TOPIC:

Posting this on behalf of JoanneL - she wrote:

Hi, I’m new to the group so hope I’m posting in the right place! We have this item from the Boer war and I wondered if anyone would be able to give me any information on it. We have had it for about 30 years, it was left in a previous house we moved into. Could anyone tell me what it is, what it was for etc. I would be very grateful.

I think that this is something new made in the last 20 to 25 years not made at time of war, maybe sold at a gift shop of a unit museum ......

Mike

Remembered this......

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/19-ephemera/8...n-south-africa#62770

Mike

Thank you Mike. We have had the piece for at least 30 years possibly 33 years so is a bit older.

The Princess Christian Hospital was in the Pinetown area - if memory serves the old Fairiedeane Hotel had some connection to it. Trains used to bring the wounded and sick in to the station at Pinetown and the men would be transferred to the hospital, and were then taken care of by nurses such as the lady in your item.

My personal view, and I can't speak to the age of the item, is that it is a commemorative piece, possibly locally manufactured (South Africa) - could it double as a snack bowl or ashtray?

See here www.jstor.org/stable/20268054

Regards

Rory

From the British Medical Journal 20 april 1901 pp950-951