Joseph LUMLEY was born in Yorkshire at Normanby on the 8th December 1857 and arrived in South Africa in September 1862. He died on the battlefield of Isandlwana on the 22.01.1879. His is one of the few names to be recorded on the site where his body was found together with fellow Carbineers who fought their last stand supporting Colonel Durnford, who was also killed. The first picture shows a close-up of Joseph Lumley's name and some others splattered with whitewash, the second picture shows the memorial in relation to the Isandlwana mountain. It is on the side of a stony ridge that overlooks the battlefield and across the ridge is the route to Fugitives Drift.
Durnford his men and a small number of the Carbineers had engaged and held the left horn in a Donga (known as Durnford's Donga) in the middle of the depression in front (SW) of Isandlwana Mountain The foot soldiers who were deployed to back them up got caught in hollow ground approaching the Donga where they were overwhelmed and all killed. Durnford and his mounted men had by this time started a retreat up the slope towards the saddle ridge below Isandlwana Mountain. This saddle contained the road back to Rorke's Drift, they did not know that the right horn of the attacking Zulu Impi had travelled behind the mountain and blocked the retreat and anyway they never quite got to the saddle before they were finally surrounded on the rocky knoll next to the saddle, there they were killed and disembowelled. Their monument stands on this spot today.*
*This monument bears the name of J Lumley (Joseph Peter Lumley), the eldest son of the Great Grandparents of Trevor Lumley and Gillian Richmond and for the rest of us our Great Great Grandparents John and Margaret Lumley.
David Moon
Lumley descendant
NATAL CARBINEERS The History Of The Regiment From Its Foundation, 15th January 1855, to 30th June, 1911
| Author: | Rev. John Stalker |
| ISBN: | 9781781519615 |
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