DocCJ wrote: Hello, Andrew
Like you, I too have recently started researching the Jameson Raid - I'm perhaps 6 months ahead of you!
Firstly, there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether MMP stands for Mashonaland or Matabeleland Mounted Police. I'm very much in the Matabeleland camp - all of the contemporaneous references are to Matabeleland, though the 1930s' book by Marshall Hole gives Mashonaland. If you're interested I can provide more detail.
After the Raid, Pepys will have been handed over to the Natal authorities and shipped back to the UK on the Harlech Castle, leaving Durban on the evening of 28 January 1896. The ship called at Madeira where a Scotland Yard Inspector called Froest boarded and arrested all 323 raiders that were on board (although nothing seems to have happened subsequently to the rank and file)! The Harlech Castle arrived in Plymouth on the morning of Saturday 22 February 1896, and both Pepys men were reported by the Times as being on board. Those going to London were put on a special train.
As employees of the BSAC (the Charter Company), some 190 raiders returned to South Africa to help put down the rising in Matabeleland which became known as the 2nd Matabeleland War. Pepys and his brother sailed back on the Trojan, departing Southampton on 4 April 1896. They may have been with my grandfather who also sailed that day, on either the Trojan or the Roslin Castle: he was James Smith, and there were four Smiths on board the two ships, unfortunately, two of them 'J Smith's, so I don't know which ship he was on! On arrival in Cape Town, they would have gone up country to Mafeking to join the Matabeleland Relief Force under Plummer, and were almost certainly in one of the last troops to be formed. It is for this that he would have been awarded the BASC Medal - it should be marked Rhodesia 1986 around the rim. I noticed from one of the photos in this trail that he has a Mashonaland 1897 clasp, which means he stayed around for a while.
Interestingly like a number of Raiders including Pepys, my grandfather also served in Gallipoli, landing at ANZAC Cove and being wounded.
I have a little more detail and some supporting documents if you are interested. If you find out when Pepys joined the MMP and when the MRF was disbanded, I would love to know of your sources, as this information is missing from my grandfather's jigsaw.
Good luck and I look forward to following this thread
Chris
Hi Chris,
I think I may be about half a year behind you on this one! I knew that Pepys came back on the Harlech Castle but was not aware that he departed again for South Africa on the Trojan. Pepys stayed so long in South Africa that he also fought in the Boer War!
I would like to hear about the information that you have, if you could send me a PM (I don't know yet how the forum controls actually work) I would be greatly appreciative! Unfortunately his service records do not give me exact dates for just about anything until 1900 when he was commissioned. I have heard that there is a debate between the acronym MMP and what it stands for; I have found both Mashonaland and Matabeleland. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
I am also interested to hear that other men served in the Jameson Raid; I was trying to ascertain how many combinations of the Military Cross and the BSAC medal there have been. There was one in Buckland, Dix and Wood's 1994 catalogue to ELLAM and one in the Rifles Museum.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Andrew