TOPIC:

Rookie,

According to one account:

'on the south we were faced by commandos from Kroonstad, Winburg, and Senekal, on the east by forces from Rouxville, Zastron, Smithfield, and a mixed body of all nations, chiefly Germans, under General Banks, with the Irishman Blake and his contingent, a Ficksburg commando on the west, and on the north several small bodies of Transvaalers, with a sprinkling of men from Ladybrand and the Basuto border.'

Where was the Wepener Comando? Did they fought at Wepener? On the B form, I see that Wepener was his domicile and he did not spesify, that he fought at Wepener.

They are not mentioned at all which is odd.

Picture courtesy of Lockdales

Coat or arms and miniature group to Private Thomas O'Meagher, CMR

QSA (4) CC/Wep/Tran/Witt
KSA (2)

His enlistment papers are missing so little is known of him.

Just posted on another thread but well worth repeating here.


Picture courtesy of DNW

QSA (4) Cape Colony, Wepener, Transvaal, Wittebergen (Capt. J. N. Greenlees. Col: Defence Force.);
QSA (0) (Mr. J. N. Greenlees. “Times.”) officially re-impressed naming

James Neilson Greenlees was born in Glasgow on June 1852 at Glasgow, and was educated at Blair Lodge School and Edinburgh University. He arrived in South Africa 1871, and developed various business interests, including diamond prospecting, stockbroking, and running a wholesale mercantile business in Newcastle, Natal, where he was head of Municipality in 1883. Prior to the outbreak of the Boer War he was residing in Johannesburg, where he was a Director of several companies and was on the committee of the Stock Exchange.

Following the outbreak of the Boer War Greenlees was appointed War Correspondent to The Times and was with General French in the Colesberg District. He also joined the Colonial Defence Force under General Brabant in December 1899, serving as the General’s Aide de Camp, and went through all the division’s fighting, including the siege of Wepener, until January 1902, when, on the re-organisation of the Colonial Defence Force, he retired and returned to Johannesburg.

Picture courtesy of DNW

QSA (4) Cape Colony, Wepener, Transvaal, Wittebergen (4155 Pte. D. Robertson, Royal Scots.);
KSA (2) (4155 Pte. D. Robertson. Rl: Scots.)

Only 83 men of the 1st Battalion Royal Scots received the ‘Wepener’ clasp, the only Imperial troops present as a unit.

David Robertson was born in the Parish of St Cuthberts, Edinburgh, and attested for the Royal Scots at Glencorse on 18 August 1891, aged 18 years 4 months. He served abroad in the East Indies, September 1893 to March 1899, and in South Africa, 6 November 1899 to 8 September 1902. He was discharged at Glencorse on 17 August 1903.