Alfred Egmont Hake

Alfred Egmont Hake (1849–1916) was an English author and social thinker. He became associated with the narrative of Charles George Gordon as a figure of the British Empire, in a fortuitous way.

Early life

He was born in Bury St Edmunds, the fourth son of Thomas Gordon Hake the physician and his wife Lucy Bush. An early friend was William Michael Rossetti, his father being involved professionally with the Rossetti family. He joined the Savile Club in 1878.[1][2]

The General Gordon story

Charles George Gordon was a first cousin of Hake's father, his paternal grandmother Augusta Maria Hake (née Gordon) being Gordon's aunt.[3] In 1884 Hake published The Story of Chinese Gordon.[4] It concentrated on Gordon's role opposing the Taiping Rebellion. It became topical with the Siege of Khartoum launched that year by Mahdist forces. A companion volume Gordon in China and Soudan was published in 1885, and sold well.[5]

While Gordon remained in the besieged city of Khartoum, journals were taken out through the lines; J. Donald Hamill-Stewart, who left in September 1884, had been keeping a journal, a task taken over by Gordon himself from 10 September. What he wrote to 14 December was brought out, and sent to London.[6] Sir Henry William Gordon, Gordon's brother, was entitled to the papers, after Gordon's death on 26 January 1885; and decided that Hake should edit them. On the other hand, the War Office wanted them suppressed. Gordon himself had thought some very personal comments should not be published; while the content included extended attacks on the current Liberal administration of W. E. Gladstone. Sir Henry was apparently unaware of Hake's political sympathies (he was a strong Conservative supporter).[7]

In the end a popular, two-volume edition of Gordon's journal appeared, with Hake as editor, on 25 June 1885. He added an introduction strongly critical of the government's inactivity in supporting Gordon.[8] Sir Henry Gordon required, contractually, that substantial redaction of the text removed a large number of personal references. Heavy criticism of Evelyn Baring remained.[9] Hake took advice from Wilfrid Meynell, and consulted Wilfred Scawen Blunt the Arabist on background.[10]

Hake then lectured on Gordon and the failure of the Liberal government to rescue him in Khartoum, before the United Kingdom general election, 1885.[11] He undertook a tour in England and Scotland, from the late summer to November: the election campaign started on 24 November.[12] The Conservatives supported the tour covertly through Richard Middleton; and finance was provided by Lord Cranborne and his sister, with whom Hake was in contact in October and December.[13]

Later life

Hake edited in 1866 The State, a Conservative weekly; it had a short lifespan.[2][14] He became interested in the economics of free trade, was a critic of the Bank Charter Act 1844, and invented a system of banking; which Oscar Wilde found amusing. He wrote works for the Free Trade in Capital League.[2][15]

Hake died on 8 December 1916 of peripheral neuritis, in the City of London Lunatic Asylum, Stone, Kent.[2]

Works

Hake wrote:

Hake also collaborated with David Christie Murray on novels.[29] He contributed to the Open Review of Arthur Kitson.[30]

Family

In 1879 Hake married Philippa Mary Handley, daughter of Alexander Charles Handley[2]

References

Notes

  1. ↑  Sidney Lee, ed. (1901). "Hake, Thomas Gordon". Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement​. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Camporesi, Cristiano. "Hake, Alfred Egmont". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/75599. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ↑ "digital.nls.uk, Bibliography of the Gordons (150) Page 130 Histories of Scottish families - National Library of Scotland". Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Alfred Egmont Hake; Hugh Craig (1884). The Story of Chinese Gordon. R. Worthington.
  5. ↑ Kenneth E. Hendrickson (January 1998). Making Saints: Religion and the Public Image of the British Army, 1809-1885. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 176 note 34. ISBN 978-0-8386-3729-6.
  6. ↑ Nicoll, pp. 25–6
  7. ↑ Nicoll, p. 26 and pp. 32–3
  8. ↑ Nicoll, pp. 32–3
  9. ↑ Nicoll, pp. 32–4
  10. ↑ Nicoll, p. 36 and p. 41
  11. ↑ Berny Sèbe (1 November 2015). Heroic imperialists in Africa: The promotion of British and French colonial heroes, 1870-1939. Manchester University Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-5261-0350-5.
  12. ↑ Nicoll, p. 42
  13. ↑ Nicoll, p. 36 and p. 44 note 94
  14. ↑ Nicoll, p. 43 note 77
  15. ↑ Oscar Wilde (1962). The letters of Oscar Wilde. R. Hart-Davis. p. 520.
  16. ↑ Alfred Egmont Hake (1878). Paris Originals: With Twenty Etchings. C. Kegan Paul & Company.
  17. ↑ A. E. Hake; J. G. Lefebre (1884). The New Dance of Death.
  18. ↑ Biographical Books. Bowker. 1983. p. 563. ISBN 978-0-8352-1603-6.
  19. ↑ "(none)". Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald. 12 October 1889. p. 3. Retrieved 14 July 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  20. ↑ Alfred Egmont Hake; O. E. Wesslau (1890). Free Trade in Capital: Or, Free Competition in the Supply of Capital to Labour, and Its Bearings on the Political and Social Questions of the Day. Remington & Company.
  21. ↑ Anthony Howe (1997). Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846-1946. Clarendon Press. p. 192 note 9. ISBN 978-0-19-820146-5.
  22. ↑ Charles George Gordon; Forbes Lugard Story (1891). Events in the Taeping Rebellion. W. H. Allen and Company, Limited.
  23. ↑ Hake, Alfred Egmont (1892). "Suffering London; or, The hygiene, moral, social, and political relations of our voluntary hospitals to society". Internet Archive. London: The Scientific Press, Ltd. Retrieved 14 July 2016 – via Internet Archive.
  24. ↑ Alfred Egmont Hake (1896). Regeneration: A Reply to Max Nordau. G. P. Putnam's sons.
  25. ↑ Andrew Smith (4 September 2004). Victorian Demons: Medicine, Masculinity, and the Gothic at the Fin-de-siècle. Manchester University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-7190-6357-2.
  26. ↑ Christian Weikop (1 January 2011). New Perspectives on Brücke Expressionism: Bridging History. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 208 note 28. ISBN 978-1-4094-1203-8.
  27. ↑ S. Karschay (6 January 2015). Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin de Siècle. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 169 note 196. ISBN 978-1-137-45033-3.
  28. ↑ Alfred Egmont Hake; O. E. Wesslau (1895). The Coming Individualism. A. Constable.
  29. ↑  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Murray, David Christie". Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement​. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  30. ↑ Tyler Cowen and Randall Kroszner, The Development of the New Monetary Economics, Journal of Political Economy Vol. 95, No. 3 (Jun., 1987), pp. 567–590, at p. 581 note 35. Published by: The University of Chicago Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1831978
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