TOPIC:

Pete - Mea Culpa rather than newspaper editors of the past. Being a pedantic scientist I need definitions for everything and I have struggled with understanding the auxillary units and especially the Militia, owing to the lack of a definition. Hence I have rather lazily conflated the Volunteer units with the Militia. So if you could fill the gap I would be very grateful and promise not to make the same error again. Walter was never in the Smethwick Miltia because it never existed. Better return to the article and do a big edit.

My next Smethwickian is in preparation, one Frederick William Durose whose father owned a stationary and printing business on the High Street. Fred died the May before I started HLGS and I have found his obit in the Birmingham Post. So were you HLGS or JWTS?

Best regards, David Redhead (born in Rotherham, brought up in Smethwick, lived the longest in South Oxfordshire and now retired in Pembrokeshire).

David
You can do no better than to read Dave F's contribution on the subject. He had fallen into the same bear-pit.
www.angloboerwar.com/forum/11-research/3...volunteer-battalions

HLGS 1956 -1963

Regards
Pete

23826 Sergeant George Bayliffe who was kia at Treurfontein on 21 Jan 1902 qualifies as a Smethwickian!!

Smethwick Telephone 8 Feb 1902:



He was born in Hackney, served in the 11th Hussars, married in Birmingham and at the time was a policeman, second child baptised in Smethwick, third child born in Smethwick May 1899, by the time he attested for service in IY in Feb 1901 he had moved just over the border into Birmingham and was a "storekeeper". He is commemorated on the Birmingham Boer War Memorial in Cannon Hill Park.

When he attested in 1901 he gave his age as 34 but he was actually 47!!

He wrote two very long political letters to the Smethwick Telephone and appeared as a witness for the defence of somebody arrested at a political meeting.

There is also an issue between Elmarie's list and the contemporary "Trenafontein" casualty list regarding 24536 W Bellairs/ 14022 J Bellairs. The following finds unequivocally support Elmarie's list as being correct.





The second suggests his parents were never given accurate details of the death of their son. I suspect today there would be demands for an inquiry into what really happened at Treurfontein.

Whether a 14022 J Bellairs ever existed is in doubt but this extract from Walter's Medal Roll is of interest: