TOPIC:

Good evening. I have an ancestor William Henry Long who served in the 2nd Boer War. William made his way from England to the The Cape and signed up on the 30 May 1901 and was attached to the Peninsula Town Guard His soldier number was 376.Thru another site I have located William in the No 33b (Engineers) Company. I am pretty sure I can recognise him in the photo, and he was indeed an Engineer.
I cannot find him in very few records, it's like the Local Armed Forces in which he was registered not among the other military records.
Can anyone tell me what William would have been doing as part of the war effort.
the family story goes that William came on from South Africa to NZ, he brought with him a Hauser gun. Was this common for the soldiers to emigrate to another country after the war?
Thanks Anna

Hello Anna, and welcome to the forum.

To put the town guards into context :
- Orange Free State forces invaded Cape Colony in December 1900;
- from January 1901 onwards, town guard units were formed in most of the towns, to act as first line of defence in the event of a Boer attack;
- dozens of town guard companies were raised in Cape Town and the other towns and villages on the Cape Peninsula, such as Green & Sea Point, Woodstock, Rondebosch, Claremont, Wynberg, and Simon's Town;
- Cape Town alone raised a few dozen units, some recruited from municipal departments, large businesses (e.g. Stuttafords and Garlicks department stores) and ethnic communities (Caledonian and Hellenic);
- the authorities organised these units into five battalions, collectively called the 'Cape Peninsula Regiment'; artillery volunteers were formed into the Peninsula Artillery, and mounted volunteers formed the Peninsula Light Horse;
- the CPR was disbanded early in 1902, except for a small full-time element which was named the 'Cape Infantry' and continued to the end of the war.

I'm not sure where 33B (Engineers) Company recruited its members -- possibly the City Engineer's Department.

What William Long might have done during his service in the town guard is probably a fair amount of training, parades and shooting practice, but no action. The Boers did not attack Cape Town -- the nearest they came was Bellville, about twelve miles away, where a patrol was spotted one night in November 1901.

Thanks very much Arthur, that explanation is fabulous.

Anna
Have you see this pic of the 33b (Engineers) Company? Taken from Creswicke (South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. VII).

Regards
IL.