Summary

From Boys to Gentlemen is the publication on South African history that deals with the concept of masculinity. The author makes strong and controversial statements about settler masculinity, proper male behaviour shaped by that last great outpost of British civilisation, the Natal Midlands. This publication with its photographs should grace the shelves of not just historians and gender studies fundis, but the general public and even members of the Old Natal Families (ONFs) and private schools of that bygone era who are brave enough to face what the author has to say about them. The author took great pains to develop a full picture of events: how Natalian masculinity was constructed and contested in often quite painful, humiliating and unpredictable ways for the men and boys involved. Ultimately it offers a more humane understanding of the past and also seeks out the exceptions: cases of settlers who defied the norm, such as white men who openly lived with African women despite censure.