TOPIC:

Arthur Frederick Bedggood

Private, Kimberley Rifles – Bechuanaland Campaign
Bombardier, Diamond Fields Artillery – Anglo Boer War
Gunner, Royal Field Artillery - WWI

- Cape of Good Hope General Service Medal with Bechuanaland clasp to 185 Pte. A.T. Bedggood, Kimberley Rifs.
- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Defence of Kimberley, Orange Free State and Transvaal to 185 Bomb. A. Bedggood, Diamond F.A.
- Kimberley Mayor’s Star “A” Hallmarked (unnamed as issued)

Arthur Bedggood was born in Shepton Mallet in Somerset in 1878 the son of George Frederick Bedggood and his wife Julie Annie born Byrt. The Bedggood family hailed from Stroud in Gloucestershire and in 1854 George Bedggood’s father Charles took his wife, some of his brothers and sisters and some of his children and emigrated to Australia. An 18 year old George elected to stay behind and make a life for himself in the “old country”.

This all changed in 1879 when George took his little family to South Africa settling in the Cape Colony where he was employed with the Cape Government Railways – by 1896 he was in the Beaufort West area as an Assistant Traffic Manager. Young Arthur would have had an idyllic rural upbringing for the most part and, when he had reached an age where he was wont to spread his wings, he left the family home journeying to nearby Kimberley where he sought work on the Diamond Mines there.

Kimberley had, with the influence of Cecil John Rhodes, Barney Barnato and others and the discovery of diamonds, become a boom town with people flocking to it from all corners of the globe in search of their fortunes. But trouble was looming on the horizon - the Cape Colony wherein the town lay had long been beset by bands of marauding black tribes who would prey on frontier farmers and steal their livestock and and history was about to repeat itself.

In 1896 a serious epidemic of rinderpest (an infectious viral disease affecting cattle) broke out in Bechuanaland affecting many herds. The government took drastic measures and issued regulations to combat the outbreak that included the slaughtering of infected herds. The Bataplin tribe from the former Crown Colony land objected to the regulations and refused to implement them. Also a minor Bataplin chief named Galishiwe fired on a party of Cape Police that came to arrest him at Pokwani in connection with the murder of a German trader living closeby.

The police then sent 600 men to arrest Galishiwe but as they arrived the Chief’s men dispersed and he escaped in the confusion. These “rebels” then killed another European trader and looted his store. Once again the police party sent to deal with the matter failed to apprehend Galishiwe; this led to a troop of Cape Mounted Riflemen under Captain Woon riding in support of the police, but by now the Batlaro natives had also risen in revolt.

Finally in mid-February 1897 the Cape Government decided to form the Bechuanaland Field Force and despatch it to deal with the rebellion.

Meanwhile the rebels, about 2,500 in number and armed with good rifles and plenty of ammunition, had fortified very strong defensive positions in the Langberg mountain range that runs in between Kuruman and the German South West Africa border. Large herds of cattle had been driven into these hills.

In early March the Field Force marched the 150 miles from Kimberley westwards to Kuruman, where a base and a hospital were established, and then on to Ryan’s Farm which was located 16 miles east of the Langberg Mountains. The rebels controlled the few water sources in the hills, and as the surrounding countryside was arid the Field Force was dependent on the limited supply of water at Ryan’s Farm for all its needs.

The first attack on the rebels was made on the Gamasep Kloof which contained a good water supply that was defended by the rebels. The plan was that the force would ride at night from the farm to the base of the mountains, dismount and leave the horses with a protection party, split into three groups, two of which would climb the slopes on either side of the kloof and prevent the rebels from escaping whilst the main column attacked up the kloof.

Lieutenant Colonel Dalgety’s main column attacked at dawn however the rebels escaped and the rebellion dragged on. For the next few weeks the force, working without accurate maps and also without useful intelligence as all natives in the area were unfriendly, patrolled and burned crops to deny them to the rebels. The Langberg range was blockaded and a few small rebel positions were captured, all being characterized by the stench of thousands of rotting cattle corpses that the rinderpest had killed.

At the end of June a group of miners arrived from Kimberley to sink new wells at Ryan’s Farm and to erect more water tanks. Sixteen hundred new men joined the force. The rebels were now suffering badly from lack of food, and at the end of July their commander Chief Luka Jantje was killed in a fight at Gamasep Kloof. The remainder of the rebels, apart from Galishiwe who vanished, surrendered as they were now incapable of further resistance.

Bedggood who had joined the ranks of the Kimberley rifles on 4 July 1895 was one of the 150 men supplied by that regiment to assist in the suppression of the rebels. For his service he was awarded the Cape of Good Hope General Service Medal with Bechuanaland clasp. On 13 June 1898 he took his leave of the Kimberley Rifles.

Trouble in the last year of the 19th Century was brewing between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This animosity spilled over into open war on 11 October 1899 and Bedggood, probably aware that things were coming to a head, renewed his acquaintance with a uniform by enlisting with the Diamond Field Artillery on 14 September 1899, a few weeks before the war. Technically Kimberley was part of the Cape Colony and not immediately a belligerent but, because of its proximity to the Orange Free State (the town is just over the border) it excited the attentions of the Boers who saw it with its wealth and diamonds as a prize not to be missed. As a Fitter in the employ of De Beers he was ideally suited and had the technical background suited to an artillery gunner.

Three days after war was declared the Boers laid siege to Kimberley – a siege that took place between 14 October 1899 and 15 February 1900 – a period of 124 days. Kimberly was a large town by South African standards, and at the time of the siege contained about 48 000 people, 18 000 of whom were European and 22 000 were women or children. The D.F.A. were in the lucky position of taking receipt of six new 7 –pounder guns a few weeks before the siege began – a mistake by the Ordnance chaps which was too late to rectify.

By the time the siege started the D.F.A. were up to “full strength” being 90 men. It was decided that four of the six guns were to be held in reserve with the remaining two placed at no. 2 Redoubt. On 24 October 2 D.F.A. guns and crew were despatched by road from Kimberley to Dronfield Ridge where a parley was going on with a group of Boers under a white flag of trice although a body of about 2 500 of them were seen occupying a nearby gully.

The two guns had advanced to within 1000 yards of nearby bushes where the advance body of Boers lay concealed, when the Boers opened fire on them taking them completely by surprise. The guns were quickly unlimbered and came into action in “splendid style”. Thanks to poor marksmanship by the Boers the bullets whistled over the D.F.A.’s heads. Later the fire became more accurate but the artillerymen stood their ground although unsupported as the troops were nowhere in sight. After an hour under fire the support arrived and the Boers retired under withering fire but not before as many as seven D.F.A. men were wounded.

On the 16th November there was a reconnaissance of 400 men and two guns of the D.F.A. in the direction of Wimbledon under cover of a thick mist. The mist lifted suddenly and the Boers opened a heavy fire from a range of 400 yards. The gunners showered the Boers with shrapnel but the force had to retire as the enemy were being reinforced. The next day two D.F.A. guns, posted near No. 2 Redoubt shelled Alexandersfontein killing and wounding some of the enemy. On November 26th four guns of the D.F.A. were among a force of 900 who moved out towards the waterworks at Johnstone’s Koppie. At 4.43 a.m. the guns came into action from a position about 2000 yards from the reservoir, against the enemy holding the Koppie, after getting the range the guns moved forward and fired shrapnel at the Boers on the Koppie thus keeping down their fire and enabling the troops to advance. The attack succeeded and the Koppie was carried but the enemy were reinforcing and it was thought prudent to retire – the D.F.A. guns keeping up a hot fire enabling the force to with very little loss.

Two days later a more determined effort to take the Koppie was made with a force of 2000 – on this occasion all six of the D.F.A.’s guns were present as part of the centre column. Two guns of the D.F.A. came into action shelling Peddiesfontein (Carter’s Farm), where small bodies of the enemy could be seen moving about. A further two D.F.A. guns near Johnstone’s Koppie were attempting to silence the two Boer guns on Spitzkop. At 5 p.m. the fatal advance from Carter’s began. Sadly it was a disaster resulting in as many as 22 deaths for the force as well as the ignominy of a retreat in the dark of night.

Food now became a source of huge concern for Kimberley’s citizens – the siege dragged on and supplies were running out. On the 9th December four guns of the D.F.A. were part of a demonstration made against the enemy’s position at Kamfersdam. They took up position near the Homestead at an early hour and opened fire on Kamfersdam at a range of 3000 yards. Firing on and off all day the objective was to let the Boers know that they still had fight in them. The Boers had got wind of this and brought up three guns of their own which opened fire. One of which got the range of the D.F.A. with a shrapnel shell bursting over a D.F.A. gun killing Sergt. Major Moss and wounding six other men. They retired back to Kimberley under cover of darkness.

That Bedggood was no saint can be borne out by an extract from the Diamond Field Artillery Orders (Drill Hall) dated Sunday, 31st December 1899 which stated that “Gunner Bedggood has this day been awarded two extra Guards and confined to camp for one week for being absent from Roll Call”. This was followed up at the Garden Camp of Monday, 29th January 1900 wherein “Gunner A.F Bedggood has been fined 10 /- for “irregularity on Guard””.

The siege eventually ended when General French and his men entered the town at 6.30 pm on 15 February 1900, in a victory dictated by political rather than military requirements, cavalry of the British relief force entered Kimberley, having had some difficulty in persuading the surprised defenders that they were British and not Boers.

Following the relief of Kimberley, the Diamond Fields Artillery continued in service, a section garrisoning Boshof from May 1900 to May 1901, assisting in repelling many attacks & holding the town. In 1902 they were in many engagements, a pom-pom gun and detachment forming part of Lord Methuen's column in his disastrous engagement at the Battle of Tweebosch or De Klipdrift on 7 March 1902. Several of the detachment were killed or wounded.

For his efforts Bedggood was awarded the Queens Medal with the clasps Defence of Kimberley, Orange Free State and Transvaal along with the Mayor’s Kimberley Star – a unique award from the Mayor of Kimberley to those who had taken active part in the defence of the town. He had attained the rank of Bombardier by the time the war was over. He resigned from the D.F.A. on 6 January 1903.

The war over Bedggood betook himself to what was previously the heart of enemy territory – Bloemfontein, the capital city of the Orange Free State. Still a Fitter by trade he married a 19 year old Afrikaans girl, Jessie Johanna Fourie at the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew and St. Michael on 29 September 1906. He was 27 years old and resident at 35 Zastron Street, Bloemfontein. Earlier that year on 23 April, he had been a witness to the marriage of his sister Sarah Julia Mary in the same church to another soldier Thomas Lovitt.

Bedggood’s first born – a son George Frederick – was baptised in Kimberley (he would appear to have returned to this town) on 27 October 1907. His address was provided as 10 Lawson Street, Kimberley. Another child (his namesake) was born on 27 July 1914. On this occasion his home address was 54 Tanner Street, Vrededorp in Johannesburg.

A mere two weeks after this the world was at war with Britain and Germany now sworn enemies. Stirred possibly by patriotic fervour although, it has to be said, he had been raised in South Africa for most of his life; Bedggood elected to return to England sailing aboard the “Balmoral Castle” arriving on 5 March 1916. Taking up residence with his sister Sarah and her husband at 329 Morland Road, East Croydon in Sussex he lost almost no time in attesting for service with the Royal Field Artillery, completing the requisite forms for Short Service (for the Duration of the War) on 24 March 1916.

Now 38 years old he confirmed prior service with the “Voluntary Artillery in Bechuanaland in the Kafir war of 1896”. He provided his father as his next of kin resident at Tiverton Road, Plumstead, Cape Town, South Africa. Physically he was 5 feet 11 inches in height and weighed 154 pounds with blue eyes and brown hair. Assigned no. 123458 and the rank of Gunner he stood ready to do his bit being posted to the 19th ( Battery of the R.F.A. on 19 August 1916 he proceeded overseas to France and was posted to Cinder City before being permanently attached to No. 5 Ordnance Mobile
Workshops on 2 June 1917. He embarked for repatriation to the United Kingdom on 14 April 1919.

Initially claiming Free Passage back to South Africa he wrote to the authorities on 5 May 1919 as follows,

“Sir

I received repatriation form which I have not filled in as I have decided to remain in England and have registered myself in the country.
I am your obedient servant”

His special enlistment forms contain the comment “a smart, intelligent man, served with Artillery in South Africa”. Eligible for the British War and Victory Medals it is uncertain whether or not these were ever claimed.

He passed away in Croydon, Surrey in December 1957 at the age of 80.

Rory,

My brother and I used to own the QSA and Kimberley Star to Bedggood. It was stroke of luck that his CGHGSM came up for auction not long afterwards so we were able to complete a partial re-unite.

You discovered a lot more about him that we were able to find at the time.

Bets wishes
David