Following on from my previous post - I have now found a third letter home from a member of the 2nd VSC attached to the 2nd Btn SWB. This postdates the other two and was dated 18 July 1900, Richmond Road.
Previously I wrote: “When the 2nd VSC arrived in South Africa on 16 April 1901 they were sent on railway protection duty, manning sequentially Cape Colony garrisons at Beaufort West, Richmond Road & Richmond. Their first encounter with Boers occurred at Richmond. In September 1901 they were relieved of this duty and moved north into the Transvaal and at Klerksdorp they finally united with the 2nd Battalion SWB.” This was based on information I found on Wikipedia. The three letters home support much of the above but do lead to some variation.
The 2nd VSC arrived at Cape Town aboard the Saxon and definitely disembarked on 16 April 1900. They immediately entrained for Klerksdorp to unite with the 2nd Btn SWB at Klerksdorp in the Transvaal. However, owing to the Boers having blown up the railway line they detrained a week later at Beaufort West where they were assigned railway protection duties. They remained at Beaufort West for four weeks before moving north to Victoria West. After another five weeks they moved north again to Richmond Road. Whilst at Richmond Road some of the Company went to Richmond which lay about 20 miles to the east of the railway line. If the weeks were exact weeks, which they probably weren’t, they would have arrived at Richmond Road on 25 June 1900. It is widely reported and accepted that Commandant Wynand Malan and his forces attacked Richmond on 25 June 1900, managed to enter the town and killed six men. However, they were unsuccessful in taking the town and he and his troops seem to have left the area immediately after the attack. Reports at the time were muddled as to the identity of the units the six men killed served in and even Steve Watt in Memorium and the SAFF Records do not agree. With the help of Medals Rolls it is certain 4 served in the 2nd Btn North Staffordshire Regiment, and the other were probably members of the Town Guard. What can be said with absolute certainty is that none of the six were from the 2nd VSC. The 2nd VSC letter writer of 18 July makes no mention of this attack and I suspect the 2nd VSC had not partially arrived at Richmond by 25 June 1900 and thus the 2nd VSC did not have their first encounter with the Boers at Richmond. What the 2nd VSC members who went to Richmond did achieve was to successfully escort a valuable convoy of 24 wagons there.
The 18 July letter writer reported that when the members of the 2nd VSC who were at Richmond arrived back at Richmond Road they were going to entrain for Krugersdorp, which was the stop on the line before Klerksdorp. Back home the letter writer was a member of the 4th Volunteer Battalion (VB) but he did mention there was a member of the 3rd VB who was sick in hospital which could have been Rosser Francis. What I now need is a fourth letter home to complete their journey to join up with the 2nd Btn SWB, after which their war history becomes that of the 2nd Btn SWB.
