TOPIC:

The Imperial Light Infantry were worked hard at Spioenkop incurring many casualties in the process. Bell was there.

William James Bell

Private, Imperial Light Infantry – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasp Relief of Ladysmith to 622 Pte. W.J. Bell, IMPL. LT. INFTY.

William Bell was an Irishman who had probably come out to South Africa to seek his fortune before the turn of the 19th Century. If the William James Bell of Londonderry is the same man as the one whose medal I hold then he was born in the United States of America which is where his family moved to for a short space of time.

Born in about 1870 he was the son of Robert Bell, a Farmer, and his wife Mary. Bell attested for service on 15 November 1899 a month after hostilities had commenced between the two Boer Republics on the one hand and the might of the British Empire on the other. Joining the ranks of the Imperial Light Infantry, the foot soldier version of the Imperial Light Horse, at Durban he was one of the early entrants to the war on the Colonial side. His attestation papers tell us that he was 30 years old and very diminutive in size at 5 feet 1 ½ inches. He weighed a healthy 135 pounds and had a medium complexion, dark brown hair and brown eyes. His boot size was a “6”.

Having been found Fit for the Army he was assigned no. 622 and the rank of Trooper and was ready to face whatever Brother Boer could and would throw at him. The I.L.I. was raised in Natal and was largely recruited from those who had lost their employment through the outbreak of hostilities.
There is thus every chance that Bell had been employed, as were so many out from the old country, on the mines of the Witwatersrand.

The command was given to Lieutenant Colonel Nash (Border Regiment) and by the end of December 1899 the regiment was ready for active service. The Imperial Light Infantry saw comparatively little training and no fighting until they were thrown into the awful combat on Spioen Kop on 24th January 1900. About 1000 strong, they paraded at 10 pm on 23rd January, and, as ordered, took up positions from which they could reinforce General Woodgate, who commanded the force detailed to capture the hill.

Sir C Warren visited the regiment early on the morning of the 24th, and asked the officers if they had seen anything of a mountain-battery which he was expecting. They had not. He requested that 2 companies be sent forward to a specified point to be ready to escort the battery to the summit. The companies of Captains Champney and Smith moved out at 6 am and waited as ordered for the battery, but about 9 am a staff-officer told them to reinforce immediately on the summit. The 2 companies advanced and reached the top shortly after 10 am. At this hour the enemy's fire was appalling, the hail of bullets and shells being ceaseless, but these untried volunteers are said to have pushed up to the shallow trench and the firing-line beyond it without flinching. They at once commenced to suffer very severe losses. These 2 companies were the first reinforcements to enter the firing-line, and their arrival proved most opportune, some Lancashire companies being very hard pressed at this time and at this part of the position.

About mid-day Colonel Nash was ordered to reinforce on the summit with "every available man". About 2 pm he reached the top with his remaining companies, who at once bolted out from the rocks at the head of the ascent and fed the firing-line, pushing forward fearlessly across the open.

Throughout the afternoon and evening the firing was unceasing, and often at very close quarters; after dark it had died away. The regiment having been collected, fell in and marched off. They had barely gone 200 yards, however, when an officer said to Colonel Nash, "Where are you going?" The latter replied that he had been ordered to take down the regiment. The other officer then said, "I am Colonel Hill of the Middlesex; not a man or regiment is to leave the hill". The officers of the Imperial Light Infantry then said to their men that a mistake had been made, and the column 'about turned', marched back to the place they had come from, put out pickets, and lay down among the dead and wounded. The worst feature of this very trying experience was the ceaseless crying of the wounded for water: there was none on the hill. During the night a staff-officer informed Colonel Nash that he had better bring down his men before dawn if no fresh troops or orders came up. Between 3 am and 4 am the regiment was again collected and finally left the hill. No Boers had ventured on to the hill up to that time.

This was the world Bell found himself in on that fateful day and night. The losses of the Imperial Light Infantry, as published at the time, were: killed—2 officers, Lieutenants Rudall and Kynoch-Shand, and 29 non-commissioned officers and men; wounded—3 officers, Captain Cole-man, Lieutenants H R Brown and Richards, and 110 non-commissioned officers and men; missing—19 men. Most of the latter were afterwards found to have been killed or wounded.

For his efforts Bell was awarded the Queens South Africa Medal with the single clasp, Relief of Ladysmith. He took his discharge from the corps on 13 March 1900 – two weeks after the siege of Ladysmith had been lifted, medically unfit, after four months service which included, as we have seen, intense action.

It is suspected that Bell returned to Ireland at some point where he resumed the occupation of assisting his now elderly father on the farm. The 1911 Ireland census reveals a 41 year old Bell with his wife of 5 years, Sarah, and their children Robert Ernest (4), Thomas Huston (3), Mary Elizabeth (1) and baby Margaret Annie (1 month) in the same abode as his father, now 76 and his mother (75)

His medal was issued to 3 Sunnyside Terrace, Londonderry, Ireland on 11 December 1907.

Now that, I do like, not a common medal with that single clasp.

Rory - A nice medal to an often underrated unit. I have a few ILI QSAs including that to Lt. Robert McKerrell Kynoch-Shand who was attached from 6th Volunteer Battalion Gordon Highlanders when he was killed on Spion Kop.

David

Another Great Piece of Research Rory......

Thanks for his story, he will now live on forever......

Mike

Thanks chaps.

David I must say Shand is an absolute gem.

Medals to officers who fell on Spioenkop must be hard to find.

Regards

Rory