TOPIC:

Jesse Jones was never to see Wales again. Although not Killed in Action he was one of the many thousands who succumbed to sickness and died as a result in a foreign land.

Jesse Jones

Private, 1st Coy. Imperial Yeomanry – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal to 21331 Pte. J. Jones, 1st Coy. Imp. Yeo. with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal


Jesse Jones was a Welshman through and through. Born in Whitchurch in the Cardiff area of Glamorganshire, Wales in about 1870 he was the son of John Jones and his wife Anne.

The 1871 Wales census gives us our first glimpse of Jesse who, together with his parents and older siblings John (8), Kate (6) and William (4) were living in Tyn-y-park Road, Upper Village, Whitchurch. Mr Jones was a Tin Plate Sorter by trade.

The 1881 Wales census revealed that the family had moved house but were still in the village living in Derry Mill Road. To get a better idea of the countryside in which they found themselves I now turn to Slater’s 1880 Commercial Directory of Whitchurch which described the village as follows:

Whitchurch is a parish and pleasant village in the hundred of Caerphilly, county of Glamorgan, situated in the beautiful vale of the Taff, and intersected by the high road from Cardiff to Merthyr. It is about 3 miles from Cardiff, its post town, and 5 from Caerphilly, in the Cardiff union and county court district. The iron and tinplate works of the Messrs. Thomas William Booker & Co. Limited, are at Melingriffith, in this parish, also at Pentyrch, and employ a great number of hands. The Taff Vale Railway passes through the parish, and has a station (Llandaff) about half a mile from the village.

Aside from Jesse now 11 and his parents were siblings John (18), Kate (16), William (14) and new arrivals since the previous census, Margaret Ann (9) and Mary (3)

The Wales census of 1891 shows that a 21 year old Jesse has finally flown the coop and was employed as a Groom in the house of Mr Joseph T. Frayer, an Irishman who was a Shop Merchant living in nearby Peterstone Super Ely. He was still pursuing this form of occupation in January 1901 when, on the 26th of that month, he completed the Short Service Attestation forms at Cardiff for enrolment in the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion (Wiltshire Company).

Aged 31 he was still single and at 5 feet 4 inches in height he was quite short but not unduly so for the times. He had a sallow complexion blue eyes and brown hair and weighed a very slender 124 pounds and was a member of the Church of England. Having attested as a Private he was assigned no. 233 21 and expressed a wish to be posted to the 4th Glamorganshire Company.

Having sailed for South Africa a mere 34 days after enlisting Jones found himself on African soil on 1 March 1901 the date he was deployed operationally. By this stage of the Boer War the two Dutch speaking Republics were being roundly beaten but, despite some major setbacks such as the surrender of their principal towns and capitals, they were far from cowed. Instead they took to a guerrilla style of warfare where small bands of mounted men on Commando would harass the extended lines of communication and supply trains thereby disrupting the British effort and prolonging the war.

Kitchener and Roberts took to broad sweeps of the veld in the Orange Free State and Transvaal in hot pursuit of these small bands of men. Jones, as part of the Imperial Yeomanry, would have played his part in the chase. Sadly, there were more casualties among Imperial troops from sickness than from actual combat and Jones was to be no exception. He succumbed to the scourge of Enteric Fever at Harrismith in the Orange Free State on 11 March 1902.

For his efforts he was awarded, post-humously, a Queens South Africa Medal with the clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State and Transvaal as well as the date clasps South Africa 1901 & 1902. The medal roll was completed aboard the H.M.T. Ariania which transported his comrades who had survived back to England.

Today he is but a memory to most but he died in a foreign land far from home and should be remembered for the sacrifice he made.