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Below is an extract from a letter written by Sergeant W. Riding, South Lancashire Regiment, and sent to his landlady at Ormskirk, Lancashire, from Pietermaritzburg, dated December 26th 1900 -

"Only to-night one man belonging to the 19th Hussars was shot in the Market-place for selling his arms and accoutrements to the Boers. He was also going over to them, having deserted out of our army, so he got his punishment. On Saturday night, the 23rd December, a navy man belonging to H.M.S. Powerful, lying in the harbour at Durban, was found asleep at his post in Durban by the officer who was making an inspection to see that all were alert. He found this man asleep and ordered the N.C. officer to shoot him there and then, so you see what they can do when martial law is proclaimed."

Printed in the Ormskirk Advertiser dated January 25th, 1900.

Can these two incidents be verified and the two dead men identified? If they were both shot dead what would their families have been told? And I wonder if their names are on any war memorials?

Hello Berenice

There is nothing in the casualty rolls or that I have seen to support the correspondent's story.

Regards
Meurig

Interesting; thanks, Meurig. Probably just a couple of false rumours that had spread until they'd become "facts."

Weren't letters home from servicemen censored during the ABW?

I suppose the former is possible, but, the latter certainly is not, it is rather laughable, anything like that would have been an Admiralty matter, I would say it was merely the media in pursuit of the sensational, little different than today.

BereniceUK wrote: Below is an extract from a letter written by Sergeant W. Riding, South Lancashire Regiment, and sent to his landlady at Ormskirk, Lancashire, from Pietermaritzburg, dated December 26th 1900 -

"Only to-night one man belonging to the 19th Hussars was shot in the Market-place for selling his arms and accoutrements to the Boers. He was also going over to them, having deserted out of our army, so he got his punishment. On Saturday night, the 23rd December, a navy man belonging to H.M.S. Powerful, lying in the harbour at Durban, was found asleep at his post in Durban by the officer who was making an inspection to see that all were alert. He found this man asleep and ordered the N.C. officer to shoot him there and then, so you see what they can do when martial law is proclaimed."

Printed in the Ormskirk Advertiser dated January 25th, 1900.

Can these two incidents be verified and the two dead men identified? If they were both shot dead what would their families have been told? And I wonder if their names are on any war memorials?

BereniceUK wrote: Interesting; thanks, Meurig. Probably just a couple of false rumours that had spread until they'd become "facts."

Weren't letters home from servicemen censored during the ABW?

I have never seen anything to suggest censorship of ORs letters - given that this was one of the first wars in which literacy was widespread and they had field post offices it probably hadn't occurred to the Staff to censor their letters. Certain generals, like Buller I believe, were upset by what the war correspondents sent home - but that was a personal rather than an operational gripe.

Buller absolutely hated the press, which was a real pity, given that the Anglo Boer War was the first real media war, in fact, on the voyage down, he threatened to throw certain members of the press overboard!
He did, famously, enforce censorship of the press, his attitude towards the press was very distant indeed, he would rather that they were not present at all, moreover, he had actually drawn up the very first rules to censor the press, whilst in South Africa in 1879.
Robert's was exactly the opposite, he knew how to "play" the press game and became rather good at it, moreover, upon arriving in South Africa, one of his first acts was to organise a conference complete with refreshments!
He was very much a self advertiser and knew of the importance of the press simply because of their level of influence on public opinion, but, he actually had many friends in the press, some of who had their careers, in effect, promoted, so in actual fact, he was able to influence publicity himself.
He actually referred to them as "brothers in arms" and of course they all loved that, as did the public back at home.
Kitchener was another who knew how to play the "game" but he was certainly not too keen, one of his first acts as Commander in Chief was to tighten up censorship, the Daily Mail, in particular, incurred his displeasure, so much so, that he actually wanted to "ban" it!

Certainly, many of the private letters, written by rank and file members of the British Army that I've read down the years, suggest to me that there was little in the way of censorship going on, certainly in Natal in both 1899 and 1900.

SWB wrote:

BereniceUK wrote: Interesting; thanks, Meurig. Probably just a couple of false rumours that had spread until they'd become "facts."

Weren't letters home from servicemen censored during the ABW?

I have never seen anything to suggest censorship of ORs letters - given that this was one of the first wars in which literacy was widespread and they had field post offices it probably hadn't occurred to the Staff to censor their letters. Certain generals, like Buller I believe, were upset by what the war correspondents sent home - but that was a personal rather than an operational gripe.