TOPIC:

I recently acquired another Kimberley Siege Broach, but this one is different as it has a hallmark on the reverse. Does anyone have any information regarding the hallmark? Thanks in advance.

John,

As far as I understand it these brooches were made by Kimberley jewellers, cashing in on the battlefield tourism trade. The initials are likely to be those of one of the many jewellery establishments that sprang up around the diamond mines.
I haven't seen a piece marked in this way before.

Neville

I wonder how good business was? There seem to be a fair few out there, so it must have been fairly lucrative or they wouldn’t have continued to make them.

The copper strip looks like a piece of driving band from a pom-pom shell. Not grooved by rifling, hence unfired.

According to the Western Times (06/04/1900), such brooches were being sold by jewellers for 12s 6d each [about £50 GBP in today's money], while the actual value was considered to by only 6d [about £2].

A letter from a Mrs Winifred Heberden, dated 23 Nov 1899, shows that manufacture of these brooches had already begun six weeks into the siege.

Some show no evidence of having been parts of shells. This may be because the copper driving bands were hammered beyond recognition, or because some unscrupulous jewellers were using copper that had never been anywhere near a shell. Certainly the inscriptions are often spurious. Too many pieces are described as being from the first or last shell fired into Kimberley.


Western Times, 6th April 1900

The jewellers are coining money by making brooches out of the copper driving bands which they take off the shells which have been fired into the town. They are inscribed “Siege of Kimberley, 1899-1900”. They are sold at 12s 6d each, the odd 12s being the price of the brooch as a relic. The 6d about covers its value”. (letter from Gunner W.F.C. Pugsley, 38th Battery R.F.A., dated 10 Mar 1900).


South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times, 6th April 1900

LETTER FROM A MEXBRO’ SOLDIER.
The following letter has been received by Mr Charles Rudderham, Schofield Street, Mexborough, from his brother who is fighting in South Africa:
Military Camp, Kimberley, 24/2/1900.
……. Tell Annie I will send her a brooch made of a piece of Boer shell fired into Kimberley, with the engraving “Kimberley Siege, 1899-1900” on it as a curio of the Boer War, 1899-1900.
F. RUDDERHAM [5684 Lance-Corporal John Frederick RUDDERHAM, 2nd Bn. King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry]


Warwick Argus (Queensland), 10th April 1900

A SOUVENIR OF KIMBERLEY. Mrs. J. Ryan, wife of Sergeant-major Ryan, of Toowoomba, a member of the First Queensland Contingent, is in receipt of an interesting memento of the Siege of Kimberley in the shape of a brooch made from a piece of one of the Boer shells. It was fired into the town. Sergeant Ryan had it converted into a brooch at Kimberley, and it bears the inscription, "Siege of Kimberley." It is of copper. Pieces of the shells are selling at £3 in Kimberley.


Auckland Star, 24th May 1900

Trooper Franklin, now a prisoner at Pretoria, sent to a Wanganui lady a very interesting souvenir of the siege of Kimberley. The trophy consisted of a brooch, the pendant of iron and the bar of copper made from fragments of a shell fired by the Boers into Kimberley.


The South African Military History Society, Military History Journal, Vol. 3 No 4 - December 1975

Mrs Winifred Heberden wrote on 23/11/1899: “Have had a 'Siege Trophy' given to me in the shape of a brooch. It is made of the copper binding of a shell thrown into Kenilworth. From this is suspended one of the iron 'chocolate drop' shaped pieces from the inside of the shell - this particular piece having killed the horse of a Sergeant in the Cape Police”.








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Two more examples