Notes on the attestation papers by Adrian Ellard:
Amongst the list of men is a complete list of all the Attestation Papers to the Cape Mounted Police that could be found in the Cape Archives, 5,261 names. It is known that many have not survived the past hundred or so years but whatever there is has been indexed.
From the outset I would like to mention that many (hundreds) of Attestation Papers are in a very poor condition. Many are missing the first page and are placed in the Archival Boxes in random order. So therefore it will be noticed that many of the names on my list are not in alphabetical order either. This is as I found them and I did not want to disturb the order in which they were found. If I had done this it would have altered the CMP References.
You will also notice that many men have more that one Regimental number. I have included all Regimental numbers as they appear on the papers. This I did as it is unknown what number may be on any medal or medals awarded to the man in question. It appears that a man was issued a new Regimental number when he Re-Attested at the end of a given period of service. They were also on occasions given the number of a man who had recently left the CMP.
It will be noticed that some men have no Regimental number entered on my list. This seems quite common for men that joined up in the time period 1880 -1898. At the beginning of this venture I came across many such papers but with cross- referencing of the Casualty Lists etc I have been able to find many of the missing numbers.
Please excuse any possible spelling mistakes to names as it is extremely difficult to decipher some of the hand writing. The condition of some of the papers does not help either.
Copies of the attestation papers are available directly from Adrian at a charge of GBP 5 per set. For more information, email [email protected].
