TOPIC:

A new one from Kaplan is this QSA to J.J. Robinson of the Mafeking Town Guard.

Any pointers or info on this chap? All I've done, thus far, is verify him on the roll.







Regards

Rory

Rory
Colin Walker's Register shows him as a member of the TG sector A and a compositor on the Mafeking Mail. He also notes that in the preface to bound editions of the Mail, thanks are given to Robinson and another.
Regards
IL.

Many thanks for that IL - I'll confess to little or no knowledge of the Mafeking siege and where to find information on recipients.

Rory,

He is one of several MTG men who are proving very difficult to research.

I think Colin Walter is incorrect in ascribing credit for the binding of the Mafeking Mail to this Robinson. There was another man in the siege, John Edmund Robinson, who worked as a printer in Mafeking, who is the much more likely candidate.

The only information I could attribute to his was that a Mrs J J Robinson sailed on her own from Cape Town to Southampton, England, 7 January 1911,

Best wishes
David

Thanks David - you are 100% on the money. I have tried various permutations of John/James/Joseph/Jeremiah etc. and still come up empty handed.

There was a John Jefferson Robinson born near Cockermouth in 1842 who according to a public family tree on Ancestry died in South Africa but they give no date and no supporting evidence. I have followed him through to the 1871 Census where, unmarried, he seems to have taken over the family farm of 440 acres following the death of his father earlier in the year. The return shows his younger brother & 3 sisters living with him plus a cousin 5 years his junior also called John Jefferson Robinson. He then disappears off the radar which could have been due to his emigrating to South Africa. He would have been 58 by the time Mafeking was besieged but based on the couple of photos I have found of the MTG that would not have ruled him out.