TOPIC:

Hermann Meibohm

Trooper, British South Africa Police, Mashonaland Division – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal (Rhodesia) to 684 TPR: H. MEIBOHM. B.S.A.POLICE

Trying to determine who exactly Trooper H. Meibohm was proved to be a monumental task with much sleuthing taking place before his identity was discovered. My thanks go to Adrian Ellard who got the ball rolling with his conclusive identification of Meibohm as “Hermann Meibohm” – from then on the road was clear.

Hermann Meibohm was of German descent – born in Hamburg in about 1872 he was a son of the soil – his father, Friedrich Meibohm being an Agriculturalist. His mother answered to the name Maria.

At some point, imbued no doubt with an adventurous spirit, young Meibohm decided to forsake his fatherland and head south to the sunny climbs of the fledgling colony of Rhodesia. It was here that he enlisted with the Matabeleland Division of the British South Africa Police on 16 October 1897, shortly after the cessation of hostilities in the Matabele/Mashona Revolt which had raged in Rhodesia since the beginning of the previous year.

This move could have been precipitated by the urgent and pressing need for fresh recruits to bolster the ranks of the British South Africa Police. Decimated by the loss of most of their members in the abortive Jameson Raid of 1896, they had embarked on a recruiting drive.

Whatever the case may be Meibohm was assigned no. 113 and the rank of Trooper. Shortly afterwards he resigned from the Matabeleland Division and enlisted with the Mashonaland Division with no. 684. (The two Divisions were wholly separate entities requiring a member to resign from one in order to enlist with the other – no transfers were permitted.) As he went about his para-military duties he was not to know that, in a mere 24 months, he and his comrades would be embroiled in a war with the Boers to the south of his territory.


Map of Z.A.R./Rhodesia border in 1899

The Anglo Boer War between the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State and the might of Imperial Britain was declared on 11 October 1899 but, almost in anticipation of this, a large party of Boers had been seen in the neighbourhood of Fort Tuli, on the Rhodesian side of the Z.A.R./Rhodesia border, in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of war. This Boer force had, evidently either got cold feet, or had been ordered south to be deployed in the coming assault on Mafeking and other nearby settlements that the Boer High Command were planning.

An advanced party of some 100 B.S.A.P. men were sent to man Fort Tuli with 3 guns and 2 .450 maxims to improve the defences of the place although it is not known if Meibohm was one of their number; another detachment was deployed on the railway north of Gaberones under Colonel Nicholson, the Commandant of the Police. Both these bodies took part in endless skirmishes and had to keep watch over a very extended front. In the earlier stages of the war they did particularly valuable work - when war was declared their strength was 1,106 of all ranks,—a most useful body of trained horsemen, good shots, and wily to the last degree. The bulk of the regiment was employed on the Rhodesian border, used on patrol work.

Miebohm took his discharge from the B.S.A.P. on 10 August 1901 and was awarded the Queens medal with the clasp inscribed "Rhodesia" which, according to the regulations, “will be granted to all troops under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir F. Carrington and Colonel Plumer in Rhodesia, between October 11th, 1899 and May 17th, 1900, both dates inclusive, who received no clasp for the Relief of Mafeking.”

Now out of uniform, Meibohm defied the conventions of the day and, instead of heading south to South Africa like most men did, to enlist in one or other of the many irregular outfits which had taken the field in the fight against the Boers, he headed north into the African interior. Here his movements are largely unknown but he was bound for Tanganyika (present day Tanzania) on the East Coast of Africa where he settled down for a while as a farmer.

The wanderlust seems to have affected him again as he was next aboard a ship bound for Brazil, docking at Rio de Janeiro on 21 April 1914 – this seems to have been an exploratory trip to size up the opportunities for European settlers in that part of the world. He must have returned to Tanga in Tanganyika which is where his son, Germano, had been born to him and his wife Augusta (born Eichholtz), in 1913.

Hermann Meibohm passed away in Parana, Brazil on 19 November 1931 at the age of 70. His wife died in the same town on 8 September 1945. Strangely their son, Germano, had passed away at the age of 19 on 19 November 1932 – a year to the day after his father had died.
Acknowledgements:
- Adrian Ellard research
- Own sources