TOPIC:

Perhaps the Medal men can help me with this one. Below are pictures of two Pom-Pom shells with the engraving (in slightly differing font) Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 (Munro’s Column). One carries the Vickers headstamp VS&M which, according to a post in Neville’s Artillery & Ammunition thread, means it was used by the British troops. The other carries no markings whatsoever.
With most of my ABW books in storage, I searched for “Munro’s column” both on this site and on google but I couldn’t find anything worthwhile to add to this post. Because someone thought it was important enough to engrave a shell with it, I would like to know if a forum member could fill me in about who this Munro was and what was his claim to fame.

Any interested Forum member
There is no officer named Munro in the Boer War Services of Officers who is specifically named as being in command of a column. I would expect such an officer to be at least a Colonel (brevet or otherwise?). There is, however, a Colonel MONRO; who commanded a mobile column under Maj/Gen Bruce-Hamiliton in Southern ORC and later in Cape Colony. This in the latter part of the campaign. That info is from VII of Creswicke.
If it is MONRO instead of Munro, he had under his command Bethune's MI, 3 Sqns of IY, 2 guns of RFA and one Pom Pom from "Z" section. That MUNRO had a pretty distinguished career.
Regards
IL.

Thanks Linneyl. I think however that there must have been a Senior Officer named Munro as Munro's Column is mentioned in the literature and I can't imagine a spelling error appearing on two different Pom Pom shells.

There are only two Imperial officers of any rank named Munro in the Boer War Services of Officers; one with a CMG and a hon. Major in the Seaforths and the other a Major with the Hamps and on the Staff. No mention of column commanding in either. I suppose there could have been an I.Y. Major i/c a column. They have a separate listing - but I did not go down that path.
In such cases, an initial always helps.
Regards
IL.

A search of newspapers of the day for "Munro's Column" receives the following hits:

1899 = 0, 1900 = 0, 1901 = 133, 1902 = 27, 1903 = 1

This one from the Western Evening Herald of 12th September 1901 comes out second on the list:

Using the search facility at the top right of the screen produces three hits for "Munro's Column" in addition to those generated today - one is a 6 year old post by Linneyl.

Going through the newspaper hits they essentially distil down to reports of three events - one in September 1901 (see my previous response) - the others are:

May 1901, as reported in Western Times of 1st June 1901:



January 1902, as reported in the Irish Times of 20th January 1902



The 1903 mention is in a article about Lovat's Scouts reporting their newly appointed Quartermaster is a Sergeant Major Pocock who served in Munro's Column in the late South African War.

Searching the newspapers of the day for "Colonel Munro" produces over a thousand hits! I think, and don't quote me on this, that your Colonel Munro is Linneyl's Seaforth Highlanders Major who transferred to Bethune's MI and was then given command of a Flying Column having become a Colonel en route.