Jane Marchese Robinson - Tracing Your Boer War Ancestors: Soldiers of a Forgotten War

TRACING YOUR BOER WAR ANCESTORS

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs

Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census

Tracing Your Ancestors Childhood

Tracing Your Ancestors Parish Records

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors 2nd Edition

Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Tracing Your British Indian Ancestors

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Tracing Your Edinburgh Ancestors

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Gallipoli Campaign

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: Ypres

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Tracing Your Leeds Ancestors

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Tracing Your Medical Ancestors

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Tracing Your Naval Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Tracing Your Prisoner of War Ancestors: The First World War

Tracing Your Railway Ancestors

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Tracing Your Textile Ancestors

Tracing Your Trade and Craftsmen Ancestors

Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

Soldiers of a Forgotten War

Jane Marchese Robinson

First published in Great Britain in 2016

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street,

Barnsley

South Yorkshire,

S70 2AS

Copyright Jane Marchese Robinson, 2016

ISBN 978 1 47382 242 9

eISBN 978 1 47388 620 9

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47388 619 3

The right of Jane Robinson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

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Albert Skedgell. (Courtesy of Roy Tucker)

George Ravenhill was awarded the VC at the Battle of Colenso. (Courtesy of Graham Knight)

The HMS Doris Memorial in Devonport Park , Plymouth. (Courtesy of Tony Marchese)

A street in Nechells , Birmingham , the area where George Ravenhill lived. (Courtesy of Graham Knight)

Fred Griffin from Honiton, Devon. (Courtesy of Jenny Ridd)

Robert Slattery from Lancashire. (Courtesy of Maureen Noonan)

Henry Gardner from Bermondsey died at Intombi Hospital near Ladysmith. (Courtesy of John Shalice)

First page of the letter to Henry s mother informing her of his death. (Courtesy of John Shalice)

Charles Dunn , a young soldier in the Coldstream Guards who died at Standerton Hospital. (Courtesy of David Yabsley)

Lizzie Bowcombe , Charles s girlfriend. (Courtesy of David Yabsley)

British soldiers entering Pretoria in June 1900. (Courtesy of Western Cape Archives and Library , Cape Town)

Boy soldier after the Battle of Colesberg. (Courtesy of the National Media Museum , Science and Society Picture Library)

Robert Milburn , the author s great-uncle , as a young recruit to the Coldstream Guards. (Courtesy of Mary Ann Parkinson)

Robert pictured with soldiers from the Queen Victoria s Black Watch Guard. (Courtesy of Mary Ann Parkinson)

Boer women guarding their belongings. (Courtesy of Sheila Ashford)

Destroyed Boer Farmhouse . (Courtesy of Professor Sir Roderick Floud, from Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives)

William Duncan , aged five, at school in Dundee. (Courtesy of Malcolm Duncan)

His father , William Neilson Duncan. (Courtesy of Malcolm Duncan)

A ring made from South African gold brought back by John Ball for his sweetheart Bessie. (Courtesy of Nicola Wills)

John Ball s son Steve and wife: the family still treasures the ring. (Courtesy of Nicola Wills)

Medals awarded to Tom Randell of the Royal Artillery. (Courtesy of Robert Wall)

For my friend Maggie Grant (19402013) whose advice

and support was always invaluable.

Im sorry she wont be able to see this published.

The inspiration for this book arose in 2006 when I inherited an autograph book belonging to my Belgian grandmother. She had collected many signatures and drawings from foreign visitors whilst working at the Strand Palace Hotel in London from 1919 onwards. This led to me researching her history and trying to discover whether she was one of the 250 , 000 Belgian refugees who fled their homeland when the Germans invaded in 1914.

I explored archives in this country and in Belgium. In London I searched workhouse records from 1914. Sadly I could not find her. However , in the London Metropolitan archives I did discover an English family consisting of a mother and four children , one daughter of whom had a different surname. Coincidentally I had been looking for a theme for a novel and this family became my inspiration: what circumstances led this girl to have been living with this family? The daughter had been born in 1902 , at the end of the Boer War , and I imagined that she was the result of a relationship her mother had while her husband was away fighting in South Africa.

I had studied history at school and had undertaken a university degree in social history and yet I had not been taught anything about the Boer War. Therefore I needed to undertake considerable research in order to flesh out my story. This included reading about the workhouses during this period and extensive research about this war.

A synopsis of the novel was submitted to Pen and Sword publishers when something unexpected happened. They suggested that I write a non-fiction book concerning the ordinary soldiers of the war and what support they or their families received afterwards in a world without a welfare state. The book was to contain real-life testimonies , a veritable challenge when those men and their direct families had died a long time ago. Diaries in archives provided considerable illumination but contacting regional newspapers , with a request for personal stories , yielded greater results. I was privileged to receive many stories , letters and photographs of this almost forgotten war. I have tried to include as many as possible in this book in order to throw a light on those men who fought and died in the heat 6 , 000 miles from home and to recall the hardships many women and children suffered as a direct result. Widowed or caring for a disabled husband , times were tough for the ordinary soldier s family.