TOPIC:

Joseph Thompson

Dangerously Wounded in Action – Tweebosch, 7 March 1902

Trooper, 15th Squadron (Northumberland), 5th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal (CC/OFS/TVL/SA1901/1902) to 29742 TPR: J. THOMSON. 6TH IMP: YEO:

Joe Thompson was born in 1882 in Byker Hill, a working class area of Newcastle in Northumberland. His father, James Thompson, previously a Police Constable, was a Toll Collector married to his mother, Catherine. Shortly after his birth the family relocated to Gateshead in Durham where, at the time of the 1891 England census, a 9 year old Joseph was at home in 30 Dorothy Street along with his parents and younger siblings, Jessie (7), Sarah (4) and Robert (2).

Having finished his rudimentary school education, Thompson obtained employment as a Groom with Clark & Chapman (Gateshead), manufacturers of water tube boilers and one of the largest manufacturers of cranes and other mechanical handling equipment in the world. It was here, after being in their employ for eighteen months, that he answered the call to arms at Newcastle on 7 February 1901.

By this time the Anglo Boer War – between the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State and the might of the British Empire – had been raging for over fourteen months with no end in sight. As far back as December 1899 the British forces in South Africa had experienced a rude awakening with three successive military setbacks – referred to as Black Week – and the call had gone out for the raising of a Yeomanry, civilian men with no military background, to volunteer for service alongside their Regular Army compatriots. This had led to, eventually, three contingents being raised across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

Service was to be for 1 year and the pay, superior to Regular Army pay, was set at 5/- per diem. Thompson, as he stood in the Recruiting Office, was part of the Second Contingent, the majority of whom received inadequate training in the art of war before being shipped off the front to face a resolute and experienced Boer fighter.

Claiming to be 21 years and 5 months old he was passed as Fit by the Doctor on 4 February and assigned no. 29742 and the rank of Trooper with the 15th Company (Northumberland) of the 5th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry. Physically he was 5 feet 9 inches in height, weighed 10 stone and had dark blue eyes, dark brown hair and a fair complexion. His next of kin was his father of 83 Marion Street, Gateshead.

Having sailed for South Africa he took to the field on arrival on 10 March 1901. The 5th Battalion was one of those heavily engaged against the Boers, especially in their heartland – the Western Transvaal – where, despite the many drives undertaken to hem them in to a corner and force their surrender, they were able to escape, regroup and strike against the columns deployed against them time and time again with, on the whole, great success.


Tweebosch and Surrounds

Probably the most famous action in which they participated was that of De Klipdrift, better known to the British as Tweebosch, on 7 March 1902. It was in this action that Thompson was Dangerously Wounded in Action. There are many accounts describing the cut and thrust of what amounted to a crushing British defeat but, for the purposes of this exercise, I have selected two versions – the first contained in Volume 70 of After Pretoria: The Guerilla War. With The Flag To Pretoria. The second is by Will Bennett in work on the Imperial Yeomanry, Absent Minded Beggars.

With the Flag to Pretoria: -

“At this juncture Lord Methuen determined to take the field once more and avenge the defeat which had befallen the convoy (Anderson’s). He gave orders for Kekewich to send a column of mounted men to Rooirantjiesfontein, which lies directly to the south of Lichtenburg, where this column would meet a force under Major Paris, coming from Vryburg, which he himself intended to accompany. Of the columns which would be operating to the south of Lichtenburg, that of Major Paris was by far the weakest. It was made up of a number of detachments from various corps and regiments, some of them largely composed of Dutchmen whose loyalty was dubious, others of unseasoned irregulars.

It included 300 Infantry of the Northumberland Fusiliers and 1st Loyal North Lancashires, 3 guns of the 4th and 38th Field Batteries, 2 “pom poms”, 257 of the Cape Police and British South Africa Police, 184 of the 5th Yeomanry, 110 of the 86th company of Yeomanry, apparently new levies; and of various South African irregular corps, the following numbers: Cullinan’s Horse (64); Dennison’s Scouts (58); Ashburner’s Light Horse (126) and Diamond Fields Horse (92). The total force was about 1250 men of whom 300 were unmounted, and 5 guns. With the column were 86 slow moving x and mule wagons.

It is difficult to discover what purpose there was in moving out with such a force to pursue De la Rey. Moreover the enemy in this part of the field could dispose of at least 3000 men in the event of an emergency. They could move faster than the British. With odds of three to one, and far greater mobility, there could be little doubt of the result of a conflict.

The march began on March 2 but the ground was so heavy that in the first four days progress, a distance of only 53 miles was covered, and a certain amount of sniping was encountered. On the morning of the 6th the column reached Leeuwspruit, and there more serious fighting began. A force of Boers hung upon the rearguard, sniping it at every opportunity. As there was some confusion, Lord Methuen went back to see what was happening, taking with him two guns. He found the men of the rear screen “very much out of hand and lacking both fire-discipline and knowledge of how to act.”

This was not a promising beginning; however the enemy were easily forced to retire by the shrapnel of the artillery, and the march as resumed. At 11.30 in the morning Tweebosch was reached, and there the column went into camp. The Boers who had been watching its march carefully, were now assembling on all sides of it. What their exact numbers were does not matter, they could easily bring 3000 men to bear against it. At 3 a.m. on the 7th, the first part of the convoy, the ox waggons, moved out of camp, with about 450 of the column as escort. The main body waited with the mule waggons for an hour and then followed in their steps. As an attack by the enemy was apprehended, Lord Methuen had directed Major Paris to place trustworthy men in the rearguard.


The Disaster at Tweebosch

At daybreak the expected happened, and the rearguard was heavily attacked. All available reinforcements were at once despatched to its support; one gun and a “Pom-Pom” opened on the Boers, while the 5th Yeomanry and Ashburner’s Light Horse extended on the flanks, so as to prevent the enemy from carrying out their obvious purpose of enveloping the rearguard and cutting it off.

The first section of the force with the ox waggons was at that moment about a mile in advance of the main body, the mule waggons with which were moving in four lines well closed up. Lord Methuen sent orders to his vanguard to halt, so that the whole force could concentrate, when it would be in a better position to meet the attack. Major Berange with the Cape Police was directed to reinforce the rear, to meet a fresh body of the enemy now showing in that quarter. Lord Methuen galloped off to the advance guard, which was heavily engaged, and there found the Infantry of the Northumberland Fusiliers extending to meet the enemy, who were threatening the whole right; the artillery with the advance had already taken up a position from which to repel the Boers; no mounted men could be seen, and it was assumed that they had moved to support the rearguard. There was considerable confusion, as the native drivers of the ox waggons could not be induced to stir, but had taken refuge from the bullets under the waggons. The column was therefore, as it were, anchored to the ground with the enemy in ever-increasing force all about it.

The attack on the rearguard grew in intensity. The enemy succeeded in forcing their way into the screen which covered the mule waggons, but as Cullinan’s and Ashburner’s Horse with the 5th Yeomanry were thrown into the fight, there progress was checked for a time. It was now about 5.30 a.m. when a fresh and more determined onset was delivered by the Boers upon the right rear and right flank, threatening to cut off the mounted troops, who were with difficulty holding their own, from the infantry and waggons. Such an attack was most disconcerting to the ill-disciplined men of some of the irregular units. To the consternation of all, the mounted screen began to give way. The confusion among the mounted men developed till it became a flight, and they tore back at full gallop past the British left and, unable to rally, rode off the field in the greatest disorder. The flight of the men did not cease till they regained the railway line many miles from the scene of the action.

As the British rear was rolled up, the attack on the infantry and the guns of the 4th battery grew in intensity. The enemy worked in to within 600 yards, or easy rifle range, of the artillery and shot the gunners down. While affairs were in this posture, Lord Methuen sent orders to such of the rearguard as remained to seize a kraal on the Leeuwkuil road, and hold it as a rallying point. Majors Paris and Berange accordingly occupied it with a handful of about 40 men. The resistance was protracted about Lord Methuen for nearly three hours after the mounted men had given way.

….. with the General shot down (Methuen had been shot in the thigh), and the Boer artillery already at work shelling the kraal in which Major Paris was still holding out, and preparing to open on the small handful of unwounded troops who still surrounded their fallen leader, surrender became inevitable. at about 9.35 the white flag went up. The casualties in the battle of Tweebosch were heavy: 68 officers and men were killed; 121 were wounded; and in addition to the wounded, who were all taken prisoner, 205 unwounded men were taken by the Boers.”

Will Bennett in the Absent Minded Beggar wrote about the battle thus: -

“As soon as Methuen heard of the capture of the convoy he prepared to march from his base at Vryburg, south of Mafeking, to prevent De la Rey escaping once more. By this stage of the conflict, most British columns were a heterogeneous mixture of regiments, but even by these standards the force which left Vryburg on 2 March was an extraordinary hotch-potch. Its 1300 men, 900 of them mounted, were drawn from fourteen different units, some of them of very questionable fighting quality. Most of the mounted troops were South African colonials, including some surrendered Boers. More than 300 were Imperial Yeomanry, made up of 184 men from various companies of the 5th Battalion, 110 from the 86th (Rough Riders) Company and some from the 43rd (Suffolk) Company. The Rough Riders were mostly a raw draft recently sent out by their organising committee from England and were unfit to take on the experienced Boer fighters.

Methuen believed that De la Rey would try to escape north-westwards to the Marico district. he proposed to prevent this by linking up with a 1500-strong column sent from Klerksdorp at a rendezvous 17 miles south of Lichtenburg. Methuen’s column was a natural target for De la Rey as it marched north-eastwards. Not only were many of the men likely to flee in the face of a determined assault but Methuen was also burdened with 39 ox wagons and 46 mule wagons and his progress with unfit animals through an arid region where water was hard to find was painfully slow.

On 6 March there was an ominous development when a small Boer force under Van Zyl harassed the column as it approached Tweebosch. “I found the men forming the rear screen, which consisted of the 86th Company Imperial Yeomanry , very much out of hand and lacking fire discipline and knowledge of how to act,” Methuen told Kitchener. Van Zyl’s commando was driven off and the column camped for the night at Tweebosch. Van Zyl didn’t go far, linking up with De la Rey and bringing up his strength to almost 2000 men who had with them the British artillery captured at Yzerspruit.

De la Rey waited until daybreak before launching his attack at 5 a.m. as the head of the column reached De Klip Drift on the Great Hart’s River. His skirmishers first assaulted the rearguard on the open, undulating plain and then a more serious attack on the right flank of the main convoy began. The Imperial Yeomanry from the 43rd Company and the 5th Battalion formed an inner screen around the mule convoy and alongside the ox convoy, the latter having halted as the terrified natives sought safety under their wagons. Three lines of Boer horsemen galloped across the plain, leapt from their horses and opened fire on the defenders and at 6.30 a.m. the 43rd Company was ordered to reinforce the right rear where the attack was at its fiercest. The yeomen never got as far as the outer firing line because De la Rey unleashed a fourth line of attackers. These did not dismount, galloping in firing from the saddle and slicing through the outer defences. Panic broke out among the colonial troops and they fled on horseback, meeting the reinforcing yeomanry coming up the slope. Some of the yeomen turned and galloped away with them but others held firm and formed a defensive line in front of the mule convoy.


Methuen rallying his men

The mass of fugitives swept along the left flank of both the mule and ox wagons sucking more troops into the rout, including the 86th Company which fled without having fired a shot. Those yeomen who had remained on the right flank of the mule convoy were quickly overwhelmed, the Boers charging through them and capturing the wagons. Then the whole Boer force descended on the ox convoy guarded by regular gunners and infantrymen led by Methuen, who himself became a casualty when his leg was broken by a bullet. His men fought well but no amount of personal bravery could retrieve the force from disaster and they eventually had to surrender. Major Archibald Paris tried to rally some of the fleeing mounted troops, but only 40 yeomanry and Cape Police gathered with him in a cattle kraal a mile further up the road. They defended it for two hours before shell fire from the guns captured at Yzerspruit made further resistance impossible.”

Thompson’s wounding, along with all the other casualties in the action, was confirmed in The Newcastle Daily Journal of 17 March 1902. He was also reported as “missing” but this was corrected in the Shields Daily News of 28 May 1902 which, “ To the lists of casualties at Klipdrift on March 7, the officer commanding the 6th Battalion, I.Y. reports Thompson, 15th Company, was reported missing in error.”

Interestingly, the casualty returns have his rank as Sergeant although there is no mention of a promotion in his service record.

Recovering from his wounds, Thompson continued on in South Africa returning to the United Kingdom on 9 September 1902 whereafter he was discharged after 1 year 221 days service, on 15 September 1902. His conduct and character were rated as Good. Nothing further is known about him.

Acknowledgements:
- B.N.A. for various newspaper reports
- Absent Minded Beggars by Will Bennett
- With the Flag to Pretoria Volume 70