TOPIC:

Meurig,

Many thanks for the further history of the memorial fountain at Froncysyllte and your involvement. A job well done if I may say so.

I do hope that you will be able to find the time to post a more detailed write up here.

Cheers Steve

David,

Yes, when you start to dig deeper into the past, the religious/political considerations would certainly have affected recruitment from the rural communities of mid-Wales which were (and still are) relatively sparsely populated. And sons were needed on the farms for the families to survive.

A couple of days ago I was working at Fradley, near Lichfield which is not far from the route of the HS2 London to Birmingham rail link. I noted the vast swathe of high grade farmland and habitat that had been trashed for this new permanent way and remembered all of the furore of local people who vehemently opposed the project.
It must have been the same for folk in and around the Elan Valley back in the day, being evicted by the Birmingham Corporation and suffering a vast influx of 'foreign' labour as navvies etc.
Little wonder that recruitment was low and few sons were to make the ultimate sacrifice in South Africa and end up named on memorials.

Cheers Steve

ST. MARY'S PRIORY CHURCH,
MONK STREET,
MONMOUTH,
NP25 3NX.
WALES.

ORDNANCE SURVEY GRID REFERENCE:SO508130.




Entrance gate to the churchyard walking beneath a very impressive horse chestnut and a beech tree.


Side elevation from churchyard.


Memorial panel inside church. The church doors were locked, so I could not gain access to view the panel and memorial stained glass window.
The above image taken from the Regimental Museum at Monmouth Castle!

The memorial is made of three brass plaques mounted upon a hardwood backboard, and inscribed thus:

TOP PANEL
"We pray you remember in the Lord all those of the Royal Militia Regiment of the County of Monmouth and of this district who laid down their lives for their Sovereign and Country in the war in South Africa 1899-1902. whose names are here recorded and to whose memory this window is here dedicated."

LOWER LEFT HAND PANEL
"Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers
Sapper W. Baldwin
Died at Kroonstad 18th May 1900.

Sapper E. Brackley
Died at Kroonstad 21st May 1900.

Corporal W. Gorton
Died at Kroonstad 21st March 1901.

Sapper T. Samuels
Died at Springfontein
28th March 1901.

Corporal W. A
Roberts
Died at Pretoria 9th June 1901.

Lance Corporal C. Westley.
Died at Pretoria 20th October 1901."

LOWER RIGHT HAND PANEL
"Captain A. J. Taylor
West Riding Regiment.
Killed at Lobatsi 13th March 1900.

Trooper Algernon Parker.
Cape Mounted Police
Killed at Kimberley 11th November 1899.

Private J. Russell.
2nd Shropshire Light Infantry
Died at Wynberg 21st July 1900.

Private Frederick J. Evans
East Yorkshire Mounted Infantry
Killed at Bothaville 6th November 1900.

Private Albert Sysum.
South Wales Borderers
Killed at Krugersdorp 24th December 1900.

Corporal Francis B. Cossens.
Army Medical Corps.
Died on returning home 8th November 1901.

Private Charles F. Wills.
4th batt. South Wales Borderers.
Died at Klerksdorp 22nd November 1901.

Transport Major Harry P. Tintern.
Died at Vaal River 22nd May 1902."

Steve – I could not resist a name like Albert Sysum except it would appear his name was Hubert Robert Sysum as shown by SAFF, Steve Watt records and your previous efforts - you have “met” him before in Cathays Park and Brecon Cathedral.

This is what you wrote about him based on your photos taken in Brecon Cathedral:

“6073 PRIVATE H.R. SYSUM. KIA. RHENOSTERSPRUIT. 24/12/1900. INITIALLY REPORTED AS MISSING IN ACTION. CHURCH OF ENGLAND KIA.”

This is a transcription of the SAFF record, found on Find My Past:

First names: Hubert Robert
Last name: Sysum
Year: 1899-1902
Rank: Private
Service number: 6072
Regiment: 2 Battalion The South Wales Borderers
Other regiments/units: attached to 2 Mounted Infantry,Private,6072
Rolls: WO100/181 page 316
Memorials: Cathay Park. National Memorial, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, WALES; Cathedral. Chancel. Plaque. 2 bn South Wales Borderers, Brecon, Powys, WALES; St Mary's. South wall. Wood Plaque. Militia & District, Monmouth, Gwent, WALES
Event unit: 2 Battalion The South Wales Borderers
Event detail: Killed on 14/12/1900 at Rhenosterspruit
Event source: South African Field Force. JB Hayward & Sons
Event notes: Missing. Court of Enquiry states killed

This from this site via the name search facility:

"Sysum H R, 6072, Private, 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers, killed in action 24 Dec 1900 at Rhenoster Spruit (Source: In Memoriam by S Watt)."

This from the Montgomery County Times 18 May 1901:



Here he is on the 2nd Btn SWB Medal Roll, dated 10 October 1901:



This from Public Family Trees on Ancestry:

He has received good coverage and one PFT traces him back to his 8 times GGF who was called Thomas Sasome b 1575 (in the reign of Elizabeth I). Be that as it may, Hubert Robert was born in Monmouth and baptised in St Thomas’s Church on 17 March 1881. On the 1881 Census, held on 3 April, his age is given as 2 months so I think we can say he was born in January 1881. His father, Herbert John, was a baker and had married a lady called Sarah Sandy. The 1881 & 1891 Censuses show they ran a baker’s shop in St Thomas’s Square. His parents had a very productive relationship and the 1911 Census return shows they had 15 children of whom 11 were still alive in 1911. The first was born in 1876 and the last in 1898, a year or two before Hubert Robert went to war and never returned.

Wonder why the Monmouth WW1 & WW2 Memorials are in St Thomas’s whereas the Boer War Memorial is in St Mary’s.

Dr Google says the Sysum surname relates to the Lords of the Manor of Siston – a family thet came over with Williams the Conqueror. They allegedly have a coat of arms and family motto “Hope for the Best” which sounds a bit fatalistic and did not work too well for Hubert Robert. The small village of Siston is just to the SE of Bristol and the stronghold for the surname Sysum seems to be Gloucestershire.

Regards, David.

Steve – neither of the officers commemorated in St Thomas’s attracted the attention of Mildred Dooner. Taylor is too common a name to facilitate further pursuit & Tintern, as a surname, seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum.

However, I have got somewhere with Francis B Cossens.

He was born in November/December 1872 in Monmouth and the B stood for Benedict reflecting his parents’ Roman Catholic faith. He can be found on the 1881 Census living in Church Street, Monmouth which shows his father was a Chemist employing one assistant.

On 11 November 1890 Francis attested to join the 3rd Militia Battalion of the South Wales Borderers and the paperwork can be found on Find My Past. On 28 January 1891 he attested again to become a full time soldier and seems to have been guided towards the Army Medical Corps, entirely appropriate considering his father’s occupation. His regimental number was 9081 and again the paperwork can all be found on FmP. The 1891 census found him in barracks at Aldershot and all the seven years of active service he had signed up for were spent at “home”. In January 1898 he was discharged to the Army Reserve but he obviously did not enjoy the return to civilian life because in July 1898 the army agreed to extend his service to 12 years and he rejoined the Army Medical Corps. He sailed for South Africa on 24 August 1899 (i.e. about 7 weeks before war broke out). He set foot again on the soil of England on 5 May 1901 and was discharged 4 June 1901:




He actually died in Abergavenny but was buried in Monmouth. The burial record gives his name as plain Francis Benedict Cossens.

He had adopted the “Sackville-West” addition by the time of his first attestation in 1890 and as you can see from his discharge papers maintained it throughout his military career – even on the 1901 Census return his initials are given as “F.B.S.W.”.

Vita and her much older brother, who had a distinguished military career including being MID in the Boer War, found fame too late for Francis to adopt the addition to his name in admiration of either. I have checked out Sackville-West FT’s on Ancestry and there are no Cossens amongst them. So was Francis aware and proud of a dalliance by one of his female ancestors? There is another possible reason with political overtones very topical at the moment. The name Sackville-West hit the headlines in 1888 (two years before Francis first attested) owing to the Murchison Letter Scandal. In 1888 Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was seeking re-election as President of the USA and Vita’s grandfather, Lionel was Ambassador to the USA. Lionel injudiciously wrote a letter to a Mr Murchison, who was not who Lionel thought he was, in which he expressed the view that it would be a good thing for Britain if Grover was re-elected. Mr Murchison was actually a Republican and published the letter causing all the Irish Americans, who to a man at the time were opposed to anything that would be good for Britain, to vote Republican – the expert view is that this did actually swing the close run election and there is no doubt the next President of the USA was Benjamin Harrison (Lionel was forced to resign as Ambassador but Grover regained Presidential power four years later). If this was indeed the reason for Francis extending his name I am not quite sure what message he was trying to convey!

I will email all the paperwork I have down-loaded regarding Francis later today, meanwhile the Murchison Letter Scandal and Lionel have Wikipedia pages.

Regards, David.

PS Meant to include that a 1905 Medal Roll shows Francis was awarded a QSAM with only Cape Colony & SA1901 clasps attached suggesting his SA service was all in a Cape hospital.

Capt Arthur John Tyler