Eric Lawlor - Murder on the Verandah - Love and Betrayal in British Malaya

During his trial for libel, Rogers referred to his client as a manly man. Proudlock would have been very proud. In Malaya in the early 1900s, to describe a man as manly – the tautology aside – was the ultimate compliment. The term had its origins in Muscular Christianity, a movement born in the 1850s whose aim was to re-invigorate British manhood. Muscular Christianity – its adherents preferred to be called manly Christians – emerged at a time when many believed that England had lost its way. Industrialization had made the country complacent and self-indulgent, people said; the masculine, Anglo-Saxon values of the rural gentry – values that had served England well in the past – were in eclipse.

In manly Christianity’s major texts – Westward Ho! and Tom Brown’s Schooldays are the most important – Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes proposed redeeming Britain by merging vigour with virtue. Men were encouraged to engage in athletics, the belief being that prowess on the playing field – in some way that was never fully explained – produced not just physical health, but spiritual health as well. As Victorian England saw him, the manly Christian was one who feared God and thought nothing of a 10-mile walk before sitting down to breakfast.

Manly Christianity proved hugely influential. It engendered the games culture that came to dominate the public schools where it also bred anti-intellectualism. (The boy who knew Virgil by heart ran a poor second to one who had earned his Flannels.) It informed as well the New Imperialism of the late 1890s, Joseph Chamberlain’s call to Britain to go forth and civilize the barbarian. (The scout movement was founded in 1908 when the New Imperialism was at its height.)

Manly Christianity did not remain Christian for very long. While the public schools were full of vigour, they were rarely full of virtue. (In some, cheating, especially at exams, was endemic.) And while the New Imperialism spoke much of raising up those who dwelt in darkness, an altogether more immediate concern was raising a profit. As Cecil Rhodes once put it, imperialism was philanthropy plus a 5 per cent dividend on investment.

By 1911, Muscular Christianity as a spiritual force was running out of steam. Even its terms had been secluarized. Now the manly Christian was merely a manly man but, even reduced like this, he had much to recommend him. He was resolute; he was resourceful; he was chivalrous; he loved adventure – all qualities Proudlock embodied.

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