Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T04:49:13.078Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parades and Processions: Brisbane's War-time Patriotism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Delyse Ryan
Get access

Extract

Parades and processions were a major feature of life in Brisbane during World War I. Parades typically passed through the central business district turning the entire city into an urban backdrop for a public perfonnance. Recruitment was a major issue for Australia during World War I and military parades featured prominently in the life of the city. The Brisbane Courier described the recruiting marches as ‘long columns of robust, khaki-clad manhood’ which ‘have swung down the street, with soldierly gait, setting a bright, sturdy example to shirkers to “go and get their dungarees on”’. By positioning the soldiers as heroic, well-built, and positive, processions helped to generate public enthusiasm for the war and to convince prospective recruits to join up. The message to the community is clear: if our soldiers are fit and spirited, then the Allies will win the war. But the marches were not only a way to rally new recruits, they also acted as public displays of civic solidarity. Parades gave citizens the opportunity to demonstrate their patriotic feelings. ‘Patriotism’, whether for King, country, or for ‘our boys’, was the dominant performative concept. In this way, governments, community organisations, theatrical managements, and the residents themselves contributed to the establishment of certain war-time traditions for the representation of civic patriotism on the streets in Australia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , May 2001 , pp. 65 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Brisbane Courier 10 June 1916: 5.Google Scholar

2 Brisbane Courier 1 Dec. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

3 Brisbane Courier 26 Nov. 1914: 4.Google Scholar

4 Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

5 For a list of women who set up stalls at important civic locations around the city see Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

6 Brisbane Courier 1 Dec. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

7 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

8 Brisbane Courier 1 Dec. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

9 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

10 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

11 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

12 Australian Variety 9 Dec. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

13 Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

14 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

15 Brisbane Courier 30 Nov. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

16 Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

17 Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

18 Brisbane Courier 28 Nov. 1914: 6.Google Scholar

19 Brisbane Courier 1 Dec. 1914: 8.Google Scholar

20 Brisbane Courier 1 Dec. 1914. 8.Google Scholar

21 Brisbane Courier 7 Aug. 1915: 2.Google Scholar

22 Brisbane Courier 10 Aug. 1915: 7.Google Scholar

23 Brisbane Courier 7 Aug. 1915: 7.Google Scholar

24 Brisbane Courier 10 June 1916: 5.Google Scholar

25 Brisbane Courier 10 June 1916: 5.Google Scholar

26 A photograph of the Heroes' Day Procession (1 Dec. 1917) can be found in Thiel's Brisbane's War Pictorial: 1914–1919 (Brisbane: F.W. Thiel, 1919).Google Scholar

27 Jack's Day was a special day of remembrance for sailors. Thiel identifies the Jack's Day Peace Thanksgiving Celebration as ‘One of the Last of the Patriotic Efforts’. There is a photograph of a ‘Procession in Queen St’ (29 Nov. 1918) in Brisbane's War Pictorial: 1914–1919. Google Scholar

28 For a photograph of two children, dressed as Golliwogs, collecting for the Red Cross, see the Brisbane Courier 10 Aug. 1915: 13.Google Scholar

29 Benedict, Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections On the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 6.Google Scholar

30 Brisbane Courier 26 Apr. 1916: 7.Google Scholar

31 Brisbane Courier 26 Apr. 1916: 7.Google Scholar

32 Brisbane Courier 26 Apr. 1916: 7.Google Scholar

33 Brisbane Courier 26 Apr. 1916: 7.Google Scholar

34 Brisbane Courier 26 Apr. 1916: 7.Google Scholar

35 In later years it was typically celebrated on either 1 August or 1 September.Google Scholar

36 Brisbane Courier 9 May 1916: 8.Google Scholar

37 John Oxley Library catalogue number OM92-61/1-2.Google Scholar

38 Patriotic Day Program, 1915, John Oxley Library catalogue number OM92-61/1-2.Google Scholar

39 Brisbane Courier 30 Aug. 1915: 9.Google Scholar

40 Before Federation 24 May was already a day celebrating the Queen's Birthday. As Australia's attachment to the Empire waned throughout the century, the day became ‘Commonwealth Day’, ‘Cracker Night’, and its final manifestation was a return in 1967 to the fictitious “Queen's Birthday” celebrated in June (Frith and Hoorn 19).Google Scholar

41 Stewart, Frith, and Hoorn, Jeanette ‘From Empire Day to Cracker Night’, Australian Popular Culture, ed. Spearritt, Peter and Walker, David (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), 18.Google Scholar

42 Frith and Hoorn, 21.Google Scholar

43 Frith and Hoorn, 30.Google Scholar

44 Brisbane Courier 21 May 1914: 2.Google Scholar

45 Truth 9 May 1915: 12.Google Scholar

46 Brisbane Courier 24 May 1916: 7.Google Scholar

47 Brisbane Courier 20 June 1917: 2.Google Scholar

48 Brisbane Courier 21 June 1917: 2.Google Scholar

49 Brisbane Courier 20 Apr. 1917: 2.Google Scholar

50 Brisbane Courier 24 Apr. 1918: 6.Google Scholar

51 Thiel's Brisbane's War Pictorial: 1914–1919 includes a photograph of the ‘France's Day Procession’ on 14 July 1917.Google Scholar

52 Brisbane Courier 16 July 1917: 8.Google Scholar

53 Thiel, 1.Google Scholar