TOPIC:

Henry Smith (or Smythe as he became) was an army deserter who made good in business in South Africa but not without a few incidents along the way....

Henry Lockhart Smythe

Private, 1st Dragoon Guards (pre-war home service)
Leader, Natal Volunteer Ambulance Corps
Trooper, Bethune’s Mounted Infantry
Sergeant, 1st Scottish Horse – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal and South Africa 1901 to 978 Tpr. H.L. Smythe, Bethune’s M.I.

Harry Smythe was born In Fareham, Hampshire, England in 1848 (being baptised on 23 March of that year) to Joseph Patrick Smith and his wife Matilda. Joseph had been born in Ireland and was employed as a Clerk in the General Post Office. There was often confusion over the spelling of his surname with Smyth and even Smith making the odd appearance in public records.



According to the 1851 England census Henry was living with his family at 23 Shepperton Road in Islington, Middlesex. The picture ten years later, at the time of the 1861 census things were somewhat different – the family now lived at 22 Norman Buildings in Finsbury but, more importantly, his mother Matilda had passed away in 1858 when he was a young boy of 10 which must have been difficult for him to adapt to.

According to the Army List of 1871 he had chosen a life in uniform and was a Private with the 1st Dragoon Guards – a fact confirmed in later years by himself in his Last Will and Testament.

The first encounter we have with him of any moment was on 1 December 1874 when he tied the marital knot with Grace Frost Wight in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland. Still a serving soldier with the Dragoons Smyth (as he was then known) was to blot his copybook by deserting from the Army whilst stationed at York on 23 June 1876. This could well be the reason why the couple betook themselves to South Africa to begin a new chapter in their lives. Settling in Durban in the Colony of Natal a daughter, Faith Elizabeth, was born to them on 26 January 1879. One can imagine the nervous anxiety which accompanied her birth as word would have recently reached the small European population of the British rout at Isandhlwana a mere four days before. The colonists, following this defeat, were in panic mode with only the epic stand at Rorke’s Drift made by a small British force to pacify them once they had heard the news.

Henry went into business for himself opening up a small Grocery shop in Durban which kept a roof over the family’s head and food on the table but this wasn’t to last as, in early 1886, he was declared insolvent and unable to pay his creditors with an amount of £43 still in arrears after selling off all his possessions including land that he owned in Overport. Whether there was any “skulduggery” on Smythe’s part is unknown but the report did mention that,

“The insolvent has been in business for about three years and attributes his failure to the depressed state of business during the whole period.” An added comment was that “Until January 1885 he kept nothing but a rough day book showing only amounts due to him for groceries supplied” and “That from January 1885 to January 1886 he seems to have opened a new set of books, but they do not show his business transactions correctly and seem to have been written up very lately.”

With nothing to show for his efforts Smythe moved to the Witwatersrand – the so-called “Place of Gold” to seek his fortune and provide for his family. Joining the Johannesburg Lodge of the Free Mason’s on 31 May 1895 he, no doubt, hoped to expand his business interests through contacts made there. This he seems to have succeeded in by entering into a partnership with one Colin Hudson (who was an Auctioneer and General Agent) on 24 April 1895 lending him £100 for an indefinite period but which sum was repayable within 3 months on demand. This was in return for one fourth of the net profit of the Auction Mart business.

Johannesburg at this time was a thriving bustling city whose growth was spurred on by the continuous discovery of gold seams. Prospectors flocked to the place making the government of Boer President Paul Kruger very nervous. The day arrived when the “Uitlanders” (Foreigners) outnumbered the small Dutch population by some margin and, to make matters worse, these foreigners began to demand the franchise and other rights if they were to pay taxes and shore up the economy of the South African Republic with their hard earned money.

Matters came to head in October of 1899 with Kruger issuing an ultimatum to the British Government which, having been ignored, led to the declaration of war between the Z.A.R. and their ally the Orange Free State on the one hand and the British Empire on the other. On the 11th October the Boer forces commenced with their incursions into Cape Colony and Natal investing towns like Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith. Smythe, like most men of British descent, joined one of the many Colonial outfits being raised to come to the aid of the British. In his case he joined the Natal Volunteer Ambulance Corps at Durban on 9 December 1899, soon after their formation, and was granted the rank of Leader – in charge of a section of stretcher bearers. These intrepid men were soon to be in the thick of things fetching and carrying the wounded from the battlefield in all of the actions leading up to the Relief of Ladysmith before being disbanded on 1 March 1900. Smythe was to spend only two weeks with them before taking his discharge on 22 December 1899 but what two weeks they were! On 15 December the battle of Colenso took place and he would have been there to assist the numbers of killed and wounded that fell that day.

On 2 June 1900 he attested for service with Bethune’s Mounted Infantry with the rank of Trooper and no. 978 providing his next of kin as Mrs Smythe of Keit’s Avenue, Durban. Edward Cecil Bethune had raised the Corps at Durban on 19 October 1899. The regiment had been present at Willow Grange on the night of 22 November 1899 and did good service. They were also present at the Battle of Colenso on 15 December 1899 (where Smythe was rendering service with the N.V.A.C.) but were detailed as the baggage guard. But by the time Smythe had joined their ranks Ladysmith had been relieved and the Boers were in full flight out of Natal. The remainder of 1900 was spent employed on patrol work in the south of the Transvaal and the Utrecht district. There was much skirmishing and the work was dangerous leading up to the occupation of Vryheid in September. Smythe took his discharge from them on 30 November 1900 – before they were taken to Lindley in the Orange Free State where they were frequently engaged as well as in other parts of the colony.

Smythe could have been forgiven were he found to have been preoccupied with matters non-military. His partner in business, Hudson, had decided to cancel the arrangement between them and had, as was required, promised to repay him the £100 plus interest he owed by no later than 24 January 1896. On this undertaking he had reneged and Smythe, the Petitioner, had asked for the court’s intervention. Matters came to a head in the Cape Supreme Court on 12 July 1900 and summons was issued for the repayment of the money. Smythe had initiated the action at Durban on 12 June – ten days after he had enlisted. In a statement dated 2 August 1900 he detailed the following:

“I attempted to find the whereabouts of the said Defendant (Hudson) in Johannesburg for many months before the outbreak of the present “hostilities”, but I could hear nothing of or concerning him. He left Johannesburg some considerable time before “the war”, leaving no agent to represent him there and no place of business.

Prior to the said Defendant leaving Johannesburg, which was on or about the year 1898, I had instituted legal proceedings against him for the recovery of the amount claimed and he begged me, both verbally and in writing, not to proceed against him as he was terribly short of funds, but was expecting money shortly. And would pay me as soon as he received it.

Sometime in the month of March 1900 I heard that the said Defendant was at Cape Town and had evidently come into possession of the money referred to. I at once took steps to demand from him the amount he is indebted to me.” The court found in his favour and ordered Hudson (who had a contract with the military for the supply of horses) to pay him.

That out of the way and once more without a regiment Smythe, now 50 years old, turned his attention to the Scottish Horse attesting for service with them at Durban on 20 December 1900 where he claimed to be a Hotel Proprietor. He was assigned no. 30757 and the rank of Sergeant. Established by Major the Marquis of Tullibardine, MVO, DSO, the Scottish Horse were to become a force to be reckoned with. In the written statement furnished by Tullibardine to the War Commission he provided an admirably clear yet modest account of the organisation, composition, and work of the two regiments that he had raised, each of which earned great distinction by exceptionally fine work.

In November 1900 Lord Kitchener had sanctioned the raising of a regiment to be known as the Scottish Horse, part of the Imperial Yeomanry. Lord Tullibardine soon started recruiting from Scotsmen, or men of Scottish descent, in South Africa, chiefly in Natal; and on 4th February 1901 he took the field with three squadrons. To these their leader gave the highest possible praise. "One hundred of them were the best body of men in every way that I saw in South Africa. This particular squadron had a reputation which extended far beyond the column with which it was trekking".

In no way did Lord Tullibardine show his organising powers to greater advantage than in the setting up of depots for his force for both men and horses. A central headquarters depot for both regiments, with a convalescent camp for sick men and overworked horses, was at Johannesburg, and there were advance depots for each regiment near the railway in the district in which each might be trekking. At these advance depots were remount establishments. Thus sick men could go to the regimental camp, and so not get lost in the great army hospitals. Horses needing a rest could be sent in to the rest-camp at the depot, and come out as well as ever.

The 1st Regiment – the one to which Smythe belonged - was commanded at first by Lord Tullibardine, then by Major Blair, King's Own Scottish Borderers, after him by Lieutenant Colonel C E Duff, 8th Hussars, and finally by Lieutenant Colonel H P Leader, 6th Dragoon Guards. It served in the Western Transvaal in a column commanded by Colonel Flint, by Colonel Shekleton, by Brigadier General Cunningham, by Brigadier General Dixon, and lastly by Colonel Kekewich. They had a few casualties, but saw no very serious fighting till the action at Vlakfontein on 29th May 1901 – by which time Smythe, ever the rolling stone – had taken his discharge (this happened on 25 May 1901)

Smythe having served in three very different outfits, was to take no further part in the Boer War which ended on 31 May 1902. For his efforts he was awarded the Queens Medal.

We next hear of Henry Smythe 12 years later when, at the age of 60 and described as a Merchant, he and his wife embarked aboard the “Walmer Castle” at the Port of London on 17 October 1914 destined for Cape Town.

Back in South Africa it wasn’t long before his name surfaced again. On 18 July 1918 a matter wherein he was the Applicant and the Johannesburg Liquor Licencing Board was the Respondent was set down for hearing by the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court. It was dismissed with costs but it’s worth seeing what the affair was all about as it shines a spotlight of Smythe’s affairs at the stage of his life. Henry Lockhart Smythe is shown as the owner of a Provision Store and Bottle Store situated in premises in Klein Street, Hospital Hill, Johannesburg. The Bottle Store was licenced in his son, Joseph Patrick Smythe’s name. Notice was given by the Licencing Board to the effect that the Police intended to object to the renewal of his licence on various grounds including the following:

1. A casual gardener at the Hospital, one Jansen Harris, was supplied with liquor.
2. A native woman named Ida was also supplied with liquor after she had produced a fraudulent note from a James Smith Gray who was found not to exist.
3. Liquor was supplied to one Amy Herbert, a coloured person, “in appearance white”, who in turn supplied liquor to a coloured man. She was sentenced to three months imprisonment for this heinous crime.

Smythe, in answer to these allegations, claimed to have been in business in Johannesburg for 30 years and had held a licence for the Bottle Store for 16 thereof without so much as a single complaint levelled against him. An affidavit was submitted showing that he had, from time to time, given substantial assistance to the Police in connection with the illicit Liquor Traffic. An interim order was granted that a temporary renewal licence be granted.

The matter resolved Smythe continued in business passing away at his residence – 37 Kotze Street, Hospital Hill, Johannesburg on 6 June 1927 at the age of 78 years. A retired Merchant he was survived by his wife and three children to whom he bequeathed over £3000 in equal measure.

Thanks and Love the Hat Rory......

Smith or Smyth, reminds you of the old TV show "Keeping up Appearances" or am I dating myself.....

Great research.....

Mike