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Hello

It would seem unlikely he sailed to SA with the express purpose of enlisting. At this time the South African Constabulary were recruiting in Canada, so he could have joined them and got there for free.

Many men from the USA (and Canada perhaps) arrived in South Africa either as merchant seaman or wranglers looking after the many thousands of horse and mules exported from the USA to south Africa by the British Army.

Do you know what his employment was on enlistment or before he enlisted?

Regards
Meurig

Hi Everyone.....

Just checked South African Constabulary and Canadian Scouts rolls and he is not there......

Would be interesting to see what unit he put on his land grant application.....

Mike

I'm now a little confused, who exactly are we talking about, a man who enlisted into the SAMIF or a man who enlisted into the SAC, the two are somewhat different!

He put on his Volunteer Bounty application that he was a trooper in the 2nd Imperial Light Horse serving in the Western Transvaal under Col McKenzie, who I think was Duncan McKenzie - his attestation papers which I got from the UK Archives say this too - I attach them, hopefully not in contravention of the terms I signed off on for getting the papers

To answer Meurig's question in a later post, Charlie was a druggist (chemist/pharmacist) in Montreal. His father was also a druggist who owned several drug stores. The family was reasonably affluent. I wonder if in fact he may have been shipped off in disgrace.

He definitely signed up for the 2nd Imperial Light Horse which made him eligible under the bounty act in Canada for the bounty.

that was my thought too - my cousin has a bible given to him by his mother before he left which says

" To Charles H Parkin from his Mother AE Parkin. With love and best wishes for a prosperous journey and a safe return from S. Africa. 'May God Bless you until we meet again'."

So it sounds as if he wasn't going there forever, however, to wish your son a prosperous journey if you think he is going off to fight seems a tad odd to me?