TOPIC:

Referring to attached Army List entry and Who's Who 1934 I think it safe to say that he kept his Provisional Mounted Police service a closely guarded secret. It certainly isn't referenced in any official paperwork or documentation I have to hand, it being almost quite by chance that we discovered it at all.

Apropos the chronology of his ABW movements - we know he enlisted in Janury/February 1900 with the 74th Coy, I.Y. It is claimed that he served 356 days in their ranks before being commissioned into the ASC as a 2nd Lieutenant on 23 October 1901 where he saw out the war serving a further 251 days with them. What is a glaring omission is his PMP service. He claimed, when attesting with them on 10 October 1900, to have 6 months prior service with the I.Y. This tallies with his original I.Y. enlistment date. What is not known and not revealed is the length of service he had with the PMP.

Given the fact that he was commissioned on 23 October 1901 I would speculate that he spent:

- 6 months with the I.Y. (From the date of arrival in SA - April 1900 - 9 October 1900)
- 1 year with the PMP (Date of attestation 10 October 1901 - 23 October 1901)
- and the balance of his war with the ASC (Date of Commission 23 October 1901 - 31 May 1902)





Regards

Rory

The police enlistment forms states that he enrolled for a period of three months from 10 October 1900. That would take him to 10 January 1901. He was commissioned in the ASC nine months later, on 23 October 1901 -- enough time for a second 6-month engagement with the IY in between, which would give him the claimed total of 356 days in the IY.

Perhaps the omission of his police service from later records is due to its brevity, or the fact that it was colonial, or that it was police rather than army per se (either of which might have been considered infra dig in those days).

Referring back to John H. Smith's attestation form. Dave (Smethwick) has already pointed out differences in the physical description. There's also an age difference : John H. was apparently 26 years and 3 months old in January 1900, i.e. born around October 1873, whereas Ralph H.H. was born in June 1880.

Going off slightly at a tangent, here's RH H-S's entry in Fox-Davies' 'Armorial Families' Vol 2 (1929).