TOPIC:

I was fortunate to acquire a QSA to 550 Pte. W. Sutherland of the Natal Carbineers. The clasps are Defence of Ladysmith, Transvaal and Laiings Nek. According to the roll he is also entitled to the SA 1901 & 1902 clasps.

He had no further service e.g. with the NVCR and I wondered how unusual this clasp combination then was. The roll shows him as discharge on 13 March 1903.

As an aside I also have a QSA to a W Sutherland of the Durban Light Infantry (Relief of Ladysmith/Transvaal clasps) - I wonder if they ever met up after 1 March 1900?

Rory,

The Natal Carbineers' supplementary roll makes interesting reading. There is a minority of men (between 1 to 5 per page on the few pages I looked at) who received SA01 and SA02. Some received only SA01 despite resignation dates in 1902 and 1903.

While many men did change their local unit, I would imagine that enlisted men in the NC were less likely to change because they has longer periods of service than the 6 or 12 months periods seen on attestation papers for units raised for the War.

Kind regards
David

Hi Rory
Saw your posting re Frank Taunton, Natal Carbineers whilst looking for details of the action, particularly featuring the NC (other than the ILH), in which his father, Major Charles Taunton NC was killed, Lancers Hill, 3rd November 1899. So I thought I’d join the Forum and maybe get involved – so this is my first posting.
My interests are primarily officer casualties right through the card, Waterloo to the Falklands, all services, all regiments, all campaigns. Have a reasonable selection of Boer War officer casualties and thought I’d revisit some of them - so I popped Major Taunton’s name into Google and up came your excellent write-up on his son.
You enviously have access to local material on father and son and I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of an obituary or newspaper article which would fill out the pre 3rd Nov. life of the Major? He was obviously a very influential, wealthy man, Fellow of the Colonial Institute and owned Gold Mines!!!
Anyway, any little help would be appreciated.

Regards

Les.

Welcome to the Forum, Drakewood.

Drakewood
Some time ago I did a post entitled "The Thirty Lighthorsemen; the ILH at Lancers Nek". This looked at the involvement of the ILH and some of the replies mentioned the activities of the NC. You might find it of interest.
Regards
IL.

Hello Drakewood
There are quite a few references on the SA archives web site referring to Charles Edmund Taunton.
If you would like more information on these, please contact me at rhinoresearch32@gmail.com.
Audrey