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Some information on Mr Kemp. He was the well respected Village school master's son, Baptised on Christmas day 1878. A lot of local attention was captured when he joined the Sharpshooters "The 18th Battalion was raised on 7 March 1900 by the Earl of Dunraven and designated as "Sharpshooters". Unlike most IY battalions..... the Sharpshooters were selected from volunteers who could prove their skill with a rifle and their horsemanship."
His send off to war was described in a newspaper clipping.and later news of his death was also announced in the papers

Some information on Mr Jackson ..Thomas "Tom" Jackson was a farmer's son..the 6th of 9 children,,,when he was small his Pa farmed 200 acres at Sowdley Manor (a hamlet very close to Cheswardine)
He was born around 1875,
his parents later kept the Fox and Hounds Inn in Cheswardine.

Army service commenced
6 Jan 1900
Joined at Lichfield / Imperial Yeomanry 4th Battalion ( Father... Thomas. Mother .....Harriet ....of Cheswardine)

27 Jan 1900 • South Africa
Serving in SA

18 Apr 1900
Letter from SA to brother John
Trooper, Staffordshire Imperial Yeomanry

6 May 1901
Returned to UK from SA

16 Jun 1901
Discharge from Army as End of Engagement

I lost track of him after the 1911 census ..when he was single and working for another farmer in Sowdley

Val - it is nice to see somebody taking an interest in a member of the Staffordshire Imperial Yeomanry.

The Staffordshire IY sent 3 companies to SA - the 6th Company which went out in two contingents - first & second wave. 1060 Trooper Tom Jackson was first wave as his service dates in S Africa show. There was also a 106th Company which went out as second wave. In SA they were all part of the 4th Battalion of the IY.

The first wave of the 6th Company returned to England on the 8th June 1901. So Tom was sent home a month early. There were lots of reasons why men went home early but usually it was because they were invalided home sick or injured.

After the war Tom was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps - Wittebergen, Cape Colony, Transvaal & South Africa 1901. The Wittebergen clasp shows he was involved in the surrender of the Boer commander General Prinsloo and 4,000 of his men but I think the 4th Battalion IY involvement was only in escorting the surrendered Boers to a place of confinement.

Regards, David (Of, once upon a time, Smethwick in Staffordshire)

Thanks David! that's really interesting...Cheswardine is where I grew up (I now live in Alaska) so when it starts to snow I enjoy researching local history..
And the Boer War memorial looked at every Sunday as a child but never really seen....makes a good focus for research
My Grandfather was a little too young for the Boer War (born in 1887) but there was a Boer War saddle in his tack room on the farm so one of the lads who went must've bought it back with him! ...
Tom Jackson was his Grandmother's brother...and Mr Hussey his Father's cousin ..so either of them is possible but who knows..???

Val - Cheswardine to Alaska sounds interesting. Childhood forays from Smethwick to Shropshire were not infrequent but usually involved Ludlow or Carding Mill Valley/Long Mynd. Looking up Cheswardine on-line it looks a very pleasant place to have been brought up (better than Smethwick), the Fox & Hounds is still serving food & beer and its position close to the Staffordshire border explains Tom’s service in the Staffordshire IY - mind you the journey to Lichfield, where he attested was somewhat longer than the one to Shrewsbury to enlist in the Shropshire IY.

The 6th Company went out to South Africa on Transport No.83 the Cavour. Newspaper reports show they did not set sail until the evening of 28 January 1900 despite what it might say on the service records of Tom and others. I think the intention was that they should set sail on the 27th but they were delayed waiting for some of their equipment & uniforms to arrive but they still seem to have embarked as a motley crew.

They were accompanied by the 8th (Derbyshire) Company of the IY who also formed part of the 4th Battalion IY in SA. There is a letter home by a member of the Derbyshire IY who described the first part of the voyage as being very rough and that the steering gear broke and they spent the first night at sea tossing about and going nowhere whilst it was repaired. They re-coaled at Las Palmas and 3 of the Derbyshire men were so ill from sea-sickness they were put ashore, the men of Staffordshire seem to have been made of sterner stuff. On these voyages the horses suffered from lack of exercise, poor ventilation etc and had to be kept a constant eye on – by the time they reached Las Palmas five horses had had to be shot and their carcasses thrown overboard, the letter writer posted his letter at Las Palmas and added that, based on their condition, the expectation was that more would have to be shot before they arrived at SA.

They docked at Cape Town on 21 February meaning the voyage lasted 3 and a half weeks (longer than average). They would have been sent to Maitland Camp to allow them to sort themselves out, collect any equipment they were still missing and do some training. They would have left Maitland weighed down by personal equipment, by the time they reported for the home voyage they would have been carrying the bare minimum – not so much because they had lost it but because they had discarded it!

What exactly they did in SA I still have to work out but they would have travelled many a mile reaching as far north as the Transvaal, much of it on half rations or less topped up by what they could scavenge or bring down with their rifles.

The Company medal roll drawn up at Lichfield in July 1901 lists 5 officers and 115 NCO’s and men. The remarks column has been well used and is either blank or bears one of these four options “Invalided” 39 times, “Left in hospital” 9 times, “Died” 12 times, “Killed” 3 times. So you can see that just under half (57 out of 120) survived their South African adventure without coming to grief in some way or other. The lack of an “Invalided” against Tom’s name suggests he arrived home a bit early for some other reason.

I hope to do a post on the Staffordshire Imperial Infantry but do not hold your breath waiting for it. As far as I can ascertain no Smethwickians served in the Staffordshire IY, which is surprising as they served in IY companies raised in at least 7 other Counties and most notably Worcestershire.

If you want to see a photo of the Cavour and learn more about her follow this link:

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/11-research/9...hips?start=174#86200