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Hi

Does anyone have any pictures or links to where I might find one for the above memorial please, thanks.

Here are pictures of what is marked on my GPS as Red Hill however it is the Irish Fusiliers and not the 5th Lancers. Am i in the wrong spot.

Note there used to be a wrought iron fence around the monument, this seems to have been stolen. Also see a tree nearby had fallen due to fire but fortunately it missed the monument. You can see the yoke of the tree either side of the monument.

There used to be a road of sorts running just behind where i took this photo from. But the municipality has dug that up to lay pipes and cabling underground. There is therefore no more access to this and yoiu need to just pull off onto the original entrance and walk to the monument now. Also signage has been removed and unless the grass has burnt this monument is easily missed even though the main Colenso road runs just over 10-15m from the monument.

Great pictures! Thank you for showing them. Perhaps being "out of sight" will keep this memorial out of the minds of would-be vandals.

Regards
Brett

Doug wrote: Hi

Does anyone have any pictures or links to where I might find one for the above memorial please, thanks.

To create and maintain effective defence around Ladysmith General White distributed all available troops in sector posts along the town's 14-mile perimeter.

Red Hill is an unpretentious ridge roughly in the middle of the west-facing Section-C defensive line extending from Ration Post and Riflemans Post, to Highlanders Post and, most southerly, Wagon Hill.

The task of manning Red Hill, together with the lesser nearby Range Post, fell upon two companies of 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers - remnant of the Nicholson's Nek debacle on "Mournful Monday".

In the siege saga Red Hill won little acclaim. The Irish - like fellow Celts the Scots Gordons holding Highlanders Post - enduring only scant occasional shellfire remained unscathed for the most part, and relatively free of pestilence and inanition that caused more overall loss of life than the 96-pound offerings of the beseigers Long Toms.

An unobtrusive marble Celtic cross commemorating Royal Irish Fusiliers dying during the seige stands just off the Colenso-Ladysmith road - the route Buller had chosen ambitiously for a speedy relief of the beleaguered town.

No great distance from the Fusiliers memorial is a pyramid-like cairn of stones marking the place where tragic misfortune befell the Gordons of Highlanders Post.

During the siege, commander of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders was a certain Colonel William Henry Dick-Cunyngham, a vigorous bold soldier esteemed by his men as a chieftain that could and would lead from the front in a fray. An archetype of the Scottish Soldier that "wandered faraway, and soldiered faraway" from the "hills of home", Dick-Cunyngham was decorated at the age of 28 with the Empire's highest accolade "For Valour" in the 1879 Afghan War, and no starnger to the battlefield hills of Colonial Natal with compelling reason to "Remember Majuba" having witnessed failure of the 92nd Regiment there in 1881.

Dick-Cunyngham, wounded in the leg by a bullet during the attack of the Gordons at Elandslaagte but almost fully recovered, was destined to be fatally struck by an errant missile as he headed the Scots out to reinforce defences during determined Boer thrusts on the infantry posts to the south of Ladysmith.

Whether the actual shot was loosed by foe or friend remains moot, but is thought to have been discharged from the Wagon Hill vicinity, travelling almost spent some mile and a half, yet sufficed to despatch poor Dick-Cunyngham - leaving the Gordons constrained to face battle without their much loved commander. Victoria Crosses were won that day by Ladysmith's defenders, and the names Digby-Jones, Masterson, Pitts, Scott and Albrecht linger on stones and sangars of Wagon Hill.

In course of the developing British attack at Elandslaagte, a squadron of 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers was held back until the Gordons, Manchesters and Devons had carried the Boer hillcrest positions. A pursuit of the fleeing disorganised foe with sabre and spear was then ordered resulting in a famous/infamous charge that engendered lasting odium for such cavalry exercise.

The 5th Lancers in toto - having been shut in by destruction of the rail link with Colenso at start of the siege - could render no mounted defence activity of importance, and the regiment was quartered in a Reserve Section located well within the British seige-line perimeter between the Klip river and White's Convent Hill H.Q.

In the locale of Red Hill itself no memorial has been identified to these mounted Irish that gained the dubious distinction of being participant in the first real cavalry charge of the Anglo-Boer War - and likely one of the last ever of a British squadron in a set-piece battle.

Resting in a tiny cemetary between Range Post and the Klip river, marked by simple metal crosses, are the remains of Privates Andrews and Dowsett of the 5th Lancers, both probably having died of wounds sustained in the Wagon Hill fighting, since the position of the interrments has been construed to lie in the once location of the seigetown's No24 Field Hospital. It would be interesting to learn whether these men were 'chargers' entitled to 'Elandslaagte' as well as 'Defence of Ladysmith' clasps on the QSA?

Addendum - Concise and very clear diagram of Brit-Boer combatant lines around Ladysmith is rendered on pages 96-97 of Ruari Chisholm's easily readable chronicle "Ladysmith".
Addendum - GPS locations of sites mentioned :
Royal Irish Fusiliers memorial = S28 34 6.30 E29 45 18.80
D-C cairn = S28 34 1.69 E29 45 33.03
Lancers graves = S28 33 47.77 E29 45 36.90

Hi

Thanks for the details of the memorial. PTE Andrews was wounded on the 6th January at Wagon Hill and died of wounds on the 23rd January 1900, the only non officer fatality of the event, but according to Steve Watts book, the memorial is classed as Ladysmith, Redhill, so close enough I suppose!

Looking through the 5th Lancers regimental history of the time for Elandslaagte, various squadrons were placed in various places and it looks like only C & D squadrons went to Elandslaagte. On the 6th January, it looks like A, C & D squadrons attended Wagon Hill, so I am assuming Andrews belonged to A Squadron. I did have a 5th Lancers QSA with single Talana bar to PTE workman before, no doubt a standard bearer at the time to Penn-Symons?

I have a couple of photos from Dublin Catherdral and the memorial plaque and also from Gloucester cathedral, as this is where he was from.