TOPIC:

Hello

With the recent purchase of a QSA to Pte 794 JA Bartlett ILI who is shown as wounded and POW I have been looking closely at the NFF casualty roll. The QSA has the TH clasp which would indicate the man was not a POW.

POWs at this time were sent to Pretoria and would not have earned the TH clasp. This discrepancy has been discussed here and written about by David Humphrey in Medal News. The list of ILI men recovered from Pretoria (Waterval) in The Times is less than those shown in NFF as POW - annoyingly 6 of those recovered from Pretoria have the TH clasp: admin error?

What I am wondering is, does anyone know of any events whereby men might have been taken off Spion Kop by the Boers but were released or escaped before getting to Pretoria.

If not, then all the POWs with the TH clasp and not listed as recovered at Pretoria cannot be considered as POW until further evidence surfaces.

Regards
Meurig

I've not found any instances of ILI POWs being released or escaping before arriving in Pretoria.

Using The Times and other sources I re-did the ILI casualty roll for Spion Kop and found the NFF printed roll (and anyone who copies it out verbatim) to be horrendously wrong. The NFF has reassigned most of the actual wounded as "Missing". The ILI memorial on Spion Kop is missing some of the dead and includes one man who survived.

Full details on the blog.

Meurig

Many thanks for making your revised ILI casualty list available. As usual, it is an excellent piece of research. Your studies added to my own experience with the Natal Police casualty roll, and, more recently, with that of the Natal Volunteer Ambulance Corps, made me wonder if the errors on the NFF Casualty Roll are largely or completely confined to Colonial units?

My current research is on the Natal Volunteer Medical Corps. I have the QSA of its only recorded fatality, Surgeon-Lieutenant A W Hall, Durban Light Infantry. He died of enteric at Mooi River, and his death is recorded on the NVMC's medal roll. The NVMC does not even get a mention in the NFFCR. From Donald Macdonald's book, 'How we kept the flag flying', I know that at least two of the NVMC's doctors were wounded in action, and there may have been others.

Just as you find 'The Times' an excellent source of information on this subject, Natal's newspapers are known to be similarly useful, at least for the local units, but they are still a largely untapped resource. Unfortunately, their content is not online.

Regards
Brett

Hello Brett

The NFF CR is, I believe, riddled with errors. David Humphrey did some research into this 10 years ago and found similar issues with British infantry regiments.

Unfortunately the NFF CR does not say how it was compiled and from what sources which is criminal. David and I believe the compilers used The Times (or similar) but did not find every reference to NFF casualties which is not surprising,. but they do appear to have made gross transcription errors.

It would be wonderful if the Natal papers were digitised, hopefully they could shed light on "mystery" casualties, such as the ILI men who died of wounds mid-1900 - were they wounded at Spion Kop or on the Tugela Heights?

I picked up Hall as casualty from the memorial in Durban.

Regards
Meurig

Meurig
There is a bronze memorial plaque commemorating Hall in the Church of the Holy Cross in Scopwick, Lincolnshire, where his father was Vicar. The plaque was erected by his father and wife. I am hoping that you or Berenice (or someone else) already has a photograph of it, because the Church is now closed for "Health & Safety reasons", and presumably is now inaccessible.
Regards
Brett

PS Based on newspaper and other reports, I have a mental image of 'Health & Safety officials' as weird little people who spend their lives doing ridiculous things with the apparent aim of making the British look decidedly odd. I wonder if they have ever prevented a mishap? I suppose they should be given credit for providing the 'Internet Funnies' industry with endless material.

Brett,

Happy Birthday & Merry Christmas:

www.roll-of-honour.com/Lincolnshire/Scopwick.html

This memorial is not in my database (yet), and it had escaped the Imperial War Museum's National Inventory as well.

Many thanks for drawing this memorial to my attention.

Meurig