Watts thought hard about what empire meant, wrote about it, and concluded that Britain’s expansion was not just inevitable but right. In 1901, at the height of the Boer War- Britain’s brutal and controversial conflict in South Africa- he published an essay, ‘Our Race as Pioneers’, setting out what he believed.
He argued that Britain was the agent of a great cosmic law- ‘Movement, Progress, Evolution’. The pioneer, he wrote, ‘destroys many beautiful flowers, while at the same time he prepares the soil.’ He acknowledged that progress ‘has not brought with it all virtue and happiness’ and questioned whether colonisation was morally right, but he did not let that questioning change his conclusion.
From 1847 to 1901 Watts worked on a series of portraits he called his Hall of Fame. He intended his paintings of ‘the men who make England’ to be a gift to the nation. He set out to capture not just their faces but their ‘character and nature’. These were his own choices, not commissions.
Rhodes was among those he included. The portrait, begun during the 1898 studio visit, was never finished.
Watts knew his judgements might not stand the test of time. He noted that his subjects ‘may hereafter be found to have made or marred their country.’
We are now in that hereafter. What is your judgement?
Cecil Rhodes remains one of the most debated figures in British imperial history. These resources offer a range of perspectives on his life, legacy, and ongoing significance.
Rhodes Trust
https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/impact-legacy/legacy-equity-inclusion/life-and-legacy-debates-about-cecil-rhodes/
The Rhodes Trust traces the debate about Cecil Rhodes’s life and legacy from his death in 1902 to the present. It presents a range of perspectives, including those of Rhodes Scholars themselves.
Oriel College, University of Oxford
https://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/about/the-rhodes-legacy/
Oriel College — where Rhodes studied and which he funded — sets out its ongoing relationship with his legacy. The page links to two Oxford scholars presenting contrasting assessments of Rhodes’s impact.
South African History Online
https://sahistory.org.za/archive/colonialism-had-never-really-ended-my-life-shadow-cecil-rhodes-simukai-chigudu
Simukai Chigudu — Associate Professor of African Politics at Oxford and a founding member of Rhodes Must Fall — reflects on growing up in Zimbabwe in the shadow of Cecil Rhodes. An African educational platform hosts this personal and scholarly essay, offering a perspective centred on the lived experience of Rhodes’s legacy.