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Hi Neville.
thanks for yet more amazing information and detail. I so appreciate the effort you and Rob have gone to in helping me with this riddle.
Regards
Neil

ń swaeltjie.

Ah, swoop in and get your top up fix for the year and then head home to digest the good stuff! nice one, great strategy. Enjoy!

Hi Rob. further to your observation that the 120MM shell fragment was most likely from either the Ladysmith / Colenso area and almost certainly not from Spioen Kop, you will be please here that your view has been vindicated. I passed on your and Neville's comments and photos to the seller, who, after some searching in their house, emerged with the casing for the 120mm Krupp shell, which he then recalled had actually come from his mother's house which she had lived in in Ladysmith. I visited them yesterday, and the casing is definitely the right one, so its most probably that the shell fragment and casing were indeed collected in the Ladysmith environs. they are now delighted to know that this little brass casing now has a story to live again. many thanks
Neil.

Excellent. That all makes sense now.

It seems quite a number of 120mm cartridge cases were left behind by the Boers when they retreated from their positions at Pieter's. I have seen several with inscriptions indicating that they were picked up in that area. The one below is engraved "PICKED UP AFTER / the / VICTORY OF / Peters Hill / SOUTH AFRICA / Corpl Whittaker / Jany 24th 1900". As is so often the case with these inscribed pieces, there are errors. Here, the date for Spion Kop has been used instead of that for Pieter's Hill.









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Thanks for that info Neville. Their case is exactly the same as the one in your photos, ito year and manufacturer. source is probably as you have described as well. Conundrum solved! thanks so much. Neil