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Edward Alfred Taylor Bottomley

Private, 5th Volunteer Battalion, Cheshire Regiment
Rifleman, 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade – Matabeleland Campaign 1896
Bridge Guard, Natal Government Railways
Private, Ladysmith Town Guard (Natal Government Railway Rifle Association)
Sergeant Major, Cape Colony Cyclist Corps – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasp Defence of Ladysmith to PTE. E.A.T. BOTTOMLEY, LADYSMITH TOWN GD:

Ted Bottomley was one of those adventurous souls that typified a Victorian era which was liberally populated with men with a wanderlust and a spirit of indefatigability and intrepidness so lacking in their counterparts in the modern era.

His birth, whilst not shrouded in mystery, was a socially unacceptable one – he was born out of wedlock to Martha Bottomley in Knottingley Wells in the County of York on 27 March 1874. According to his birth certificate, the Description and Residence of the Informant was one Joseph Binns, Occupier. Who his father was is unknown.



When Ted was almost 3 years old his mother, a spinster, married Engineer, John William Bann at St. Clement’s Church in Toxteth, Lancashire on 2 January 1877. The address of both celebrants to the nuptials was provided as 36 River Avon Street. Martha’s father, George Bottomley, was described as a Locomotive Inspector. Perhaps, now that his mother was legally wed, a young Ted Bottomley would be regarded as legitimate although his step-fathers name was not conferred upon him.

According to the 1881 England census, the Bann family, sans Edward Bottomley, had moved to Hall O’ Shaw Street, Crewe in Cheshire. Martha’s age is provided as 25, inferring that she was a young girl of 18 when Edward was conceived. A number of siblings were now on hand in the forms of John (4), Mary (2) and Annie (2 months).

Ten years later, at the time of the 1891 England census, a 17 year old Edward is still missing from the family home – 146 Edleston Road, Crewe. Perhaps he has been away at boarding school although, if one looks at Mr Bann’s occupation – that of Engine Cleaner – this is unlikely.

Whatever the case may have been, at the age of 18, Edward Bottomley walked into the Rifle Brigade recruiting office in Winchester on 16 June 1893 expressing a desire to enlist with that august regiment. Confirming that he was an Engine Cleaner by trade (like his step-father), Edward, somewhat confusingly, claimed to have been born in Crewe, Cheshire. He confirmed prior militia service with the 5th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment and that he was single. His next of kin was his mother of 146 Edleston Road, Crewe.

Physically he was 5 feet 8 ½ inches in height, weighed 127 lbs and had a fresh complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. He had a smear scar on his “left frontal eminence” and a pigmented scar on the tip of his nose. Having been found fit for the army, he was assigned no. 2819 and the rank of Rifleman. Initially with the Depot in Winchester, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion on 20 October 1893. He had, in the interim, acquired a 3rd Class Education Certificate on 22 August 1893.

Additionally he passed Mounted Infantry classes at Aldershot which he attended from 5 April to 24 June 1895. Based mainly in Dublin he was treated for a host of ailments in his time there, most not requiring more than a few days hospitalisation. There were exceptions though – on 19 December 1894 he was admitted to hospital for 73 days with Laryngitis – only being discharged to duty on 1 March 1895. On another occasion he fell victim to that most dreaded of ailments – Gonorrhoea – treatment of which required 29 days hospitalisation. A more virulent form of the aforementioned – Syphilis – kept him in a hospital bed for 20 days from 6 February 1896. This whilst he was at Aldershot.

After 2 years 321 days at Home, he was posted with his battalion to South Africa, sailing aboard the Tantallon Castle on 2 May 1896. Having been processed at Wynberg in Cape Town, he was then a member of the Rifle Brigade Mounted Infantry Company which saw active service in the Rhodesia campaign of 1896.

Having returned to South Africa after the conclusion of the above campaign he elected to stay in the country, purchasing his discharge for £18 on 19 December 1896.

Bottomley settled in the Ladysmith area of Natal which is where we find him with the outbreak of the Anglo Boer War on 11 October 1899. Having joined the employ of the Natal Government Railways as an Engineer, he was also a member of the Natal Government Railway Rifle Association, one of the three component parts of what made up the Ladysmith Town Guard – the other being the Klip River Rifle Association.


The members of the N.G.R. Rifle Association - Bottomley would be in this photo

Sir George White, garrison commander of the 12 000 odd men, both regular army and colonial, that found itself besieged in Ladysmith by the encircling Boers on 2 November 1899, had made it obvious that, after an initial but disastrous effort to prevent the investment of the town at Nicholson’s Nek on 30 October, he would sit out the siege until Buller’s relieving force came to his rescue. He wasn’t to know that that worthy would be repulsed on no fewer than three occasions before meeting with success.

In the meanwhile, in the run-up to the siege, it had become imperative to create a Town Guard to ease the burden on the thinly stretched men in uniform whose numbers were shortly to be decimated daily by illness and disease. Members for the Ladysmith Town Guard were then enrolled from 19 September 1899, all members taking the Oath of Allegiance (Bottomley was assigned no. 37). Daily drills were at once inaugurated, whilst the members were allowed to practice at the rifle ranges of the Klip River Rifle Association. Nightly patrols were instituted in the town and guards posted on Convent Hill to give the alarm of the approach of the enemy.

On the night of 12th October, Colonel Know, the man charged with the responsibility of the Guard, ordered the men to guard all the roads leading into the Borough, to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the town. Up until this point, the Boers, many who were residents of the town, had freedom of movement with many guilty of acting as spies and feeding their comrades with information.

On and after the 18th of October the Guard took duty at the Railway Bridge Defences and it was to this band of men that Bottomley was assigned as a Bridge Guard.

In secret Divisional Orders dated the 23rd of October, the Guard was ordered to muster on the sound of the alarm at the New Supply Store and the Railway Bridge Head. On the 28th the entire guard mustered in the defences at 4.30 am and remained under arms till 7 am. The men were on duty at the Bridge Head and adjacent defences during the engagement of Lombard's Kop on the 30th of October. (alluded to above as Nicholson’s Nek)

On November the 5th, the 3rd day of the siege, the Commandant was sent to the neutral zone at Ntombi Spruit to take charge of the New Camp. From this date till the 12th of December the services of the Guard were not made use of. The situation in the town of Ladysmith was growing more desperate by the day. Food had run short, the length of the siege being impossible to gauge, and cavalry horses were slaughtered for meat and the making of chevril – all necessary to sustain the local inhabitants – both military and civilian.

On the 12th December, the men were again called out, and with the members of the Natal Government Rifle Association, placed under the command of Captain Young R.E., Railway Staff Officer. At this point their strength was 157 men, exclusive of those on the sick list.

The primary duty assigned to them was to guard the Klip River’s bank on the South side of the town nightly. Captain Molyneux, of the Natal Volunteer Staff, assumed command on the 23rd of December, a system being arranged that each man should be one night on and two nights off.

During the Boer attack on Wagon Hill on the 6th of January 1900 the whole of the Guard lined the defences from daybreak till 10 am, being under fire early in the morning. On several subsequent occasions the men were roused in the night to help to repel an expected attack.
Free rations were issued on the 29th of December and each succeeding day throughout the siege. This meant that the men, all civilians and townspeople, could go about their daily occupations and pursuits when not on duty. This didn’t carry much weight as most shops and places of business were shut up with no customers or clients to attend to.

This suited Bottomley down to the ground, freeing him up to go about his business as best he could under the constrained circumstances. But he was soon embroiled in a legal matter – described in court papers as a Ganger with the Natal Government Railways, he was the Plaintiff in an action brought against Amod Moosajee Omar, a General Dealer, “for £78 being the amount of a cheque dated 20 March 1900, wrongfully and unlawfully obtained from the Plaintiff when he was temporarily insane.”

What was this all about then? In his declaration under Summons dated 1 June 1900, Bottomley averred that:

- Early in the month of March 1900 (it must be remembered that the siege had been lifted on 1 March 1900), the Plaintiff at the request of one Charles Tapp of the Siege Café, Ladysmith, and while the said Tapp was sick and in hospital, undertook the management of the said Café on behalf of the said Tapp.

- On or about the 19th March 1900, the Defendant wrongfully and unlawfully obtained from the Plaintiff a cheque for £78 on the Plaintiff’s account at the Natal Bank, Ladysmith, which cheque was duly paid on 20 March 1900.

- At the time of giving the cheque the Plaintiff was of unsound mind and incapable of understanding what he was doing, as the Defendant then well knew.

- On the 23rd March 1900, the Plaintiff was taken before the Magistrate at Ladysmith and remanded to be medically examined with the result that he was ordered to be detained in the Natal Government Asylum, to which institution he was conveyed on the 25th March 1900, where he was detained until the 10th day of May 1900, upon which date he was discharged.

- On or about the 13th May 1900 the Plaintiff ascertained for the first time that that the amount of said cheque had been the debited to his account with the said bank.

- The Plaintiff received no valuable consideration in respect of the payment of the £78, and on discovering what had happened, demanded a refund of the said amount which Defendant has refused and neglected to make.

Omar countered by stating that Bottomley had entered into a six month lease agreement for a portion of his premises in Murchison Street, Ladysmith and that the cheque was in payment for this purpose. He added that the lease had been signed on 21 March 1900 and that Bottomley had taken occupation of the premises. In order to debunk this assertion, Bottomley’s counsel produced a Medical Certificate, completed by Dr. Frank Monckton at Pietermaritzburg on 28 March 1900, which read under “Facts indicating insanity”:

“He is very excitable and irrational. Walks about restlessly and aimlessly talking incoherently. He is inclined to be violent. Says he is a soldier (which is not the case).”


An excerpt from Bottomley's medical certificate

It was now clear that Bottomley could not possibly have taken occupation of the premises alluded to. How could he? He was wandering round the Mental Asylum in Pietermaritzburg under the delusion that he was a soldier. The Judge found in Bottomley’s favour and he was refunded the £78 plus costs.

The matter now settled and having recovered his mental health, Bottomley decided that his future lay elsewhere. The war still raged – Ladysmith had been relieved and Natal made safe, but the Guerrilla Phase of the war was now underway – no more pitched battles were being fought, instead, Boer Commandos were broken up into small, highly mobile groups who prayed on any passing patrol or convoy containing supplies and equipment. They would swoop down, engage the enemy, and flee once they had achieved their purpose.

Leaders like Smuts were now marauding over the Cape border, penetrating into the heart of the western Cape Colony hell-bent on recruiting sympathetic Boers to their cause and replenishing their meagre supply of horses, arms and ammunition. Colonial outfits were being mobilised to counter this and to assist the Imperial troops as they hunted the Boers down.

One such unit was the Cape Colony Cycle Corps. This corps was raised at the end of December 1900, and in the first week of January 1901, when the enemy were penetrating to within easy distance of Cape Town, they were sent to occupy Pickaneer's Kloof. They just managed to arrive in time. Although fiercely attacked on the 28th, and losing 4 killed and 23 wounded, including Captain Rose, they held on to the positions commanding the pass. This was a most promising beginning, and during the next seven months the corps did much excellent work.

It was to the C.C.C.C. that Bottomley gravitated, joining their ranks at Cape Town on 15 January 1901. The attestation form he completed confirmed that he was 25 years old, single and an Engineer by occupation. Oddly, he claimed that the relative who was next of kin was a “friend” in the form of Mrs. Bann of 146 Edleston Road, Crewe, Cheshire. (We know this to have been his mother)

Assigned no. 23892, Bottomley took to the field. By the middle of February the C.C.C.C. was 500 strong, their commander being Major Owen Lewis. They were much split up, sections being attached to many columns, both in Cape Colony and the Orange River Colony. The fine work of those with De Lisle and Bethune, when they were in Western Cape Colony and afterwards in the north-east of the Orange River Colony, was several times spoken of.


A typical C.C.C.C. man with his kit and cycle

In a telegram from Calvinia, dated 8th February 1901, the Press Association correspondent who was accompanying Colonel De Lisle said:

"Very valuable assistance was given to our force by a section of the Cape Town Cyclist Corps under Captain Rose last week. We were cut off from all telegraphic communication, and Colonel De Lisle relied on them exclusively for the purpose of despatch-riding, a duty which they performed admirably". And again on the 24th he said: "The comprehensive manner in which the country has been scouted by Colonel De Lisle is largely due to the mobility and enterprise of the Cyclist Corps, who have done excellent work as scouts and despatch-riders"

It is not known to which “section” Bottomley belonged but that he was held as competent and in high esteem was beyond doubt. On 22 February 1902, after 404 days service, he was discharged at Middelburg in the Cape Colony, Time Expired, with the rank of Sergeant Major and a character rating of Exemplary.

For his efforts Bottomley was awarded the Queens Medal with Defence of Ladysmith clasp – he was also entitled to the Cape Colony clasp for his service with the C.C.C.C. along with the date clasps South Africa 1901 & 1902.

Bottomley stayed on in South Africa post-war, passing away from Pneumonia in East London on 13 September 1929 at the age of 55. He had never married and was a Pedlar of General Goods when he died.

Thanks Rory
A very apt first paragraph and great detail in the story of his life and service
Clive

Another excellent post, Rory. Many thanks.