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James Tillyer

Private, 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal (Defence of Ladysmith, Belfast and also entitled to Laing’s Nek) to 5143 PTE. J. TILLYER, MANCHESTER REGT.
- Kings South Africa Medal (South Africa 1901 & 1902) to 5143 PTE. J. TILLYER. MANCH: REGT.

James Tillyer was born on 18 July 1877 in Hoxton, Middlesex, the son of James Tillyer, a Trimmer by occupation, and his wife Charlotte Matilda (born Patterson). At the time of his baptism in St. Andrew’s Parish, Hoxton, on 28 July 1880, his family were living at 7 Canal Road. His father was described as an Iron Trimmer.

With the dawn of the 1881 England census, the Tillyer family had moved up the road to 15 Canal Road. Mr Tillyer was a Trimmer whilst his wife, also able to add to the family’s coffers, was an Artificial Florist. James (3) had siblings in Charlotte (7), Sarah (5) and Richard (1).

Ten years later, during the 1891 England census, the family had moved to 31 Wilmer Gardens, Kingsland Road, Shoreditch. With the many new additions in the household, Mrs Tillyer had relinquished her grip on the Artificial Florist mantle in favour of her namesake – 17 year old Charlotte. James, now 13 and called Emma, thanks to the atrocious handwriting of the enumerator, was at school along with other siblings Sarah, Richard, Thomas and Henry. Two other children, John and baby William completed the household which must have been a vibrant but noisy one.

On 1 April 1897, at the age of 18 years and 6 months, Tillyer enlisted with the 7th Battalion (Militia) of the Rifle Brigade. Completing the attestation forms in London he confirmed that he was a Labourer in the employ of Mr Mannery of 16 Tooting Street, Bethnal Green. Physically he was a diminutive 5 feet 3 ½ inches in height, weighed 112 lbs and had a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. By way of distinctive marks about his person he had a scar over his right eye.



Having been passed as fit by the Doctors he was assigned no. 5316 and the rank of Private. After a period of 49 days drill and exercise he transferred to the 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment on 19 July 1897.Initially posted to the Depot at Ashton Under Lyne, he joined the 1st Battalion on 8 October 1897. After 122 days service he went with his battalion to Gibraltar, being stationed there until 22 August 1899 when the battalion was posted to South Africa. This placed him and his battalion, unknowingly, at the forefront when war, between Great Britain and the two Dutch-speaking Republics of the Orange Free State and Transvaal, was declared on 11 October 1899.

The British military presence in South Africa at the time was woefully inadequate to counter the Boer threat. The authorities had seriously underestimated not only the resolve, but the strength of the Boer Commandoes who entered the Colonies of Natal and the Cape the day after hostilities commenced – encircling and besieging the towns of Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith in the process. General Sir Revers Buller, Commander in Chief, decided on a two-pronged approach to take the fight to the Boers – one column would head upcountry to the west and relieve Kimberley and Mafeking whilst another, that under his personal command, would travel up from Durban to relieve Ladysmith and enter the Transvaal via that route.

Upon reaching the Cape the Manchesters were immediately sent upcountry to Pietermaritzburg to relieve the Dublins. About 6,000 troops were encamped there. Three weeks later the Manchesters marched out of Pietermaritzburg for Ladysmith. When they departed from the capital of Natal it was understood that the entire distance had to be accomplished on foot, which would have meant a seven days' march.
However, at the end of the second day the news was so ominous that they were hurried forward by rail and thus were enabled to reach Ladysmith before the outbreak of hostilities and the investment of the town. The 1st Battalion was present with General French at the battle of Elandslaagte on 20th October. Fortunately for Tillyer, his company was not one of those chosen for the battle in which losses of 11 men killed, and 5 officers and 26 men wounded, were incurred.


Map showing Manchesters position and camp in Ladysmith

At the battle of Nicholson’s Nek, outside Ladysmith on 30th October the 1st Manchester Regiment was in Ian Hamilton's brigade but saw no heavy fighting and had few casualties as a result. Soon after this battle, on 3 November 1899, the town was cut off and besieged by the Boers who mounted cannon on most of the prominent hills around Ladysmith. The Manchester Regiment was stationed at Caesar's Camp, and on 11th November they had fighting practically the whole day. Four men were killed and 2 officers and 15 men wounded.

In repelling the great assault on 6th January the Manchesters played a very important part. The battalion, under Colonel Curran, along with the 42nd Battery, some of the Naval Brigade, with a 12-pounder and some Natal Volunteers, formed the garrison of Caesar's Camp. Sir George White expressed the opinion that the enemy got into position close to our defences through deceiving the picquets as to their identity; but precise details could not be got, as nearly all the defenders of the south-east portion of Caesar's Camp were killed. The enemy got possession of that portion, but the defenders clung most gallantly to little sangars and bits of cover here and there. Sundry reinforcements were sent to Colonel Curran, and ultimately, about 5.30, after fifteen hours' continuous effort on both sides, the Boers were driven entirely off the hill. The losses of the Manchesters were very severe: 33 men were killed, 4 officers and about 37 men wounded.

Four officers and 14 men of the battalion were mentioned in Sir George White's despatch of 23rd March 1900, and Private R Scott and Private J Pitts were subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross for "holding out in their sangar for fifteen hours without food or water, all the time keeping a sharp look-out, although the enemy occupied some sangars on their immediate left rear", and of course all round their front.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his epic work, the Great Boer War, wrote of the Wagon Hill fight thus:

‘On January 6th the Boers delivered their great assault upon Ladysmith--an onfall so gallantly made and gallantly met that it deserves to rank among the classic fights of British military history.

It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all costs with the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the deliberate preparations of Buller for his second advance had alarmed them, and that they realised that they must act quickly if they were to act at all. At any rate, early in the New Year a most determined attack was decided upon. The storming party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers from the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by de Villiers. They were supported by several thousand riflemen, who might secure their success or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy guns had been trained upon the long ridge, one end of which has been called Caesar's Camp (where the Manchester’s were encamped) and the other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles long, lay to the south of the town, and the Boers had early recognised it as being the most vulnerable point.

At twelve o'clock our scouts heard the sounds of the chanting of hymns in the Boer camps. At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill. Some working parties were moving guns into position, and the noise of their labour helped to drown the sound of the Boer advance. Both at Caesar's Camp, the east end of the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points being, I repeat, three miles apart), the attack came as a complete surprise. The outposts were shot or driven in, and the stormers were on the ridge almost as soon as their presence was detected. The line of rocks blazed with the flash of their guns.



Caesar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters, aided by a Colt automatic gun. The defence had been arranged in the form of small sangars, each held by from ten to twenty men. Some few of these were rushed in the darkness, but the Lancashire men pulled themselves together and held on strenuously to those which remained.

Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Caesar's Camp, and these, under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the struggle. Later four companies of the Rifle Brigade were thrown into the firing line, and a total of two and a half infantry battalions held that end of the position. With the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers held the southern and we the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau between formed a bloody debatable ground. Along a front of a quarter of a mile fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels flashed from behind every rock, and the long fight swayed a little back or a little forward with each upward heave of the stormers or rally of the soldiers. For hours the combatants were so near that a stone or a taunt could be thrown from one to the other. Some scattered sangars still held their own, though the Boers had passed them. One such, manned by fourteen privates of the Manchester Regiment, remained untaken, but had only two defenders left at the end of the bloody day.

It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire straight at their position, so every shell fired from the 53rd Battery had to skim over the heads of our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the reverse slope. Yet so accurate was the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that not one shot miscarried.

Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the summit of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never amounting to a repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the defenders. So intermixed were the combatants that a wounded man more than once found himself a rest for the rifles of his enemies. At four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly into a terrific thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. Up on the bullet-swept hill the long fringes of fighting men took no more heed of the elements than would two bulldogs who have each other by the throat. Up the greasy hillside, foul with mud and with blood, came the Boer reserves, and up the northern slope came our own reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit representatives of that virile county. Admirably led by Park, their gallant Colonel, the Devons swept the Boers before them, and the Rifles, Gordons, and Light Horse joined in the wild charge which finally cleared the ridge.

The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge had heartened the weary men upon Caesar's Camp to a similar effort. Manchesters, Gordons, and Rifles, aided by the fire of two batteries, cleared the long-debated position. Wet, cold, weary, and without food for twenty-six hours, the bedraggled Tommies stood yelling and waving, amid the litter of dead and of dying.

It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town must have followed, and history perhaps have been changed. Our own casualties were very serious and the proportion of dead to wounded unusually high, owing to the fact that the greater part of the wounds were necessarily of the head. In killed we lost 13 officers, 135 men. In wounded 28 officers, 244 men--a total of 420.’

Ladysmith was finally relieved on 28 February 1900 and the men of the Manchester Regiment, emaciated through lack of food and other privations, like all the others locked up for three months, were able to celebrate their freedom. After a period of recovery the battalion, on May 18th, left to rejoin General Buller's force, which had commenced to advance. They came up with the fighting line two days later, and remained with the column until after the battle of Belfast in August. Then half the Manchesters were left behind in the Lydenburg district, where there was a good bit of skirmishing to be done.

The fight at Bergendal (Belfast) was the last pitched battle of the war before the Guerrilla phase was entered upon. Here the battalion was detached to the right and were directed to intrench themselves on the eastern crests of the ridge. Under cover of the regiment the artillery were brought into action against Bergendal. General Buller mentioned that the fire of the battalion was of great service, preventing Boer reinforcements from reaching the farmhouse and kopje.

In the second phase of the war the battalion was many times engaged, but not with very heavy losses. To the close of the campaign they continued in the Eastern Transvaal, sometimes on garrison duty, at times doing column work under General F W Kitchener, Colonel Park, and other commanders.

It was during this cat and mouse period of the war that Tillyer’s discipline gave in. Whilst perhaps not a model soldier, he had remained out of trouble. This all changed when, on 27 March 1901 he was placed in confinement before being tried by a General Field Court Martial for “when on active service using insubordinate language to his superior officer”. For this he was sentenced to 56 days Imprisonment with Hard Labour; serving 42 days thereof in total and returning to duty on 21 May 1901.

Unfortunately, Tillyer had now got the bit between his teeth and his disciplinary record got increasingly worse. Although the war was over on 31 May 1902, the Manchesters stayed on in South Africa – Tillyer was in confinement on 24 July 1902, awaiting trial by a District Court Martial. This duly took place on 1 August 1902, the charges being “using insubordinate language to his superior officer and striking his superior officer.” Despite not being on active service, the charges were severe enough to earn him Imprisonment with Hard Labour for 1 year. This was commuted to 6 months on 18 August 1902 and he returned to duty on 31 July 1903.

Where he served his time is a mystery as, according to his papers, he was with the regiment when they left South Africa for Singapore on 10 March 1903. Perhaps his imprisonment was of the “mobile” variety. After 1 year and 293 days in the Far East Tillyer was repatriated to England on 28 December 1904. On 21 June 1905, having completed seven years and 337 days with the Colours, he was placed on the Army Reserve. On 18 July 1909 his first period of engagement was finally over and he was discharged at Preston with a home address of 73 Fleming Road, Wins Avenue, Walthamstow. Tellingly, after spending 249 days of his career incarcerated, the comment on his conduct was “latterly good.” Perhaps he had mended his ways.

On 1 August 1908 he had married Minnie Stephenson, possibly it was her calming influence that steadied the rocky Tillyer ship. It wasn’t long before the 1911 England census called round, showing us that the little family had grown by one – the addition of Gladys Minnie Tillyer gladdening the hearts of her parents on 15 October 1909. The family now lived at 46 Shakespeare Road, Walthamstow. Tillyer was employed as a Pressman.

Three years later, on 4 August 1914, the Great War burst onto the international stage. Germany and her Axis were pitted against Great Britain and her Allies in a fight to the finish which would cost many millions in lives and last for almost five years. Tillyer wasn’t slow to put his hand up, enlisting with his old regiment on 3 September 1914 at the age of 37. Assigned no. 2958 and the rank of Private. His battalion served on the Western Front until leaving France on 10 December 1915, whereupon it moved to Mesopotamia, landing at Basra on 8 January 1916. The division moved to Egypt in March 1918 and later moved into Palestine; but Tillyer wasn’t with them for the duration. He had joined the 1st battalion on 27 March 1915 as part of the 11th reinforcements and had been posted to the 2nd battalion when the 1st departed from France. On 20 April 1916 he was employed as a 1st Line Bridge Guard. On 4 March 1917 he was sent to the 1st Army School of Mortars and was sent to England for demobilisation in February 1919.

In his Statement as to Disability completed at Preston on 20 February 1919, he claimed that he served in England on regimental duties from September 1914 until March 1915. He then went to France with the 1st Battalion, Manchesters from March 1915 until May 1916 and from May 1916 he was posted to P.B. Duties with the First Army School of Mortars. He stated that,

“I am suffering from a weak heart which I first noticed about 2 years ago which I think is due to “roughing it” in the line – and I have partly lost my hearing, this commenced about 3 months after I came out, and I attribute it to bombardment.”


The Mica Insulation factory where Tillyer worked until retirement

He added that he had never been in a hospital but had been treated at a Casualty Clearing Station where he was classified as P.B. in May 1916. He confirmed that, prior to enlistment, he was employed by Mr Mohr at Mica Insulation Co. in Walthamstow where he was a Hydraulic Pressman.

The medical board’s findings were: “Heart sounds normal but misses a beat every third. No organic murmur.” Apropos his hearing they said that: “Left ear – watch heard on contact only. Bone conduction absent. Ditto right ear.”

“His present condition is feebleness of the heart action and great improvement of hearing which in all probability was caused through as he states ‘Bombardment’” His degree of disablement was determined at 40%.

For his efforts Tillyer was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal and Allied Victory Medal.

Having returned home, relatively unscathed, Tillyer returned to his civilian employment. According to the 1939 Register, he was still employed, at the age of 63, as an Insulating Factory Hand. He was living at 265 Billet Road, Walthamstow along with his wife Minnie. He passed away in October 1959 at the age of 82 and was buried on 16 October in Chingford Mount Cemetery in Essex.

Thank you Rory, I found this a very interesting read, which shows that you have completed some fine research.

Kind regards

Ian

Totally agree with Ian's comment.