TOPIC:

Medals to this small outfit are rarely seen on the market

Peter Smith

Driver, Natal Volunteer Transport Service

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasp Natal to Dvr. P. Smith, Natal Vol. T.S.

Very little is known about Peter Smith, In fact his very name can be the stuff of conjecture and it was only by some diligent sleuthing that we think we know anything about him at all. Piecing together his military biography has been an exercise akin to piecing together a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle and hoping that there is not too much daylight between the pieces.

Like the vast majority of Drivers attached to the Natal Voluntary Transport Service, Smith was most likely a Coloured man (a man of mixed race and the product of a union between a European and a Bantu). There is a sizable Coloured population in South Africa thanks, in the main, to the influx of virile European men who came out to the growing colonies on their own and made their homes in the wilderness where their only source of recreation was with the ladies of the various Bantu tribes.

What is assumed to be his marriage certificate shows that, at the age of 24, he married a Johanna Sarah Jacobus, a 22 year old spinster, at Eshowe in Zululand on 12 June 1896. At this time he was already employed as a civilian with the Army Transport Department stationed at the Eshowe Camp. Both Smith and his wife, who was also of mixed blood, were illiterate not being able to sign their names in the marriage register. It can be deduced from his age when he married that he was born in about 1872.

The Natal Volunteer Transport Service came into being as a an emergency unit in Pietermaritzburg in August 1899 when it became clear that war with the Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics was both imminent and inevitable. The Anglo Boer War broke out in October 1899 and the Natal Volunteer Force, mobilised a month before, had already taken the field.

There was no regular transport corps in Natal at the time but the nucleus of such a corps had existed for some years prior to the war in the form of the mule transport and organisation of the Natal Public Works Department, which when the necessity arose, was taken over lock stock and barrel – personnel, mules, wagons, carts and gear – and was given a temporary but very definite status in the Volunteer Force of which it formed a self-contained unit.

The first commander was Captain George Geddie, the Superintendent of Transport under the Public Works Department. His second in command was Lieutenant C. Victor Hosken who assumed command on Geddie’s death. The original strength of the unit was two officers, eight mounted European conductors consisting of a warrant officer and seven N.C.O.’s, with two Coloured Drivers per wagon. Smith would have been one of these.

The number of wagons and carts on the strength varied considerably from time to time. Ten mules per wagon and four per Cape cart were the usual teams. Three hundred mules went into the filed on the outbreak of the war and only ten were lost. The N.V.T.C. had a pet baboon, Alfred, who was on the ration strength.

In war time ox wagons – at one point over 250 of them – with necessary animals and personnel were hired and taken into the service as Second Line Transport. The mule transport was used as First Line Transport, the whole being organised as a Mounted Brigade Train. The N.V.T.C. took part in all the field operations in Natal and it was here that Smith earned his Queens Medal with Natal clasp – one of only 89 medals that were issued of which a large number were returned unclaimed.

What happened to Smith thereafter is unknown.

Very nice Rory.
A little known fact is that apart from the Somali Burger Corps the first coloured troops served there as well with the ASC and received the bronze medal.
I would check the roll since they departed from Durban. For more information search for Arrie on BMF

Great piece of research again Rory......

Now all I have to do is find a medal to this unit myself......

Mike

Hello Rory

Undoubtedly a rare medal.

Can you expand on your sources that indicate that Smith was not white. On very many rolls that include non-whites there is a disclaimer that those named are white, i.e. medals bronze or silver were not to be given to non-white men.

There is no such disclaimer on this particular roll. It would be interesting to see that this roll escaped the attention of the War Office in regards to medals for non-white personnel.

Regards
Meurig

Rory, Can you disregard my post above. I did find a J Smith but not a P. Smith on the roll. Do you have a Roll reference for the NVTS?
ATB
David

David

Roll is WO100 261, Driver P. Smith is one of those issued. I see 87 medals issued with just 30 claimed, the rest being clearly marked as returned.

Interesting medal and story Rory, another small Natal unit.

Jon