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Served: Staf General Botha. Awarded the DTD (Dekoratie voor Trouwe Dienst).

Pierre Abraham Hafner (DTD, ABO) was a member of Louis Botha’s staff with the rank of Kaptein. Hafner (then 30 years of age) was taken prisoner on the 25th of October 1901 at Tombiesrivier and sent to St Helena. Prior to his departure for the island he was held at Tin Town camp near Ladysmith as evidenced by the depicted Cheque dated December 18, 1901. With the document he tried -on the 20th and 24th of December 1901- to cash 13 Pond Sterling from his account at the South African Banking Corporation in his hometown Pretoria. Unsuccessfully so, as In the left margin a clerk noted “Funds Interdicted”. The purple stamp of the encircled C probably also has some meaning in this context.

A manuscript cheque made out by an inmate of a British Boer War POW camp during incarceration is unusual and possibly rather rare.

Attached is a photograph of Botha’s staff borrowed from van Zyl’s excellent Die Heldealbum. Given his rank, I presume Hafner was the one in uniform.