British leaders explicitly framed Oriental studies as necessary imperial infrastructure.

Evidence

Oriental studies were no intellectual luxury; they were, he said, a great Imperial obligation. In my view the creation of a school [of Oriental studies—later to become the London University School of Oriental and African Studies] like this in London is part of the necessary furniture of Empire. Those of us who, in one way or another, have spent a number of years in the East, who regard that as the happiest portion of our lives, and who think that the work that we did there, be it great or small, was the highest responsibility that can be placed upon the shoulders of Englishmen, feel that there is a gap in our national equipment which ought emphatically to be filled, and that those in the City of London who, by financial support or by any other form of active and practical assistance, take their part in filling that gap, will be rendering a patriotic duty to the Empire and promoting the cause and goodwill among mankind. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 533

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences Said’s core thesis that Orientalism is a corporate institution for dealing with the Orient; connects to Gramsci’s hegemony as consent manufactured through knowledge institutions.
• SHARE: The phrase ‘necessary furniture of Empire’ applied to an academic school is a striking, narrow detail worth sending to someone working on higher education and empire.
• DEEPTHINKING: The mundane, administrative quality of this speech - an academic school as patriotic imperial furniture, funded by the City of London - concretizes how disciplinary knowledge production was embedded in, not merely adjacent to, colonial power.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 533