“The Highest Type of Englishman”: Gender, War, and the Alfred the Great Commemoration of 1901

The 1901 Millenary Commemoration of the death of Alfred the Great was a prescriptive event, designed both to honour the memory of the “father of the English race” and to re-invigorate the supposed masculine virtues of the contemporary nation at a time of imperial crisis. Planned and staged during the politically divisive Anglo-Boer war, the commemoration was promoted by a variety of mostly liberal and progressive organizers. However, the …