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The above three photographs can all be associated with the Birmingham Boer War Memorial in Cannon Hill Park.

On the left the only officer on the Memorial, Charles Henry Benjamin Adams-Wylie, on his wedding day (24 March 1899). He died of enteric fever in Bloemfontein. A couple of years after his death Lilian remarried and became Mrs Doughty, and doughty she was in character as well as name. She was in Mumbai when plague broke out, whilst all the other English ladies fled she stayed put and a present day Indian website describes her as “Mumbai’s own Florence Nightingale”.

The name to look for on the Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry Spioen Kop Memorial panel is Private F J Silvester. Francis was born and raised in Birmingham but by the start of the Second Boer War he was a Uitlander.

On the right is Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton who unveiled the Memorial, as depicted in the Birmingham Mail on the day of the unveiling. The Birmingham Mail described him as “one of the most popular officers in the British Army”.

Moranthorse and Smethwick
What a great memorial! Especially good to see the panel dedicated to the lads of TMI who fell on the KOP. Many of those names are quite familiar to me. Your man, Silvester, F.J., 4668 served with C Coy., TMI from 20/10/99 until 24/1/00 and he is buried on the KOP. Info from "Thorneycroft's "Unbuttoned"'.
Regards
IL.

Intombi, Ladysmith - Grave of Pte FJ Silvester

Elmarie and Linneyl, thank you for your contributions. My ignorance of the geography of South Africa is profound but diminishing by the day. It seems to me that Intombi, Ladysmith is about 18 miles ENE of Spioen Kop. Does the fact he was buried at Intombi, along with other members of Thorneycroft’s MI who died as a result of Spioen Kop, have any significance regarding his place and time of death?

The full page spread in the Birmingham Mail of 23 June 1906 covering the unveiling of the Cannon Hill Park Memorial led me to Francis James Silvester who died in late January 1900 as a result of the debacle that was Spioen Kop.

With one exception, the right hand column of the page was devoted to brief anecdotes about Birmingham men who had fought in the South African War and survived. The exception was Francis as this extract shows:



As you can see the writer of the piece on Francis does seem to have made an extraordinary claim in the name of Francis.

Here is the 1875 Baptism record for Francis James Silvester from which we can deduce Francis was 24 years and 9 months old when he died at Spioen Kop.



Francis & parents were living in Jennens Row, Birmingham when he was baptised at 5 weeks old and thus he was probably born there. His parents had a short walk to take him to the ceremony as Jennens Row ran alongside the churchyard of St Bartholomew’s. The name Jennens Row lives on but is now an arterial highway in the centre of Birmingham and the house he was probably born in is long gone, as is St Bartholomew’s Church – it was badly bombed in WW2 and totally demolished a few years later.

The 1881 Census found the family still living in Jennens Row although by then the head of the household, James Silvester, was a “(School Board) Visiting Officer”. By 1891 the family had moved to 52 Coventry Road where James was now the proprietor of a Tobacconist’s Shop and 16 year old Francis was a “Cabinet Maker”. James died in 1894 and based on the 1901 Census his wife Ann Elizabeth (Mason) took over the running of the Tobacconist’s Shop. Ann died in 1927 and the 1921 Census indicates she spent her final years living in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham with the elder brother of Francis and his wife.

Exactly when Francis emigrated to South Africa I have no idea.

As you can see from the above newspaper clipping Thorneycroft was a south Staffordshire man. I realised this a couple of months ago whilst researching the Tettenhall Rifle Volunteers and noted the winner of their annual shooting competition was awarded with The Thorneycroft Cup – the cup was presented by Thorneycroft’s father who was an even larger than life character than his son. Tettenhall is a village a couple of miles NW of Wolverhampton where Thorneycroft senior built Tettenhall Towers and Thorneycroft junior was duly born there. After the family moved out it was initially purchased by Wolverhampton Council who, to defray running costs, allowed a local group to run Ghost Tours. Amongst the ghosts they claimed was a servant of Thorneycroft senior who was an inventor amongst other things – the Ghost Tour guides claimed he had invented a flying machine which was launched from one of the towers but, not having full confidence in his own invention, the pilot was one of his servants. In actuality the flying machine only made it to the extent of design drawings. These days Tettenhall Towers is part of an independent day and boarding school, Tettenhall College.

Having digressed I will continue. Some members of the Birmingham History Forum believe the unusually named Jennens Row was named after bachelor William Jennens who died towards the end of the reign of George III having forgotten to sign his will. They reckon his fortune, made out of the manufacture of papier mâché products, was worth £12m in present day money. Alleged relative after alleged relative commenced to claim and at least one book has been written about the never-ending litigation and Charles Dickens based Jarndyce versus Jarndyce in Bleak House upon it. The litigation did finally end in the reign of George V by when all the fortune had been dispersed to men of the law across the country and abroad – over the years the claimants included a Secretary of State of the USA.