TOPIC:

Schuin's Hooghte / Ingogo, in Northern Natal, was the scene of an engagement during the First Boer War.

Ingogo River / Schuin's Hooghte (8 February 1881)

On 7 February 1881 a mail escort taking communications from Colley to Newcastle was attacked and forced to return to Fort Prospect. Conscious of the need to keep his communication channels open, Colley decided to go with the escort personally and, this time, with a larger escort of around 270. Leaving at 8am, Colley expected to be back by mid afternoon. No water cart was taken. As he had sent the Natal Mounted Police south to discourage Boers raids in northern Natal (Rider Haggard, a resident in Natal at the time talks of the fear these raids created), his force of mounted men numbered only 38.

Around noon a large force of Boers was spotted in front of the column and they crossed the double drift of the ingogo River, about 5 miles south of his camp. Artillery was deployed but the Boers were already melting into the rocks and pushing to envelop Colley's men. The battle ranged over several hours with the Boer marksmen again taking their toll. Reinforcements kept arriving from Fort Prospect which left the main camp of 150 men worryingly unprotected. The British casualties were 134 (66 killed and 68 wounded), roughly 50% of their number. Rain and nightfall allowed the remnants of the mail train to limp back to camp in the early morning but some were out all night. The wounded were not recovered until the following day and had to be left out all night. The amount of rain that fell made the rivers treacherous to cross. Lieutenant Wilkinson was reported to have drowned crossing a flooded stream.

Lieutenant Percival Scope Marling who would go one to be decorated with the VC at Tamaii in the Sudan and who would return to South Africa in 1899 commented that Colley had reported the engagement at Ingogo River had been a success (even though the mail had not made it through) and noted wryly that 'One or two more Pyrrhic victories like this and we shan't have an army left at all'.

All aspects of the Ingogo River incident reflect poorly on General Colley. He was still in telegraph contact with Newcastle and the engagement at Laing's Nek (28 January 1881) had demonstrated the strength of the Boer forces. That he went himself is an unsupportable decision, leaving as a did a very vulnerable camp behind him. We do know that he placed great importance of communication, being acknowledged as an excellent speaker and writer, but in this engagement his military decision-making was greatly at fault.


The monumen at Schuin's Hooghte (source:Wikimedia)

A couple of photographs of the cemetery as it appeared in 1981. Extensive renovation work had just been completed by the War Graves Commission under the supervision of "Welly" Llewellyn Hyde, ready for the 1881/1981 Centenary. Images from Smail 1971 show how it had looked previously.

The memorial to the N.C.O.'s and Men of the 3rd Bn. 60th Royal Rifles (shown in David's post above) was sadly destroyed by vandals in 1965.






The graves are to soldiers killed during the Anglo-Boer War, while the large cross is a memorial to Captain J.C. MacGregor, R.E., killed near this spot on 8 Feb 1881.







Graves of soldiers of the 3rd Bn. 60th Royal Rifles who were killed on 8 Feb 1881.



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The village of Ingogo, with Majuba Hill and Inkwelo Mountain in the distance. Photographed in 1978.



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DJB wrote: "Lieutenant Percival Scope Marling who would go one to be decorated with the VC at Tamaii in the Sudan and who would return to South Africa in 1899....."

Just found this in a book held by the National Library of Wales - extracted biography followed by title page of the book. Percival Scrope Marling also has a Wikipedia page and numerous other hits when you google his name - including a NPG Photo in old age and his medals (see below as well, apologies for the diminutive size of the pic) which reside in the Lord Ashcroft Collection.

A better presentation of the medals of Percival Scrope Marling.

Ingogo Railway Bridge. Photograph taken by Lance-Corporal W.A. Bullock, R.E., who was tasked with compiling a record of destroyed railway bridges, etc. Many of his photographs appear in Major Moore's "Detailed History of the Railways in the South African War".

Reverse with ink stamp: "IMPERIAL RAILWAYS PHOTOGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT / NEAR BRAAMFONTEIN STATION Johannesburg / 8 AUG 1901 / REPRODUCTION FORBIDDEN".




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