Rorke's Drift

by Adrian Greaves

1

  Staffordshire

  Scotland

  1

  Midlothian

  Ireland

  1

  Dublin

  Other

  1

  Peshawar, India (of British parents)

  Total 4

  2nd Battalion

  England: 47

  1 each from Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire

  2 each from Kent and Middlesex

  3 each from Herefordshire and Warwickshire

  4 from Somerset

  9 from Lancashire

  11 from London

  5 from Monmouthshire

  Ireland: 13

  1 each from Antrim and Limerick

  2 each from Clare, Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary

  3 from Dublin

  Wales: 5

  1 each from Breconshire and Pembrokeshire

  3 from Glamorgan

  Other: 1

  (France – of British parents)

  Re-formation of the 1st Battalion – Subsequent Services of both Battalions to the End of the War.

  As soon as tidings of the disaster at Isandlwana reached England, volunteers were called for to re-form the 1st Battalion, and a draft of 520 noncommissioned officers and men, furnished by the following regiments: 1st Battalion 8th, 1st Battalion 11th, 1st Battalion 18th, 2nd Battalion 18th, 1st Battalion 23rd, 2nd Battalion 25th, 32nd, 37th, 38th, 45th, 50th, 55th, 60th, 86th, 87th, 103rd, 108th and 109th was collected at Aldershot, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel H.F. Davies, Grenadier Guards. The draft embarked at Woolwich, in the Clyde, on 1 March 1879; Captains Brander and Farquhar Glennie and Lieutenant T.J. Halliday, 24th regiment, and a number of special service officers proceeded with the draft.

  The Clyde had an uneventful voyage until 4 April 1879, when she ran upon a reef 70 miles east of Simon’s Bay, between Dyer’s Island and the mainland. The sea was perfectly smooth at the time, and the troops were all got safely on shore by 11.30 a.m., except two companies which were left on board two hours longer to look after the baggage. These companies had not long landed when, with the rising of the tide, the ship slid off the reef and suddenly went down, all clothing, books etc. being lost in her. The chief officer of the Clyde had previously been dispatched to Simon’s Bay, where he arrived at 10 p.m. the same night, and early on the morrow the Tamar arrived, took the draft on board, returned to Simon’s Bay, and on 7 April started for Durban, arriving there on the 11th. The troops were at once landed and marched up country, reaching Pietermaritzburg on 18 April; Ladysmith, 29 April; and Dundee, 4 May.

  At Dundee the 1st battalion was re-formed with D and G companies 1st Battalion 24th, which had remained at Helpmekaar, under command of Brevet Major Russell Upcher, since the first arrival of the battalion there (D becoming A Company.) B Company, which was still at St John’s river (B became H company), and B, C, D, E and F new companies formed from the draft. The acting officers of the re-formed battalion were:

  Major W.M. Dunbar, commanding.

  Major J.M.G. Tongue, Acting Major Wm. Brander.

  Captains Brevet Major Russell Upcher (A company), Rainforth (G company), A.A. Morshead (B company), L.H. Bennett (D company), Honourable G.A.V. Bertie, Coldstream Guards (E company).

  Lieutenants W. Heaton (F company), C.R.W. Colville, Grenadier Guards (C company), R.A.P. Clements (Acting Quartermaster), – Weallens, W.W. Lloyd.

  Sub Lieutenants W.A. Birch, J.D.W. Williams, W.C. Godfrey, M.E. Carthew Yorstoun, Robt. Scott-Kerr, R. Campbell, Honourable R.C.E. Carrington.

  Captain C P H. Tynte, Glamorgan Militia, Lieutenant St Le Malet, Dorset Militia, Lieutenant E.P.H. Tynte, Glamorgan Militia, E.R. Rushbrook, Royal East Middlesex Militia, Second Lieutenant Lumsden, 2nd Royal Lanarkshire Militia.

  On 13 April 1879, previous to the re-formation of the battalion, a reorganization of the forces under Lord Chelmsford was promulgated:

  The 1st division, in two brigades, under Major General Hope Crealock, CB, was to operate from the Tugela. Wood’s force was to remain independent, under the name of Brigadier General Wood’s Flying Column.

  The remainder of the troops in the Utrecht district, in which were both battalions 24th, were to constitute the second division under Major General Newdigate, and operate from Landman’s Drift. The cavalry brigade was ordered to join the northern column.

  On 13 May 1879 the new 1st Battalion 24th left at Dundee, under command of Colonel R.T. Glyn, CB, marched to join Major General Newdigate’s division, and on 7 June was formed into a brigade with the 58th and 94th regiments, under Colonel Glyn. The brigade marched towards Ulundi, and on 27 June arrived within 10 miles of that place. Leaving two companies in laager at Entonganini, the remainder of the battalion advanced with its division, carrying ten days’ rations and no tents, towards Umsenbarri, joined General Wood’s column, and formed laager and built a stone fort on the banks of the Mfolozi. The whole of the mounted men, including the mounted infantry under Lieutenant and Local Captain E.S. Browne, 24th Regiment, crossed the river and reconnoitred as far as Ulundi. In the battle which followed there Colonel Glyn’s brigade was present, with the exception of the 1st Battalion 24th, which with detachments of other corps was left in the entrenched camp on the Umvelosi [i.e. Mfolozi], under Colonel Bellairs, CB. On 4 July, the Zulu power being regarded as broken, the brigade retraced its steps to Entonganini, where it lay during the great storm of wind and cold of 6–8 July 1879. It subsequently returned to Landman’s Drift.

  On 26 July the battalion received orders to march to Durban, to embark for England. Moving by Dundee, Greytown, and Pietermaritzburg to Pine Town, it encamped, and there at a brigade parade, on 22 August 1879, the Victoria Cross was presented to Lieutenant E.S. Browne, H (late B) company, having rejoined from St John’s River. The battalion, under command of Colonel Glyn, numbering twenty-four officers, forty-six sergeants, thirty-six corporals, eleven drummers and 767 privates, embarked in the transport Egypt on 27 August 1879, landed at Portsmouth on 2 October, and marched into quarters in the New Barracks, Gosport.

  The 2nd battalion remained at Rorke’s Drift from its arrival there on 23 January 1879 until the middle of April. The privations to which the officers and men were subject were at first very great. The battalion had nothing but what it stood in. There were no tents, no covering of any sort; all they had to shelter them from the cold sleet and rain that fell nightly, converting the enclosed space into a slough of mud, was their thin kersey frocks. The sick list increased alarmingly, and, to make matters worse, the medicines having been burnt with the hospital, all that remained at the disposal of the medical officers, then and for some time afterwards, was contained in the small field companions they carried with them. It speaks volumes for the healthiness of the Natal climate that during these three months the battalion only lost one officer (Lieutenant Reginald Franklin) and twelve men by death, and two officers and thirteen men invalided.

  At the beginning of April half of the battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Degacher, moved to Dundee; four companies, under Brevet Major Black, remaining at Rorke’s Drift. On the advance of the northern column from Landman’s Drift, two companies, (G and H) 2nd Battalion 24th, under Brevet Major C.J. Bromhead, were brought down from Dundee to that post; but it having been decided to construct a strong fort at Koppie Alleen, Captain Harvey moved up with H company, and Major C.J. Bromhead joining with F company, under Lieutenant H. Mainwaring, the two companies speedily converted the small earthwork they had found on arrival into a substantial closed redoubt. On 3 June 1879 this detachment had the melancholy duty of furnishing a guard of honour and escort to the mortal remains of the Prince Imperial of France, whose body was escorted by the battalion from Koppie Alleen to Landman’s Drift and Dundee on its way to Pietermaritzburg. Captain Harvey, with H company and a party of Native pioneers, was also employed in constructing another fort on the Itelezi ridge, which Major General Marshall, commanding the lines of co
mmunication in Zululand – who was much pleased with the work – named Fort Warwick, in honour of the regiment. To replace H Company, B Company, under Brevet Major Bromhead, which had been sent up from Rorke’s Drift to a post near Conference Hill for woodcutting, was moved to Koppie Alleen. The battalion remained in these positions until after the battle of Ulundi, 4 July 1879, when a redistribution of companies took place.

  After the second division was broken up on 28 July 1879, Sir Garnet, now Lord, Wolseley, who had arrived to supersede Lord Chelmsford, took F and H companies, 2nd Battalion 24th, under Major C.J. Bromhead, as his special escort. They accompanied him to Ulundi and in all his movements until the conclusion of peace. These companies then fell back on Isandlwana, completing the burial of the dead there, and afterwards marching to Pietermaritzburg, where they arrived on 6 October, to await the battalion headquarters. Sir Garnet Wolseley had selected the 2nd Battalion 24th for an expedition against Sekhukune, but on his arrival at Utrecht on 9 September 1879 he brought the news that the battalion was ordered to Gibraltar. Sir Garnet took the opportunity of presenting their Victoria Crosses to Brevet Major Gonville Bromhead and Private Robert Jones. He had already given one to Private Henry Hook at Rorke’s Drift. Two other Rorke’s Drift men, Corporal Allen and Private Hitch, received their crosses from the hands of Her Majesty at Netley.

  The march of 250 miles down country began on 29 September, and on 14 October the remaining companies entered Pietermaritzburg, where great demonstrations awaited ‘the battalion that saved Natal’. The march was resumed on 21 October, and after some delay in camp at Pinetown, awaiting transport, the battalion embarked in the SS Ontario, reached Gibraltar on 12 February 1880, and went into quarters in the Casemate barracks.

  CHAPTER 17

  Archaeological Investigations at the Battlefield

  Very few military items were recovered which support the historical accounts.

  DR LITA WEBLEY

  One individual in particular, Sir Bartle Frere, was particularly responsible for the original interest in archaeological research relating to the area of Rorke’s Drift. It will be remembered that Frere was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony and British High Commissioner in South Africa in 1877, and it was Frere who was responsible for the British invasion of Zululand in 1879. Frere had wide ranging interests that included a passion for archaeology and anthropology. Before moving to South Africa he had been President of the Asiatic Society in 1872 and the following year he became President of the Royal Geographical Society. He was an avid collector of artefacts, especially from Natal and Zululand, and most items from his collection are now deposited with the British Museum in the Department of Ethnography.

  During the Zulu War a number of British officers collected artefacts; many came from Rorke’s Drift, others from along the Buffalo river, Isandlwana and Pietermaritzburg. One officer, Colonel Henry Fielden, not only collected artefacts but also subsequently established that Bushmen collected glass from soldiers’ discarded soda water bottles to make arrowheads. Fielden’s Zulu War collection came from his line of march from Newcastle to Rorke’s Drift; he wrote that he ‘took advantage of every opportunity that arose for leaving the line of march and examining the “dongas” and denuded surfaces that lay contiguous to this route’.1 Artefacts collected by Fielden are now held in the Sturge collection in the British Museum and Liverpool Museum. At first sight it appears strange that officers would take time from their official duties to study and collect artefacts; yet perusal of early collections reveals that army officers were initially responsible for many, ranging from the Anglo Zulu War and the Boer Wars through to the Bechuanaland Expedition of 1884; their endeavours were certainly responsible for spurring initial interest in archaeology in this area although little more happened until the period between 1983 and 1993.

  During this later period, a serious archaeological excavation was undertaken at Rorke’s Drift with the aim of further elucidating the course of events at the mission station during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The foundations of the British Commissariat store as well as the hospital burnt down by the Zulu were located. Walling, which can probably be linked to Fort Bromhead, was uncovered and a preliminary survey with a metal detector provided new information on the Zulu side of the war. Surprisingly, very few items were recovered which could unequivocally be linked to the battle despite the scale of military operations at the site both during and after the conflict of 22 January 1879. Indeed, when Bertram Mitford visited the battlefields in 1882 he found the site at Isandlwana littered with battle debris:

  Strewn about are tent pegs, cartridge cases, broken glass, bits of rope, meat tins and sardine boxes pierced with assegai stabs, shrivelled pieces of shoe leather and rubbish of every description; bone of horses and oxen gleam white and ghastly and here and there in the grass one stumbles upon a half-buried skeleton.2

  By contrast he found very little evidence of any conflict at Rorke’s Drift:

  Few or no traces of the old fortifications remain, but a large house was in the course of construction. Outhouses stood around, hard by was the chapel, belonging to the Mission, but of the defences, not a trace.3

  Background to the excavations

  Before the Centre Column descended on Rorke’s Drift, Assistant Commissary Chermside turned the church into a commissariat store and the missionary’s ‘eleven-roomed house’ into a field hospital. Witt gave the dimensions of the store as 80ft by 20ft while the hospital was 60ft by 18ft in size.4 Although the walls of the store are reported to have been of solid stone, photographs taken of this structure soon after the battle indicate a combination of stone and brick.

  Most books written on the subject claim that British soldiers fired some 20,000 rounds of ammunition during the battle; their source appears to be the classic The Washing of the Spears by Morris. If this were so, the majority of these cartridge cases are likely to have fallen within the temporary barricades.5 The British used the Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and, while some of the Zulu are reported to have owned obsolete firearms, such as muzzle-loading flintlocks, these are considered to have had no significant effect on Zulu tactics.6 The hospital was set alight during the battle and the ruins offered cover to the Zulus until the next morning; for this reason Chard ordered that the walls of the hospital be pulled down. The stones of the walls were brought across to the storehouse to strengthen the redoubt.

  In March 1879 troops started with the construction of Fort Melvill overlooking the river in order both to protect the pont and to move the troops out of the old fort, which was very unhealthy. The majority of the troops moved out in April although some stayed on until the end of the war in July. It is not known when the walls of the old fort were finally dismantled although the defences of the area were finally abandoned in October 1879. Otto Witt returned and constructed a large house and church on the site after the war. There are no records indicating whether the new mission house was built on top of the foundations of the hospital or whether the church was built on the ruins of the store. It would appear, however, that the 8ft high stone walling of the old fort was demolished and the stone used in the construction of the new buildings.

  Witt’s house and church are still standing and while the latter structure continues to function in daily use the former has now been converted into a museum. The land on which the battlefield is located still belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church but has been let to the Natal Provincial Administration on a ninety-nine year lease. The battlefield area was declared a national monument in 1969.

  Prior to the conversion of the mission house into a museum, an eminent South African archaeologist, Dr Lita Webley, was requested to undertake an archaeological research programme with the following aims:

  1 To establish the original position of the hospital;

  2 To establish the position of the commissariat store;

  3 To determine whether there was any evidence to substantiate the present position of stones which have been placed to demarcate t
he original lines of the battle of 22–23 January 1879;

  4 To try and find the foundations of Fort Bromhead which was constructed on the site immediately after the battle;

  5 To determine whether any evidence could be found for the position of Zulu snipers who apparently fired at the British troops from caves in the hillside of Shiyane.

  Excavations were also considered to be of a rescue nature as significant artefacts or in situ features had to be recovered before building contractors destroyed them. Archaeological excavations commenced in September 1988 with subsequent field trips in May 1989 and March, June and August 1990. Members of the Evangelical Lutheran Community assisted with the excavations during the first three field trips.

  1 The location of the hospital foundations

  To avoid confusion regarding this structure, some of the above history is briefly summarized. Rorke’s house, subsequently occupied by Witt, became the field hospital during the Anglo-Zulu War. It was burnt down by the Zulus. It is believed that Lutheran missionaries returning to the site rebuilt their mission house on the foundations of the hospital. It is this house which has been converted into a museum.

  Some 20 metres were excavated around the house but no trace of previous foundations was observed. The deposit around the house was nowhere very deep. The deposit was not particularly rich anywhere except around the kitchen area where fragments of ceramics, glass and bone were recovered.

  A number of trenches were then excavated inside the building. A comparison of the original floor plan of the hospital drawn by Lieutenant John Chard (who was a Royal Engineer) with that of the plan submitted by Otto Witt when he rebuilt the mission house in 1882 indicates that the former was slightly smaller than the latter. Excavations inside the house in Room 7 uncovered several large quartzite stones that form a neat straight edge, as well as a more roughly constructed inner wall running at right angles. These features probably relate to the foundations of the hospital. The deposit around these stones was rich in charcoal and pieces of melted glass that testify to the blaze relating to the battle itself.