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Hello
I seem to remember handling this grenade, or one very like it, at an Anglo-Boer War Study Group meeting nearly 30 years ago (how time flies!)
If it is the one I am thinking of it is quite small (about 40 mm diameter?). I have seen a few larger Boer grenades over the years (70 mm diameter), most of which were taken as souvenirs from Fort Klapper Kop after the fall of Pretoria. Both the Duke of Westminster and the Earl of Kerry (two of Lord Roberts's ADCs) brought examples home and had them made into cigar lighters. Examples were also found on Surprise Hill and Umbulwana, after the relief of Ladysmith.
If yours is the smaller one I remember from the 1980s, it remains the only example of this type that I have encountered. The inscription on the silver band is interesting in that grenades were indeed used at Mafeking, and at the time it was claimed that these had been manufactured by Charles Perrins, an English subject from Birmingham. Newspaper reports from Pretoria (August 1900) stated that Perrins was to be put on trial for this, accused of high treason.

Great first post Neville and welcome!

Hello Neville,

Fancy meeting you here! Welcome to the forum.
I have two identical examples which both came with the papers of Colonel M Jacson of the Devon Regiment and author of The Record Of A Regiment Of The Line. They are
66mm diameter iron spheres. I think the metal plug in the top is a modification to turn them into a lamp. The bronze stand is engraved "BOER HAND GRENADE BULWANA LADYSMITH".

Paul

Hello Paul,
Here is a contemporary photograph showing one of these grenades (Ladysmith, I think).

Thank you Neville,
I've seen that photo before but never noticed the grenade. Looking at it again, do you think it might in fact be a mortar bomb fired from a gun rather than a grenade for throwing?

Paul

Good question, Paul.
I had the same thought, but can find no reference to such a weapon in any book. Lionel Crook (Artillery of the Anglo-Boer War, 2006) only mentions the old mortar used by the Staatsartillerie at Ladysmith, which was considerably larger. From the photograph of one of its projectiles below, I estimate the calibre of this weapon to have been 6.5 inches.
Certainly, soldiers returning home with the 70mm spheres considered them to be "hand-grenades" (as is shown by the inscriptions on your examples). The few references to them in the press similarly describe them as such.
Neville




Aberdeen Journal, 22nd June 1903