Privileged Education, Hunting and the Making of Martial Masculinity

• Published in: International journal of the history of sport Vol. 25; no. 9; pp. 1106 - 1131
• Main Authors: Mangan, J A, McKenzie, Callum
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 01.08.2008
• Subjects: Hunting; Masculinity; Private schools; Public education; Social history; Sports
• ISSN: 0952-3367; 1743-9035
• DOI: 10.1080/09523360802166113

Hunting and its purpose in the education of the privileged were increasingly contentious issues during the 19C. The concern in this article is with the evolving relationship in the education of the privileged between Victorian and Edwardian hunting and games in the period of the making of the public school and Oxbridge masculinity. The pre-1850 Thomas Arnold at Rugby stressed Christian manliness as a necessary means of producing meek and mild Christian English gentlemen. For Arnold, therefore, hearty games were to be subordinated to moral and religio-political aspirations, while hunting, because of its privileged associations and heartless brutality, was to be proscribed. Shortly after Arnold's death, other headmasters, in contrast, for their own utilitarian reasons, asserted that moral muscular manliness, the product of athleticism, was to be admired and encouraged. However, Eton, and Cambridge, in particular, remained true to hunting in the belief that it still made the man.