Souvenir Saturday: Natal Border Mounted Rifles 1899 Ladysmith

Border Mounted Rifles 1899: officers who served in Ladysmith. Back Row: Lieut J Gold, Lieut L Trenor, Lieut Qtr Master W D Smith, Lieut H B Andreasen, Lieut R G Archibald, Vet. Officer Lieut W M Power. Middle Row: Lieut F L Thring, Capt R Vause, Major J F Rethman Officer Commanding, Adj. Major W Sangmeister, Capt W Arnott. Front: Lieut Jack Royston, Capt H T Platt Med. Officer

Capt Arnott was wounded at Bester's Kop. Lieut Quartermaster William Dixon Smith died of enteric at Intombi Camp in January 1900. Major W Sangmeister and Captain J R Royston received the D.S.O. Major Rethman was promoted Lieut Colonel in December 1900 and retired from the Regiment in1904; he died in 1936.

For a list of BMR serving in the Anglo-Boer War see Mole's Blog at 
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/boer-war-border-mounted-rifles-list.html

Mining ancestors: diamonds and gold in SA

By 1875 there was a comparatively small European-descended population in South Africa of about 328 000. By 1911 this had grown to 1 276 000.

A significant factor in the increase was the discovery of diamonds and gold stepping up the pace of immigration in the 1870s and 1880s. People from all over the world flocked to the diggings and mining towns like Barberton sprang up overnight, some to disappear almost as quickly and become ghost towns. But while it lasted, gold and diamond fever caused an electric shiver of excitement that was hard to resist.

It wasn’t necessary to be a prospector in South Africa ‘pegging a claim’ to be part of the boom. British investors clamoured for shares; hundreds of mining companies – many of them entirely bogus - came into being offering share certificates and there was some heavy plunging on stock markets; fortunes were made and lost.

Natal settler Sydney Turner wrote from Ladysmith to his mother in England:

Everyone here is either on the move or has shares in some Gold Company or other, every man, woman and child seems to me to have gone crazy …I could mention fifty that went up next to penniless twelve months ago and are now millionaires …Of all the motley crews one ever saw or heard of … All the scoundrels of Africa, as well as professional men, soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, poor men, rich men, beggars and thieves are on the march up, and I hear from friends …that Barberton is a Hell-upon-earth …*

After the first rush to Barberton around 1884, richer deposits of gold were found on the Witwatersrand in 1885; Johannesburg was founded.

www.mpumalangahappenings.co.za/barberton_personalities.htm read about Cockney Liz, French Bob, Tom McLachlan and other colourful characters of Barberton in the gold rush days.

*Source: Portrait of a Pioneer, The Letters of Sydney Turner from South Africa 1864-1901, ed. Daphne Child, Macmillan SA, Johannesburg 1980. The original letters are held in the Local History Museum, Durban, Natal.

Natal immigration in the 1860s

After the Byrne settler era, the discovery of gold in Australia lured some Natal immigrants away between 1852 and 1854. A few found pastures no greener there, and returned to Natal. As happened in the Cape, colonists invited family members to follow in their footsteps and government subsidies were an added incentive to do so. This system of aided immigration to Natal was developed further by settler agent Dr R J Mann in the 1860s, who also published a Guide to the Colony of Natal.

Passages were not free, but were inexpensive. Respectable settlers appreciated that they were not accepting charity and could repay the government loan when they prospered. Nevertheless, results were disappointing – in five years only 1 342 immigrants arrived in what was becoming known as the Cinderella Colony.

In the Natal Almanac edition of 1865 details are given of Public Aid to Immigrants in 1865, stating that passage monies could be repaid at the rate of 10 pounds per statute adult, within a year after landing. Assisted immigrants to Natal received grants of 50 acres of land, and conveyance was offered to their allotted property – this was vital as the lands were at a distance from the port.

The voyage from England took about 65 days by sailing ship and 40 days by steamship. Private individuals who were well-heeled enough to travel first class to Natal paid 35 guineas for a berth on a sailing ship, and 52 pounds 10 shillings on a mail-steamer. Note the difference between these sums and the 10 pound passage of the aided immigrant scheme.

My great grandfather Gadsden sailed from England to Natal on the barque Priscilla, in 1863. At 253 tons the ship was far smaller than most of the Byrne settler ships. Priscilla carried a general cargo and seven cabin passengers. There is no surviving list showing steerage passengers on this particular voyage but in September 1860 Priscilla had arrived at Natal with 105 people in steerage; it must have been an uncomfortable and cramped experience, even though the ship was described in contemporary advertisements as a ‘fast-sailing clipper barque’. The term clipper indicated forward-raking bows and aft-raking masts, these attributes lending speed and giving the ship fine lines.