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About 15 years ago if not a little more, I remember seeing a renamed Qsa medal to Parslow. I remember reading up about his murder, Unfortunately or fortunately I did not buy it .

E G Parslow listed just over half way down this page from the War Correspondents QSA Medal Roll:



Mind, if purchased, it would not be possible to unite with the QSA of his killer – Lieut Kenneth Murchison, listed & crossed out third down on this page from the Protectorate Regiment QSA Medal Roll:




On the night in question Edwin George Parslow was 32 years of age but Kenneth John Walker Murchison was ten years his senior, both were married men of about eight years standing and the fathers of lone surviving daughters. More detail regarding their lives to follow in due course.

The birth of Edwin George Parslow was registered in Liverpool in the third quarter of 1867. The 1871 Census found 3 year old Edwin living in the West Derby area of Liverpool with his parents and his siblings, Sophie aged 5 and Henry junior aged 1. His father, Henry senior was an Insurance Agent and his income allowed him to employ a domestic servant and a nurse.

Henry senior prospered to the extent that by the time of the 1891 Census he had moved his family out of suburbanised Liverpool to the village of Formby just to the north and he gave his occupation as “Manager of a firm in South America”. There was still a live-in domestic servant and all three children were classed as a “Student”.

Henry senior died in the early 1880’s and in 1887 Edwin’s mother, Sophia Sarah, remarried a “bedstead manufacturer” and the 1891 census return shows her and Edwin’s older sister Sophie living in the then up-market Abercromby area of Liverpool with a live-in domestic servant in tow. However, 23 year old Edwin cannot be found on the 1891 Census.

The next record for Edwin is his 17 February 1892 marriage in St. Paul’s Church, Durban in South Africa to Rose Geraldine Lacon. Whilst Rose’s father was born in Oxfordshire, England the lineage of her mother, born Charlotte Jemima Kretzchmar, lay partially in South Africa but even more so in Ireland.



Three years after their marriage they had a son who died less than a year old and at the time of Edwin’s death Rose was about 4 months pregnant with their daughter Edwina Constance Gertrude being born on 12 April 1900 in Cape Town. None of the contemporary reports directly regarding Edwin’s death mention he was a married man and left behind a widow, with the exception of the one below. Rose went on to remarry and had a son who lived to a good age. Unmarried Edwina travelled to England in 1936 but I could find no further information about her.

This eulogy appeared in the Liverpool Echo of 18 November 1899:

THE FATAL ACCIDENT TO OUR WAR CORRESPONDENT.

Mr PARSLOW A LIVERPOOL MAN.

The late Mr. Parslow, who was born at Liverpool, was thirty two years of age. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School at Great Cosby, and went to South Africa seven or eight years ago. His father is dead, but his mother still resides in Liverpool.

Mr Alfred Harrington writes from Goring-on-Thames, November 16: - “Allow me to perform a sad duty in expressing an appreciation of the personal and professional merits of your late War Correspondent, Mr. E. G. Parslow, who, whatever the exact manner of his death, has died in harness, and during the zealous performance of his duties. Throughout three years of journalistic work in Natal, I enjoyed his friendship. Though a young man, being barely thirty, his ability as a journalist was almost unequalled in South Africa, but was far exceeded by his generosity. Good fellowship was the mainspring of his actions, and with him altruism appeared to be a ruling passion.

“Mr. Parslow was a Liverpool man, and I believe his relatives are still living in that city. He was in South Africa at least six years ago, and must have travelled through nearly every territory. At one time he was news editor of the “Natal Advertiser” in Durban. He afterwards visited the Portuguese East Coast, and was for some time connected with the gold industry in Johannesburg, where he also did a large amount of literary work. At the end of 1896 he came to Maritzburg, where, on the staff of the “Natal Witness”, I had him for a colleague. But superior talent is invariably drawn to a metropolis, and Mr. Parslow was, until the outbreak of the war, doing daily round of his calling in Cape Town.

“Mr. Parslow was married – happily married – and his house in Pietermaritzburg became the Mecca of journalists, bibliophiles, and all true Bohemians. Both he and his wife were musical, and on many a semi-tropical summer evening has a little group of exiles at within the shadow of their hospitable, rose-covered verandah, and listened to old familiar airs and talked of the dear Homeland. Mrs Parslow, however, was colonial-born, and it will be a sad satisfaction to her, when time shall have stemmed the violence of her grief, to know that he who is gone laid down his life discharging the duties of his profession and in the service of what had become his adopted country.”

I have been unable to find any newspaper references to Edwin serving in the Mafeking Town Guard as shown by the grave-marker posted by Elmarie. According to this site, In Memoriam (S Watt) has him listed as serving in the Mafeking Town Guard with the rank of “Civilian Correspondent” and as being murdered. He is not listed on the Mafeking Town Guard Medal Roll but is listed on the War Correspondents Medal Roll as being due a clasp-less QSA (see previous post for the latter).

The Appendix in “The Last Post” (Dooner) covering “War Correspondents Who Lost Their Lives in South Africa” has this to say about him:

Parslow – Mr. Edwin George Parslow, Daily chronicle, was killed at Mafeking. He went to South Africa some years ago, and was engaged in journalism in Cape colony. In Oct. 1899, he was at Mafeking, and remained there during the siege. This was his first experience of warfare. He is buried at Mafeking.

This is his Press Pass

Congratulations, David! It's a beautiful document.

Kenneth John Walker Murchison was born on 26 January 1857 on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Isles and baptised in St Luke’s Church on the island a month later. His father, also called Kenneth, was a retired Major who had served in the 29th Regiment of Foot. The Murchisons were a respected Scottish military family who owned land in the Channel Isles. His mother was born on Guernsey and her maiden name of Charlotte Patty Le Lachuer indicates French blood ran in her veins. The 1861 Census return for the Island of Jersey shows Kenneth had three sisters and his father could afford to employ two domestic servants.

By the time of the 1871 Jersey Census one of his sisters had passed away and the family appeared to have tightened their belts as there were no servants in residence.

On the 20 March 1874 Kenneth was enlisted in the army as a “Gentleman Cadet” having been successful in an open competition for admission to the Royal Military Academy – he was listed 21st on merit out of the 40 successful candidates. On 2 February 1876, just turned 19, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery as a Lieutenant.

During January 1884 The Naval & Military Gazette announced that Lieutenant Kenneth John Walker Murchison was one of twelve officers of the Indian Establishment who had been placed on the seconded list on 1 January so they could attend a “Long Course of Instruction on Gunnery at Shoeburyness”.

On 19 February 1885 Kenneth was promoted to Captain.

Kenneth’s 25 January 1893 wedding in Campbeltown, Argyle & Bute took up considerable space in The Gentlewoman but does not seem to have been fashionable enough to make The Tatler or Graphic. By the time of his marriage both his parents were dead and only one of his surviving sisters appears to have been in attendance. Kenneth was dressed in the full uniform of a Captain of the Royal Artillery but I will refrain from describing the attire of his bride, Miss Maria Campbell Lacy of Campbeltown. St Kieran’s Episcopal Church was bedecked with flowers and the nearby Barracks was festooned with flags – at the time of his marriage 35 year old Kenneth was acting as Adjutant to the Argyll & Bute Artillery having previously been invalided home from India suffering from the effects of heatstroke.

On 11 November 1893, Kenneth was promoted to Major and ordered to rejoin his regiment in India. On 27 May 1894 his only child was born in Campbeltown, she was christened Marie Beatrice Lacy. In India he resigned his commission in the army and then spent time in the “Colonies” which found him in South Africa when the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 broke out.

Kenneth, by now aged 42, enlisted in the Protectorate Regiment, not as an officer but as Private 414. According to a transcript record on Find My Past, when he attested he gave his youngest sister, Beatrice living in Reading, Berkshire, as his next of kin. The record does not give the source of the information but I think this advert from the Reading Observer of 14 October 1899 (the day after the siege of Mafeking commenced) gives it the stamp of authenticity:



The 1891 & 1901 Census returns also show Beatrice residing in Reading, in 1891 with their widowed mother who died in December of that year. Whether giving his sister rather than his wife as his next of kin says anything about the state of his marriage is open to debate or was it part of his apparent attempt to keep his previous military life a secret?

As has already been reported by others, when his identity and skill as an artilleryman (learnt a decade and a half earlier at Shoeburyness) was discovered he was “promoted” to Lieutenant, thus re-establishing his status as an Officer and a Gentleman.

I will return to the events of 1st November 1899 and the subsequent court martial etc in the next post having discovered verbatim reports in newspapers of the day of the evidence presented at the court-martial including that of Kenneth himself.

The 1901 Census found Kenneth detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight.

By the time of the 1911 Census Kenneth had been admitted to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum (as it was titled in those days), Crowthorne, Berkshire. At the time of the census there were 844 inmates, 612 male and 232 female. On the Census return all were referred to by only their initials, whether this had an altruistic motive to protect their identities or whether it was in consideration of the hand of the person who was charged with completing the nearly 40 forms I cannot say, but I rather suspect the latter. “K.M.”, aged “55”, “Married”, “Soldier (Officer)”, born “Jersey” is easily readable on the return. Broadmoor records show he was admitted on 22 May 1902 and died there on 26 April 1917 aged 61.

Searching newspapers for mentions of “Murchison” and “Broadmoor”, gave me a surprise. Between 1903 & 1907 reports of cricket matches played by Broadmoor Asylum regularly included the name K. Murchison as one of their top scorers with the bat. Away matches were very rare and then only against police teams.

His 1917 death was widely reported and the events in Mafeking were always included. Only one I could find gave the cause of death – “Chronic Bright’s Disease”.

Putting the events of 1November 1899 aside, we seem to have a life that started out full of promise and a glowing military career which rather seemed to rather fizzle out. The document I found giving Kenneth’s dates of promotion also included the same information for Sir Henry McLeod Leslie Rundle (with many letters after his name) – Rundle was just over a year older than Kenneth but Kenneth won the race to every promotion – Lieutenant by 12 months, Captain by 6 months, Major by 2 months but then Rundle went on and on and on whereas Kenneth if anything went backwards.

Rundle’s name lives on but does that of Kenneth, outside of this post? Yes it does in a Scottish town I have never visited but perhaps I should put it on my bucket list. His parents-in-law, his wife and his daughter, who lived to celebrate her 99th birthday, are all buried in Kilkerran Cemetery, Campbeltown and his name has been included on their rather grand tombstone:


Photo courtesy of Find A Grave.

One feels his daughter must have been instrumental in his name being engraved on the tombstone but did she ever meet him? If so, some of the meetings were probably under rather distressing circumstances. Perhaps she studied the case and felt her father had been unjustly treated and ensuring his name appeared on the tombstone was her way of dealing with the matter.

A visit to Campbeltown would have added interests – St Kieran’s Episcopal Church, identifying what was the barracks (assuming the building is still standing) and locating Springfield House which overlooks the harbour and is where the wedding reception was held. The local fishermen decorated their boats for the occasion and then trooped up to Springfield House to drink a toast to the newly married couple. Also Kilkerran Cemetery contains 102 headstones to those who died in the two World Wars with, unusually, WW2 outnumbering WW1 by 73 to 29.