Search results for Boer War.
16 August 1917 : Lt Colonel Sir Robert Benyon Nevill Gunter
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The son of the MP for Barkston Ash Division, Sir Robert Gunter, the owners of Wetherby Grange, Yorkshire with estates in Earl’s Court and Brompton and Jane Margaret (née Benyon). His father and uncle had served in the Crimea. He had two brothers and a sister. A Justice of the Peace and a member of the Wetherby Town Hall Committee. Nevill was …
Major Arthur Hughes-Onslow: soldier, jockey and one of the first British deaths in the Great War
Arthur Hughes-Onslow was born in 1862. He joined the 10th Hussars at Lucknow, India and stayed in the regiment for 20 years. Along the way, he acquired the nickname of 'Junks', although he had no idea why it was given to him. It soon became the name by which he was known by family, friends, the racing public and fellow soldiers alike. Everyone w…
4 May 1915: Capt Godfrey Henry Ermen
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His father Francis Ermen was a cotton manufacturer born in Germany, died in 1896. His mother Johanna was also born in Germany. Both parents were 'naturalised British subjects' at the time of the 1881 Census. At the 1881 Census parents and two children, Walter (5) and Godfrey (3) lived at 76 Dumplington, Barton upon Irwell with a 17 year old nanny…
Cyrus Peck, Piper Paul and the Canadian Scottish at Amiens
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This article looks at one battalion's action on 8 August 1918, and is largely based on a chapter of the battalion's history by H.M.Urquhart, published in 1932. The battalion in question was the 16th Battalion, CEF the Canadian Scottish, a 'kilted' battalion which was led for a large part of the war by Lt-Col Cyrus Peck. It is fair to say he had str…
Revealed: The soldier with two families. How The Western Front Association's Pension Records helped unravel a family mystery
This story of discovery begins with researching the life of my Great Grandfather Alfred Nelson William Beckley BAKER. This research was undertaken as part of the wider exploration of my family’s history. The story comes full circle at the end with the information found on The Western Front Association's Pension Index Cards and Ledgers that have rec…
The Zion Muleteers of Gallipoli
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[This article was first published in Gun Fire No. 50. All of these magazines are now available to WFA members' via the Member Login. Joining the Western Front Association gives you access not only to the 59 editions of Gun Fire but also to all 110+ issues of the WFA's in house journal Stand To!] The Zion Muleteers of Gallipoli by Martin Sugarman…
CANCELLED 8 April : 'Amateur Soldiering Tradition in Britain and the Empire 1899 to 1945' with Professor Gary Sheffield
Gary Sheffield, Honorary President of The Western Front Association will be speaking at this event on the amateur soldier in the British Arm over five decades: through the South African War, First and Second World Wars. The organisers say that places will be strictly limited with an entry cost of £8 payable on the door. Please email the organiser…
Ep. 124 – Archibald Wavell – William Franklin
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William Franklin talks about the First World War career of Archibald Wavell.
4 July 1918 : Lord Ian Gawaine Basil Temple-Blackwood
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The fifth child and third son of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Governor General of Canada, Viceroy of India, Ambassador to Russia, Turkey, Italy and France and his mother Hariot Georgina (née Rowan-Hamilton). Basil was raised on the hereditary Clandeboye Estate. Basil (or 'BTB' as he was known) …
ONLINE: Boer War to World War: Tactics and Training in the British Army 1902 - 1914
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The presentation will be live and online. We are delighted to welcome back Dr Spencer Jones for another webinar, when he will look at the tactics of the British Army between the end of the Boer War and the start of the Great War. Rudyard Kipling reflected in his poem 'The Lesson' how the hard-fought Boer War (1899-1902) had provided 'no end of a …
The Accrington Pals’ ‘Dug-Out’ of Distinction – Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wilmot Rickman
On 16 October 1925, 51 year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wilmot Rickman had alighted from his car in the garage of his Coombe Bissett home when his clothing caught in the fly-wheel of the petrol engine which generated lighting for the house. His gardener freed him, but Rickman’s injuries were so extensive that he haemorrhaged to death on his lawn …
Capt James Donaldson Boswall: Boer War to Great War
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James Donaldson Boswall was born in Madras, India in November 1870, the only son of Major-General Roper Boswall and his wife, Eleanor. By 1881, the family was living in Scotland, at Ingleston House, Wardie, Midlothian, with James attending Edinburgh Academy from 1881 until 1884. He later attended Fettes Academy and the University of Edinburgh, from…
19 June 1915 : Sgt Reginald Sydney Smith
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Reginald Smith saw previous service as a Lieutenant in the NSW Mounted Rifles during the Boer War. On returning to Australia, he was employed as a labourer until he enlisted into the Light Horse in Sydney on 26 August 1914. Already promoted to Sergeant, Reginald left Sydney on the 'Star of Victoria' on 20 October 1914 bound for Egypt, thence …
Ivor Thord-Gray - Mercenary, Spy? Thief? … and CO 11th Northumberland Fusiliers
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Ivor Thord-Gray was a man for whom war (to paraphrase Lord Reith) was ‘in his bones’. A Swede, born Ivar Thord Hallström (the change in name being for reasons unknown) in Stockholm on 17 April 1878, he set out on a life that would have made good fiction if it were not actually true. After two years on merchant ships (1893-5), he landed in Cape Tow…
‘Colonel Arthur Lynch: Boer War Traitor, Great War Hero?’ with Dr Pauric Travers
Irish Australian, journalist and polymath, Arthur Lynch (1861-1934) led an Irish brigade fighting for the Boers in South Africa. His exploits led to his election as a nationalist MP for Galway but when he attempted to take his seat in the House of Commons, he was arrested, charged with high treason and sentenced to death - the sentenced was later c…
ONLINE: Lt. Col. Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie with Anne Pedley
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Dick Doughty-Wylie was the archetypal Victorian – he joined the Army in 1889 and almost immediately saw action at Chitral and later at Crete, Sudan, the Boer War, Somaliland and took part in quelling the Boxer rebellion in China. In later years, he took on a diplomatic role in life, with his wife, Lily, and it was while he was British consul in Tu…