TOPIC:

Charles Henry Lawrence

Trooper, South African Light Horse
Trooper, District Mounted Police (Laingsburg) – Anglo Boer War
1st Class Sergeant, South African Police

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony & Relief of Ladysmith to 883 TPR. C. LAWRENCE, S.A. LT. HORSE
- South African Police Medal for Faithful Service to No. 1000 (F) 1/C SERGT. C.H. LAWRENCE

Charles Lawrence was born in the small Karoo hamlet of Laingsburg on 5 January 1879, the son of William Henry Lawrence and his wife, Charlotte. Nothing is known of his early childhood years although it can be imagined that he grew up in the salubrious air to be found in the district of his birth.

When the Anglo Boer War broke out on 11 October 1899, Lawrence was already 21 years of age. Initially, the forces of the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State seemed to be gaining the upper hand and a number of reverses were experienced by the Imperial troops in the first weeks of the war. An urgent appeal went out for assistance, this led to the raising of many irregular units, comprising Colonial men in the main. One such outfit was the South African Light Horse and it was to this unit that Lawrence gravitated, enlisting with the rank of Trooper and no. 883.



The SALH was raised in Cape Colony in November 1899. Eight complete squadrons were raised by an early date in December. A portion was employed for a short time on the De Aar line, but three squadrons of the regiment were, on formation, taken round to Natal (Lawrence was among this number) and, with other mounted troops, were employed under Lord Dundonald on the right flank at Colenso on 15th December 1899 where they, along with regiments like the Natal Carbineers, saw plenty of action.

In the orders issued by General Buller on 14th December it was stated that, "The Officer Commanding mounted brigade will move at 4 am with a force of 1000 men and one battery of No 1 Brigade Division in the direction of Hlangwane Hill; he will cover the right flank of the general movement, and will endeavour to take up a position on Hlangwane Hill, whence he will enfilade the kopje north of the iron bridge. The Officer Commanding mounted troops will also detail two forces of 300 men and 500 men to cover the right and left flanks respectively and protect the baggage".

Lord Dundonald and the mounted irregulars did attack Hlangwane and made good progress towards its capture. If the General had been able to send adequate infantry support the capture would have been almost certainly assured and the bloodshed of Spion Kop potentially saved, but the entangle¬ment of the guns rendered such support impossible. In his despatch, General Buller said: "I cannot speak too highly of the manner in which the mounted Volunteers behaved". The SALH lost 4 men killed, 2 officers and 19 men wounded, while 2 officers and 11 men were returned as missing.

When the move to turn the Boer right on the Tugela was commenced, four squadrons of the regiment accompanied Lord Dundonald, marching on the 11th January via Springfield and Potgieter's, but a portion remained at Chieveley with General Barton to watch the Boer position at Colenso. In order to keep the enemy engaged there, frequent reconnaissance’s and demonstrations were made in which the detachment several times had sharp casualties. On the 11th Lord Dundonald seized the bridge at Springfield over the Little Tugela, and pushing on had, before dusk, secured heights on the right bank of the main river which commanded Potgieter's Drift. Some volunteers from the SALH on the 11th swam the Tugela, got into the ferry-boat, and brought it to the right bank.

For five days the mounted troops did reconnoitring and outpost work. On the 16th they were ordered to march that night to Trichard's Drift. On the 17th they and Warren's troops crossed the river, and on the 18th Lord Dundonald was sent off to the left flank. The Composite Regiment, 1 squadron Imperial Light Horse, 1 company of Mounted Infantry, regulars, and 1 squadron Natal Carbineers, managed to cut off about 40 Boers near Acton Homes, and before dusk these surrendered after the SALH had come up in support. On the 20th Lord Dundonald ordered Colonel Byng to seize Bastion Hill. Two squadrons of the regiment were dismounted and ascended the steep ascent, the two others supporting. The Boers fled from the crest, and it was taken with little loss, but the hill, like Spion Kop, was exposed to the enemy's fire, and Major Childe was killed by a shell fragment after the crest had been occupied, and 4 men were wounded. Corporal Tobin was first man up; he stood on the top and waved his hat to let the troops see the hill-top was free of Boers. Next day he was killed. At nightfall 2 companies of the Queen's relieved the regiment. During the following days, until the evacuation of Spion Kop, the regiment held posts on the British line.

Although it is always difficult to place a man in a battle, unless he is mentioned by name, it can be assumed that Lawrence, thanks to the Relief of Ladysmith clasp he earned on his Queens Medal, was present. The SALH were a splendid unit and enjoyed a wide respect for their efforts at Colenso, Spioenkop and elsewhere.

At this point Lawrence, for whatever reason, took his leave of the regiment and wasn’t with them for the Tugela Heights battles which took place up to and including the 1 March 2021 – the day Ladysmith was liberated.

Returning to the Cape Colony, he took up employment as a member of the District Mounted Police in his native Laingsburg. Interestingly, his service with the SALH and subsequent enlistment with the DMP was mirrored by a Trooper Baker – (they must have been firm friends). The DMP fell under the auspices of the Attorney General’s Ministerial Division and Lawrence was, according to the medal roll completed in Cape Town on 5 February 1905, occupied with scouting in the nearby Prince Albert District of the Colony. This was primarily in September 1901 and by order of Colonel Crabbe.


The district wherein Lawrence operated with Crabbe

What, it could be postured, was the need for scouting in a district less than 100 miles from Cape Town? The war was, after all, being fought elsewhere. Such an assumption, if made, would have been completely wrong – the Boer War had entered its guerrilla phase at this time and strong and highly mobile bands of mounted men were regularly (and almost with impunity) infiltrating the western and southern Cape Colony. Cape Rebels under the likes of Scheepers and Malan were also active in recruiting disaffected local Dutchmen as well as creating havoc in the villages, towns and farms owned and occupied by loyalists.

Amidst this hot-bed of activity, Lawrence was out scouting for signs of the enemy. For more detail we turn to an account of the fighting in that area, in which he would have been involved.

September 10th 1901 - Crabbe routs Scheepers's commando at Laingsburg.

In the last week of August Scheepers trekked west of Oudtshoorn, clashing with a column between that town and Calitzdorp. Going through the Huisrivier pass, Scheepers turned south-west towards Barrydale. At the end of the month he clashed with a pursuing column near Vanwyksdorp in the Ladismith district. Turning south towards Riversdale, the commando clashed with the Riversdale D.F. at Muiskraal, in the northern foothills of the Langeberg and only 20 km north of the town. This clash occurred on 30th August and Scheepers burnt down a house belonging to one of the D.F. men. A majority of Afrikaners in the Riversdale district were pro imperial, and it was a considerable shock to Scheepers' commando to enter a region where the recruitment potential was extremely low. Intending to attack Barrydale, Scheepers remained north of the Langeberg, sending a patrol west towards that town. Scheepers captured the town on the 31st, occupying it only for the day.

Continuing towards Montagu, the commando clashed with that town's D.F., forcing them to retreat. Colonel Alexander's column attacked Scheepers' rearguard here and the commando swung north towards Oudeberg. At this point, a few miles east of Montagu, Scheepers' westward movement came to an end, on the 4th September 1901. He was then 150 km east of Cape Town. On the 5th a patrol was sent north towards Touwsrivier, to scout the advance. Two coloured scouts who sent up smoke signals from a koppie warning of the Boer advance were captured and, on Van der Merwe's orders, shot dead. Scheepers was later charged with these shootings.

On the 7th September at De Fontein in the Worcester district, another African prisoner was shot dead. After a few days in the mountainous country south of Touwsrivier, Scheepers and Van der Merwe trekked east again. Going over the Witberge, just south of Matjiesfontein, the commando continued east towards Laingsburg. The Ladismith district was entered in the second week of September. As they had done east of Oudtshoorn, the two commandos trekked separately but in close association with each other.

Scheepers, in the mountainous area south of the line, between Touwsrivier and Laingsburg, had been surprised at how heavily fortified the line had become, and by the size of the heavy British troop concentrations at places such as Matjiesfontein. The commando had approached the line with a view to crossing it and proceeding to the Calvinia district. The security presence on the line made that impossible, but Scheepers then committed the error of remaining too long in the immediate vicinity. He then compounded this error with a second one, when he trekked just south of the line to the vicinity of Laingsburg. These errors gave the counter guerrilla strategists an opportunity to marshall numbers of columns against him, something which was to have very serious consequences for both his and Van der Merwe's detachments. Scheepers' immediate response to the heavy forces brought against him, at the end of the first week of September, was to divide his forces into two. After trekking east for some distance, Van der Merwe moved south on the Laingsburg-Ladismith main road. Scheepers was then in the vicinity of Algerynskraal, 20 km south-west of Ladismith.

The two commandos met up again on about the 7th somewhere between Anysberg and the Little Swartberg. It was decided that, to divide the forces pursuing them, Van der Merwe would trek north of the Little Swartberg. Trekking through the Buffalo river poort, he arrived at sunset on the 9th September at Driefontein, on the northern slopes of the Little Swartberg. Van der Merwe had 79 men, but for some reason no guards were posted north of the mountain range, where there were approaches from the north (Laingsburg) and east (Seven Weeks Poort). During the night one of the Boer farmers on the farm sent a report to Laingsburg. The coloured labourer carrying the message encountered Col. E.M.S. Crabbe's column 8 miles from Driefontein, and at dawn on the 10th Crabbe attacked the Boers there.

During this attack Van der Merwe and another two men were killed and more than 20 men captured. Numbers of horses, saddles, rifles and rounds of ammunition were also captured. Without officers, 60 men of van der Merwe's commando broke out of the ambush and 27 fled eastwards. The Prince Albert D.F., with 150 men, were stationed at Koueveld, near the Poort. But before the arrival of the Boers they fled east towards Witpoort. Going north along the Dwyka river the Boers arrived at Koppieskraal. These men were now separated from Scheepers by the Great Swartberg range and they had no prospects or hope of remaking contact with him. Their sole intention was to escape from the Southern Cape to the relatively safe refuge of the Calvinia district. In mid-September Van Rensburg's commando crossed the line near Blood river station, at night. They were then in the Karoo. Scheepers was involved in a heavy clash on the 9th September, inflicting a number of casualties on a British column.

On both the 14th and 15th September Scheepers clashed with Col. Crabbe's column, inflicting a large number of casualties on both occasions. He was moving east and on the 16th he re-entered the Oudtshoorn district, inflicting heavy losses again on a column on the following day. On the 18th he clashed with Col. Atherton's column of 12th Lancers. These operations against Scheepers were controlled by Maj.-Genl. S. Beatson. He had 4 columns under his control - those of Atherton, Crabbe, Kavanagh and Alexander. Returning to the Kammanassie river, east of Oudtshoorn, Scheepers re-entered the George district for one day then turned north towards Dysselsdorp. On the 22nd September, back on the Kammanassie river, just east of Oudtshoorn, Hugo administered poison in a glass of wine to Scheepers, and then promptly disappeared.

Maurice, in his History of the War in South Africa, Chapter 15, September to October 1901, provides us with additional context, following on from what has been described above:

On October 16th Smuts doubled westward near the junction of the Kariega and Salt rivers, and striking across towards Prince Albert, fell in with a certain Commandant S. Pypers, who was at the head of the force lately commanded by Scheepers, that leader having vanished from the scene in a manner soon to be described. Pypers was at this moment occupied in evading Crabbe, who was seeking him from Beaufort West, and as Scobell was now compelled to put into Prince Albert (October 20th) for supplies, Crabbe undertook the pursuit of the combined commandos of Smuts and Pypers, following them down the Kouka river, then through Kandos Poort and over the Groote Zwarte Bergen into the valley of the Olifants. The Boers then turned westward, and Crabbe, moving on Oudtshoorn, combined with Kavanagh from Ladismith and the local troops extended from Willowmore to Prince Albert in an attempt to surround them.

As can be seen, Lawrence was having a fine time of it. Although not borne out by the notoriously inaccurate casualty rolls, his family is adamant that he was wounded in action at this period.

His role in the war over, Lawrence returned to civilian life, continuing on in the role of Policeman. Now that the country was returning to a state of normalcy, he wed Helena Catharina Maria Fourie, a fellow resident of Laingsburg, in the Dutch Reform Church of that town on 14 March 1904. George Baker, his chum from the SALH and DMP days, was a witness to the nuptials.


Lawrence's Service Card

Shortly thereafter, on 11 May 1904, the Resident Magistrate, Laingsburg, wrote to his colleague in Prince Albert in respect of P.C. No. 3 (Lawrence) – this memorandum referred to a letter he had received from Lawrence, dated 10 May 1904, which intimated that he was “desirous of obtaining his discharge from the Police Force at an early date” and asking what, if any notice period would be required. The RM, having been asked the date of Lawrence’s appointment to the force, answered that is was 1 October 1903.

He further confided to his colleague that “Lawrence told me privately that he had received a very fair offer from his father, (who has a Hotel in Cape Town) for a share in the business, and that I think it would be very much to his advantage to accept it.” He went on to add, “I shall be very sorry indeed to lose him, as he has certainly proved to be one of the best policeman I have ever had under me.”

Obviously highly thought of, Lawrence was allowed to resign without penalty. His sojourn away from the force was a short one, however as, on 19 June 1905, he attested for service at Price Albert with No. 1000. Physically he was described as being 5 feet 6 inches in height with brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion. He had a scar on his left shoulder blade – here we need to pause as the remark on his file states that this was a Gunshot Wound – could his family have been correct about his being wounded in action during the war?

His service was allowed to reckon from 1 July 1905 and his career took him from Prince Albert, to Beaufort West on 4 December 1919. From there he was sent to the Mounted Branch on 1 August 1923, to Paarl on 15 January 1924 and then, finally, to Somerset West on 31 May 1928. It was whilst here, attached to the Excise Department, that he retired at the age of 50 on 16 January 1929. His promotions had been to Corporal on 1 September 1913 and to 1st Class Sergeant with effect from 1 March 1915.

Charles Henry Lawrence passed away in the Valkenberg Clinic in Cape Town on 6 July 1956 at the age of 77 years and 5 months from Senile Deterioration and Bronchial Pneumonia. He was survived by his wife and three children – William Henry Lover Lawrence, Louisa Van Niekerk and Charles Lover Lawrence. His address at the time of his death was Fagan Street in Somerset West.

Thank You Rory, another great read..... Mike

Excellent! I lived in Prince Albert and found that enjoyable to read. Much of the town is original still and Scheepers is a legend in the area, although he wasn’t necessarily a good man. If you ever get rid of it think of me!

A highly informative and very interesting read. Thank you Rory.

Rory,

I have landed here a little late, but it is a wonderful read and again leaves me agog at the depth of research you manage.

I have a question re one paragraph: "Returning to the Cape Colony, he took up employment as a member of the District Mounted Police in his native Laingsburg. Interestingly, his service with the SALH and subsequent enlistment with the DMP was mirrored by a Trooper Baker – (they must have been firm friends). The DMP fell under the auspices of the Attorney General’s Ministerial Division and Lawrence was, according to the medal roll completed in Cape Town on 5 February 1905, occupied with scouting in the nearby Prince Albert District of the Colony. This was primarily in September 1901 and by order of Colonel Crabbe.". Where can I find the QSA roll for the DMP? It must be buried deep.

Thanks,

Owen

Hello Owen

Thank you for your kind words - the medal rolls for the D.M.P reside under the Attorney General's Ministerial Division and are to be found under WO100/179

Give me a shout if you are unable to find them.

Regards

Rory