TOPIC:

This to follow and complement Rory's last post.

Single - Natal 1906 medal bar: 1906 (Lt. A.S. Langley. Natal Carbineers.) Good Very Fine.
(Naming in Indian style running script as usual for officers)

In his Regimental History of the Natal Carbineers John Stalker records that Aubrey Langley was a Lieutenant in the Natal Carbineers in 1904. Presumably Langley was commissioned the previous year in 1903. A few years later, the Natal Government Gazette in recording his promotion in “local rank”, announced the following: “Lt. A.S. Langley, N.C. to Capt. while acting as Staff Officer to O.C. Helpmekaar Field Force wef 4/6/06”. This is confirmed by Stalker who records him as being a “Local Captain” in 1907 and as “Captain” in 1910 presumably having been promoted to this rank the previous year in 1909. Following the re-organisation of the Natal Carbineers in 1910, in which the Regiment was split into a Left and Right wing, Captain Langley is recorded as serving as Adjutant (Right Wing). It would seem that Langley was not mustered for service during the Boer War and that he presumably resigned his active commission in 1911. These situations seem to reflect the obvious concurrent teaching responsibilities of his employment in civilian life at the time.

Aubrey Samuel Langley was born in Pietermaritzburg on 25 June 1871. He was the second son of the well-known Wesleyan missionary James Langley who was born in 1836 and his mother Emma Read who was born six years later in 1842. Aubrey had an elder brother, Edgar, born in 1870 and a younger sister Emma E. born in 1875 and four younger brothers, Oswald (b. 1873), Gilbert Horace (b. 1878), Cecil (b. 1881) and the youngest, Morley (b. 1884).

After of a stay of 20 years as a missionary in Natal between 1860 and 1880 his father, James Langley, returned to England with his young family. In 1881 the family residence is noted as being at Melksham, Wiltshire. Aubrey received his schooling at Bath (presumably at Kingswood School) and was later appointed as a House Master at Heversham Grammar School.

Aubrey Langley returned to Natal in 1897 joining the staff of Maritzburg College as an Assistant Master the same year. The Maritzburg College had a very close association with the Natal Carbineers and it would have been after his appointment to the staff of the school that he first enlisted with the Carbineers. It may be mentioned that John Stalker, the author/editor of the well-known regimental history titled “The Natal Carbineers”, was also a senior teacher at Maritzburg College while the master in charge of their Cadet Corps was also a member of the Carbineers.

Aubrey Langley married Dora Agnes Allison, the daughter of the well-known Natal missionary, in Pietermaritzburg on 21 December 1898. Dora was three years younger than her husband having been born on 23 November 1874. Aubrey and Dora had two daughters, Dorothy and Evelyn Langley, and a son, Noel Aubrey Langley, born in 1911. In later life their son Noel was to achieve considerable international success as a poet, playwright and author.

Aubrey registered with the University of the Cape of Good Hope soon after his return from England and the 1901 annual report of the University records that Aubrey Samuel Langley, having studied privately in the Department of Literature and Philosophy, was awarded the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. Langley was a teacher of special distinction as his subsequent school and teaching career reflects, however it was his considerable impact on the game of rugby football where he is perhaps most importantly remembered - being regarded as the most famous of all Natal’s rugby figures from the late 1890’s until the 1910’s.

With an enormous zest and belief in the game of rugby football as a means to install manly attitudes in young men, Aubrey Langley on his arrival at Maritzburg College immediately banished soccer at the College and built up their rugby football team until it was strong enough to win the Murray Cup in 1900. It has been written that the “upper class” boys were generally boarders and dominated rugby playing at the school. An association was rapidly made between class, masculinity and sport. Aubrey Langley, described as the fearsome Maritzburg College rugby coach and first-team player, slated the dayboys. In a presentation delivered to a teaching symposium he implored “Why should not the dayboys of our secondary and primary schools be subjected to regular athleticism as a function of their education?”

While still living in England he had played for Gloucestershire. He was a very accomplished three-quarter player and, being a powerfully built man, he was the leading player for Maritzburg College. He was later also selected to play for the representative Natal team.

Many contemporary reports published in the Natal Witness attested to his prowess as a player. These reports regularly referring to the three-quarter movements he initiated. It was however, not only as the Captain of the Maritzburg XV that he left his mark. He was an ardent and forceful administrator. When the new Maritzburg Rugby Union was formed under the Presidency of T.R. Bennett he was elected as one of three Vice – Presidents in 1903. He argued repeatedly for the opening up of the game and the local competition, which was then played as the Murray Cup, with other clubs in Durban. Unfortunately, his far-sighted amendment “that Durban clubs be allowed to enter the Murray Cup, and that the matches be played alternately in Maritzburg and Durban” was not approved.

Meeting local opposition to these suggested moves one reference refers to him as being “an arch schemer and planner of this much desired development in rugby”. His name was one of those put forward as a definite selection for a proposed tour to England in 1898 however this tour never eventuated. Once again in 1902 he captained the Maritzburg side in contesting the Murray Cup. When he wasn’t playing, he took up the whistle being described as a most competent referee, refereeing many an important game.

In 1909 he moved to Durban as Headmaster of the Durban Boys High School and within a year replaced soccer with rugby. He poached some of his former Maritzburg College players and succeeded in defeating the Maritzburg College First XV soon afterwards. By all accounts, it was his energy and commitment that installed rugby as the major winter school sport for boys in Natal. Such was his influence that the Rugby Section of the Durban Old Boys Club was formed the following year in 1911 under the captaincy of Jock Howden. Various references indicate that during his rugby career he was a member of the following clubs: Westmorland County Football Club, Kendal Football Club, Hamilton’s Football Club in Cape Town, the Maritzburg Old Collegian’s Football and Cricket Clubs and the Durban Old Collegians Club where he was elected as Vice President at the club’s fifth Annual General Meeting.

Langley was idolized by rugby players, boys and men alike. He also had a devoted African following who called him Madevu (moustache) or Inkunzi (the Bull). Nearly half the Zulu staff at Maritzburg College followed him when he moved to the Durban High School. Yet there were many aspects of his makeup which, in retrospect at least, said something about what kind of masculinity he promoted. Both MC and DHS had played soccer until 1897 and 1910 respectively. Langley was responsible for the rooting out of soccer at both schools. He regarded soccer almost as a perversion and was openly scathing about the game. An imposing figure and a fine player in his own right, Langley had an almost pathological loathing for soccer, and he was wont to summarily dismiss any rebellious young lout who had the temerity to refuse his suggestion to play rugger, as a vile "soccerite thug". At Hilton, a leading private school in Natal, the playing of soccer was a beatable offence.

In those far off days no Headmaster was more controversial than Langley whose system of instruction was the epitome of Victorian simplicity: hard work and tough discipline earning everlasting fame as an iron-willed Head Master. In later years old boys of the school were to recall as follows: “We ate, drank and slept Langley”; another: “If ever I have a nightmare it is generally about Langley – though I owe him the best half of my character and a sound knowledge of Latin”; yet another: “A man of contrast – you didn’t know whether he was going to give you a caning or put 2 shillings in your hand. I am certain that many parents wish that Langley would come out of his grave and lay down his law to the youth of today. Certainly, DHS flourished under his leadership.” He was a great advocate of corporal punishment according to another pupil. “He was tough, always carrying, metaphorically, in the hands that he clasped behind his back, a cane for beating. His head, on top of its neatly corrugated neck, was shaped like a coconut and possessed about as much expression – except for the eyes. Mr Langley’s eyes were hooded, restless and bad tempered. Langley was disliked and feared by the boys and I suspect the masters too”.

Neither did Langley spare the rod when it came to his own son, Noel, who developed a deep hatred of his father once describing his face — “as highly coloured as the school buildings” — was thanks to a taste for alcohol as much as outdoor sport!” Another pupil remembered: “The two decades of his tenure commanded respect from all who served under or with him. Langley, the son of a dour Calvinist missionary, was a tremendous personality. He was the queerest mixture of sensitive artistic and stern disciplinarian. More than half the school would have died for him: and even so I (who abominated him) was elated for days if I could accidentally earn a word of praise from him.”

There is however no doubt that Aubrey Langley was a very successful Headmaster and in a contemporary report the Superintendent of Education in Natal once described him as “the most successful Head Master in Natal”, a later school historian describing him as the most successful headmaster Natal had ever known. The softer and more sensitive side of his personality was reflected in his talent as an artist with watercolours. During World War 1 he was often reported at morning assemblies to have read the names of those killed with tears streaming down his cheeks. Indeed, there were times when he became so emotional that he could not carry on and had to leave the school hall. He kept the photographs of all the boys who died framed and hung in his study. Even in much later years his eyes still filled with tears when he recalled them to the school’s historian. (I now endeavour to collect these medals of course!)

His term as Headmaster of Durban High School ended after 20 years in 1931. His hobbies were volunteering, painting and sport generally and he was well known as a keen hunter. He belonged to both the Durban Club and the Victoria in Maritzburg.

He passed away in Durban in 1939 predeceasing his wife by just a few years.

Aubrey’s only son, Noel Langley, was born in Durban on Christmas Day in 1911, the year in which the preparatory school started. He studied at his father’s school where his mother also acted as Matron. Leaving DHS in 1930, Langley went on to the University of Natal, graduating with a BA degree in 1934. While at university he became active in student theatre and produced his first play, Mrs Moonlight. In 1932 his play Queer Cargo (about pirates) was performed by the Durban Repertory Theatre.

After graduation, Noel Langley left for England, fortuitously meeting aboard ship the cousin of Charles Wyndham, the owner of London’s Wyndham’s Theatre, where Queer Cargo would subsequently enjoy a seven-month run (incidentally providing Alec Guinness with his first professional role). Langley soon had other plays on the West End stage, including For Ever, an historical melodrama set in 13th century Florence, and Farm of Three Echoes, a South African set-drama starring May Whitty, Sybil Thorndike and a teenage Jessica Tandy.

Langley’s big breakthrough came in 1935 with the publication of his first novel, Cage Me a Peacock, a social and political satire set in Ancient Rome. A stage musical version subsequently ran for two years during World War 2. In 1959 the novel was declared “undesirable” by the newly created South African Directorate of Publications. Ever prolific, another novel from Langley, there’s a Porpoise Close Behind Us, followed in 1936, a comedy about theatre life in London. The same year also saw the publication of Langley’s children’s book, The Land of Green Ginger, which remains popular today.

Langley was now flush with cash (his first years in London had been financed by an anonymous Durban businessman) and could send money back home. And so he did, “sending back sufficient funds to Durban”, according to Stephan Gray, “for his detested father to drown himself in whiskey”. According to a letter written by Jack Cope to former DHS teacher Hubert Jennings: “Ever since a lad Noel had sworn to kill the old man. He was now achieving his goal by sending him several thousand a year to finance his purchase of liquor.” Langley senior succumbed to drink in December 1939.

Langley had already had a hand in scripting a couple of British films, King of the Damned, a prison island parable, starring Conrad Veidt, and the espionage drama Secret of Stamboul, starring Valerie Hobson and James Mason. This experience, as well as his stage successes, saw Langley heading for Hollywood with a seven-year contract as a screenwriter.

In 1937 Langley married his “Pietermaritzburg sweetheart”, Naomi Mary Legate, in Los Angeles, and they subsequently had five children.

Langley’s first Hollywood script credit was on Maytime (1937), a musical vehicle for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Then, thanks in part to his children’s hit The Land of Green Ginger, he was given the job of adapting The Wizard of Oz. Langley first provided a 43-page adaptation, turning it out in 11 days. His main change from the book was to introduce the Oz characters — the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion — as farmhands in the sepia sequence set in Kansas that precedes young Dorothy and her dog Toto’s whirlwind arrival in the land of Oz. Langley also changed Dorothy’s all-important shoes from silver to ruby — a hue better suited to Technicolour. Langley then produced a final draft shooting script. Unknown to him — and he was angry when he found out — Ryerson and Woolf were hired to do a rewrite. However, MGM producer Arthur Freed was unhappy with their work and Langley was brought back on board. Langley, who later said he found their version “so cutesy and oozy that I could have vomited”, proceeded to remove as much of their work as possible, replacing it with his own.

The resultant film was released in August 1939. “I saw it in a cinema on Hollywood Boulevard at noon,” recalled Langley. “And I sat and cried like a bloody child. I thought, ‘This is a year of my life’. I loathed the picture. I thought it missed the boat all the way around. I had to wait for my tears to clear before I went out of the theatre.” However, film critics and the viewing public felt differently. Starring Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz has been described as being the world’s most popular film, seen by more people — over a billion — than any other film. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it the 10th “Greatest Movie of All Time”. Langley saw the film for a second time in England during its 1949 re-release: “Suddenly, I could see it objectively for the first time. And I thought, ‘It’s not a bad picture. Not a bad picture, you know’.”

During World War II, Langley enlisted in the Canadian Navy and in his spare time while serving as a Lieutenant successfully tried his hand at short stories. One of them, Serenade for Baboons, set in the Drakens¬berg, was later reprinted in Herbert van Thal’s 1959 landmark collection, The Pan Book of Horror Stories. With the War now over, Langley returned to England and settled at Kingston-upon-Thames. The novels and plays kept on coming, there was The Music of the Heart, about a band of circus performers caught in Poland at the beginning of the war and the play Edward, My Son with Robert Morley (who would lead a 1976 protest outside South Africa House in Trafalgar Square when John Kani and Winston Ntshona were arrested in the Transkei “homeland” following a performance of Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Banzi is Dead).

Langley’s involvement in the film industry saw him bouncing between Britain and Hollywood. He scripted several notable films, including Tom Brown’s School Days (1951), Ivanhoe (1952) and Knights of the Round Table (1953). He also wrote and directed a version of Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (1952). His other directorial credits included Our Girl Friday (1953), starring Joan Collins, and Svengali (1954), starring Donald Wolfit.

In California in 1954, Langley divorced his wife, obtaining custody of the children. She, it is thought, returned to Pietermaritzburg. While in the U.S. he wrote and directed The Search for Bridey Murphey (1956), based on a celebrated case of apparent reincarnation. This later saw him have a hand in the 1967 book Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation.

Earlier Langley wrote what some consider his best novel, Where did Everybody Go (1960), a “savage chronicle”, according to the Times Literary Supplement, of post-war cultural life sampled via a set of characters in Tangier. Its dedicatee was Pamela Deeming, an actress who Langley married in 1959. Two years later he became a U.S. citizen. According to Stephan Gray: “Last heard of, Noel Langley was resident in Desert Hot Springs in Southern California. There he worked part time rehabilitating young drug addicts and there he died on November 4, 1980.”

Over the years, Noel Langley sent many of his diaries, director’s notes and albums of clippings to his sister Evie in South Africa. She duly deposited this material at the Campbell Collections at the University of KZN.

Langley made one attempt to return to Oz, writing a screenplay based on Baum’s The Marvelous Land of Oz. It was never produced.

RobM

Hi Rob, great story behind that Natal 1906. Thank you for taking the time to pull it together for us on the Forum.

And a Great Big Thank You to Rob, a fantastic piece of research......

Mike

Based in your article above, I went to have a look at the Durban High School website. Very interesting information on their and the students history. Also managed to find a picture of Mr Langley as attached below for interest:



There is also a short article on the headmaster on the DHS website.

Thanks for the kind comments and thanks to Gavin for drawing my attention to the current Web stories about Langley.

As I alluded to in my initial posting this was not a recent write-up and in fact was completed several years ago. This was when his son's famous "Red Shoes" were in the news and I subsequently borrowed a copy of the school history from which much of my story was taken.

The additional details and the interest he has attracted in recent academic studies is a good illustration of the ever increasing amount of information which is becoming readily available on the Web. I should have checked before I posted his story earlier this afternoon .

I acquired the medal several years ago together with the attached photograph which induced me to do a somewhat detailed writeup in the first place. At the time I was drawn to the story of how Aubrey Langley kept photographs of the young DBHS boys who were lost in the carnage of the Great War. His story moved me to also chase the medals of some of these Durbanites and it has always been my intention to approach the school to see if any of their photographs survive in their archives. After seeing the content of the School Web Page I am encouraged to do so.

Once again thanks and Happy Easter.

My story writing today concerns another well remembered South African. Even though his military service and medal are from an earlier period it is a South African story of some significance and perhaps I will post it on this Forum.

RobM

A PAIR OF AUBREY LANGLEY'S BOYS KIILED DURING THE GREAT WAR
(Some research still outstanding) - (Sorry not Anglo Boer War)


9 July 1916 – Killed in Action. Private Ernest Sherwood Mather
Pair – BWM; AVM (Bil) (Pte. E.S. Mather. 2nd S.A.I.)


5 November 1917 - Died of Wounds. Harold Goldsmith Borain
Pair – BWM; AVM (Brit) (2.Lieut. H.G. Borain.)
This WW1 pair is accompanied by a large circular silver shooting medal of the “Schools of the Empire Match”, approx. 40 mm diameter, engraved: “Sgt. H.G. Borain / D.H.S. / 1913”


ERNEST SHERWOOD MATHER

Ernest Sherwood Mather was Killed in Action at Bernafray Wood on 9 July 1916. He was the son of Sam and Charlotte Sarah Mather. He was born in Bilston, Stafford in England in 1897 being baptised on 26 December that year. Ernest was the eldest of their four children, his sister Olive Mary Mather being three years older than he and a younger brother named Cecil Aubrey Mather being born in about 1903. The 1911 census records that Sam and Charlotte had an unnamed fourth child who was deceased.

The 1901 Census describes his father Sam as a Brewer’s Manager, whereas the following 1911 Census describes him a Commercial Traveller in the Brewing Industry. Both Census records reflect that the family were living at No 128, Wellington Street, this being a 6 roomed house in Bilston. Sam was born in Tewksbury in Gloustershire in 1869 and, this is pure speculation, it was perhaps due to the influence of either Aubrey Langley who had played representative rugby for Gloustershire or his introduction to far off South Africa in some other way, that induced Sam and Charlotte to send their eldest son to attend Aubrey Langley’s Durban Boy’s High School in 1910. Aubrey Langley, having established an outstanding reputation at Maritzburg College was appointed as Headmaster at Durban Boys High School in 1910 (1906 Natal medal Mitchell collection) and it is recorded that the young Ernest studied there from 1910 to 1914. The well known history of the school “The D.H.S. Story, 1866 – 1966” authored by Hubert Jennings records that Ernest was a member of their famous rugby side which won the school rugby competition in 1914 this being only four years after the game of rugby was first introduced to the school by Aubrey Langley.

Research in Pretoria will indicate whether or not Ernest served in German South West Africa in early 1915 however it is certain that later that year he volunteered for service as No 5623, Private Ernest Sherwood Mather, with the 2nd Battalion of the South African Infantry Brigade for overseas service in France. He would have served with his Regiment in Egypt in early 1916 where his Regiment was the first to see action in January 1916 and having crossed the Mediteranean Sea in April was amongst the first of the South Africans to see action in France. Sadly he was Killed in Action at Bernafray Wood on 9 July 1916 shortly before the Battle of Delville Wood.

Aubrey Langley, his Headmaster during his years at Durban Boy’s High School, is, even today, revered as being “the father of schoolboy rugby in Natal” and there can be little doubt that Ernest’s untimely death at Bernafray Wood would have induced one of those emotional occasions when Langley was reduced to tears at his morning assembly. Surely a photograph of Ernest would have been one of his many former pupils which he reverently hung on his study wall. British medal index cards indicate that Ernest’s father Sam applied for the issue of his military medals on 27 September 1923. At that time his father’s postal address was recorded as No 8 Peel Street, West Bromwich.

NOTE: Ernest’s father Sam was about 2 years older than Aubrey Langley. One can speculate what induced him to send his son at such a young age to far off South Africa to complete his schooling. Ernest played rugby for the 1st XV rugby side in 1914 and therefore it can be surmised that it was not exclusively due to health reasons. Did Sam and Aubrey attend school together in Bath? Did they play rugby together? Were the two families related in some way? I have not found records for either Ernest or his family travelling to South Africa and the full genealogy of the two families has not yet been unravelled.

HAROLD GOLDSMITH BORAIN

Harold Goldsmith Borain was the son of Joseph Edward and Ada Constance Borain. He attended Durban High School and in 1913 took part in the Schools of the Empire Shooting Competition whilst serving as a Sergeant with his school cadets shooting team. This was a worldwide competition shot under the auspices of the British National Rifle Association in which schools in England, Scotland, Wales, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and in the Channel Islands etc. all took part by arranging shooting competitions in their home countries under similar conditions.

Hearold was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery on 30 January 1917 and Died of Wounds received in action whilst serving as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 27th Battery of the 32nd Brigade of Royal Field Artillery in France on 5 November 1917. His medal index card records that he first served as a Gunner (No 175138) in the Royal Horse Artillery and that he first entered the Theatre of War in France on 13 March 1917 as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 22nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery.

Harold Borain was therefore also one of Aubrey Langley’s boys who were killed during WW1.

He indicated his next of kin as his sister, Miss D.A. Borain of 23 McCullum Road in Durban, Natal. His elder sister, Marjorie Constance Borain, married Lieutenant Colin C. Gray of the R.F.A. on 2 April 1918 however I was his father and his elder brother who are better known for their military service.

Harold’s father was a well-known Mechanical Engineer. Joseph Edward Borain, M.I., Mech. E. was born in Pietermaritzburg on 8 May 1867 and was educated at the Boys Model School in Durban between 1875 and 1882. He was the youngest son of Valentine Borain of Maritzburg. He married, Ada Constance, the fourth daughter of Chares Fysh in 1891. They had five children. Joseph followed an engineering career since leaving school and for 7 years worked with the Natal Government Railways from 1882 to 1889. By 1903 he was the Managing Director of Engineering Works of African Marine and General Engineering Company and later ventured out of his own as the Managing Director of J. E. Borain & Son, Ltd. This firm employed 75 men. He submitted an application to join the Institute of Mechanical Engineers on 5 June 1916 and was confirmed as a full Member of the Institution at meetings convened on 22 September and 20 October 1916. His application had been proposed by Arthur MacNay and William Milne both of Durban.

Harold’s father had served as a military volunteer for nearly 20 years. During the Anglo Boer War he received the thanks of Sir David Hunt for taking a train across the Tugela Bridge at Colenso under fire his service being recognised by the award of both the QSA and KSA medals. He represented Maritzburg against the first English Cricket team and Durban against the second English Cricket team. He represented Natal at the English …

In a civilian capacity he served for a period as President of the South African Federated Chamber of Industries before his death in 1959. His wife, Harold’s mother, Ada Constance died that same year.

Harold’s elder brother was Clifford Ernest Borain and he was to become one of South Africa’s most distinguished soldiers.

Brigadier Clifford Borain DSO, MC, VD, ED was born at Durban on 3 January 1892 and commenced his military career at the age of sixteen, as a trumpeter in the Natal Mounted Rifles. In 1913 he transferred to the Durban Light Infantry as a private. He was commissioned in 1914 and served in the German South West African Campaign. At the conclusion of this Campaign, he volunteered for overseas service and served with the 6th S.A. Infantry Battalion in East Africa where he was twice mentioned in despatches and awarded the Military Cross.

At the outbreak of World War II, he was transferred to the Staff Corps and was appointed Assistant Director Infantry Training, in addition to his duties as Commander 7th Infantry Brigade. In 1940 he was appointed Brigade Commander, 3rd Infantry Brigade. He commanded his brigade, as part of the 2nd S.A. Division with great distinction during the hectic days after the battle of Sidi Rezegh and especially in the two main attacks on Bardia, the second of which was launched on 31 December 1941 and resulted in the surrender of that fortress.

For his distinguished service he was mentioned in despatches, awarded the Distinguished Service Order and twice awarded the King's Commendation.
In January 1942 whilst doing a reconnaissance near Bardia he was blown up in a minefield. He was found unconscious and badly wounded about the head and back with both his legs badly smashed. That the medical personnel were able to save his life was remarkable - that they were able to save his legs was nothing short of a miracle. One leg caused him endless suffering and numerous operations right up to the time of his death.

At one time or another he was the Commanding Officer of the Royal Durban Light Infantry and the Rand Light Infantry.

RobM