TOPIC:

When I set out to research this pendant, I imagined it would be a straightforward task. A quick Google search would tell me where “Honeymoon Hill” was, and then everything else would fall into place. Well, that’s not quite how things turned out. Google and all the mainstream online maps returned zero results, as did this site and the major ABW histories. A quick scan of period maps similarly drew a blank.

Eventually, I found a single tantalising clue in the Staffordshire Advertiser. On 11 August 1901, Captain Charles Boote of the 2nd Volunteer Active Service Company, North Staffordshire Regiment, had written to the editor of that paper, asking if he would publish a letter thanking comrades back home for a cable they had sent him and his men from Salisbury Plain. As luck would have it, the letter was printed in its entirety and included the sender’s address: “South Honeymoon Hill, Wakkerstroom, Transvaal”.

By coupling the word Staffordshire with Wakkerstroom, subsequent searches indicated that the volunteers were stationed on “South Hill”, which they first occupied in July 1901. They appear to have remained here or on the Wakkerstroom – Pier Retief blockhouse line for the remainder of the war. Clearly, South Hill and Honeymoon Hill are one and the same.

Now I knew I was looking for a feature near Wakkerstroom, I was able to pull up the appropriate sheet of the 1994 1:50,000 SAR Government Survey. And sure enough, the place name “Honeymoon” was there in black and white, just to the southeast of the town, in the shadow of a twin-peaked hill today named Voortrekkerkop.

Remarkably, once one knows where to look, the badge of the North Staffordshire Regiment, set out in white stones in 1901, is still just visible on the lower slopes of the kop.

Mystery solved. Honeymoon Hill, also known as South Hill, is the present-day Voortrekkerkop. The only unit to occupy this hill for an extended period during the ABW was the Volunteer Company of the North Staffordshire Regiment. The pendant, therefore, almost certainly belonged to a Staffordshire man (possibly their commanding officer, Captain Charle E. Boote). The dates seem to refer to the length of the war rather than the owner's period of service in S. Africa.




.1:50,000 map of South Africa, revised 1994





.Apple Maps






.Apple Maps






The Staffordshires liked to leave their mark on the South African landscape. In this photograph of their VSM pom-pom, the Stafford knot can clearly be seen in the background. This may have been taken in the Harrismith area, as other lantern slides in the group were of that locality.




A wider search indicated that the 2nd Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment had been stationed on another hill, to the north of the town, from September to November 1900. Turning to Lieutenant Kearsey’s “War Record of the York & Lancaster Regiment, 1899-1902”, I found that the author had written an entire chapter on “Wakkerstroom Hill” (also known as “York & Lancaster Hill”). Kearsey’s detailed description of life on the kopje gives a good insight into the inhospitable conditions that the defenders had to endure. Both Wakkerstroom Hill and Honeymoon Hill are almost exactly the same height, so the weather experienced on one will have been the same as that on the other. I have reproduced this account below. For a very short period (10 days) the volunteer company of the 2nd York & Lancasters occupied Honeymoon Hill.


Kearsey, War Records of the York and Lancaster Regiment (London, 1903), pp. 106 – 114

WAKKERSTROOM HILL

When the York and Lancaster Regiment was split up by the departure of the three companies from Wakkerstroom on September 9th, the remainder had to face some rather rough times. The name of the bleak and lofty position which they had seized on the 7th was changed by then to York and Lancaster Hill, and was their home for nearly three months.

The almost complete isolation of the hill and the monotony of the daily routine – seeing no fresh faces, hearing little or no outside news – coupled with the necessity for constant vigilance against probable and improbable Boer attacks, rendered the life very wearing. Tinned rations, bully beef, and biscuits were brought up at stated intervals by the convoy from Volksrust, but our energetic Garrison Quartermaster, Lieutenant Duggan, was very successful in supplementing this uninteresting fare. The food difficulty was further increased at the beginning of the time by numerous surrenders from the outlying districts. Those who gave themselves up were half starved, having had to subsist on what mealies they could obtain, whilst their horses were simple studies in anatomy, owing to want of proper pasture, as all the grass was dry and burnt up. The townspeople of Wakkerstroom were themselves so short of provisions that they could not help in the matter; therefore, bully and biscuit had to be doled out to the surrendered Boers. …….

The Boers do not attack unless there is a good chance of success; they quickly learn what regiments they have to deal with, and what sort of an outlook is kept, and as York and Lancaster Hill, if vigilantly guarded, was almost impregnable, they did not attempt to take it. There were five companies on York and Lancaster Hill; G and A Companies, under Captain S.E.D. Webb, were on the northern hill; H and K Companies on the southern end, under Captain A.M. Haines; and one company with Head Quarters, under Major Halford, on the middle hill. Captain Webb's hill was about 1,600 yards, Captain Haines’s fortifications about 1,500 yards, from Head Quarters.

The elements proved really worse enemies than the Boers. At an elevation of 6,400 feet, the hill was nearly always in the clouds in the winter, and neither the lovely views which were occasionally obtained, nor yet the fine sight of the clouds rolling into the valleys below, could prevent the cold winds and driving mist from penetrating everywhere. The dust storms too were a plague, filling the tents with grit and dirt, but the rain when it came was a degree worse. In such a climate tents were but a poor protection, most of them getting badly torn by the gales; the ropes and hooks gave way, tent doors became useless, and the seams were so thin that the rain leaked through in all directions; some of the tents were actually blown down, others having the centre pole appearing through the top. Altogether the camp in general became the worse for wear.

On October 8th there was a fall of snow, and less than a fortnight after that came a tremendous hailstorm. When the sun did occasionally manage to break through the dense mists, the heat was excessive and a thunderstorm commonly ensued. The presence of ironstone made these storms more dangerous, and on one occasion two men were killed by lightning.

The day invariably commenced by standing to arms an hour before daybreak, followed by work at our fortifications until noon, with only a short interval for rest. Getting in wood and water, and distributing rations, formed part of the afternoon work, and as darkness at that time of the year came on early, and candles were a luxury which had to be reserved for special occasions, turning-in bed times was the rule.

The first part of the time on York and Lancaster Hill was occupied in sangar-building and making a road up the hill from Wakkerstroom, where one company of the regiment had taken up a post as garrison of the town, and was strongly entrenched in two forts which they had constructed. Sangar and road making did not, however, last much longer than a month, after which physical drill, marching into the town and to the river for bathing, were instituted in order to give the men exercise and keep them fit. They also set to work building an oven of biscuit tins and grass sods, with a bully tin for chimney. Besides this, a recreation room was built, where the men could read and smoke, sheltered from the continual wind. The walls of this room were constructed of stones, the passages, seats, and tables made out of the ground, and the whole roofed in with branches and brushwood.

On September 19th the regiment had to provide an escort for some waggons conveying prisoners to Volksrust, and also some other Boers who wished to leave Wakkerstroom. Halfway to Volksrust they were met and relieved by another escort, and after a half-hour's halt retraced their steps, getting a bathe in the river by the way. This little excursion was considered a pleasant change from the irksome daily routine on the hill.

The arrival on September 26th of a telegraph convoy which had come out to lay down a wire between the hill and Volksrust was an agreeable surprise, and although the wire was often cut, the communication never remained broken for long, and was a help to our small isolated force. We used eagerly to look for the fortnightly convoy with rations and mails as a link with the outside world.

When we had been stationed about a fortnight at Wakkerstroom things began to settle down a little, and the shops in the small town reopened one by one, the owners trying to reap a harvest out of the stores which remained after the Boer raids. The so-called town of Wakkerstroom was not much more than a village, consisting of straggling houses, a large church, and a town hall.

The Volunteer Company which had joined the regiment in the preceding March received orders on October 15th to leave Wakkerstroom en route for home. To quote the words of one of them, they “marched twenty-three miles from Wakkerstroom to Volksrust, and there took the train. At Newcastle they stopped and were told that no orders had been received with regard to their movements, but they had better wait and have their dinner. They had dinner accordingly, and it was seven months before they got away”. It was found that guarding the line required more men than was at first anticipated, so our Volunteer Company was retained and split up into four detachments to hold the posts round about Newcastle.

The enemy’s lights could frequently be plainly seen at night, signalling on the hills round Wakkerstroom, and on the night of October 20th some of them tried to rush the picket, but betrayed themselves when challenged by shouting “Freen, freen!” (friends), whereupon the sentry blazed away into the darkness, and the Boers retreated without having accomplished anything except wounding the sentry.

The month of November set in at Wakkerstroom with three days and nights of pouring rain, which drenched everything; even the waterproof sheets thrown over things inside the tents could not keep out the wet.




.1:50,000 map of South Africa, revised 1994








Staffordshire Advertiser, 14th September 1901

To the Editor of the Staffordshire Advertiser.

South Honeymoon Hill, Wakkerstroom, Transvaal, August 11, 1901.

SIR, – Could you spare sufficient space in your valuable paper to insert this short letter of thanks from the Service Half-Company of the 2nd V.B. North Staffordshire Regiment to all those members of the Battalion who had any part in the sending of the very kind cable from Salisbury Plain on August 7 last? Every member of the half-company out here very much appreciates the kind thought, and it is on behalf of them that I write to thank those who sent the cable. It reached us here on August 11, and was a most pleasant surprise, as our thoughts have been with all our comrades in camp during this week, and we all much wished we could be with them there, as we are all very tired of this monotonous life and the roughing we have to necessarily put up with. The company is now rather split up, as we are holding several outposts, and would be too strong to be kept all together on one post, but we hope to be brought together again very soon by orders to sail home. The company is doing excellent work, and we have heard no complaints of any sort up to the present, and all are very willing to do everything they are called upon to do. Though we have had a pretty rough time, yet we have had very little sickness, and I hope we shall all be able to come home together when the good time comes. We have had some very severe weather since we have been at Wakkerstroom, but now, I am glad to say, the winter is almost over.

Again, thanking all those kind friends who remembered us though so very far away, and thanking you in anticipation that you will be so kind as to insert this letter, which I am afraid has lengthened out very much further than I intended.

Believe me, yours faithfully,
CHARLES E. BOOTE, Captain,
Commanding Volunteer Company 2nd North Staffordshire Regiment.


Tamworth Herald, 21st September 1901

THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE VOLUNTEER SERVICE COMPANY.

Letters have been received from South Africa bringing news of the Volunteer Service Company of the North Staffordshire Regiment down to August 10. All appears to have been well. They are located on South Hill at Wakkerstroom, which is described as a very high hill, commanding a good view of the surrounding country, which comprises merely kopjes, stones, and veldt. Since being there they have had several false alarms, and have had to keep a sharp lookout on the surrounding farms, which are being constantly used for their purposes by the Boers. A party of the Volunteers, it appears, recently went out to one of the farms and captured a lot of cattle and geese, which, the men say, afforded them a nice change in diet from “bully beef”. The weather is now beginning to get hotter, but they had still very cold nights, with sharp frosts, which made it very uncomfortable for guards. Their tents are pitched inside a stone sangar, which sheltered them a little, but they felt the wind tremendously at times. A tent did well if it lasted three months, so people would see how stiff the wind was, and how necessary it was to be cautious and careful. Yet all were up to the time of writing going on well. There was a rumour that the North Stafford Regiment is to come home at the end of the present month, but it needs verification.


Tamworth Herald, 19th October 1901

Mr Dickinson, Gungate, has recently had a letter from his son, Private J. Dickinson, of the second contingent of the Tamworth Active Service Volunteers, who says that his company is stationed on South Hill, near Wakkerstroom, on lookout duty. The hill is lofty, and the air is very bracing. All his companions are well.


Lichfield Mercury, 27th June 1902

NORTH STAFFORD VOLUNTEERS.

The second contingent of active service volunteers of the North Staffordshire Regiment returned to Lichfield on Wednesday.
Their first outpost duty was at Natal Spruit, after which they went down country to Volksrust, from thence to Ingogo and Coetze’s drift, back to Volksrust, and lastly to Wakkerstroom, where the defence of the North and South Hills overlooking the town fell to their lot. The trying blockhouse work has formed part of their experience, but they have come out of the ordeal with credit, and the healthy appearance of the men showed that they have not suffered much physically from their fourteen months’ campaigning.


Staffordshire Advertiser, 28th June 1902

THE SECOND SERVICE COMPANY OF THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE VOLUNTEERS.

The Second Service Company was composed of a half company of 1st V.B. North Staffordshire Regiment from Longton, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke, Goldenhill, Newcastle, Leek, Stone, and Trentham; and half company of 2nd V.B. North Staffordshire Regiment from Burton, Tamworth, Rugeley, Lichfield, Stafford, and Uttoxeter. They numbered 116 of all ranks and were under the command of Captain C.E. Boote, F Company, 2nd North; Lieutenant R.T. Johnson, L Company; and Lieutenant F.W. Knight, M Company, 1st North. They sailed from England on March 16, 1901, in the S.S. Montrose, and disembarked at Durban on April 11. From thence they proceeded to Natal Spruit, where they stayed for about a fortnight, and then they were moved to Ingogo, where they were attached for a short time to the Dublin Fusiliers, half a company occupying outposts at Partridge Hill, Gordon Hill, and White House, while the other half company was detailed for duty at Coetze Drift. Eventually the company joined the 2nd Line Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment at Wakkerstroom, where for some months they were engaged in guarding the great military stores at that station, and in assisting the convoys which daily passed in and out with supplies for the troops in the district. In due course they were moved into the blockhouses, and so their time was spent until orders were received for their departure for home. They then marched from Wakkerstroom to Volksrust, where they halted for about 10 days. At Volksrust they entrained for Durban, and spent three nights and two days in the coal trucks which throughout the war have done duty for railway carriages, and in which many of the troops have had to endure so many hardships. As previously stated, they embarked for home at Durban on board the Syria on May 31, and at Cape Town they stayed to pick up other troops under orders for return.




. © 2026 Mindtrip, Inc.






..

An excellent piece of research Neville.

You wrote: "The Staffordshires liked to leave their mark on the South African landscape."

Does that mean there are other examples of the Stafford Knott still to be found decorating the Southern African landscape?

The dates suggest the Voortrekker Waggon commemorates the centenary of the 1838 Battle of Blood River although it is over 50 miles from the site of the battle. Are the memorial and the Stafford Knot made out of white stones of whitewashed stones? - if the latter it would appear somebody is still maintaining both. Also when the the Voortrekker memorial was created in 1938 the Stafford Knot was respected as it would have been an easy source of stones.

Charles Edmund Boote served in the North Staffs in WW1. He was KIA on 1st July 1916 leading the 6th Battalion, which he had only just taken command of, over the top - they reckon he was one of first men to die that day. His widow had a dispute with the WO over the pension she received. His rank of Lieutenant Colonel had not been substantiated when he died and she only received a Major's pension.

David,

Thank you for the additional information about Boote's WWI record.

As far as the Stafford knot is concerned, it is made from whitewashed stones. The photograph below was taken last year, and shows that it has recently been freshened up, confirming that it is indeed being maintained.
















.Courtesy of Wakkerstroom Natural Heritage Association



..