TOPIC:

Hi

An interesting find of a no bar Queens medal named to Capt M L van der Hoven Willowmore TG.

Further searching on the attack on Willowmore by DD Diespecker talks about a Lt van der Hoven with the Native contingent.

And best of all is in Kitchners dispatch of 23/6/02 Capt M van der Hooven Willowmore Town guard is mentioned

There is no man of such name on the roll but the medal is correctly named and comes with his sons ww1 medals. Is there another roll for the Native Contingent and can anyone put further light on this man?

Munroe

Good evening,
A superb medal and verified on the roll WO100/286, in the remarks column, "Defence Of Willowmore"

In addition, there is a note in his own hand, "The following town guard were called out for active duty against the enemy on the 17th Jan 1901 and disbanded on the 31st May 1902, during that period they successfully held the town against the two attacks made by the late Commandant Scheepers, viz 18th Jan 1901 and 1st June 1901"

A really superb QSA, I hope you will post a couple of photo's, Gideon Scheepers was notorious and after his capture, he was taken before a military court and was then shot at Graaff Reinet.

Regards Frank

Moreover, I think I should add, that I feel this is one of the nicest QSA'S I've ever read about given my very brief time on this forum!
You are very lucky!

I realised today that I had not answered your question, Captain Van der Hooven is not on the WTG roll, his is actually on the WTG Native Contingent roll with the other four officers of the unit i.e. Capt Charlton-Smith and Lieut's Morgan, Everitt and Oswald-Smith.
I think that Capt Charlton-Smith was the first OC of the native troops as he has signed that page of the roll, it is also countersigned by Van der Hooven, who has entered himself as the officer commanding on the next page.
Native troops often did not receive the QSA, in fact, by 1902 they had been sold out by Kitchener completely, but then it was, from the very begining, "a white mans war"
People seem to forget the black concentration camps too, but, with regards to the native troops, when the Boers started killing any natives that they found to be in the paid service of the British Army, Kitchener decided to arm them.
I think Kitchener was asked by parliament in march 1902 how many armed natives were there, his answer was 10,000, but, he lied, it was more like 30,000.
Regards Frank

munroe wrote:
There is no man of such name on the roll but the medal is correctly named and comes with his sons ww1 medals. Is there another roll for the Native Contingent and can anyone put further light on this man?

Munroe