TOPIC:

I have just acquired the group as per photo below.

Although a late entrant to the war ( he was born in 1884) Wimborne earned two clasps to his QSA and went on to serve in the Bambatha Rebellion and then WWI.Obviously not as desirable as a Defence of Mafeking but nice nevertheless.

I am looking for any info or source that I can find about the Bechuanaland Rifles.





Regards

Rory

Rory
The only ready source I have seen is Stirling's "The Colonials in SA". He gives them a quite good writeup. Is the QSA of the illustrated group entitled to bear date clasps? That might narrow down some of Stirling's comments about the operations of the BRs and add some spice to research.
Regards
IL.

Hi IL

Sadly the clasps you see in the photo are his only ones. I've double checked the rolls - he must have been a rather late arrival in the field.

What attracted me to the group is that the chap was actually born Samuel Solomon WEINBAUM, a gentleman of Jewish extraction who, it appears, like many of the same surname in Victorian England, changed his name to Wimborne.

I'll have a gander at Stirling's

Thanks

Rory

Well, it would seem that Christmas happens more than just once a year for some people, the Bechuanaland Rifles were actually raised by the Cape Government at the beginning of 1897, from memory, it was new years day, notwithstanding, many of the rank and file who joined once the war had started, were, in effect, Class C SAMIF troops and as a result, some of their papers have survived in WO126/1 at Kew.
Whilst they were disbanded in 1913, a new regiment with the same name was raised as part of the Active Citizen Force, they went on to see service in GWSA and some of these men had actually served in the old regiment, including the now Lieutenant Colonel Cowen, they were finally disbanded in 1929.

Rory wrote: I have just acquired the group as per photo below.

Although a late entrant to the war ( he was born in 1884) Wimborne earned two clasps to his QSA and went on to serve in the Bambatha Rebellion and then WWI.Obviously not as desirable as a Defence of Mafeking but nice nevertheless.

I am looking for any info or source that I can find about the Bechuanaland Rifles.

Regards

Rory

It gets even better Frank, despite the WWI pair being named to the SASC he actually served for a long while with 26 Squadron RFC in East Africa as an Air Mechanic

A fact unbeknown to me when I acquired the group.

Regards

Rory

Hello Rory,
Well the SASRFC certainly would never have been that guard in the sky without fellows like your man, you really cannot dismiss any member of the SASC/SASC MT etc until you have checked out exactly what the fellow was actually doing, it was a very interesting campaign and quite a remarkable one too, with disease being the real enemy rather than that wretched smug hun, who was then able to just go home and parade his remaining men through Berlin undefeated.
Interestingly, this is the second time this week that I had been thinking about number twenty six following a request from another member of this forum.
Kind regards Frank