Blake Duffield, of the Central Baptist College, Conway, Arkansas, reviewed Graham’s book, Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontier in the Journal of Military History.

In spite of its humble origins as an “obscure frontier post” (p. xv), the imperial garrison stationed at Fort Napier, situated around the city of Pietermaritzburg in the Colony of Natal, served a more significant role than merely defending Britain’s imperial periphery in southern Africa, according to Graham Dominy. He contends that, as the site of the single longest British occupation of any place on the African continent, the garrison fundamentally shaped the social, political, and economic nature of settler society in and around Natal for more than seven decades. At the heart of Dominy’s analysis lies a central assumption about the nature of the British army – namely, that this institution both “reflected and magnified” (p. 22) Britain’s deeply ingrained values of class hierarchy, paternalism, and masculinity. These values, Dominy maintains, gradually seeped into the settler community as a result of close and persistent contact with the outpost.

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From “Man O’ War” to historian’s desk. The strange fate of the timbers of HMS Southampton.

A recent episode of the popular TV programme, “The Antiques Roadshow“, shown on South Africa’s main satellite television channel, featured a curious item that piqued my interest. It was a wooden column, made from a large baulk of timber from Admiral Nelson’s famous flagship, HMS Victory. The show’s expert remarked that about a century ago, the manufacture of furniture and mementoes from the timber of scrapped and obsolete warships was very popular and initiated a fashion which spread across the then British Empire.

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