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75 mm Krupp BL on display outside the Glasgow Art Gallery, during the Glasgow International Exhibition (2nd May to 9th November 1901). With thanks to MC Heunis.






37 mm Krupp-Gruson Single Load QF, Upnor Castle, Rochester (photograph: Whipper_snapper).





37 mm Krupp-Gruson Single Load QF, in storage, Tasmania (with thanks to MC Heunis).







Armstrong 9-pdr RML (No. 2854), Cape Police Memorial, Kimberley
"The Dronfield gun, a Mark I type gun on its original Mark II type steel/wrought iron carriage, survived and can be seen mounted at the Cape Police Memorial in Kimberley. It was used during the siege and covered the Boer retreat from Dronfield when the siege was lifted. After the war it was handed over to the Commissioner of Police at Kimberley. Its left trunnion carries the engraving: Sir WG Armstrong & Co. / 1873 / No.2854, while the right trunnion reads: Weight 935 lb, 9 pr / Prep 5 lb. The carriage is engraved: Sir WG Armstrong & Co. / New Castle on Tyne No.1612. There is very little doubt that this was the gun imported in 1881 and which was said to be the best of the five". (MC Heunis).






66 mm Broadwell RBL (No. 3), now mounted on an 1890 3-pdr Maxim-Nordenfelt QF carriage, Fort Frontenac, Kingston, Ontario. Shipped to Woolwich in May 1901 aboard the Templemore. This is one of the two Broadwell guns discovered in Johannesburg Fort on 31 May 1900 (see below).




Three stereoviews depicting the two 66 mm Broadwell RBL guns (Nos. 1 & 3) found abandoned in Johannesburg Fort on 31 May 1900. These images show the wooden carriage that the Ontario gun would have been mounted on when first allocated to the Minister of Militia & Defence, Ottawa, on 17 Sep 1904.






37 mm Vickers-Maxim “Pom-pom”, Devonport Park, Plymouth. Allocated to the Royal Navy, 2 July 1903.








1864 9-pdr 6 cwt Armstrong (No. 1225; Experimental), before and after restoration, MOTH Hall, Ladysmith (with thanks to MC Heunis).
"It is not certain whether this gun saw any service during the Boer War or exactly where and when it was captured, but one war-time photograph of it is captioned: “Boer gun captured by force under General French”. The most likely listing in British Public Records Office (PRO) documents on captured Boer guns is a 9-pr RML captured at the occupation of Pretoria on 5 June 1900" (MC Heunis).



...

Below is the head of a 2.5-inch 7-pdr Mountain Gun projectile, incorrectly inscribed "Nordenfeldt shell", fired by Dr Jameson's Column during the Raid of 1895/6. Engraved: "A SOUVENIR OF JAMIESON’S RAID / DECEMBER 1895 / Part of Nordenfeldt shell fired / BY JAMIESON & Discovered at the QUEENS GOLD. M. Co. / Battery near Krugersdorp / South Afr Republic / PRESENTED BY LAVINE BROS JOHANNESBURG / TO H. PAYTON ESQ. AUGUST 1897". 62mm high; 65mm diameter.


Treatise on Ammunition (1897), p. 270

Note: the presentation head does not conform to the British Army specification, in that it is made from gun-metal instead of the standard malleable cast iron. Also, the head of a Royal Artillery round would have been screwed into rather than pinned to the body of the shell (see Treatise on Ammunition 1897, p. 268). This probably reflects the fact that the ammunition purchased by the B.S.A.P. was a consignment manufactured for export rather than for British Government use.


The trophy was presented to H. Payton by Lavine Brothers, Loveday Street, Johannesburg, who were a company of jewellers, watchmakers and clockmakers (see: Loomes Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World). This establishment was responsible for the supply of some of the ZAR secret police badges (see below).
The recipient was probably the jeweller Henry Payton, J.P., of C. Payton and Sons, 3 Vyse Street, Birmingham. Henry Payton was also Chairman of the West Birmingham Liberal Unionist Association. The West Birmingham Parliamentary Constituency was held by Joseph Chamberlain for the Liberal Unionist Party from 1885 to 1914, and Henry Payton has been described as “Chamberlain’s first lieutenant”.


Birmingham Daily Gazette, 11th November 1913

Mr Chamberlain’s Confidant.
The late Mr Henry Payton was, as chairman of the Unionist Party in West Birmingham, a close friend of Mr Joseph Chamberlain. He was the link, in fact, between the great statesman and his supporters, and was always regarded as Mr Chamberlain’s first lieutenant.
No one worked harder than Mr Payton as chairman of the local celebrations of the 70th birthday of the member for West Birmingham.
Mr Payton was the possessor of a number of treasured letters from Mr Chamberlain.




Z.A.R. Geheime Politie (Secret Police) badge. Reverse with maker's mark: "LAVINE BROS JOHANNESBURG". The shell fragment shown above was presented to H. Payton by Lavine Brothers.




Members of the White family photographed with one of the B.S.A.P.’s 2.5-inch Armstrong Mountain Guns at Bulawayo. Four months after this photograph was taken, two of the brothers, Colonel the Hon. Henry White and Major the Hon. Robert White, were to take part in the Jameson Raid.
Two of the four Armstrong guns accompanied Jameson on the Raid, and were captured at Doornkop on 2 January 1896. (Image courtesy of MC Heunis).







This equipment was more commonly referred to as the ‘screw gun’ and was made famous by a Rudyard Kipling poem. Its nickname was derived from the fact that its barrel was constructed in two parts which screwed together.
To replace an older 3-inch calibre 7-pr 200lb Mark IV RML mountain gun, Col. Le Mesurier of the Royal Artillery in 1877 proposed the manufacture of a 2.5-in calibre 7-pr RML steel gun. As his design weighed twice as much as its predecessor, and was therefore too heavy for a single mule, the gun was jointed at the trunnions to be broken down into two loads.

Twelve guns of this design were manufactured by one of Armstrong's firms, the Elswick Ordnance Company (EOC), and were sent to Afghanistan in 1879. After they proved satisfactory, a large number to a similar design were made at the Royal Gun Factory (RGF) for service with the Royal Garrison Artillery’s (RGA) mountain batteries. The RGF guns primarily differed from the EOC guns in the design of the sealing rings.



2.5-inch Armstrong Mountain Gun on display at the Royal Artillery "Firepower" Museum (photograph: gberg2007)


The gun and its mountain carriage were specifically designed for mule transport and could be dismantled and loaded on five mules. Two mules each carried a half of the gun barrel, a third the carriage, a fourth the wheels, and the fifth the axletree, elevating gear, rammer and other stores.

The gun made use of a copper cup “driving band”, fitted to the bottom of the shell, which imparted spin on the projectile and effected gas sealing between the projectile and the barrel. The barrel was equipped with eight grooves, 0.05-in deep, with a twist increasing from one turn in 80 calibres to one in 30 at 3.53 inches from the muzzle, the remainder being uniform at that pitch. Ammunition consisted of ring, shrapnel, star and case shot fired by means of separate cloth cartridge bags filled with black powder.
In its day the Screw gun was considered to be the best mountain gun of its kind in the world and it remained the armament of RGA mountain batteries and a number of Colonial units until the turn of the 19th century. At the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War 24 guns of this design were still in use with British forces in South Africa, while a further 7 were sent to South Africa during the war. Although some 2.5-in guns were by then re-mounted on larger “Kaffrarian” field carriages, by 1899 they were truly obsolete and not popular among Gunners. Because of their black powder charges the smoke advertised the gun’s position every time it fired. This, combined with their light shell weight moved Cecil John Rhodes to refer to them as ‘Imperial Pop-guns’.



2.5-inch Armstrong Mountain Gun on display at the Royal Artillery "Firepower" Museum (photograph: radio53)


The Transvaal captured two guns of this design with 40 to 50 shells from the Jameson Raiders. The guns were originally the property of the Bechuanaland Border Police, which later became the British South African Police (BSAP), and they formed part of a battery of four pieces. Most contemporary reports list the two captured guns only as 6 or 7-pr “Armstrongs”, causing some historians to believe that they were of the older 3-in 200 lb Mark IV guns. However, shells unearthed at Mafeking during the Boer War, buried there by Jameson’s force shortly before the Raid, confirmed that Jameson’s two guns were of the 2.5-in jointed 7-pr RML design.

During the Boer War the two captured Jameson guns saw action on the Boer side, while the two remaining with the BSAP were pressed into service with Lt-Col Plumer’s Rhodesian column. In December 1899 invading Transvaal forces met stiff resistance while trying to take the main Cape Police fort at Kuruman, northwest of Kimberley. Field Cornet J.H. Visser repeatedly wired General Cronje at Mafeking asking for a gun to bombard the fort. On 30 December a 7-pr finally arrived from Pretoria and two days later, on New Years Day 1900, on the 4th anniversary of Jameson’s Raid, the bombardment commenced. According to J.H. Breytenbach the Boer Gunner in charge of the piece was inexperienced and sighted poorly. Only after the gun fired about 80 shots and was moved about several times, did it find its mark. After ten more shots the wall finally gave way and the fort surrendered. Some sources state that at least one 2.5-in gun, possibly the same piece, was also later in action against the besieged Kimberley garrison.
At Mafeking Baden-Powell referred to Jameson’s mountain guns in his siege diary, claiming that they were also in use against his garrison. Further investigation however revealed that the two older 3-in (200lb Mark IV) guns, captured at Kraaipan, were the only 7-prs used against the town. Interestingly Mafeking’s garrison converted some of Jameson’s unearthed 2.5-in shells for use with their 3-in guns by adding 0.25-in thick copper driving bands and studs to the shells.
During the Boer War the Boers captured another four, possibly six, guns of this design. Four belonged to the 10th RGA Mountain Battery and fell into Boer hands after the Battle of Nicholson’s Nek on 30 October 1900. Later in the war Jameson’s two 2.5-in guns were recovered by British troops at Rustenburg on 14 June 1900 and four days later at Klip Kop, on 18 June 1900. According to WO32/7028 both guns were: “Handed over to the B.S.A.P.”


“May Jackson”, the 2.5-inch Armstrong Mountain Gun while on display in the Police and Army Museum, Lusaka, in the early 1960s. The whereabouts of this gun is now unknown.


After the Boer War one Screw gun, named ‘May Jackson’, after a popular Salisbury barmaid, saw action in the German East Africa and Northern Rhodesia campaigns of World War I. In November 1918 ‘May Jackson’ was captured with the 12½-pr Maxim-Nordenfelt No.4115 by Gen. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s invading troops before being burnt and tipped over the escarpment overlooking the military police camp. As mentioned before, after World War I both guns were retrieved and mounted in front of the officer’s mess at the camp before being mounted outside the Kasama Government offices. Later ‘May Jackson’ (said to have been manufactured by the Armstrong-Mitchell Company at their Newcastle-on-Tyne works) was moved to the entrance of the Police and Army Museum in Lusaka. The gun’s current location and condition is unknown.







THERE are few monuments and physical relics of the earlier days of this country that exist outside the Museum. And little enough is known of what scattered survivals there are of the history of the Territory. As a case in point, there are very few people who realise that the two guns mounted outside the Government Offices at Kasama have a history that goes back to the middle of last century. It is time their story was placed on record. Major A. B. Cree of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment began compiling a few notes about their long career, and Mr E.H. Jalland, a retired Provincial Commissioner, has added to them.

The first gun, a 7-pounder mountain gun, is probably the most famous gun in both Rhodesias and will be remembered by many old British South Africa Police as "May Jackson". May Jackson, the person, was, as Mr E.H. Jalland, once Provincial Commissioner, Kasama, and earlier of the British South Africa Police, puts it. "a big-hearted barmaid at Salisbury long years ago, a good friend to and much loved by all the police at Salisbury depot in her day". Whether she was proud at having a cannon named after her we are not told.

"May Jackson", the gun, again according to Mr Jalland, was one of a battery of four used in the Jameson Raid and later by the British South Africa Police during the Boer War. Captain Wardroper, once Commissioner of Police in Northern Rhodesia, gave a variation of this story, which was that "May Jackson", the gun, was captured by the Boers during the Jameson Raid, used against the British during the Boer War and recaptured by the British South Africa Police at the raising of the siege of Kimberley. Whichever version is correct it appears sure that "May Jackson" was used in the Jameson Raid, later in the Boer War and finished that period of her history in the possession of the British South Africa Police.





One of the 10th Mountain Battery’s 2.5-inch Mountain Guns captured from the British at Nicholson’s Nek on 30 October 1899.






Pall Mall Gazette, 11th June 1896

He [Mr Sarel Johannes Eloff] came up with the commandant in the early hours of New Year’s morning, and marched with Malan’s force towards Krugersdorp, taking a route which intercepted the Jameson column. Jameson sent a message that if he met with resistance he would shell the town. About half an hour afterwards a shell was fired from the Jameson column towards the Queen’s Battery, in which witness and the Boer force, some 500 strong, were entrenched. The Boers, said witness, had not fired before this, and, indeed, had no cannon. Once started, the Jameson shelling was kept up for an hour and a half, and a charge upon the battery was made. This was received by a fire from the battery and the outposts, beating back the Jameson force with some killed and wounded. After this the Jameson column moved off towards Randfontein, and remained there for the night. Next morning the column advanced to Doornkop, where the battle took place. Witness was present and witnessed the surrender of the Jameson column to the Boer troops.



Sarel Johannes Eloff, one of President Kruger's grandsons and a "Transvaal Witness" at the trial (seated on the left).


London Evening Standard, 12th June 1896

TRANSVAAL WITNESSES.

The further hearing of the charge against Dr Jameson, Major Sir John Willoughby, Colonel the Hon. Henry White, Colonel Grey, Major the Hon. Robert White, Major John B. Stracey, Major C.H. Villiers, Captain K.J. Kincaird-Smith, Lieutenant H.M. Grenfell, Captain C.P. Foley, Captain C.L.D. Monroe, Captain C.F. Lindsell, Captain E.C.S. Holden, Major the Hon. Charles Coventry, and Captain Audley Vaughan Gosling was resumed before Sir John Bridge at Bow Street yesterday morning. …….

The first Witness was Mr Saul [Sarel] Johannes Eloff, a lieutenant in the service of the Transvaal Republic, and a near relative of President Kruger. Very tall, spare and upright, youthful looking, beardless face, he presented, in his well-made black frock coat and light tie, far more the appearance of an English gentleman than that associated with the popular conception of a Boer. He spoke English, too, very well, save for an occasional misplacing of past and present tenses, but could only with the greatest difficulty be induced to raise his voice above a mere murmur. His story was that he rode out towards Mafeking on December 31, and, halting his men, advanced to meet Dr Jameson’s column, by which he was taken prisoner. He professed himself unable to directly identify either Colonel Grey or Major White as having been concerned in his detention, though the latter’s signature to a receipt for his horse and arms was not disputed. Released on condition of remaining where he was till two hours after the departure of the column, he described how he then joined Commandant Malan, and marched with him towards Krugersdorp. Here he and some three hundred men took up a position at was spoken of under the somewhat misleading title of the Queen’s Battery. For, as had been established by previous witnesses, the word “battery” was not used in a military sense, but to denote the stamping machinery of the Queen’s mine – where the Boer ambuscade was formed. He narrated how the position was surrounded and then attacked, and seemed a little surprised at the apparent indifference with which his mention of the repulse and loss of the assailants was received by everyone.

A BOER OFFICER’S STORY.

Saul [Sarel] Johannes Eloff, a Lieutenant in the Krugersdorp District of the Transvaal Republic, was called and examined by Mr Sutton. He said that on 31st December, in consequence of instructions, he left Krugersdorp, in the direction of Mafeking, with nine men. About six o’clock the same evening he met Dr Jameson’s column. He ordered his men to halt, and went forward to meet the column. In a few minutes he was stopped by the scouts of Dr Jameson. They led him to Colonel Frey, he believed, who asked him if he was in the police, and on patrol. He replied “Yes” to both questions. He then asked how many men he had with him, and he said he did not think it necessary to answer that question. He said he would find out for himself. Witness was placed under the charge of an armed guard for about half an hour, and his arms and horse were taken away. The officer who took his arms and horse gave a receipt for them.

Have you the receipt with you?

Yes. Here it is (handing over to the Magistrate a small page, evidently from a pocket book).

Sir John Bridge – Here is written “Received one revolver, horse, saddle, and bridle”. The paper is signed “Major White”.

Witness – The officer said I could get my horse and arms back at Johannesburg, or, if I liked, they could be sent to the Government at Pretoria. I then asked if I could see Dr Jameson. The officer said at first he did not think it would be possible; then he sent some one to see. After that he sent me to Dr Jameson, and the guard was taken away. I saw Dr Jameson, and asked him why he arrested me, a Transvaal officer, when there was no war declared or anything of that sort. He said he would give me back my horse, but would keep my arms. Some one then gave me back my horse. Dr Jameson made no conditions, but the man who gave me back my horse said I would have to stay two hours where I was after the column had left. I agreed to that condition. The column then saddled up, and went in the direction of Krugersdorp’ They must have left about nine o’clock. I remained there two hours, according to my promise. The nine men, when they saw I did not come back, rode away to make a report, as I had arranged that they should do. Afterwards I went in the direction of Rustenburg to meet Commandant Malan. I met him between two and three o’clock in the morning on January 1. Commandant Malan had about 300 men with him, and we marched towards Krugersdorp, halting at Queen’s Battery, which is about a quarter of an hour to 20 minutes’ drive from Krugersdorp. We arrived at the Queen’s Battery at about noon. Dr Jameson’s column arrived between three and four o’clock. They sent a note to the Commander of the Boers saying that Jameson would pass through Krugersdorp, and that if he met with resistance he would shell the town. He requested us to send all the women and children out of the place. I think that was the whole of the message. The man who brought the note said he was one of Dr Jameson’s prisoners. After delivering the note the messenger went away, and we did not see him again. About half an hour after the note was delivered the first shell was fired from Jameson’s column. The Boers had not fired up to that time, as the column was too far off. We had no cannon at the Queen’s Battery. When the first shot was fired we had about 500 men. The shelling continued about an hour and a half. After they had fired a little while, Jameson’s column charged one of the battery outposts. The Boers fired upon them and beat them back, several of the column being killed and wounded. The Jameson column then moved away, and the Boers remained all night. Next morning, Thursday, we moved to Doornkop, where the battle took place. I was present, but was away when the surrender took place.








This equipment was more commonly referred to as the ‘Screw Gun’ and was made famous by a Rudyard Kipling poem. Its name was derived from the fact that its barrel was constructed in two parts which screwed together.

To meet demands for a mountain gun of greater power to replace the 7-pr 200 lb Mark IV, Col. Le Mesurier of the Royal Artillery in 1877 proposed the manufacture of a 7-pr RML steel gun of 2.5-in calibre. As his design weighed twice as much as its predecessor and was too heavy for a single mule, the gun was jointed at the trunnions to be broken down into two loads. Twelve guns were manufactured by one of Armstrong's firms, the Elswick Ordnance Company (EOC), and were sent to Afghanistan in 1879. After they proved satisfactory, a large number to a similar design were made at the RGF for service with the Royal Garrison Artillery’s (RGA) mountain batteries. The RGF guns mainly differed from the EOC pattern in the shape of the sealing rings.

This equipment also employed the copper cup driving band principle as described under the 6.3-inch howitzer, but with eight grooves, 0.05-in deep, and a twist increasing from one turn in 80 calibres to one in 30 at 3.53 inches from the muzzle, the remainder being uniform at that pitch. The gun and its carriage were designed for mule transport and could be dismantled and loaded on five mules. Two mules each carried a half of the gun barrel, a third the carriage, a fourth the wheels, and the fifth the axletree, elevating gear, rammer and other stores.

In its day the screw gun was considered the best mountain gun of its kind in the world and remained the armament of RGA mountain batteries and Colonial units until the Anglo-Boer War. Shortly before the commencement of hostilities 24 guns of this design were available to local Crown forces, while a further 7 were sent to South Africa during the war. Although some of these were also re-mounted on Kaffrarian carriages, by 1899 they were truly obsolete and not popular among Gunners. Because of their black powder charges the smoke advertised the gun’s position every time it fired. This, combined with their light shell weight moved Cecil John Rhodes to refer to them as ‘Imperial Pop-guns’.

The Transvaal captured the first two guns of this design with 40 to 50 shells from the ill-fated Jameson Raiders on New Years Day 1896. Originally the property of the British South African Police (BSAP), they formed part of a battery of four guns. Most contemporary reports list the two captured guns only as 6 or 7-pr Armstrongs, causing some historians to believe that they were of the older 200 lb Mark IV design. Shells unearthed at Mafeking buried by Jameson’s force shortly before the Raid however confirmed that the guns were of the newer jointed 2.5-in RML design. During the Boer War the two captured Jameson guns saw action on Boer side, while the two remaining with the BSAP were pressed into service with Lt-Col Plumer’s Rhodesian column.

Early in the War invading Transvaal forces met stiff resistance while trying to take the main Cape Police fort at Kuruman, northwest of Kimberley. Field Cornet JH Visser repeatedly wired Gen. Cronje at Mafeking asking the dispatch of a gun to bombard the fort. On 30 December a 7-pr gun finally arrived from Pretoria and two days later, on New Year Day 1900, the bombardment commenced. According to JH Breytenbach the Gunner in charge of the piece was inexperienced and sighted poorly. Only after the gun was moved about several times and fired about 80 shots, it finally found its mark. After ten more shots the wall finally gave way and the fort surrendered. Some sources state that at least one 2.5-in gun, possibly the same piece, was later also in action against the besieged Kimberley garrison.

At Mafeking Baden-Powell referred to Jameson’s pair in his siege diary, stating that they were also in use against his garrison. Further investigation however revealed that the two 200 lb Mark IV guns captured at Kraaipan were the only 7-prs used against the town. Interestingly Mafeking’s town garrison converted some of the unearthed 2.5-in Jameson shells for use with their 3-in 200 lb guns by adding 0.25-in thick copper driving bands to the shells.

Republican forces captured at least four more guns of this design during the Boer War. The first four belonged to the 10th Mountain Battery RGA and fell into Boer hands after the Battle of Nicholson’s Nek on 30 October 1900. While climbing the hill the night before the battle most of the mules, carrying the gun parts, stampeded and disappeared into the darkness. During the next two days the Boers collected the mules and assembled the guns.

War Office documents list the re-capture of the 2.5-in RML guns as follows:

Qty	Re-captured at	Date	Remarks
1	Rustenburg	14 Jun 1900	Jameson Gun; handed over to BSAP
1	Klip Kop	18 Jun 1900	Jameson Gun; handed over to BSAP – Captured by Hutton
1	Fouriesburg/Wittebergen	30 Jul 1900	8th Division (Brandwater Basin)
1	Harrismith district	17 Sep 1900	8th Division
1	Hector Spruit	24 Sep 1900	“Found blown to pieces”
1	Potchefstroom	8 Sep 1901	Captured by Hicks
1	Doornberg	–	Carriage only

The first two guns, recovered at Rustenburg and Klip Kop in June 1900, are presumed to be the original Jameson pair and according to WO32/7028 were: “Handed over to the BSAP”. After the war one gun, named ‘May Jackson’, after a popular Salisbury barmaid of the period, saw action in the German East Africa and Northern Rhodesia campaigns of World War I. In November 1918 ‘May Jackson’ and a 12½-pr Maxim-Nordenfelt (also of Boer War fame), was captured, burnt and tipped over the escarpment overlooking the military police camp when the famous German commander, Gen. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, invaded Kasama. After World War I both guns were retrieved and mounted in front of the officer’s mess at the camp. Several years later they were found abandoned by a former crewmember in the same camp. After he restored them they were mounted outside the Kasama Government offices. Later ‘May Jackson’ (said to have been manufactured by the Armstrong-Mitchell Company at the Newcastle-on-Tyne works) was moved to the entrance of the Police and Army Museum in Lusaka. The gun’s current location and condition is unknown.

According to the Cape Times of 3 October 1900 “Campbell, commanding one of Rundle’s Brigades” captured a gun “belonging to No.10 Mountain Battery, lost at Nicholson’s Nek…” Maj-Gen BBD Campbell commanded the 16th Infantry Brigade, which formed part of Sir Leslie Rundle’s 8th Infantry Division and operated in the North-Eastern Free State, making this the gun captured in the Harrismith district. The other gun captured by the same division at Fouriesburg/Wittebergen a few weeks earlier is also believed to have originated from Nicholson’s Nek.

If one keeps in mind that some of the 7-pr 200 lb Mark IV guns were also unaccounted for and that only six 2.5-in pieces were re-captured it is obvious that some mountain guns were never re-captured. One of these was discovered on a farm at Henley-on-Klip some years later and was restored. Today it is on display at ‘The View’ in Parktown, Johannesburg, headquarters of the Transvaal Scottish Regiment. Except for this particular piece a further six or seven guns of this design also survive in South Africa in various museum and private collections. As with the 7-pr 200 lb guns, without proper serial number records, their exact backgrounds will probably never be known.


With thanks to MC Heunis






Potential recipient: Henry Payton, Manufacturing Jeweller, J.P., or his son of the same name, both living at 15 Ampton Road, Edgbaston (1891 Census). Henry Payton senior was the owner and his son a manager of C. Payton & Sons, 3 Vyse Street, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham.


Evening Despatch, 10th November 1913

DEATH OF MY HENRY PAYTON.

Staunch Supporter of Mr Chamberlain.

ACTIVE CAREER.

A prominent figure in Birmingham political and civic life has been removed by the death of Mr Henry Payton of Wellington Road, Edgbaston. Mr Payton had been in ill-health for some time, and died yesterday.
Mr Henry Payton was one of the best-known men in the Midlands, both in a business and political sense.
He was the head of the well-known firm of Payton, Pepper, and Sons, jewellers, of Vyse Street, and the business owed much of its success to his instinct and acumen.
Apart from the purely commercial side of his career, he always took a keen interest in Imperial politics, and was one of the most ardent admirers and adherents of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, at many of whose most important meetings he has occupied the position of chairman.

VYSE STREET CLOCK.

He was also chairman of the committee who organised the scheme for the erection of the clock at the corner of Warstone Lane and Vyse Street in commemoration of Mr Chamberlain’s thirty years of Parliamentary life.
Mr Payton was the chairman of the West Division Liberal Unionist Association, a member of the Management Committee of the Birmingham Liberal Unionist Association since its inauguration, and for some time chairman of the All Saints’ Ward Association.
A took a very prominent part in the Chamberlain birthday celebrations in 1906, being chairman of the committee.
As far as West Birmingham was concerned, he always took an active interest not only in the more serious side, but also in the social life of the community.

MUNICIPAL CAREER.

As far as municipal matters were concerned, Mr Henry Payton had a long and arduous experience.
He was elected to the Birmingham Town Council as a representative of St George’s Ward in 1871, and remained a member of that body until early in 1888. Eight years prior to the latter date he was made a magistrate, and, as in all other public matters so in his magisterial duties, he paid the most careful attention to the responsible duties of his position.

A MAGISTRATE.

He was also a magistrate for the County of Warwick.
Always ready to lend his aid, he was equally particular in seeing that justice was done.
Mr Payton was a native of Birmingham, being born in 1836, and took a keen interest in the politics of the city when quite a young man. He was a staunch supporter of the Liberal party prior to the Home Rule split, and was largely instrumental in forming a powerful organisation for the party in the jewellery district, but when the Liberal Unionist organisation was inaugurated he transferred his services to the new party.

A FREEMASON.

Mr Payton was a Freemason, and in 1906 held the office of Senior Deacon in the Grand Lodge of England.
He leaves a widow and several children.
The funeral has been fixed for tomorrow. A service will be held in the Church of the Messiah, Broad Street, at noon, and the body will afterwards be cremated at Perry Barr, the ashes being subsequently interred in the family grave at Edgbaston Parish Church.


....

Neville, your collection is unique! I've never heard of a ZAR secret police badge before. Why not make an online museum?

Is there anybody here that can perhaps assist me with more information on the following item that was found. I suspect it to be a Krupp but is not sure. There is two markings at the bottom 96 and a "W". And possibly a filling, was it Ledite or something else.

Ja, Gerrit, if you look back at earlier posts on this thread you'll see a picture from Neville C showing 2 Krupp 75mm shrapnel shells like yours. I've made a composite of your picture and his to show the similarity. I assume 96 is the year of manufacture; Neville may be able to show pictures of his shell bases.
Be careful with your shell, as it will probably still have the bursting charge in it - probably 50g or so of black powder (kruit).
Rob

Shrapnel shells are all similar; you can see the principle in this animation:

Here is a cross section of a shell similar to yours, showing where the bursting charge of black powder is located.
I have no idea how you would make your shell safe, or if the black powder is no longer potentially explosive; MC Heunis is the expert - he may know, send me a message and I'll send you his email address.