I am grateful to all the seminarians
and faculty, in particular Philippa Levine and the late Marilyn Young. Many
of the arguments that follow were worked out in conversation with Laura
Lee Downs during long runs on the banks of the Arno during my year as a
Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in 2015–16. I spent
two summers, in 2012 and 2018, as a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress.
The friendship of Bronwen Colquhoun, Oliver Cox, and Hazel Wilkinson
is infinitely more precious to me than any of the words written there. It was
such luck to share H Street with Sophie Jones twice, six years apart.
Then, there are the mentors and friends whose contributions cannot be
tied to a particular moment or place. None of this—the book or the life lived
alongside—would have made sense without Anna Bocking- Welch, Charlotte
Riley, Tehila Sasson and Natasha Wheatley. I treasure their sisterhood and
solidarity. Helen McCarthy has supported me and this book from the very
start. Jordanna Bailkin and Michelle Tusan were my dream readers: along
with an anonymous reviewer, they improved this text enormously. It has been
a pleasure to learn from so many historians of development and international-
isms over the years, including Arthur Asseraf, Muriam Haleh Davis, Kim
Lowe, Matthew Hilton, Kara Moskowitz, Eva- Maria Muschik and Stephen
x • Acknowledgments
