TOPIC:

In my last exploration of Innovation in the ABW I examined the role of railways in conflict (through the lens of the Railway Pioneer Regiment) and argued for reframing the Boer war as primarily a railway war.

This month I continue investigating this theme by examining the 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers (Railway) Volunteer Corps, a unit not previously mentioned on this forum, and specifically the 8th Railway Company, Royal Engineers, to which they were aligned.

Having lived in Cheshire several years ago, it was interesting to explore the contribution, unknown to me before staring this research, of the Cheshire town of Crewe.
As ever, I also wanted to resurrect the activities and stories that others have lived, and service they have contributed.
This journey, tracing the simple threads of history, continues to educate and surprise in equal measure.


From Workshop to Warfare : Crewe Engineers in the Boer War - Walter Johnson with the 8th Railway Coy, RE

24275 2nd Cpl Walter Johnson, 8th Company, Royal Engineers

late 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers (Railway) Volunteer Corps

QSA: Belmont / Modder River / Orange Free State / Transvaal
Also entitled KSA SA01/ SA02 clasps (WO-100-316_02 p. 8)
Topics: Crewe, Cheshire / 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers (Railway) Volunteer Corps / Crewe response to War / 8th Railway Company RE / Belmont / Modder River/ Strategic importance of Bridges / Blockhouses / Crewe Response to Return

1/ Walter Johnson's Early life

Walter Johnson was born in April 1866 in Blymhill, Staffordshire – a village of 600 people earning a living as tenant farmers and labourers and in agricultural trades. His story explores industrialisation, the British civic response to the Boer war, and the role of specialist reserve units featured in the conflict.

His father, John, a Wood Ranger and Forester, had married Jane Mansell of Blymhill in June 1865. Walter was the eldest child and would be joined by siblings Annie (1868), Elizabeth Mary (1870) and William (1878). In 1881 the family live at Ivetsey Bank in Blymhill with Walter, now 14, well above the legal school leaving age of 10, bringing in family income by working as a Farmer’s Boy. Six years later, in 1887, his mother, Jane, dies, perhaps triggering a change of circumstances for the 21-year-old Walter.

In the late the nineteenth century the pattern of changing employment, from agricultural to industrial occupations, had been underway for more than 100 years. Walter was not immune. In 1890 the railway in Britain employed 800,000 people - approximately 8% of the workforce - and the extensive railworks in the Cheshire town of Crewe, just 30 miles north of Walter’s home, would hold a powerful attraction for someone seeking a different life than that of farmyard and field.

We find Walter in March 1889, aged 23, marring Mary Durrant, age 17, in Nantwich, just west of Crewe. The couple will live in Crewe with his working life orientated around the railway from this point forwards. By November that year Walter is a platelayer – someone who inspects, maintains and repairs rail track. By August the following year, Walter is a Brakesman for the London and Northwestern Railway.

The year 1891 finds the couple living at Railway St, Crewe (200 ft from the station) with Walter broadening his railway experience by now working as a Railway Goods Guard.


2/ Crewe, the Railways and the Town

Crewe’s transformation into a railway town had commenced 50 years before Walter’s arrival when, in 1837, the Grand Junction Railway chose Crewe as the site for its locomotive works, transforming it from small rural village into a major railway centre.

The Crewe Works grew rapidly. By 1900 it covered over 150 acres and employed over 7,000 people. While Swindon was the powerhouse of the Great Western Railway, Crewe became the heart of the London and Northwestern Railway (LNWR).

Late Victorian industrial workers in the UK often had a strong sense of patriotism, shaped by pride in British industry, empire, and technological progress. Many saw their work as contributing to the nation’s power and global influence.


Crewe works, 1890s

These two themes - the railway and patriotism - were to find expression both in the formation of the ‘Railway Volunteers’ in Crewe, and then in the town providing more men per head of population to the Boer War than any other town in England and Wales (Potts et al, 2009).



3/ The Formation of the Cheshire Railway Volunteers, RE

Volunteer Corps proliferated across Britain from the 1860s, as a response to possible French invasion. In 1887, Crewe’s railway expertise led its locomotive superintendent, Francis Webb, to suggest to Sir Richard Moon, Chairman of the LNWR, that a specialist Royal Engineers unit should be created from the town’s railway workers to provide rail infrastructure, engineering and operations.

Formed in April 1887, the 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers (Railway) Volunteer Corps, known locally as ‘the Railway Volunteers’ were the only reserve unit in the British Army recruited entirely from a single employer. Its uniform featured a collar insignia of the 3000th locomotive to roll off the production line in Crewe.

At formation, eight hundred men applied, with only the best selected from the Engine drivers, firemen, boilermakers, riveters, fitters, smiths, pointsmen, office workers and platelayers in the firm. In November 1889, we find Walter, age 23 and 5 ft 5 inches, signing an attestation form and accepted into the Railway Volunteers.

The Volunteers held annual training camps in the sand dunes at Blackpool and Rhyl, practicing track laying and bridge building exercises. Shooting practise was at Holmes Chapel. The service obviously suited Walter as, 6 years later, in 1895, he reengages for a further 5 years.



1894 Cheshire Railway Volunteers annual camp with trestle bridge building exercise; and Nantwich Road, Crewe 1900

4/ The Cheshire Railway Volunteers Mobilise

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, seven thousand miles away from these bridge building antics in South Africa, tensions over goldfields, immigrant British worker’s rights and strategic dominance in the region were building between the Boer republics (the Transvaal and Orange Free state) and Britain, leading to conflict in October 1899.

The Military had recognised rapid transportation would be key to success over the distances the conflict was expected to take place over. Transportation of material and troops at volume and pace required a functioning rail network. A functioning rail network required engineering skill to maintain, re-build and operate rail infrastructure. The Railway Volunteers' skills were shortly to be tested.

The early hours of Sunday October 8th, 1899 (three days before the declaration of war) brought the widely-expected call for mobilisation of the Railway Volunteers, with 105 men, including Walter, being called to Brompton Barracks in Chatham for kitting out by the 17th October. Walter is aligned to the 8th Company Royal Engineers, with other members of the Railway Volunteers aligned to the 10th and 31st Companies Royal Engineers, already in South Africa.

Over the next 3 years an additional 400 Crewe men served in many units, but majority in the Royal Engineers via the Railway Volunteers.


In the week following mobilisation notice the various ‘shops’ in Crewe rail works held send offs for those who had been mobilised. On Saturday, most of the volunteers attended the football match between Crewe Alexandria and Horwich, with the crowd providing an ovation. That evening a party for the Volunteers was held at the Royal Hotel, with much speechifying, singing and toasts.

On Monday 14th October 1899, Crewe works and local shops were asked to close until 2pm so workers could attend the volunteer’s departure. Bunting and Union flags decorated the streets. By 8am the streets were packed with locals and well-wishers from the nearby towns of Chester, Northwich, Congleton, Sandbach and Nantwich.

All vantage points were occupied – streetlamps, chimney stacks and roofs. The crowd reached 75,000 (in context of Crewe’s population being 42,000). As the volunteers assembled, the mayor addressed them, the national anthem was sung, several times, hats were thrown into the air, a band struck up, but was drowned out by the noise, and rambunctious chaos descended.


Crewe High St, October 14th 1899, sending off the Reserves

The Volunteers were initially unable to move to the station because of the press of the crowd but slow progress brought them to the platform for their 11.30 departure (not before the throng had broken the gates off the station in their enthusiasm to crowd the platform). The crowd spilled onto the tracks to get a better view. Several women fainted. Crewe had seen off its best, in fine style.

There was to be no return to work at 2pm for the townsfolk – the moulding shop in the Works saw only one diligent fellow return, out of 400 expected. It’s to be hoped he was sent home.

The celebrations continued into the night.

The Volunteers headed south with well-wishers lining the route to Chatham, Kent, where they were kitted out in Khaki. They left 4 days later for Southampton with thousands again lining the streets to see them embark on the SS Malta.


5/ Engineers and 8th Railway Company in South Africa

The 8th Company R.E. had arrived in the Cape in July 1899 and were tasked with line maintenance and manning armoured trains running the 600 miles north of the Cape to De Aar.

Royal Engineers provided strategic support enabling the war to become a mobile, railway-driven campaign.

Specifically, they provided:

• Bridge building and repair (at speed)
• Railway construction and protective infrastructure
• Telegraph and communication line laying
• Water supply, fortification and mapping

The 8th Company, with the reinforcements from the Railway Volunteers, were to support Lord Methuen’s column of 8,500 moving northwards along the railway line after 14th November 1899 to relieve the besieged town of Kimberley.


The rail line to Kimberley traces line of travel and contest for the Northwards route.

The 8th Railway Company ran to a strength of c.170 –3 officers, 30 Jnr and Snr NCOs, 140 Sappers and attached trades such as fitters, blacksmiths, engine drivers and clerks — often brought in from civil railways or recruited locally.

In case any were in doubt about the danger they were to shortly be in, the day of the Railway Volunteers arrival in South Africa ominously coincided with the ambush and derailment of one armoured train, with 58 prisoners taken (including Winston Churchill).


6/ Belmont, Graspan and Modder River

The first engagement for Walter, and those of the 8th Company, was to be November 23rd at Belmont station, around 450 miles north of Cape town, where 2,000 Boers, commanded by Pinsloo, awaited the British advance on two nearby hills.

The Guards and the 9th Brigade attacked each hill, whilst under heavy fire, and cleared both, with the Boer force retreating towards Graspan around 10 miles north, where the same pattern repeated. British casualties were 550 across both engagements.

It’s clear that the 8th Company were in danger. One account from the 8th Company states ‘we were about a mile off the battle which was a terrible slaughter.... afterwards was an awful sight as they brought in the killed and wounded. Some were shot through the head and others through the legs and arms. It was something terrible.’

Cpl. Wolfe of the 8th Company tells us ‘during the battle we got out and lay each side of the train in skirmishing order. The armoured train had many narrow escapes being hit. Bill Burns and five or more Crewe men are on it. Some of the Crewe lads took ammunition to the naval Gunners, several having narrow escapes’.

Cpl Brereton of the 31st Company, R.E., working alongside the 8th Company, reports ‘After the battle, they brought in the dead and wounded of the British troops and Boer alike. I helped lift a great many of the killed and wounded out of the ambulance. One fellow had half his head blown clean away, another was shot in the face.

We had a narrow escape. We were out repairing the line and a mounted trooper rode up and told us there were about 3,000 Boers up the line. The minute they saw us they opened fire. We had to retreat smartly’.

Alongside the 8th Company’s first experience of combat, Belmont and Graspan were to provide early experience of railway sabotage that was to feature heavily in the war. Sapper Foy, later be the first Crewe works man killed, tells us ‘The Boers lifted some of the rails, so that we would have to stop and repair it. The wires were cut all over the place’.

Two days later saw the next engagement at the junction of the Modder and Riet rivers, 8 miles further north from Graspan, where a Boer force of 3,500 having learned the lessons of Belmont where their position on the high ground made them an easier target for artillery, chose to entrench on flat ground on the south and north banks of the Rivers. For those on the south bank closest to the British, three fords (at Bosmans drift, near the rail bridge and at Rosmead isle) afforded a crucial route for retreat.

The British advance started at 4am with first contact before 5.30am. With the 9th Brigade on the left and Guards to the right, the battle is one of advance and counter, attempts to cross the river and strong defence. Eventually, relentless pressure brought the Argyll and Sutherlands and KOYLI, under the leadership of Major General Pole Carew, to the north bank and the village of Rosmead, which they held for several hours in intense fighting.

Those who crossed included 300 Royal Engineers - the 31st Fortress Company and the 8th Railway Company.

Sapper Brocklehurst describes it as ‘a terrible affair. We were right among the fire line. Both the 8th and 31st companies were soon in amongst it. Shots were flying all around us and we had to go through a river up to our waists. Our troops lost heavily, and one engineer was wounded - Corporal Wilkinson dropped just by me.’


Upper: Stylised Lithograph of Modder & Lower:Plan of the Battle

Sapper Swinwood of the 8th Company describes being ‘in skirmishing order at 4:00 AM but they were not satisfied and ordered us to support the left flank. We had to cross the river waist deep and we just got across when a volley came into us and Wilkinson (a carpenter from Crewe works) got shot in the leg. The engagement lasted 14 hours and we were out all that time without food. They say the engineers do not fight, but don't they? We know better.’

As night fell the engineers, alongside the KOYLI and Loyal North Lancashires, were posted to defend Rosmead whilst the 9th Brigade crossed the river in the dark to consolidate the hold on the North bank. By dawn the whole command had crossed the river, finding darkness had also bought time for a strategic withdrawal of the Boer forces.

British losses for the day were 75 killed and 413 wounded, whilst Boer losses were estimated at 150.


Upper: The Argylls crossing the River / Lower: Walking wounded after the battle, Nov 1899.

Sapper Evans, 8th Company said ‘I have seen all three battles so far and there are scores of dead horses all over the place. They don't half smell with the hot sun. It was lucky I got 6d worth of camphor and a bottle of chlorodyne before we left Chatham. They have found us plenty of work, we have to repair every bridge that the line goes over as they try to blow them up, and yards of the line they have broken up and dragged away in the fields’.

7/ Strategic Importance of Bridges

The withdrawal of the Boer forces from Modder meant no respite for the Engineers.

In this war of movement with forces following the path of railways, bridges were of strategic importance, since their destruction could significantly slow or even paralyse movement. The Boers understood this perfectly and a destroyed bridge afforded opportunity to regroup, retreat, or strike elsewhere.

The wide availability of dynamite to the Boers from the Modderfontein dynamite factory, built in 1896, leant itself to widespread bridge demolition. Through the Orange Free State, major railway bridges over the Modder River and the Vaal Rivers, totalling 61 bridges and 35 culverts, were badly damaged.

Countering this paralysing destruction meant engineering solutions and workarounds to keep rail traffic moving at pace. The role of the Engineers was then key to the northwards advance.

Walters (2024) describes the work of the RE as significant in the early phases of British advance stating the ‘speed with which they completed the repairs of the damaged railway bridges and railway lines contributed to the unrelenting pressure that the British Army was able exert on the Boer forces’.

Temporary repairs were rapidly completed by Royal Engineer construction teams, working day and night under electric floodlights. The normal repair protocol was to create a temporary workaround, either a timber structure or pontoon bridge (constructed in some cases in less than a day), enabling forward momentum to be maintained by columns, and then to follow this up with more permanent reconstruction taking several months.


Royal Engineers preparing rail infrastructure and pontoon bridges to cross the Modder River after the Battle.[/i]

Following the battle at Modder River the Royal Engineers (including the 7th, 11th and 8th Companies), knowing speed was crucial, had a pontoon bridge built in 2 hours. The column was to take a further 5 days to reorganise and proceed North.

The 8th Company remained behind to complete a more substantial deviation bridge (seen on photos below) by December 10th, build redoubts on either side the river for defence, and then repair the original dynamited permanent bridge.


The science of workarounds – 17 days to design and build the deviation bridge (Sources – Photo ABW Forum and Internet).

The original rail bridge at Modder was fully repaired on April 3rd, by which time Robert’s advance north had reached Bloemfontein, though a typhoid-stricken force caused a further pause before moving on to the Transvaal capital of Pretoria.

A letter in the Crewe chronicle from a member of the 8th Company describes ‘fighting at Graspan and Belmont. After Modder we went on to Mafeking and after doing useful work returned to De Aar and then up through the Free State and the Transvaal. Here we had not only exceedingly hard work to do but some very severe fighting’.



8/ Walter’s Home Service and 2nd Deployment

Walter was to return to the UK in July 1900, shortly after the Boer Capitals were captured.

The men of the Railway Volunteers continued to be engaged through this time. Potts et al (2008) states these were ‘dangerous times for the Railway Companies, often working on lines in isolated parts and prone to attack’ (p.85).

The reason for Walter’s return to the UK is not clear - he isn’t among casualty lists, and his 12 years’ service didn’t complete until November 1901. Recent discussion on the Anglo Boer war forum indicates that rotation from South Africa for other ranks was a spectacularly rare, perhaps unique, occurrence.

One possible explanation is that he had contracted Typhoid. The timing and location would make this a plausible reason for Walter’s movement. I can find one other RE sapper (with the 31st Company at Modder River) who was also rotated back to the UK and was later to return to South Africa which may lend credibility to this rationale.

The Guerrilla war dragged wearily on into 1901 with farm burning and populations being moved to concentration camps. Engineering skills were increasingly in demand to build the network of 9000 blockhouses, mostly alongside railway lines, to curtail Boer movement.

By mid-March 1901 a second contingent of Crewe Railway Volunteers had been mobilised. Whatever the reason for Walter’s return in 1900, Thursday March 14th, 1901, found him on the SS St. Andrew heading south for the 2nd time in 2 years. He is promoted to Corporal on this date.

In Walter’s first tour in South Africa, the work of the 8th Company RE had been to engineer solutions that would enable (British) mobility by rebuilding rail infrastructure and bridges.

In contrast Walter’s second engagement would require engineering solutions now to curtail (Boer) mobility in the Guerrilla phase, by building Blockhouses along the line of the railway to control territory, protect supply lines, and restrict movement.

Enhancing friendly mobility and impeding enemy mobility, (phrased 'Mobility, Counter-mobility, and Survivability' in modern operation) is a widely accepted military engineering principle.

What makes Walter's service interesting is that his two periods of service (and probably clasp eligibility) neatly frame the two sides of military engineering work.


Blockhouse - under construction and in use.

Sapper Tandy of the 10th Railway Company gives a sense of the work of the engineers at this time: ‘we have been erecting an electric fence to keep the Boers from crossing and getting into the Bush Veldt, Northern Transvaal. If they tamper with the wire, it rings a bell at the blockhouses on either side. It is not very nice scrambling amongst the wire at night when there is sniping going on… ‘

The construction of blockhouses, which restricted Boer mobility, (alongside use of concentration camps and systematic burning of farms), cut off supplies, and undermined Boer capacity to sustain guerrilla warfare, ultimately forcing surrender.



9/ Final return to Crewe of the Railway Volunteers – 1902

The war concluded in May 1902 with the Vereeniging treaty, though it was not to be until July 1902 that Walter, alongside 43 other members of the Railway Volunteers were to depart South Africa. A party of 179 members of the Railway Volunteers were to remain on (including new detachments sent after the initial call up) only to return to Crewe in August.

The return echoed the scenes of departure with the station overrun by excited townsfolk. A band arrived and the men were lifted shoulder high and carried along Nantwich Road to Market Square, where 25,000 were now gathered before the men made their way to their respective homes.

The Crewe Guardian of August 1902 takes up the narrative:

‘Colonel Jodrell congratulated the men in the name of the battalion upon the splendid service which they had rendered, and the great honour which they had thus conferred upon the corps and the town generally. He was glad to see them all looking so well after so many months of hard work; and he felt personally proud to be in command of a corps of volunteers who had responded so loyally to their country's call.

Decorations were carried out to quite an elaborate scale and nothing could have exceeded the warmth of the reception accorded to the men by their immediate friends and neighbours. Scenes of remarkable enthusiasm were witnessed in different parts of the town as each man arrived at his home’.

The service shown by the Railway Volunteers was recognised by the creation of a Memorial by subscription, a detachment attending the Kings coronation in August 1902, and a meal for all volunteers at Crewe town hall.

Of the 500 Crewe men that were to serve across all units, 26 were killed in the conflict. Of this 26, 10 were Railway Volunteers, 5 of which died from Typhoid.

The Cheshire Railway Volunteer unit was to continue until March 1912 when it was disbanded as a result of Army reforms. Two years later, the First World War was to drive the requirement once again for specialist Railway Companies. Accompanying the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914 was the 8th Railway Company, RE. Eight other Railway companies were to be needed before the war's conclusion.

10/ Later Life

A few scant traces in genealogical records indicate 2 differing potential conclusions to Walter’s life narrative following his discharge from the Volunteer Corps, in August 1902.

The first outcome is found in LNWR employment records, where someone called Walter with an obscured surname, though his exact birthdate, has a scribbled note next to the name stating ‘Died Apr 4/09’. No death record exists for this date.

An alternative, possible, outcome is in the 1921 census where Walter Johnson, born in Staffordshire in the correct year, and married to Mary Johnson, also showing the correct age is living in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, 9 miles east of Crewe.

This alternative Walter Johnson is described as a Boiler Maker at a Coal and Iron producer, an entirely plausible trade for someone with railway and RE experience. This Walter would survive until 1932, age 62.

I’d like to think that after his two tours with the 8th Railway Company Walter had been able to enjoy a protracted life, though if history holds any lesson, it is that it doesn’t respect fairness.

Whatever may be the outcome of this life narrative, thank you, Walter Johnson and all Crewe Railway Volunteers, for your service and contribution.



Select Bibliography


Maurice, F., 1906. History of the War in South Africa 1899‑1902. Volume I. London: Hurst and Blackett.
Potts, M., Marks, T. & Curran, H. (2009) From Crewe to the Cape: Diary of a Railway Town During the Boer War 1899–1902.
Walters, D (2024) Repairs by the Royal Engineers of the railway destruction during the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902. War Museum of the Boer Republics Journal, [online]. Available at: wmbr.org.za/wp-content/uploads/Repairs-b...e-Anglo-Boer-War.pdf
Spiers, E. M., 2015. “Railways on the Veld: The South African War, 1899–1902.” In: Engines for Empire: The Victorian Army and its Use of Railways.
Wilson, A. H. J. (1993). The railway war: A study and assessment of the British defeat of the Boer guerillas, South Africa, 1899-1902

A fascinating post. Many thanks, JoMeer.

I’ve had an interest in the 2ND CHESHIRE ROYAL ENGINEERS (RAILWAY VOLUNTEERS) for many years with representative medals in my collection. I made a minor contribution to Mark Potts et als “From Crewe To The Cape” which is a very comprehensive and informative read.

JoMeer in his narrative above mentions a Sapper Foy. Many of his letters home are quoted in “From Crewe to the Cape” along with a faded photograph of him and the official letter notifying Foy’s mother of his death from Enteric on 16th April 1900. His QSA with 2 clasps has been in my collection for over 20 years.



The “Railway Volunteers” were not “ordinary” Volunteers. That is, they were not Volunteers as we usually encounter them - members of the Volunteer Force who volunteered 1900-1902 and formed an Active Service Company attached to a unit of the British Army in South Africa. “Ordinary” Volunteers had no obligation to serve abroad.

The difference is that the Railway Volunteers on a day took the Queen’s shilling and consented to military service. From the outset, they, along with the Post Office Corps and Electrical Engineers were to form reserves, all trained up, who would be called out for active service at any time.




Walter Johnson’s enlistment form spells out precisely what they were signing up to. Page 1 details that, on the day, they have signed up for 3 years active service and 3 years in the reserve. BUT page 3 shows within days of attesting they are transferred to the Army Reserve.
In essence they are hooked in for 6 years in the Army Reserve, for which they will receive some payment (a sapper 6d/day), but with the obligation to turn out for active service when ordered.



At the expiration of 6 years they had the option to re-enlist.


There is more convoluted stuff to be said but I’m stopping there. I might come back to it

Pete