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Hello Brett,
As far as I am concerned, Ladysmith, will forever be named after that Spanish bride!
Kind regards Frank

Brett Hendey wrote: Fascinating pictures! Ladysmith has changed immensely and, unfortunately, not for the better.

Readers of this forum may not know that most municipalies in KwaZulu-Natal have new names. The Ladysmith Municipality is now named 'Emnambithi'.

The 'Siege of Emnambithi' somehow lacks appeal.

Brett

Copy of a map of Republic forces and their heliograph comms lines in and around Ladysmith. Map was copied from one at the SANDF Documentation Services.

From The Graphic, Saturday, December 23, 1899:

David,
Thank you for posting this, most interesting

Paul

djb wrote: From The Graphic, Saturday, December 23, 1899:

David

Thank you for posting the story of Harry and Lady Smith. It has been retold many times and remains a fact exceeding the most romantic of fictions. Given the trends in the New Democratic South Africa, Harrismith, Ladysmith (& Ladismith), and Aliwal may yet disappear from its maps, but there is a more subtle connection with the Smiths that, hopefully, will escape the attention of the thought police.

In South Africa, and perhaps elsewhere, there is a popular breakfast melon named 'spaanspek'. The word can be translated as 'Spanish bacon'. While the Smiths lived in the Cape, this melon was Lady Smith's preferred breakfast treat, and so it came to be referred to as 'Spanish bacon' in honour of this lovely lady's patronage of the fruit.

Regards
Brett

PS I do not accept any other theories about the origin of the name, 'spaanspek'.

Gentlemen,
As a Peninsular War collector, the story has always fasinated me, I did read "The Spanish Bride" whilst still at school.
Juana Maria de los Delores de leon, the future Lady Smith was just 14 years old when she met her very soon to be husband, they married within a few days!
This must have been a great step forward for, a perhaps, not so little girl, who was a poor orphan in a smashed home, Badajoz lay in ruins, I think she was very lucky indeed that the bloody fighting 95th contained such decent officers, many would have just taken advantage of the poor girl.
I always wondered what would have happened if Harry had just brought her home and imposed her onto his family and London society, if it were today, I suspect the police child protection unit and social services would have something to say about it, put on the register, to be examined at regular intervals!
Anyway, it was all 200 years ago, but again, quite fasinating!