TOPIC:

Morris Campbell Moule

Private, 17th Lancers (Corps of Lancers of the Line)
Trooper, Natal Police – Anglo Boer War
Lance Sergeant, Natal Police - Bambatha Rebellion
2nd Class Sergeant, 3rd Regiment, South African Mounted Rifles

- Queens South Africa Medal with clasps Defence of Ladysmith and South Africa 1901 to 2337 Tpr. M.C. Moule, Natal Police
- Natal (Bambatha) Medal with 1906 clasp to Lance Sergeant, M.C. Moule, Natal Police
- Permanent Forces Beyond The Empire Over The Seas Medal to No. 745 2ND CL. Sergt. M.C. Moule

Morris Moule was a complicated character as events will show. He was born on 22 December 1875 to Frederick John Moule, a Bank Manager with the Capital and Counties Bank, and his wife Maud Meyer Moule in Chippenham, Wiltshire. The family was obviously a well-to-do one and there was no shortage of siblings to keep a young Morris entertained. The 1881 England census revealed that the family lived in, appropriately enough considering his father’s occupation - Bank Street, in Chippenham and comprised a 5 year old Morris along with his parents and sisters Ethel Maud (8), Kathleen Rose (1) and brothers Evelyn Stewart (7) and Charles Godfrey (3). To keep the house and the children in decent trim were servants Jane Rumming and Laura Emily Dalton.


The Natal Police Ladysmith detachment during the Siege

Ten years later at the time of the 1891 England census the family was still resident in the same place. Naturally everyone had aged by ten years with Morris now a strapping lad of 15. The only change in the family “mix” was the addition of 9 year old Francis Moule and a visiting niece of the same age – Gladys Coombs. Annie Tugday was entrusted with keeping the household clean.

The next glimpse we have of Moule comes on the 7th May 1896 when, as a young man of 20 years and 4 months, he completed attestation papers to join the 17th Lancers at York. Claiming prior militia service with the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment he was a Bank Clerk by profession and was still living at home. As next of kin he provided his father of 92 North Road, Comley Villa, Bishopstone, Bristol. Mention was also made of his brothers Charles Henry who was a teacher at St. Peter’s School in Weston Super Mare and Frank who lived with their parents and was later to join Moule in South Africa.

Physically he was 5 feet 8 ½ inches in height, weighed 128 pounds and had a fresh complexion, brown eyes and black hair. By way of marks about his person he sported a mole near his umbilical cord and one below his ribs on the left-hand side of his torso. Having been found fit by the Doctors he was assigned No 4141 and the rank of Private with “B” Squadron. For Moule his military adventure was about to begin but the initial phase thereof wasn’t destined to be a long one – on 22 October 1896, after 202 days in uniform, Moule was discharged from the service on the grounds of being Medically Unfit.

This was in itself nothing exceptional but the reasons provided for his discharge make for interesting reading. Army Form B. 179 – Medical History of an Invalid, completed at York on the date of his discharge is all revealing. Despite his habits being found to be Good, Regular and Temperate it was his state of mental health that was called into question. Under the heading Disease or Disability the word “Mania” appears and the Doctors’ had this to say about it,

“(Moule) Was admitted into Station Hospital, York on the 14th September last with a history of having been noticed by his comrades as being rather queer in his manners for some time before, and appeared to have delusions, to the effect that people were peeping around corners at him.

He was at first very quiet but soon became noisy shouting continually and very violent with the orderlies in attendance. He appeared to hear voices. Since he has been under treatment his condition has not improved. His moods vary – some days he is in good spirits, laughs and chatters incoherently on all unimaginable subjects. His sentences are disconnected. At other times he cry’s and appears much depressed, making statements to the effect that he has always been true to his colours and that he is “God”, Christ etc. etc.

Latterly he has been disposed to use obscene language. His habits on the whole are fairly clean but he has on one or two occasions passed his urine and faeces in his bed. He has shown no homicidal or suicidal tendencies but states occasionally that he “wishes he was dead”. The disability is not the result of military service or climate, and has not been aggravated by intemperance, vice or misconduct.”

The Doctors’ went on to state that Moule will “probably improve under treatment and be able to earn his own livelihood.” But that only with “Supervision and restraint.” Purgatives were prescribed to relieve constipation and sedatives occasionally. He was regarded as being Permanently Unfit as a soldier and the Board consensus “Recommended his discharge as a Dangerous Lunatic fit for an Asylum”. Moule was destined, on discharge, for the Parish Asylum in Devizes, Wiltshire deemed unworthy or incapable of signing his own Discharge Forms where the words “Dangerous Lunatic” appear instead of his signature.

So this broken man was sent home to either recover from his malaise or perish. Great was the wonder then when, on 30 June 1899, he presented himself at the Headquarters of the Natal Police in Pietermaritzburg in the Colony of Natal, seeking employment. One can only speculate if he ever made reference to his previous plight. Most likely not – he had chosen to start over in a far-away place where he was an unknown quantity and where his past would not have followed him.

Assigned the rank of Trooper and no. 2337 Moule commenced employment not knowing that, in the space of a short few months, he would be called upon to do much more than his normal policing duties required. South Africa was about to have its peaceful equanimity irrevocably disturbed – the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were on a collision course with the might of the British Empire – the smouldering animosity which was shared between these two sets of protagonists spilled over into open conflict on 11 October 1899 and the Natal Police were immediately called upon to assume a much greater role than was hitherto the case.

Moule was mobilised as part of a 25 man detachment serving in the Upper Tugela District in about September of that year and when the Boers entered Natal, over the Drakensberg mountains, from the Orange Free State; this body of men joined the volunteers mustered to oppose this threat taking part in the skirmishing at Tinta Inyoni. General White and the forces under his command fell back on Ladysmith in late October 1899 and the town and its inhabitants were invested by the Boers who made a perimeter around the town effectively creating a siege where no-one could enter or leave. The Natal Police had a small party of 73 men forming Number 1 Troop who were caught up in the siege. Moule took part in the action at Lombard’s Kop as well as the successful attack on Gun Hill on the night of 7th December 1899.

According to Gibson in his “Story of the Imperial Light Horse” (pages 67 – 70) the battle plan was for 100 member of the I.L.H. and 100 men of the Natal Carbineers to take part in the assaulting column, while a further 300 Natal troops (Moule and the detachment of Natal Police among this number) would comprise the right and left guards. After what appeared an interminable scramble, the guides halted the assaulting columns at the points where they would commence their attack. It was now 2.30 a.m. Up above could be seen the crest line of Gun Hill, silhouetted black and hard against the starlit sky.
It was so dark, when climbing the almost perpendicular hill, that they were compelled to use their hands to feel the way and to haul themselves over the boulders. At last, when they had scrambled about a quarter of the way up,…… yelling and firing broke out on the right; from above a volley of orders was shouted in Dutch, followed by a single shot and then ragged rifle fire…. The firing above increased in intensity and in consequence the advance was resumed with less speed and greater caution.

Accurate guiding, possibly also a wonderful piece of good luck, brought the Colonel exactly to the emplacement of the big 6-inch Creusot gun and Colonel Edwards ordered the men still further forward and placed them in extended order, where they lay down forming a covering party for the Sappers against the anticipated counter-attack …. it was a tremendous relief when two explosions in succession announced the fact that the guns had been rendered useless and the night’s adventure had been successful.”



The excitement over for the present the besieged men in Ladysmith began to succumb to the ravages of enteric fever in their droves. Poor nutrition and even worse diet made them easy prey and the Natal Police weren’t immune to the problem with many becoming incapacitated by disease. Moule and his comrades were on picket duty when the Boers made their attack on Caesar’s Camp on 6 January 1900. Clarke in his “History of the Natal Police” wrote that,

“Having put our horses under cover, we advanced on foot through the bushes under a heavy fire, Sergeant Woon, Troopers Pinto-Leite and Rivett being wounded. Before we reached any sort of cover we had to get the wounded away, when we were able to get up close to the base of Caesar’s Camp, within 200 yards of the enemy.”

The siege was eventually lifted on 28 February 1900 and the defenders, emaciated by illness and disease, were allowed time to recover. Moule sent his mother a postcard from Ladysmith to her address, “Homeleigh” Portishead, Somerset, dated 1 April 1900 (should have been dated 1 March 1900) which read,

“Dear Mother

Siege raised last night, am quite well will write shortly. Sergeant Matravers arrived with the relief column. Much love to all.

From Campbell”

For his efforts in the war Moule was awarded the Queens Medal with the Defence of Ladysmith and South Africa 1901 clasp. No doubt his mother, painfully aware of her son’s medical history, breathed a sigh of relief that he had come through physically and mentally unscathed. But he had blotted his copybook whilst stationed at Headquarters being Confined to Barracks for 3 days on 22 May 1900 for being Absent from Camp and again 8 days later on 30 May for being Drunk parading for Guard. This last misdemeanour carried with it a sentence of 14 days Confinement to Barracks and 3 Extra Guards.

The war over Moule returned to his normal policing duties – accepting a transfer to the Railway Police as a Constable on 13 December 1904. Promotion to the rank of Lance Sergeant came on 1 February 1905 as did a posting from Headquarters to the rural settlement of Sipofu inland from the south coast of Natal. Life must have been idyllic but excruciatingly humdrum with very little to stimulate one and almost nobody in the near vicinity to help relieve the boredom. This was about to change though – in early 1906 the Natal Colonial Government – cash-strapped after fighting an expensive war – hit upon an ingenious scheme to help fill the Colonial coffers – a poll tax of £1 per head was to be placed on all black males of 18 years of age and above.

The local natives, normally placid, grudgingly accepted this latest blow to their financial fortunes but there were exceptions. One such came in the form of a minor chief from the Kranskop or Umvoti area – Bambatha was a hothead and not inclined to be well disposed towards the white man’s rule. He saw this tax as an opportunity to foment an uprising against the authorities and went about advocating open rebellion. Magistrates, tasked with collecting this tax, were despatched with Natal Police escorts and, on one occasion, one of their number was murdered leading to the calling out of the local militia.

Things simmered down and the men were sent home but trouble flared a few months later and the Natal Police, as part of the force raised to quell what was now a serious rebellion, were called out once more. Quite what the various organs of the Police were called upon to do is unclear but it can supposed that Moule was in on the action which led to the beheading of Bambatha and the death of hundreds of his supporters in the deeply forested Mome Gorge in Zululand. For his role in the conflict Moule was awarded the Natal Rebellion Medal with the 1906 clasp.

Peace prevailed once more and Moule, probably tiring of his isolation, was transferred to Durban where he commenced employment as an Assistant Court Messenger on 11 January 1907. On 30 June 1911 he was re-engaged for a further 12 years’ service and was still in their employ in 1913 when, after Union, all the various police forces of South Africa were amalgamated into several South African Mounted Riflemen battalions.

Moule went on to amass an impressive number of years’ service – so much so that he became eligible for the award of the much coveted Permanent Forces of the Empire Beyond The Seas Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. This award was instituted in 1909 and was for 18 years of Exemplary service. On 17 July 1917 the Staff Officer of the South African Mounted Rifles, Pietermaritzburg, wrote to the D.A.A.G. in Pretoria submitting the documents “in the case of No. 745 2nd Class Sergeant Moule, Police Establishment, 3rd Regiment, S.A.M.R. who is recommended for the award of the Long Service Medal.” As part of the accompanying documentation was confirmation that he had served in the South African War and the Natal Native Rebellion.

He was also on the Married Establishment having tied the knot with Jessie Helen Anderson ON 24 December 1904 and that he was a Farmer by occupation (probably part-time). He had also acquired a tattoo on his left forearm of the Family Crest and Coat of Arms.

On 15 October 1917 the matter was approved. The lunatic had come good.

The postcard he sent his mother .

Another great piece of research...... Thank You for posting Rory......

Mike

Rory

Thank you for an interesting story. It is well known that the troublesome sons of the British landed gentry were sent to the Colonies to misbehave out of sight, while convicts were sent as far away as possible (i.e. Australia), so perhaps the Imperial master plan included sending dangerous lunatics to Natal. It is no wonder that there were those in the British army officer class who despised Colonials.

Regards
Brett