TOPIC:

An interesting journey today.

Stop 1: Having dropped my car off for its annual service I walked to the Haverfordwest Boer War Memorial, Pembrokeshire armed with camera. Photos taken, I spent the rest of the waiting time in the Town Museum where they have photo on display of the original Memorial being unveiled in 1904. My photos are of the commendable 1986 replacement.

Stop 2: Back home the photos had turned out better than anticipated – the memorial has a fence around it and the gate was locked, making the north face a bit of a challenge but the names are legible on my computer screen:



My eye alighted on “Whicher S, MB. London. MRCS. LRCP.” Does not sound too Welsh I thought.

Stop 3: I entered “S Whicher, died 1901 +/- 2 years, South Africa” in the Public Family Tree facility on Ancestry. This rapidly told me he was called Stanley, born in late 1870 in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, raised in Milford Haven and the 1891 Census gave his occupation as “Medical Student”. His probate told me he died on “27th April 1900 at Mooi River Hospital, Natal, South Africa”.

Stop 4: Google took me to a King’s College website which told me was a “Guy’s Man”, commemorated at Guy’s Hospital and then took me to the two following extracts from the Guy's Hospital Gazette of 1900, the second contains graphic details of his death and an interesting use of champagne:

Guy’ s Hospital Gazette May 12th 1900
It is with great regret that we notify you of the death of Stanley Whicher, M.B. Lond., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., civil surgeon attached to the R.A.M.C., of enteric fever in Blomfontein. Mr. Whicher entered Guy’ s as a preliminary scientific student, in the winter of 1890, and passed a second examination of the conjoint board in 1893. The following year he passed the 1st M.B., Lond. and three years later took the double qualification of the Conjoint Board, and also the M.B. Lond. Besides the usual appointments, Mr. Whicher was a dresser in the Throat Department, and was also an obstetric resident. At the end of last year, Mr. Whicher was appointed a C.M.O. attached to the R.A.M.C., and it was in this capacity that he contracted his fatal illness. His loss will be keenly felt not only among Guy’ s men with whom his genial personality made him a favourite, but in the Artists V. of which he was an enthusiastic member.

Guy’s Hospital Gazette 9 June 1900
Dear Sir, - Old Guy’s men will hear with much sorrow of the death of Stanley Whicher, which took place here on April 27th from enteric fever. He was attached soon after landing in Natal to No. 4 Stationary Hospital then at Frere. With it he moved to Springfield and Spearman’s Camp, taking his share in the discomforts and hardships attendant on a hospital at the front, and applying his Guy’s experience and training to the wounded at Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz. In the retreat which followed the latter flight, he and I parted, he to follow the chances of No. 4 Stationary Hospital to Chievely, while I returned to Mooi River with a convoy of wounded.

At Chievely the sanitary conditions were evidently trying. Out of the seven medical officers of the hospital three contracted enteric, and two are now dead of the disease. Whicher, who had been ailing with diarrhea, for some fourteen days, during which time with pluck and endurance he continued his duties, was sent down here with enteric fever on April 11th. From the first day of admission his condition was unsatisfactory. It seems as though his rough life in camp had enfeebled his combative power with disease. His temperature was never very high, nor was there any sign of deep ulceration, but frequent attacks of syncope and signs of cardiac weakness made us all anxious. In spite of every comfort and attention, champagne and injections of strychnia, he gradually became weaker and passed away on April 27th.

The following day he was buried with military honours in our cemetery here, and was followed to his grave by all the officers of No. 4 General Hospital, and many from the camps around. His last resting place is a quiet spot on the top zone of the neighbouring hills, well enclosed and tended, and we hope shortly to erect a permanent cross over his grave in memory of one whose loss we greatly deplore.

Too much cannot be said of the care and attention bestowed on our late chum by Major Hackett, R.A.M.C., under whose care he was during his illness at the Officers’ Hospital here and poor Whicher’s friends may rest assured that everything that could be done, even had he been at home, was done for him here.

Stanley Copley, No. 4 General Hospital, Mooi River, Natal, South Africa May 1900.

Frustratingly, there was no picture of the memorial he was on.

Stop 5: The ABW Forum – found him on the name search and then searched for “Guy’s” in Topic Titles and who came to my aid? – Berenice, and not for the first time.



To learn more about the memorial: www.angloboerwar.com/forum/17-memorials-...uthwark-london#63050

Stop 6: Find My Past – which told me he was posthumously awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal with two clasps – “Cape Colony” & “Relief of Ladysmith”

Now back to the other 43 names. Poignantly two, the Lambton brothers just above Stanley on the north side, were the nephews of Lord Cawdor who unveiled the Memorial.