TOPIC:

A postcard I acquired recently, maybe Adrian can add more details.

Cheers
Paul

Very nice Paul,

All I have is this small write up on the memorial and a rather poor modern picture:


The Cape Police Memorial situated in Belgrave Park in Kimberley is a very attractive monument and is in memory of the Cape Colony policemen who died during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 whether they wrer killed in action, died of wounds or died of disease.

The monument was constructed entirely from red and grey granite and was purchased from Messrs MacDonald, Monumental Works, Aberdeen, Scotland, and that the four round (red) pillars are polished. The remainder of the structure is unpolished, the lions are of grey granite.

The figure of the Cape policeman standing on the pillars faces Carter’s Ridge battlefield where several Cape Police lost their lives during the siege and measures some 6 feet 4 inches, that being the ideal height for a policeman.

Messrs E.W. Tarry & Co manufactured the railings of rifles and fixed bayonets in Kimberley at a cost of 30 shillings per rifle. Sadly the bayonets have long been vandalized.

The charge for the monument at the masons yard came to £650, and the Union Castle shipping line and the railway authorities reduced the transportation costs quite considerably. De Beers paid for the actual erection of the monument in what was known then known as Rendlesham Gardens before becoming Police Park and later Belgrave Park. In front of the memorial is a 9 pounder Armstrong gun captured by the British from the Boers on Dronfield Ridge on 16 February 1900. The canon too has quite a history. It was a gun captured from the British after the siege of Potchefstroom during the Anglo-Transvaal War of 1880-1881

The memorial was unveiled on 17 April 1904 by Lt-Colonel HT Tamplin who was the Crown Prosecutor and De Beers Consolidated Mines presented the site in Belgravia to the public of Kimberley.




Can you make out the surname on the back of the post card. I was trying to see if this Elsie was perhaps related to a Cape Police member.

Adrian

Hello Adrian,
I knew you would be the expert to ask
Had a look at the name with a glass, could it be Elsie Salamon?
West View
St Andrews Road
Park Town
Johannesburg
The postmark is Kimberley dated December 28 possibly 06

Cheers
Paul

You would certainly have to have been quite well off to have been living in Parktown back then!

coldstream wrote: Hello Adrian,
I knew you would be the expert to ask
Had a look at the name with a glass, could it be Elsie Salamon?
West View
St Andrews Road
Park Town
Johannesburg
The postmark is Kimberley dated December 28 possibly 06

Cheers
Paul

Thanks Paul,

I will have a look at the available attestation roll later tonight to see if there is a chap with the name Salamon. There was an Ernest Solomon, close ??

Frank, Park Town and Park View are still rather decent areas. I used to (way back in my SAAF days) have a girlfriend living in Kilkenny Road and I used to bore her to tears dragging her off to the Military Museum 5 minutes away.

Regards

Adrian

Well, I think I would have been quite content there, it was certainly good enough for the representatives of the new administration including Lord Milner himself and "The Kindergarten"