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Smethwick,
Many thanks for adding this information for L. E. Perry.
Unfortunately for him, he was another fellow who died shortly after returning home due to effects of wounds, disease and the hardships of campaigning on the veldt.
I come across so many men who met a similar fate when researching memorials and recipients of QSAs in my collection. The names and numbers do not appear on casualty lists, but are equally casualties of the war. Their numbers must run into hundreds if not thousands.
A hidden statistic indeed!
Cheers Steve

Steve - ~Today went to the St Thomas's Church, located within the remains of St Dogmael's Abbey, and after some time found the headstone bearing the name of Sgt Major Lawrence Ebenezer Perry. He shares it with his maternal grandparents and their 8 children one of whom was his mother (Ann) and four died less than a year old, plus his elder brother who predeceased him. I need to check the transcription I made on site of the over 175 word inscription. Interestingly, the headstone bears the surname Phillips (his mother's maiden name) but not the surname Perry. Lawrence is referred to as just Lawrence and I have highlighted his name (with two yellow crosses) towards the bottom of the headstone. Further investigation confirms his service in the Boer War was double-barrelled as stated in the newspaper article. Think he deserves a full write-up in his own right. - David.

David,
Thank you for taking the time to locate the last resting place of Lawrence. That is some lengthy inscription!
His story is building up, so his own thread would definitely be worthwhile.
Would you have the time and inclination to tell his story as he is pretty local to you?
Cheers Steve

Steve - I already had Perry & Trollip under surveillance as members of the first contingent of the Pembrokeshire Imperial Yeomanry. Perry appears unique amongst them as he also served in the second contingent but under a different service number. Trollip described himself as a Rancher on his attestation papers because he had just returned from a short stint in Canada. Letitia was his mother and he married in S Africa, raised a family there and died there in his 90's - widowed and aged 79 he made a trip back to his origins. His father Jacob had been Mayor of Cardigan and proprietor of the Black Lion Hotel in Cardigan which you could have had lunch in during your visit. So before doing a write-up on both I need to do some butterfly recording just north of Ceibwr Bay which should allow me to take shots of the farmhouses Perry was born and died in and have a lunch in Cardigan. David.

David, you have a couple of interesting lives to continue researching, I look forward to your write up in due course.
Yes, I did wonder at his occupation of 'rancher'.
I hope the weather improves for the butterfly surveys!
Cheers Steve

TOWN CLOCK, LLANGEFNI, ISLE OF ANGLESEY

Constructed in 1902 to the memory of LIEUTENANT GEORGE PRITCHARD RAYNER – 49th (Montgomeryshire) Company, 9th (Welsh) Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry who died of enteric fever on 1st July 1900 in Bloemfontein Hospital.



The difficult to read inscription says: “In Memory of / GEORGE PRITCHARD RAYNER / of Trescawen JP for Anglesey / Lieut^nt in the Montgomeryshire / Imperial Yeomanry Died / in Bloemfontein Hospital July 1 / 1900 whilst serving his / QUEEN and Country / Erected by his friends and relations”.

Mildred G Dooner in “The Last Post” has this to say – “Lieut. George Pritchard, 49 Co. I.Y., of Trescawen, Anglesey, died of enteric fever July 1st 1900, at Bloemfontein. He was 29 years of age and was educated at Eton (Mr Merriot’s). He was a lieut. In the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry Cavalry, joined the I.Y. in Feb 1900, and served in South Africa up to the time of his death.”

The papers of the day reported his death as follows:



The clock inscription is correct. Dooner is almost certainly incorrect regarding his age (see end of post). The newspaper, despite misreporting his rank and house name, was correct about him being a large landowner and unmarried. I think they confused his rank with that of his father who was also called George Pritchard Rayner and had been a Captain in the 5th Dragoon Guards.

His larger than life father in his 49 years of life, 1843-1893, had a profound influence on life in Anglesey as Master of the prestigious Anglesey Hunt and as a long serving Sherrif of the County. When he took on the role of Sherrif the county town was Beaumaris but George senior had it changed to Llangefni and it remains thus to the present day. Being cynical one could say the change meant George senior had much less far to travel to all the necessary meetings but he does seem to have been a popular man and the family were seen as benign landlords. There is one report of a “Winter Concert” at which, to the delight and applause of the audience, George senior with his “conjuring and sleight of hand” was the star act and George junior acted as his assistant. He also unsuccessfully contested the Anglesey constituency three times for the Conservative Party but the Liberals always got the better of him. However, his election meetings were always very popular as he started them with a conjuring trick or two.

The wealth of the Pritchard family went back several generations but George senior further enhanced the family fortunes when he married Sarah Maria Brady the only daughter of Dr John Brady M.P., another large landowner including an estate in Ireland where he was born. Part of the marriage settlement seems to have been that George would take on the maiden name of Sarah’s mother and thus they became Captain & Mrs George Pritchard Rayner.

So George junior was born George Pritchard Rayner in 1872, not on Anglesey but at their London home in Eccleston Square. The 1881 and 1891 Census returns show his parents living in Anglesey but George junior does not appear on either return. In 1881 he was staying, along with his four junior siblings, with his widowed maternal grandfather, the aforementioned Dr John Brady, who at the time lived in Dunchurch Hall near Rugby. There were seven servants in residence. In 1891, aged 19, he was residing in The Royal Marine Barracks at Alverstoke near Gosport, Hampshire (also known as Forton Barracks). He is listed as a “Private, RMLI” which presumably stood for Royal Marines Light Infantry – part of his military career apparently overlooked by Dooner but I can find no service records or other information relating to it.

George sailed to South Africa from Liverpool on 14th March 1900 aboard the SS Montrose along with the rest of the first contingent of the 9th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry which included the 30th (Pembrokeshire) Company. They disembarked at Cape Town on 6th April 1900 and proceeded to Maitland Camp then camps at Stellenbosch & Wellington. On 26th May they were ordered to join the army at Bloemfontein where presumably George contracted enteric fever which was to cause him to draw his last breath a month later. So George’s contribution to the war effort probably only involved the training of the men under his command. He was posthumously awarded the Queen’s South Africa medal with two clasps – Cape Colony and Orange Free State. Find-a-Grave tells me he was buried in the President Brand Cemetery in Bloemfontein.

He was also commemorated in 1905 on the Eton School Memorial in the Lupton Chapel at Eton. Berenice’s post of 5 years ago provides a photograph of the relevant panel. His is the sixth name down.



Presumably, despite having been born in England, he is listed on the Welsh National Boer War Memorial in Cathys Park but I cannot find his name on the photographs posted by Steve Davies.

The Imperial War Museum (IWM) website tells me he is also commemorated in St Cwyllog’s Church, Llangwyllog. Llangwyllog lies about 3 miles north-west of Llangefni and there is a private mile long road linking the church to Trescawen House which has now reverted to its Welsh name of Tre-ysgawen and is a “Country & Spa Hotel”. When I visited the church the door was firmly locked. If I had been able to gain access I would have found a bronze plaque bearing the Pritchard-Rayner coat of arms and the following inscription: “In Memory of / GEORGE PRITCHARD RAYNER / Lieutenant Montgomeryshire Yeomanry / Who died on active service at Bloemfontein / South Africa July 1st 1900 Aged 28 Years / This tablet was erected by his brother officers and / the non com officers and men of his Regiment.”

So was George junior 28 or 29 when he died? One would expect the plaque in the church to get it right but there may be a transcription error in the IWM report. I cannot find the registration of his birth or any document giving his exact date of birth. His baptism record show he was baptised in London on 9th July 1872. The 1881 Census gives his age as 8 and the 1891 Census as 19 – both could be correct if he was born on 4th or 5th April. So I suspect he was born on the 4th or 5th April 1872 and was 28 years of age when he died.