TOPIC:

Frank,

Quite right, but one could also add the smaller TG's etc of the Eastern Cape into the discussion.

During one of my digs in the Cape Archives I can across a few QSA Rolls stamped "Original" one of them was for the Bredasdorp TG in the Western Cape. I had it copied and there are only a dozen or so names on the page and nobody has, as far as I know, ever seen a QSA named to this TG. I can only speculate that perhaps the men on the roll were issued their medals from other rolls ??

All good fun.

Regards
Adrian

Hello Adrian,
I know what you mean, I remember looking at the Daniels Kuil Town Guard for someone many years ago now and being rather surprised at seeing they also had their own Native Mounted Scouts and Native Foot Police units as well, but, as you once said to me, research never stops!
Kind regards Frank

Dear all,

Am I correct in assuming that Town Guards were formations (normally unpaid volunteers?) to literally guard their town, and as such did not stray too far from their town. So any battle bars would be the "defence of" or if an action happened very close by (eg Dundee TG and the Talana bar).

I had assumed that they would all be in the Cape and Natal as they were the towns under threat but looking at the list (and having a flaky knowledge of where some of these are) there are a number in Transvaal (Klerksdorp, Zeerust, Pietersburg, Potchefstroom, Barberton) and OFS (Jagersfontein, Boshof). So presumably after these towns were "liberated" some uitlander inhabitants felt the need to form a Town Guard to protect themselves against the guerilla Boer commando's?

This then gave rise to the interesting situation whereby towns had both Boer Commando’s in the field and TG units (eg Potchefstroom and Boshof are towns identified on this website (unit information) as having both).

Furthermore is it correct to say they were unmounted – otherwise why would towns have District Mounted Troops in addition to a TG? But apart from what were the differences between a TG and a Towns DMT?

Rgds
Jon

Jon

I have had little interest in RA's and DMT's, but I suspect that all your assumptions are correct.

Regards
Brett

Suggest you replace the word liberated with invaded, those towns were inside an independent republic until they were occupied

Jon wrote: Dear all,

I had assumed that they would all be in the Cape and Natal as they were the towns under threat but looking at the list (and having a flaky knowledge of where some of these are) there are a number in Transvaal (Klerksdorp, Zeerust, Pietersburg, Potchefstroom, Barberton) and OFS (Jagersfontein, Boshof). So presumably after these towns were "liberated" some uitlander inhabitants felt the need to form a Town Guard to protect themselves against the guerilla Boer commando's?

Rgds
Jon

Frank - fully agree, hence my maybe too subtle use of the apostrophes on the word "liberated".
Rgds
Jon