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William Vevers, Matabele Rebellion and various SA-raised units in the ABW 2 years 10 months ago #83035
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William Thomas Gwynne Vevers
Sergeant, Mangwe Field Force Corps Sergeant, Matabeleland Relief Force (M.R.F.) - Matabele Rebellion Private, Kuruman Town Guard Private, Vryburg Town Guard Trooper’s, Cullinan’s Horse Private, Special Cape Police Contingent - Anglo Boer War - British South Africa Company Medal with Rhodesia 1896 reverse to SERGT. W.T.G. VEVERS. M.R.F. - Queens South Africa Medal with Cape Colony clasp to 609 PTE. W.J.G. VEVERS. CAPE PLC. CTG. William Vevers was born in 1856 in Hereford in the County of Herefordshire, the son of Henry Vevers M.R.C.S., a Surgeon by profession, and his wife Mary Elizabeth (born Gwynne). He was baptised on 30 Aug 1856. His father, Henry, had an illustrious medical career as the medical officer to the city prison and to the infirmary on 6 St. Owen Street, Hereford. He was also a Consulting Surgeon to the Herefordshire General Hospital and a man who practised for the greater part of his life in Hereford. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and subsequently at University College, London, where he was a brilliant student, obtaining honours and medals in physiology, anatomy, and surgery; he afterwards continued his studies in Paris. 
William Vevers At the commencement of his professional career, he practised for seven years at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. Returning to Hereford, he was elected one of the Visiting Surgeons of the County Hospital, a post he held with distinction for the long period of thirty-three years. On his retirement he was made Consulting Surgeon and a Life Governor of this institution. He also held the appointment of Surgeon of His Majesty's Prison at Hereford. He was actively identified with the Hereford Municipal Charity Trustees and with the Hereford Dispensary. He took a keen interest in the social and municipal life of the place, and for six years he was one of the City Aldermen. He was not only greatly interested in literature, general science, and art, but he was also an enlightened educationalist. He was broad-minded and generous, and had just that simplicity and gentleness, in addition to his unquestioned medical skill, that inspire a patient with hope and trust. William, as soon became apparent, was not going to follow in his father’s medical footsteps. The 1861 England census is where we catch sight of him for the first time – aged 6 he was a School Boy staying with his uncle, John Brace Vevers, at Yarkhill Court in Hereford. John was a prosperous gentleman farmer of 280 acres employing 5 men and 5 boys to help make the enterprise a success. The reason for William’s presence in his uncle’s home can be ascribed to the death of his mother on 31 May 1858 when he was two years old. Dr Vevers, as could be imagined, was a busy man with little or no time to raise a young son. He remedied this situation by marrying for the second time on 11 February 1862 at the age of 40. Ten years later, at the time of the 1871 England census, a 13 year old (sic) William was a boarder in the house of Walter Green, an Accountant, of 6 Bradmore Park Road, Hammersmith, London. With several other boarders of the same age in attendance, once can only assume that a young William was at a nearby school. It was at this time that he developed a passion for rowing – a newspaper article in the Worcester Journal of 29 July 1876 informing its readers that the “Severn Plate for four-oared clinker-built boats over one mile”, contested by the Cheltenham College Club and the Hereford Rowing Club, with W.G.T. Vevers pulling at number 1, had been won by the Cheltenham chaps. Of William in the 1881 England census there is no sign. Speculation, therefore, would be that he made the move to South Africa – his father, widowed once more, had married a 20 year old young lady. At 66 he could well have been her grandfather and more children were beginning to see the light of day making family life for William and, I daresay, some of his fellow siblings, a tad difficult. Whatever the circumstances were that led to William Vevers departure from his native shores, he was soon part of that intrepid group of men who, although not quite pioneers, were settling in the largely unexplored territory which became known as Rhodesia. As can be imagined, the native tribes that occupied the territory took a dim view of this colonial expansion. Benefits to them were few and the settlers and traders demanded land and other privileges in exchange for their expertise and know-how. Rumblings were soon heard and, in 1893 the first of a series of revolts took place, leading to a loss of life on both sides. This war was to be the precursor to the main event that followed in 1896 – the Matabele Rebellion, followed in the following yea by the rise of the Mashona tribe. Both were intent on driving the despised white man from the land. 
When the Rebellion started in March 1896 laagers were formed at Bulawayo, Gwelo, Belingwe and Mangwe and each case field forces were formed of volunteers (although it was a condition of entering the country as a settler that all able-bodied men were required to join the field forces). These field forces acted independently of each other and of Imperial forces until the arrival of relief forces in May 1896. At this time, they were assimilated into columns commanded by Imperial officers and the volunteer tag abandoned. Once the situation had been stabilised the volunteer forces were disbanded. Vevers, was keen to get in on the action and enlisted with the Mangwe Field Force – one of only four with the rank of Sergeant. A total of 52 men formed the Mangwe Field Force under Commandant Cornelius van Rooyen. The Civil Authority and Native Commissioner of Mangwe was a very young and overbearing nineteen-year-old, Major B. W. Armstrong. Women and children slept in the central stone circular enclosure roofed with pole and dagga, on which roof the men slept, protected by a sandbag parapet. This building had previously been used as a grain store and was badly infested with rats. Animals were stabled within the circular outer walls and fifty yards outside the walls a laager of wagons encircled the fort to give some relief from what must have been cramped conditions. Mangwe was never attacked or even threatened, for the Matabele of the western Matopos and the officials of the nearby Mlimo shrine, one of the three major shrines, took no part in the rebellion, though Mkwati, priest of the shrine at Thaba zaka Mambo, north-east of Bulawayo, was a leader of the rebellion. However, when it was rumoured that the Mangwe priests were about to join the rebels, Armstrong and an American, Burnham, rode to the shrine and shot a Matabele they claimed to be the chief priest. The discomfort, anxiety and resulting tensions of the laager made life difficult, increased by the clash of temperaments and the friction between the Afrikaners and the British, for the Jameson Raid had taken place only three months before. Immediately after the laager was formed Selous led a patrol to investigate rumours that "in the Mangwe laager order and discipline were conspicuous by their absence". He returned however, with praise for Armstrong and van Rooyen, having found the laager "in excellent order”. In May the Matabeleland Relief Force under Col. Plumer passed through Mangwe on their way to Bulawayo. In such surroundings, six children were born before the laager and the Mangwe Field Force were disbanded on August 20th, 1896, to be replaced by a garrison of 15 police. The danger to Mangwe having subsided, Vevers took the opportunity to join the Matabeleland Relief Force – also with the rank of Sergeant and providing his address as Mangwe, Rhodesia. The pay offered was 1s. 6d. per day (including rations) for troopers, whilst that of other ranks was in proportion. Recruiting was commenced at Kimberley and Mafeking on the 6th April, and with the exception of 150 men and 163 horses raised at Johannesburg. The original strength of the Force to be raised was set down at 500; but this, under instructions from the High Commissioner, was afterwards increased to 750, in order to include those of the B.S.A. Company's Police who had been sent to England after the Jameson Raid and were on their way out in detachments. There was no difficulty in obtaining the requisite number of men for immediate active service, and the fact that the first troop left Mafeking on the 12th April 1896 — only five days after the enrolment of the first recruits — shows plainly enough that no time was lost. The main relief force, known as the Matabeleland Relief Force was commanded by Colonel Plumer and took until May 14, 1896, to arrive in Bulawayo. A second column from Salisbury consisted of 150 mounted men under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Beal of the Rhodesia Volunteer Horse set out on the 18th April having been delayed by the difficulty in finding oxen for the wagons due to the rinderpest outbreak. After engagements with the Matabele the column relieved Gwelo on May 1 and continued to join up with the Matabeleland Relief Force eventually reaching Bulawayo on June 2nd. It must not be supposed that the Matabeleland Relief Force, raised as it were on the spur of the moment, comprised none but raw recruits. Many of the newly enrolled men were old hands at the game of war. Amongst them were to be found numbers who had put in years of service with the Cape Mounted Rifles, Bechuanaland Border Police, Natal Police, and other corps, whilst not a small proportion had seen active service in other Kaffir wars in Swaziland, Basutoland, and Zululand. Some there were who had taken part in Sir Charles Warren's expedition into Bechuanaland; and others, again, who had already faced the Matabele in the first war. At Macloutsie the force was reorganised into squadrons, each squadron consisting of three troops, and this organisation was retained throughout the Campaign. Vevers was with Lt. Rowan Cashel in A Squadron, Troop 2. The necessity of driving the enemy from the vicinity of Bulawayo, as a preliminary move, was immediately obvious to Colonel Plumer. On the 20th May therefore, the mounted troops of the M.R.F., with the exception of D and E Squadrons, were all concentrated round Khami River Fort. On the morning of the 24th the Column moved into Bulawayo, accompanied by a motley crew of natives, in every conceivable style of dress and undress, but for the most part armed with rifles. From the earliest hours of morning the Bulawayans had been straining eager eyes along the road to convince themselves of the actual presence of the longed-for relief force. Much skirmishing was seen by the M.R.F. until its disbandment in October 1896. Vevers did not participate in the 1897 Mashona uprising and his British South Africa Company medal was issued off the M.R.F. roll in the rank of Sergeant. His address being provided as “Bulawayo”. The answer to the questions posed in the "Claim to a Rhodesia Medal 1896" forms which Vevers completed in November 1906, ten years after the campaign, provide us with a unique insight into his role. Confirming his address as Box 13, Vryburg, he was a Sergeant on leaving the service. He received his discharge on 23 June 1896 at his own request "in order to ride transport for the troops." He was in the field from the beginning of the war/1896 and "was in three actions - forget names; Lt. Cashiels (Cashel) was officer commanding my troop in Col. Plumer's column." He couldn't recall his number but was a "Sergeant in the Matabeleland Relief Force, which I joined from Mangwe Laager where I served from outbreak of rebellion." He also confirmed that he was not entitled to the Matabeleland Medal for 1893. He acknowledged receipt of his 1896 medal on 19 December 1906. After 1897 relative peace descended on Rhodesia by which time Vevers had already moved south to take up residence in the Vryburg area of the Northern Cape. That he was not the only representative of his family in Africa can be evidenced by the distressing news which appeared in the newspapers - VEVERS—On November 14, 1896, at Johannesburg, through an accident, John Aubrey, eldest son of John B. Vevers, of Yarkhill Court, Hereford, aged 20. This would have been his cousin and the son of the man with who he lodged in the 1861 census. October 1899, not very many years after the Matabele Rebellion, saw the advent of the Anglo Boer War where the two Dutch-speaking Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal were pitted against the might of the British Empire. The northern Cape was a hot-bed of activity and one of the first settlements under threat from the Boers were the isolated towns of Kuruman and Vryburg. Vevers was to see action with both Town Guards. Kuruman was a mission station in the Cape Colony, 80 miles south-west of Vryburg. On the outbreak of war, the small garrison at Kuruman was unable to retire on Kimberley as ordered; it consisted of 35 Cape Police under the command of Captain A. Bates. Preparing the towns defences, Bates had recruited 33 civilians as special police and some 60 locals for military and other duties. On 12 November 1899, Field Cornet J.H. Visser with a force of some 200 comprising burghers from the South African Republic and rebels from the Vryburg district arrived and unsuccessfully demanded the garrison's surrender; after a week of investment, the Boers retired to Phokwane. Returning on 5 December with some 500 burghers, the siege restarted and Visser was joined by Field Cornet Wessels with some 130 rebels from Griqualand; the latter left on 26 December. Eventually, shelling from a 7 pdr cannon, which had arrived on 30 December, destroyed the garrison's defences and it was forced to surrender on 1 January 1900. Cape rebels then held the station until it was reoccupied on 24 June 1900. At some point Vevers, who is on the Kuruman T.G. roll left for Vryburg where he enlisted with the Town Guard there. He was issued with a Queens medal off their role but an annotation in the column of the medal roll confirms that this medal was returned on 3 September 1906. The medal roll for Vryburg, where he had served with no. 257 and the rank of Trooper, shows that Vevers name was expunged from the record. His medal being issued off the roll for the Special Cape Police. Vevers surfaced next on 23 April 1901 when he enlisted with Cullinan’s Horse raised by Lord Methune himself, on the 5th of January 1901, in Vryburg. Assigned no. 46 he set about his duties, taking his discharge on 25 June 1901, to join the Special Cape Police Contingent on 25 June 1901, with no. 609 and the rank of Trooper. Specific actions wherein a man participated are difficult to pinpoint unless the man was wounded, taken prisoner of killed in action. Vevers was none of the above but, an action in which he could well have been, given the fact that his Queens medal has only the Cape Colony clasp, was the one detailed in the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser December 1901 edition which carried the story, borrowed from the Bechuanaland News of a skirmish in the Vryburg area: “Hannan’s Farm, New Grennan, about 15 miles eastwards of Vryburg, has been the scene of a sharp skirmish between some irregular British troops and the Boers who have been giving trouble along the border for some time. The Boers got considerably the worst of it, losing 7 men killed 2 wounded and several prisoners against our 1 killed and 5 wounded. The place is garrisoned by about 50 of the newly raised special police recently sent up from Kimberley to do police duty. The Boers put in an appearance in strength on Saturday morning, and surrounded the farm, firing from a distance of about 2000 yards. The police horses were in a stone kraal a little way off the homestead, and here the men took up their position and returned the fire, having three of their number slightly wounded during the day. The Boers kept up a hot fire making it impossible to pass from the kraal to the house, which, although the Boers must have known it to be the women’s shelter, was well spattered with bullets. News of the attack reached Vryburg in the night and early on Sunday morning a party of 60 Cape and Special Police rode out to New Grennan with all haste. The firing had commenced again at daybreak. Lt. Spencer extended his men into skirmishing order, and then charged up the bushy slope on the west side of the homestead where the Boers were in force. In face of this determined attack the Boers vacated their position without delay. The enemy subjected our men to a very hot fire from their positions on either side. Having driven the Boers off the Police returned to Vryburg under cover of darkness bringing the occupants of the farm with them.” When Vevers took his discharge from the Cape Police is not known. He did not earn either a Kings medal or the South Africa 1902 clasp from which we can draw the conclusion that he had returned to civilian pursuits at the end of 1901. After a long and interesting life William Vevers passed away at his farm at Seven Fountains in the Albany district of Grahamstown on 15 May 1937, at the age of 80. The cause of death was enteritis combined with a cerebral haemorrhage. 
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William Vevers, Matabele Rebellion and various SA-raised units in the ABW 2 years 10 months ago #83036
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William Vevers, Matabele Rebellion and various SA-raised units in the ABW 2 years 1 month ago #88482
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It is a real boon when these forms are found - they add so much to the story.
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William Vevers, Matabele Rebellion and various SA-raised units in the ABW 2 years 1 month ago #88490
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