TOPIC:

Glass plate negative, showing "Wonderboom Tom" (a.k.a. "Puffing Billy", of Umbulwana fame) outside the Glasgow Art Gallery during the Glasgow International Exhibition (2nd May 1901 – 9th November 1901).

Plaque reads: “GUN CAPTURED from the BOERS / Loaned by Field Marshal Earl ROBERTS / This “Long Tom” was one of the four 95 pounders used by / the Boers against us from the commencement of the War. / It was first brought to bear on the 11th Division at / Pienaars Poort to the East of Pretoria two days / before the fight at Donker Hoek (now called / Diamond Hill) and subsequently at Belfast. / Its remains were taken on Sept 24th 1900 by the / 11th Division on the hill to the East of Komati Poort.”

In 1906 this gun was placed in Lord Roberts's private collection at his new residence, Englemere, Ascot. Before the collection was moved to Englemere the guns were sent to Woolwich Arsenal to undergo renovation work:

Nottingham Evening Post, 16th February 1906
LORD ROBERTS’S WAR TROPHIES
At the present time there are in the Ordnance Department at Woolwich Arsenal a number of war trophies belonging to Lord Roberts which are of great historical interest. They are undergoing repair before being removed to Lord Roberts’s new country mansion [Englemere] at Ascot. The trophies include two 9-pounder guns, with carriages and limbers, captured from E Battery, R.H.A., and recaptured by Lord Roberts at Kandahar in 1880; one 15-pounder B.L. gun, with carriage and limber, formerly belonging to the ill-fated 66th Battery, R.F.A.; and one of the guns in trying to save which from the Boers Lieutenant Roberts lost his life; one Krupp gun, carriage, and limber taken at the time General Cronje surrendered; the “Long Tom” from Ladysmith; a full battery of 12-pounder 12cwt guns, presented to the country by Lady Meux during the South African war [the Elswick Battery]; one bronze gun and carriage, dated 1596, engraved with the names of Phillip II of Spain and his Captain-General of Artillery; and four small brass cannons.

Sadly, nearly all of the above guns were smelted in June 1940 as part of the war effort. The only survivor appears to have been one of the Elswick Battery guns, which found its way to the Royal Artillery Historical Trust and thence, in 1991, to the National Army Museum, London [NAM. 1991-11-42].






Dundee Courier, 7th January 1901

LORD ROBERTS AND GLASGOW EXHIBITION.

The Lord Provost of Glasgow has received the following letter from Earl Roberts, viz: –
S.S. Canada,
At sea, 14th December, 1900.
My Lord, – I am desired by Lord Roberts to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram asking for war trophies for your exhibition.
He is sending to you on loan the broken Long Tom taken at Hector Spruit; a smaller gun, a stand of 240 Mausers, and 60 other rifles of various kinds.
There were no bandoliers or flags at Cape Town which his Lordship could send to you.
I have the honour to be,
My Lord, Your Lordship’s obedient servant,
STANLEY,
Private Secretary.
To the Lord Provost of Glasgow.


Dundee Evening Post, 14th September 1901
In connection with the arts collection are to be found the war trophies from South Africa, outside the building being a real but much damaged "Long Tom".


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More regarding CASTOR & POLLUX ...

MC Heunis has written this fascinating article, which shows that one of the 6.3-inch howitzers now standing outside Ladysmith Town Hall is neither Castor nor Pollux. Indeed, the gun on the right (No 33) was nowhere near Ladysmith during the siege but instead was guarding the Boer fort at Johannesburg...!!



Oom Paul’s Howitzer
MC Heunis

When doing historical research one rarely gets the chance to "change" history. One such incident happened to me a few years ago.

Since 2000 I have been actively researching Boer republican artillery pieces and what became of them. With the help of my fellow researchers of the Oranje Vrijstaat Artillerie Corps Historical Study and Re-enactment Group we have identified and traced several Boer artillery trophies in South Africa, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and even the United States. This is the story of one of them.

The Discovery

In September 2004 my good friend Johan Wolfaardt, an employee of the War Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein, handed me a copy of a document he discovered at the Pretoria National Archives. This document would forever change the generally accepted history of a 6.3-inch 18 cwt* rifled muzzle loading (RML) howitzer (* 18 cwt is the weight of the gun's barrel, from breech to bore, measured in hundredweights; 1 cwt = 112 lbs). The document was a list from a British War Office file with the heading "Guns, ammunition etc. in the Fort Johannesburg" and was compiled by "Genl. Marshall C.R.A." somewhere in June 1900 after the British Army invaded Johannesburg. The first item on General Marshall's list was "One 6.3 inch RML Howitzer with carriage and limber – all made at Woolwich. The howitzer marked with Royal Monogram on top of chase and R.G.F, No.33, I, 1879 on left trunnion."

When I saw the number 33 I feverishly grabbed my "little brown book" in which I note the serial numbers of all artillery pieces that I bump into and started flicking through the pages. Could it be… is this what I thought it was or was my mind playing tricks on me? Yes! There it was… during a trip to Ladysmith a year or two before I visited two 6.3-inch RML howitzers where they stood in front of the Town Hall and indeed, one of them is No.33!



The two 6.3-in RML Howitzers in front of the Town Hall, Ladysmith, KZN.


Technical Detail

Calibre: 6.3-inch (160 mm)
Weight of barrel: 18 cwt (914 kg) approx.
Ammunition: Common hollow shell, star shell and case shot
Weight of common shell: 72 lb. (32.6 kg)
Weight of star shell: 11 lb. (4.99 kg)
Weight of case shot: 49 lb 14.5 ozs. (22.6 kg)
Maximum range (common shell): 4000–4500 yards (3658–4115 m)


The British 6.3-inch 18 cwt RML was a typical howitzer. Compared to a gun, howitzers of those days had a shorter barrel and fired a heavier shell at shorter distances, at a lower muzzle velocity and with a higher trajectory. This enabled a howitzer to fire its projectiles into trenches and behind fortifications, something a normal gun with it flat trajectory could not achieve. For field use the 6.3-inch 18 cwt RML howitzer was mounted on a wheeled travelling carriage originally manufactured for a 40-pr RML gun. Mounted on this carriage the assembly was similar to that of a normal field gun, but due to the howitzer's shorter barrel it could achieve a greater elevation of around 30 degrees. To fire its shells the howitzer used black powder in bagged charges. This made its position almost impossible to hide when fired and necessitated thorough cleaning at regular intervals.

Earlier British RML artillery fired loose-fitting conical projectiles with projecting studs which slotted into deep rifling grooves in the barrel; the so-called Woolwich rifling system. This system had proved unsatisfactory as excessive windage (the escape of burning propellant past the projectile) caused erosion in the bore. To overcome this it was necessary to devise some means of preventing the forward escape of gases when the gun was fired. After several experiments, in 1878, a copper gas-check, in the shape of a cup placed between the shell and the powder cartridge, was found to be the best solution. Apart from preventing windage it was also found that the gas-check increased the range of the gun. Originally the gas check was not fitted to the base of the shell but rotated independently. After it was suggested that it might, by being fixed to the shell, also be used to impart rotation, the studs on the shell were dispensed with and the gas-check became an early form of driving band. With no studs on the projectile it was now possible to use a shallow “polygroove” rifling system (20 grooves 0.1-inch deep and 0.5-inch wide with the twist increasing from one turn in 100 calibres to one in 35 at the muzzle). In Britain the 6.3-inch RML howitzer came into service in 1878 and was the first artillery piece to make use of this development.


History

During the early 1880's the South African Republic (ZAR or Transvaal) conducted a number of small campaigns against rebelling native tribes, many of these ending up in mountain sieges. To assist, a 6.3-inch howitzer and a mortar were bought from the British Cape Colonial Government; the howitzer arriving in Pretoria from King Williams Town on 7 April 1882.

In the Transvaal the howitzer saw service during the 1882-1883 Nyabêla campaign under Commandant Henning Pretorius; later CO of the Staatsartillerie (State Artillery). During the same campaign it was used to fire the salute at Paul Kruger's first presidential inauguration in May 1883, thereby gaining a link to this famous Boer leader.

Unlike most of the Transvaal's other obsolete RML guns, the 6.3-inch howitzer was not posted at Fort Hendrina or Pietersburg in the Northern Transvaal during the 1890s. Instead it remained at the artillery camp in Pretoria and ammunition usage reports during this time indicate that it was probably used for training. Ammunition stock-takes and order requests from 1886 to 1896 specified the use of common and star shells, case shot as well as Boxer time fuzes of 15 and 30 seconds and Pettman percussion fuzes. Although obsolete, this howitzer remained the Transvaal's largest artillery piece until the arrival of the well-known 155mm Schneider Creusot Long Toms.




Members of the Transvaal Staatsartillerie photographed with their 6.3-inch howitzer in the artillery camp in Pretoria, c1896 (Black & White Transvaal Special: No. 1, p. 19).


No evidence could be found suggesting that the Transvaal’s 6.3-inch howitzer saw action during the Anglo-Boer South African War of 1899-1902. On 29 October 1899 Captain Kroon of the Staatsartillerie reported that it was standing in the Johannesburg Fort, complete with 100 filled and 100 unfilled shells. It is not sure exactly when the howitzer was sent to Johannesburg, but it was somewhere between August 1898 and January 1899. On 31 May 1900 the British Army marched into Johannesburg and found the fort and a number of obsolete guns therein, including the 6.3-inch howitzer, abandoned. General Marshall's list identified this howitzer as a Mark I gun, serial number 33, manufactured at the Royal Gun Factory (RGF) in 1879. An earlier Staatsartillerie letter, dated 19 July 1886 also identified the howitzer's foundry number as "Vickers Steel No. 3699". With the gun was its carriage and limber (ammunition wagon), all made at Woolwich, as well as 50 fuzes, 180 common shells and 90 case shots. There were also a large number of black powder cartridges roughly made up in unmarked bags of various materials.



Tommy Atkins posing with the captured Boer 6.3-in howitzer [No. 33] in the Johannesburg fort.


After its capture the Boer 6.3-inch howitzer was used as the one o'clock gun in Johannesburg. Although its capture is listed in War Office documents on captured Boer guns, no mention could be found in British trophy gun lists of it being sent to England in 1902/1903, as was done with most other Boer trophy pieces. Fortunately, this historic piece stayed behind in South Africa and today it can be viewed outside the Ladysmith Town Hall where it rests next to a British howitzer of the same calibre and design. It is not known how No. 33 ended up in Ladysmith and until 2004 it was generally accepted that both were British howitzer.



No. 33 photographed in front of the Town Hall, Ladysmith.


As opposed to the Boer piece, the British 6.3-in howitzer standing next to it (No.48) did see action during the Boer War. It was one of two sent from Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony to Ladysmith shortly before the siege of the town commenced. During the siege the pair was dubbed "Castor and Pollux"; after the mythological twin sons of Zeus. They became famous for damaging a Boer Long Tom on Middle Hill, subsequently forcing the Boers to move it to Telegraph Hill. A few weeks later the Long Tom took revenge by scoring a direct hit on Castor (the mortal son who fell in battle…), necessitating the replacement of its breast transom. In total the two British howitzers fired 765 rounds during the war, mainly in defence of Ladysmith and, although obsolete, therefore played an important role in the war.



Two 6.3-inch RML howitzers in front of the Ladysmith Town Hall at the end of the Boer War. Note the damage to the clock tower, caused by a direct hit from a Long Tom shell [No. 48, the damaged gun, is on the right in this photograph].


Today only one of the original British pair still guards the entrance to the Ladysmith Town Hall. Its left trunnion inscriptions identify it as also being a Mark I gun manufactured at the RGF in 1879. The two former foes both carry the same weight marking on the breech "17-2-23" (17x112 + 2x28 + 23 = 1983 lbs). It is suspected that the second British howitzer was replaced with the captured Boer piece, possibly due to the damage caused by the Long Tom's direct hit. However, contradicting this, No.48’s carriage still carries battle damage, which indicates that this probably was Castor, the gun damaged by the Long Tom's direct hit. So, it seems today, in stead of Castor and Pollux, we have Castor and Paul guarding the Town Hall! What became of Pollux after the war remains a mystery…



A British 6.3-in RML howitzer [No. 48] and crew during the Boer War. Note the damage to the carriage below the trunnion.




The same damage can still be seen today on gun No. 48 outside the Ladysmith Town Hall. [Note the impressed lettering to the left trunnion: "R.G.F / No.48 / I / 1879"].


Epilogue

So, when you are travelling through the KZN Midlands again, do yourself a favour and stop over at the Ladysmith Town Hall to greet Oom Paul’s howitzer and the British defender Castor. Once sworn enemies, today the two old veterans are resting in peace, side by side.





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Returning to Rob's post with photographs of "Klapperkop Tom" , here is another image of the same scene, apparently taken at the exact same moment. This photograph is from the album of Colonel M.G. Jacson, C.O. 1st Bn. Devonshire Regiment.




Photograph from Colonel Jacson's album. Reproduced in “A Record of a Regiment of the Line”, p. 180.




Photograph posted by Rob


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Colonel M. Jacson, “A Record of a Regiment of the Line”, pp. 179-181

The following morning [15 Apr 1901] the column marched north down the Waterval valley, and after the mounted troops had experienced some opposition in very hilly and rough country, Boshfontein was reached.
Shortly after the force had settled into camp heavy gun fire was heard from the direction of Waterval. The Boers’ shells exploded in the valley immediately to the north of the camp and in the vicinity of a farm, where it would appear the Boers considered the column should have bivouacked. After the explosion of some twenty shells a louder report than usual was heard, and the shelling ceased.
The mounted troops reported that the Boers were in position above Waterval, where there was a large women’s laager.
In the dark of the morning, at three o’clock, General Kitchener set his column in motion: four companies, with a 12-pounder and two 5-inch guns, under Major Davis, preceded the force, with the intention of capturing the big Boer gun; four companies, with two field guns, under Captain Jacson, made a flanking movement through scrub and dongas round the left. Very little opposition was met with. The mounted troops captured a few prisoners, and it was found that the Boers had blown up their big gun. This was the gun that had been situated at Pepworth Hill, and which had been disabled by one of the Naval Brigade’s shells during the siege of Ladysmith. [Note: this is incorrect – this gun was the 155 mm Creusot that had been on Middle Hill and Telegraph Ridge during the siege, and which was disabled by Castor & Pollux on 28 Nov 1899]. Its muzzle had been shortened, showing that it had been damaged. The Boers had blown the gun to pieces. The barrel of the gun was blown about fifty yards in front of the emplacement, whilst the breech-block was found afterwards 1 ½ miles in rear. They had destroyed also one pompom and one Maxim. Twenty-eight Boers were captured, with about sixty head of cattle and thirteen wagons. The Australians had one man killed and one man wounded.







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If anyone were interested, here's an inert 15-pr shrapnel shell reassembled from fired components. As always, the price is much more than I thought it would be!
www.gunstar.co.uk/inert-deactivated-rare...Accessories/1119358#

A coloured postcard of the Wolf in Mafeking