TOPIC:

Henry Temple Goldschmidt

An (almost) Jameson Raider - and Private Secretary to Dr Leander Starr Jameson – B.S.A.C.

Trooper, Western Province Mounted Rifles – Anglo Boer War
Private, 2nd Imperial Light Horse – WWI

- Queens South Africa Medal to 257 Tpr. H.T. Goldschmidt, Western Province M.R.
- 1914/15 Star to Pte. H.T. Goldsmidt, 2nd I.L.H.
- British War Medal to Pte. H.T. Goldsmidt, 2nd I.L.H.
- Allied Victory Medal to Pte. H.T. Goldsmidt, 2nd I.L.H.

Harry Goldschmidt was born in Kimberley on 25 October 1871 the son of Anthony Goldschmidt, a German-born Jew Merchant and Broker by profession and his wife Harriet Emma (born Nourse), the daughter of a famous 1820 Settler who was responsible for bringing many families out from England to the Cape. Sadly his mother passed away in Kimberley on 2 September 1873 when Harry was not yet two years old and he was raised by his father’s second wife, Johanna Margaret Helen Baumann, after the couple were married in Kimberley on 12 December 1877. His father died on 27 May 1888 in the Carnarvon Hospital in Kimberley when Harry was 15 years old. His step-mother had predeceased her husband the year before – effectively orphaning Henry and his siblings. They were made wards of the court under the auspices of the Colonial Orphan Chamber in Cape Town.



Goldschmidt was to make his mark in history as the Private Secretary of none other than Dr Leander Starr Jameson, and this at the time of the failed Jameson Raid.

After a childhood spent growing up in Kimberley with his siblings in the house in Du Toit’s Pan Road and later, in an orphanage; Henry Goldschmidt joined the Charter Company (later known as the British South Africa Company) in their Cape Town office at the age of 19 in 1891. In May 1895 he was transferred to Salisbury as Secretary to the Council (the Council of four consisted of a Judge and three other members and, together with the Administrator, were the de facto government of Rhodesia).

In September 1895 he was transferred to Bulawayo as Private Secretary to the Administrator, Dr Leander Starr Jameson. He was to remain in that position until after the Raid, which took place from 29 December 1895 until 2 January 1896, failed, and was present at Pitsani in Bechuanaland with Dr Jameson and Captain Heyman. The day after the column left for the Transvaal, he was sent on to Johannesburg to be ready to meet Dr Jameson. As history will reflect, this meeting never took place with Jameson and his fellow Raiders arrested by the Boers under Cronje before they were anywhere near Johannesburg.


The Council to whom Goldschmidt was Secretary before Marshall Hoole

After the Raid he was temporarily attached to the Cape Town office in January 1896 before returning to Bulawayo in June 1896 where he was appointed Acting Secretary to Sir Arthur Lawley, the Deputy Administrator of Matabeleland in September 1896. He was transferred to Salisbury in April 1897 before being appointed Acting Secretary, Bulawayo in March 1898. Ill health however, occasioned his transfer to the Cape in June 1899. A British South Africa Company register records him as a Clerk in the Cape Town Agency of that illustrious body in 1900.

War had by now broken out between the Boers and the British but Goldschmidt was to bide his time before enlisting at Malmesbury with the Western Province Mounted Rifles for service on 10 January 1901 with no. 257.

His Attestation Papers reflected that he was now 29 years of age and that he was a Rhodesian Civil Servant by occupation who had seen previous service with the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers, a military unit which first came into being at the end of 1898. His address he provided as Madeira House, Cape Town and his business address as British South African Company, Cape Town. He listed his grandmother, Mrs. Goldschmidt, as his next of kin c/o the Colonial Orphan Chamber, Cape Town.



For the remainder of his service in the Anglo Boer War Goldschmidt was to be confined to action in the Cape Colony earning for himself the Queens South Africa Medal with Cape Colony clasp as a result. Discharge came on 8 April 1901 with a war gratuity of £5 for his trouble. The Discharge Certificate, signed at Malmesbury, described Goldschmidt as being 5 feet 9 ½ inches in height with a fair complexion, brown eyes and auburn hair. His Conduct was described as Very Good.

Henry Goldschmidt returned to his civilian occupation and was heard from again on 25 October 1914, some three months after the commencement of the Great War, when he attested at Johannesburg with “H” Squad of the 2nd Imperial Light Horse for service. He was now 41 years of age and still unmarried providing one W. Gilchrist of Muldersvlei in the Cape Province as his next of kin. Awarded the rank of Trooper and no. 262 he underwent a change in the spelling of his surname from Goldschmidt to Goldsmidt. Whether or not this was as a result of the German connotation attached to his name is unknown.



On 9 December 1914 he embarked aboard S.S. “Glenorchy” for German South West Africa where he was to serve with the regiment until discharge on 12 June 1915, some three weeks before the cessation of hostilities on 9 July 1915. He was allowed to reckon 231 days service and his conduct and character were regarded as Very Good.

According to his Description on Final Discharge he was aged 43, 5 feet 9 inches in height, had a fresh complexion, dark brown hair and grey eyes and was an Accountant by profession.

For his efforts Goldsmidt (sic) was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal (missing) and Allied Victory Medal. The Star was despatched to him on 2 June 1921 with the others following on 6 September 1922.

Goldschmidt took leave of the Chartered Company and entered the employ of Dunlop where he served them in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg until retiring in 1949. A Tourist Passport issued to him in Cape Town on 13 May 1940 showed that he had undergone yet another name change, this time to Goldsmith, an anglicised version of his original name.

He passed away from Myocarditis on 29 August 1963 at the age of 91 years and 10 months at the Netherleigh Nursing Home in Jolly Street, Bellevue, Johannesburg. Recorded as being a Retired Manager, he had never married and bequeathed his estate of R5 593 to friends, principally members of the Seccull family.



According to an Obituary published in the Bulawayo Chronicle on 18 September 1963 entitled “Jameson Raid man who knew all the secrets dies at 95”, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Stock Exchange, mines and mining companies, and for 15 years wrote a stock exchange article for the Sunday News. For a period he was managing director of the Financial Review in Johannesburg.

He refused to let anyone have access to his collection of photographs, documents, letters and telegrams connected with the early days in Rhodesia and the Jameson Raid, which other Rhodesian pioneers on the Rand believed would be most revealing. He was a keen follower of rugby, cricket and horse racing and in recent years had followed all the big events on the radio.



A friend, C.F. Mitchell, writing to a Miss Fairclough from Manzana Farm, Essexvale, Southern Rhodesia on 15 September 1963, stated that: -

“I paid my final tribute to Mr Goldsmith in an obituary notice I sent to the Bulawayo Chronicle which they published last Tuesday. It was compounded from scraps of information I gathered in talks and letters with my old friend, but they cut out parts, such as his refusal to allow me to put him forward to become a Freeman of Bulawayo, an honour that was accorded to all those who were here in 1893, or the request that he should attend Bulawayo celebrations for its 60th year as a city, and to have him up here to meet King George and Queen Elizabeth when they visited Rhodesia and were particularly interested in meeting Pioneers.

I expect he destroyed all his documents, papers and telegrams connected with the vital years in which he served Dr Jameson. He once showed me some intensely interesting photographs he had of Bulawayo and Salisbury in their early years and some groups in which Rhodes and Jameson appeared.”