TOPIC:

Redvers,

I make the locations 30 and about 70 individual cottages, but it does depend on how you count them (and my ability to count correctly!). About a third of the individual cottages are dedicated to Prince Christian Victor but my list of Regiments involved is:

18th Hussars (Stroat & Cheshunt), Bedfordshire (Oakley & Cheshunt), Berkshire LI (Wantage), Border (Carlisle), DCLI (Bodmin), Devonshire (Exeter), Derbyshire & Notts (Mickleover), Dorset (Dorchester), Durham LI (Durham), East Kent (Broadstairs), East Lancashire (Burnley), East Surrey (Kingston-on-Thames), East Yorkshire (Fulford), Essex (Warley), Gordon Highlanders (Inverarie), Kings Own Yorkshire LI (Batley), Kings Royal Rifles (Winchester), North Lancashire (Preston), Middlesex (Barnet), Oxfordshire LI (Oxford), Royal Artillery (Bath & Colchester), Royal Berkshire (Reading), Royal Warwickshire (Budbrooke), South Wales Borderers (Brecon), Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds), Yorks & Lancaster (Manfield), Wiltshire (Devizes), Worcestershire (Norton Juxta).

I have created the above checklist to prevent me from trying to re-invent the wheel in the future – you may have a more correct version.

Regarding 2817 Chapman, the 1911 occupier of one of the Wiltshire Regiment Cottages you may have noticed a discrepancy between my account of his military career and that given by Ian(s1900), the author of an excellent, recently published book on the Wiltshire Regiment in the ABW. The discrepancy arises because we used different sources for our information and Ian is currently investigating further. Thus I will hold off on George Webb the other 1911 occupier but mention that I have found the 1921 Census returns for both cottages which add 2629 Lance-Sergeant George William Draper and 1885 Sergeant Albert Edward Gray to the occupier list.

Regarding the 18th Hussars Cottages north of Chepstow – driving north up the A48 one would possibly miss them but heading south from Lydney the Wyvern Garage at a crossroads warns you they are about to come into view on the right. The two original occupants are easy meat to investigate because of their names – Lionel James Bee & Walter Daniel Beatwell. I don’t think either of them was keen on living so near to the River Severn as by 1911 both had returned to their birth counties. Bee (1861-1944) was a Yorkshireman and 1911 found him living in Doncaster, his birth town, where he also passed away. Beatwell (1874-1961) was Essex man and 1911 found him living in Basildon and he passed away in Maldon. He already had a medal when he went to SA – the 1895 India Medal with “Relief of Chitral 1895” clasp attached. Aged 40 he stepped up to the plate in 1914 but his service was all at home and in 1915 he underwent a medical regarding his SA wound and the medic’s report graphically described the journey the bullet took through his body – still trying to transcribe it because the writing is typical of a doctor’s. As result he was discharged “unlikely to make an efficient soldier”. For both their attestation papers & service records have survived – so more eventually to follow. To date have not been able to identify subsequent occupants of the cottages.

Regarding the battle named cottages of the South Wales Borderers in Brecon. You have the wrong Price – the Welsh IY had no official connection to the SWB – the IY man you identified survived the AWB unscathed but died of wounds in 1915 whilst serving in the Cheshire Regiment. The first occupant of “Chillianwallah” was 1402 Colour Sergeant Charles Price of the SWB.

Chillianwala was an 1849 Battle during the Second Sikh War and, like Rorke’s Drift, it figured large in the history of the 24th Regiment of Foot which became the SWB in 1881.

Amongst 1402 Price’s military records can be found his 1941 death certificate from which can be deduced much of the first nearly 40 years occupation history of the SWB Cottages.



Regards, David.

Lovat's Cottage at Clachnaharry may well be another memorial cottage home. From the online OS maps that are available to me, it is not on the 1880 sheet but does appear on the 1904 sheet. The name of the cottage and one of the previous occupants suggests that it is. I will have a look at the British Newspaper Archives website on my next trip to the library to see if I can find any reports from 1900-1904 that may refer to it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

The list that David has compiled accords with what I have (possibly 69 dwellings in total). Some of these are now single dwellings and those at Batley and Cowley have been lost. (I am still trying to persuade those that be to erect plaques or something suitable where these buildings once stood. Perhaps a 'media interest' story might prompt them to do something?)

Thanks for the correction about Price (South Wales Borderers memorial cottage homes).

Smethwick
Thanks for your reply. The two references to James Morrison of Lovat's Scouts (Gardner and in 1901 draft) are one and the same and verified on the medal rolls. He was not commissioned so there was another James Morrison. Unfortunately, Kevin Asplin was unable to find the enlisted James Morrison's details in UKNA - although you were able to add a couple of details to the post I have been putting together; for which I am really grateful.
I don't doubt for a moment that Lovat's Cottage has a solid connection to Lovat's Scouts and the man/men who served therein. My reasoning is that the James Morrison to which I refer suffered a severe injury - possibly during the ABW .
Regards
IL.

A few days ago I posted a response to Smethwick’s post regarding the inhabitants of the Wiltshire Regiment cottage homes. Now I wish to clarify what was said.

2817 Pte Arthur Chapman

My book War on the Veldt. The Anglo-Boer War Experiences of the Wiltshire Regiment took twenty years to research and write. Not because I am slow at writing, but because I was serving in the Royal Navy at the time which meant six or eight month deployments and of course other life events do tend to take precedence. The period of research concerning the events at Rensburg was completed many years ago. I did search for Chapman’s service record at the National Archives but never found it.

In answer to Smethwick’s post I said that Chapman served in G Company and was a POW at Watervaal. Armed with Chapman’s service record which had eluded me, Smethwick quite rightly questioned my conclusion, so let’s take a look at what has happened.

Regimental records in the form of a book which lists every man of the Regiment by Company which was used as the basis of the Regiment’s submission for the QSA medal lists 2817 Private Arthur Chapman as serving with G Company.

Regimental records in the form of the Digest of Service of the 2nd Wiltshire in South Africa lists him as wounded at Rensburg on 14 February 1900.

Page 203 of the Wiltshire Regiment QSA medal roll states that he was sent to England on 24 April 1900.

However, Page 74 of The South African War Casualty Roll lists him as a Prisoner at Rensburg on 14 February 1900 and does not mention him being sent home.

As we all know historical military records are full of discrepancies, but in general my research for the whole book proved that in the case of the Wiltshires the Regimental records mostly gave the correct information and as the Adjutant had provided the information which was later used in the casualty rolls and the Rensburg incident was one of his first instances of reporting I felt that the correct version of events was that Chapman had indeed ended up at Watervaal. However, in this case this was wrong.

His attestation papers kindly supplied by David (Smethwick) show D Company written at the top which I cannot account for but very importantly they do not mention him being a POW at Watervaal and they would have done if he had been. These papers state that he served in South Africa from 16 December 1899 (this being the date that he left British soil) until 14 May 1900 (this being his last day away from British soil). This amounts to a journey time of twenty-two days which fits exactly with what is known about Boer War steam driven troopship journeys. He then spent from 15 May 1900 until 24 July 1900 on Home Service when he was discharged medically unit. We know from the medal roll that he received the QSA medal with two clasps CC and OFS.

Now I had wondered how Chapman had received the OFS clasp when it appeared that he hadn’t set foot outside of Cape Colony.

Chapman was wounded on 14 February 1900. Smethwick has found a mention of him being released the same day, presumably because he was badly wounded, but I’m not sure where this originates from because the official casualty record does not state this. He also quotes from the excellent Gazetteer, but I am certain that after a long period of cross-referencing records, the numbers stated in my book of thirteen killed, forty-five wounded and one hundred and twenty-six prisoners of war (which should now be one hundred and twenty-five because Chapman never went to Watervaal) are (otherwise) correct.

I know that nineteen wounded from Rensburg rejoined the Battalion at Bloemfontein on the 13th of March 1900. Perhaps Chapman was released the same day or perhaps the number should be twenty rather than nineteen. Either way this accounts for Chapman being in the OFS and receiving the medal clasp correctly, as the Regiment crossed the Orange River on the 17th of March 1900, so the casualties were actually waiting for them at Bloemfontein.

If there is ever a second edition of my book I will make sure that the details surrounding Chapman are corrected. I’m sure that you all understand my reasoning at the time and sincerely thank David (Smethwick) for bringing this to my attention.

Regarding the others:

1885 Sjt A.E. Gray - Witt, CC & Tr - to England 25/10/1900 – A Company. Nothing else known.

2628 L/Sjt G. Draper - CC & OFS - to England 06/06/1900 – A Company. Nothing else known.

3057 Pte G. Webb - CC, OFS & Tr - to England 19/07/1900 – Attached from the 3rd Militia Battalion served in G Company. Nothing else known.

Smethwick has also supplied me with two letters (Draper and Webb) which I had never seen before and will be most useful for my next project, an in-depth account and analysis of The Colesberg Operations.

Thank you David (Smethwick)

Here’s an amendment which confirms that Chapman was released the same day:

Above I said:

I know that nineteen wounded from Rensburg rejoined the Battalion at Bloemfontein on the 13th of March 1900. Perhaps Chapman was released the same day or perhaps the number should be twenty rather than nineteen. Either way this accounts for Chapman being in the OFS and receiving the medal clasp correctly, as the Regiment crossed the Orange River on the 17th of March 1900, so the casualties were actually waiting for them at Bloemfontein.

Letter from 2528 Drummer J Tilling dated Bloemfontein 12 April 1900 states:

“We have 19 of our Regiment come back, some the Boers wounded and captured. They had not time to get them away before Roberts popped in”.

The 19 were accounted for so Chapman must have been released on 14 February and gone with the Battalion into the OFS.