Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers

LAST Outpost on the Zu lu Frontiers Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison

Graham Dominy Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers

Dominy_Text.indd 1 1/22/16 3:01 PM T he History of Military Occupation

Edited by John Laband and Ian F. W. Beckett

A list of books in the series appears at the end of this book.

Dominy_Text.indd 2 1/22/16 3:01 PM Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers

Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison

Graham Dominy

U niversity of Illinois Press Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield

Dominy_Text.indd 3 1/22/16 3:01 PM © 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America c 5 4 3 2 1 ∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dominy, G. A. (Graham Andrew) Title: Last outpost on the Zulu frontiers : Fort Napier and the British imperial garrison / Graham Dominy. Description: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2016. Series: The history of military occupation Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015035921| ISBN 9780252040047 (cloth : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780252098246 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Garrisons—South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal— History. | Fort Napier (South Africa)—History. | Frontier and pioneer life—South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal. | British— South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal—History. | Colonists— South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal—History. | Soldiers—South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal—History. | Imperialism—Social aspects—South Africa—KwaZulu-Natal—History. | KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)—Colonization—History. | KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)—History, Military. | Great Britain—Colonies—Africa—History. | BISAC: HISTORY / Military / General. | HISTORY / Africa / South / Republic of South Africa. | HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain. Classification: LCC U375.S6 D65 2016 | DDC 355.709684/75—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035921

Dominy_Text.indd 4 2/18/16 10:20 AM For Anne, with love Sine qua non

Dominy_Text.indd 5 1/22/16 3:01 PM Dominy_Text.indd 6 1/22/16 3:01 PM In the town itself the streets were prickly with waxed moustaches. Blanco and brass polish stood high on the list of life’s necessities. In the Imperial Hotel the mornings and afternoons were liquid among potted plants and wicker chairs with the music of a Palm Court orchestra. Sam Browne belts and whalebone waist pinchers restrained the officers and their wives who listened to the whine of the violins and recalled the shires and parishes of England with thankful melancholy. Many would never return and those who stayed and were not buried in the military cemetery in Fort Rapier would build their houses as close to the Gover- nor’s mansion as their seniority and overdrafts allowed. While the garrison stayed Piemburg prospered. Piemburg was even, briefly, gay. The Garrison Theatre was made brilliant by performances of plays and revues that bred one great English actor and playwright and charmed the Governor and his wife. Bazaars and garden parties were bright with the parasols and bustles of wives who had been swept from the terraced suburbs and semi-detached houses of South London to the grandeur of the lawns and shrubberies of Piemburg by the surprising good fortune of having married husbands whose mediocrity won for them the reward of being posted to this distant sliver of the empire. The taste of the Victorian lower middle class imposed itself indelibly on Piemburg and has stayed there to this day. And with the taste there came an immutable sense of hierarchy. Viceroys, governors, generals, vice-governors, colonels, down the ranks swept, broadening as they went, through nuances too subtle to enumerate, where schools and wives’ fathers’ professions and a dropped aspirate or one retained “g” could cause a major to step in an instant above a lieutenant-colonel. At the bottom of the scale came private soldiers in the pay corps. Below these pariahs there was nothing left. Zulus competed with Pondos, Coloureds with Indians. What happened down there was simply nobody’s concern. All that one had to know was that somewhere even lower than the loyal Zulus and the treacherous Pondos there were the Boers.

—Tom Sharpe, Riotous Assembly

Dominy_Text.indd 7 1/22/16 3:01 PM Dominy_Text.indd 8 1/22/16 3:01 PM Contents

Preface xi Acknowledgments xxi Technical Notes xxv

1. Fort Napier: A Garrison among Garrisons 1 2 From Whence They Came: An Overview of Queen Victoria’s Army 10 3. Establishing an Imperial Presence: Bayside Battles, Diplomacy, Women’s Revolts, and the Reluctant March on Maritzburg 23 4. Building a Fort: Plans, Impermanence, and Imperial Policies 34 5. Pageantry, Pioneers, Panics and Punitive Expeditions: The Pivotal Role of the Garrison in Creating a Colonial State, 1840s–1860s 44 6. Ceremonies and Crises: The Garrison in the Established Colony, 1860s–1890s 58

Dominy_Text.indd 9 1/22/16 3:01 PM 7. Soldiers in Garrison: Discipline, Indiscipline, and Mutiny 79 8. The Inniskilling Fusiliers: Bandits, Brawlers, or Mutineers? 93 9. The Garrison and the Wider Society: Placing the “Rough and the Respectable” in the Colonial Context 108 10. “For the Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady Are Sisters under Their Skins”: Class and Gender Relationships in the Garrison 128 11. Spending the Queen’s Shilling: The Economic Influence of the Natal Garrison 143 12. The Garrison and the State: Changing Relationships of Power 160 13. Recessional: The Last of the Garrison, the Fate of the Fort, and Its Place in Folk Memories 178

Appendix. List of Regiments in Garrison in Natal/Pietermaritzburg, 1842–1914 191 Note on Sources 195 Notes 199 Bibliography 235 Index 267

Illustrations follow page 142

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The Whys and Wherefores

The “Last Outpost”: Why the Fort Napier Garrison? Military occupations during wartime are the stuff of drama and trauma and expose many fault lines in the occupied societies. German-occupied France during World War II is an obvious example, yet such occupations are often of relatively short duration. Colonial occupations are often longer-lasting, and their impact can be more varied. The British military presence in Natal lasted for seventy-one years, and it has had a sustained and profound impact on surrounding societies. The occupation of Fort Napier was the longest British occupation of a single fort in South Africa (with the exception of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town), and almost certainly in the whole of Africa. It profoundly influenced the heterogeneous communities around it, and its influence lasted long after British withdrawal. The duration of the occupation of Fort Napier even exceeded the British military occupation of their most important base in Ireland on the Cur- ragh, in County Kildare, by four years.1 This study focuses on the underplayed peacetime role of the Natal garrison, but comparisons will also be drawn with other imperial garrisons in North America, the Mediterranean, and Australasia. Halifax, Nova Scotia, protected an important North Atlantic naval base and what are now known as the Canadian Maritime provinces. It was also a garrison of considerable longevity. Gibraltar, at the western end of the Mediterranean, was also a critical naval base and has an

Dominy_Text.indd 11 1/22/16 3:01 PM even greater longevity as a garrison. In Australia, Bathurst in New South Wales and Port Arthur in Van Diemens Land (now Tasmania) were convict stations with small military garrisons. Auckland in New Zealand shared a characteristic with Fort Napier in that it protected settlers from a powerful indigenous foe. Natal, as one of four provinces in white-voting and white-ruled South Africa, was the most English and pro-British of all and voted overwhelmingly against the establishment of the Afrikaner-dominated republic in 1961. The other white-ruled provinces joked, with weary resignation, about the “Last Outpost.” So what is the origin of the term, outside the caricature cemented into the chants of rugby fans at big matches? The term can be traced to an unpublished memoir penned in 1943 by one of the scions of settler notability, Denis Shepstone, the administrator of the Prov- ince of Natal and grandson of the famous colonial administrator, Sir Theophilus Shepstone.2 The use of the phrase in public discourse apparently began in 1970, when the New Zealand All Black rugby team was touring South Africa, shortly before the anti-apartheid sports boycotts took effect. Not a single Natal player had been selected for the national Springbok rugby team. Tommy Bedford, the most prominent Natal player, said, somewhat bitterly, at a banquet in Durban in honor of the visiting New Zealanders, “Welcome to the last outpost of the British Empire.”3 The sport of rugby had been brought to Natal by the troops of the garrison, and the ideologies of empire were underpinned by the garrison. The after-effects of the prolonged occupation of the garrison still resonate, and its study might go some way to explaining the soubriquet. “The Last Outpost” in relation to Natal and its hankering after a vanished imperial past resonates with similar yearnings in Australia. Craig Wilcox has coined the phrase “red coat dreaming” to describe the study of widespread respect for the army—of basking in victories won and last stands endured, of barracking loudly from the sidelines as the troops went to war, of occasional enlistments and living among veterans, of the way almost no one was quite immune to the beguiling color and historic associations of the red coat.4

The Context in South Africa Colonization changes the historical geography of a colonized country and the fate of its peoples. It also demands urban functions such as seaports, governmental centers, and garrisons that increase the density of urban life, as numerous suppliers, retailers, and craftsmen are required to service such institutions.5 The economy and culture of a garrison town differs significantly from that of a rural

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Dominy_Text.indd 12 1/22/16 3:01 PM market town, a mining camp, or a seaport. These are all urban formations with particular characteristics, generated in the process of colonization. So too is a garrison town, but certainly in the case of Pietermaritzburg, the role of the military has been underplayed or over-romanticized. In the South African context, the eastern Cape has provided several studies, ranging from the traditionalist view in the work on Fort Stokes by A. W. Burton to the more inclusive work by Denver Webb, which examines garrisons in a broader context. Webb demonstrates the impact of forts on the Xhosa and on the Cape governor Sir Harry Smith’s hopes that the forts would become “islands” dis- seminating “civilizing” influence.6 Other studies of the eastern frontier include those on Queenstown and the frontier forts as trading posts and an urban history of King William’s Town during the Anglo-Boer War.7 By contrast, writings on the garrison at Fort Napier have been romantic or minimal within the context of an overhistoricized province with a strong tradition of regional and local histories. The settler historical tradition began with John Bird’s Annals of Natal, originally published in 1888. It received its major input between the 1930s and the 1950s from Alan F. Hattersley, the doyen of settler historians. No fewer than thirteen of Hattersley’s works refer to the garrison in one way or another.8 Edgar H. Brookes and Colin de B. Webb produced the standard work of historical synthesis, A History of Natal, in 1965, which was cautious and relied heavily on Hattersley’s work. They gave a reasonable acknowledgment of the importance of the garrison, unlike the updated work of synthesis, Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910, edited by Andrew Duminy and Bill Guest, which virtually ignores the existence of the garrison.9 A brief, bald historical note appeared in 1973, but there are few substantial works on the Natal garrison when not engaged in campaigns against Boer or Zulu.10 The place of the garrison is described in the 150th-anniversary history of Pietermaritzburg, published in 1988, but its role as an instrument of imperialism was not analyzed, either in the chronological or local contexts.11 This work aims to reveal how the broad sweep and rhetoric of imperialism was manifested in local power, class, and economic structures and argues that they were entrenched and underpinned by the garrison at Fort Napier. The broader role of the garrison at Fort Napier developed and changed between in 1843 and 1914, but its local influence remained surprisingly constant. In the beginning, its role was to provide security for a newly established, remote, and vulnerable colony, but by 1914, it was merely one detachment in an imperial force that could be deployed anywhere across South Africa, thanks to conquest, political unification, and technological advances. In the 1840s, it was a major effort for the 45th Regiment to send a company of troops out on a punitive ex-

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Dominy_Text.indd 13 1/22/16 3:01 PM pedition, over a distance of perhaps forty miles of rough terrain. In the 1890s, detachments from the garrison at Fort Napier took part in the campaigns against the Ndebele and the Mashona in what became Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe, deep in south-central Africa. In 1913, a year before the outbreak of World War I, the troops of the last garrison regiment played a significant role in the suppression of a miners’ strike on the Witwatersrand. By this time, military movements were conducted on rails and were less dependent on shoes and hooves. In the beginning, the garrison’s impact was localized and intense: a fort was built, and troops helped build a city (perhaps “small town” is a more accurate a term) around it. Officers served in the rudimentary colonial government, and officers and men created a colonial social milieu. A Victorian society was attempting to replicate itself on African soil, and the garrison was an essential catalyst in this process. But it was much more than a catalyst, given the longevity of the military occupation of Pietermaritzburg; the garrison became a sustaining influence and continual reference point for settler society. This influence outlived the political structure of the colony. The ranks of colonial officialdom were thinned out in 1910, as civil servants were sent to Pretoria to establish the new Union government, but the imperial garrison remained, soothing wounded and politically neutered Natal settler pride until the outbreak of the First World War. Even then, though the dance may have been over, the melody lingered on.

The Context in Natal The British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “A very remarkable people the Zulus; they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty.”12 The rich history of the peoples occupying the land between the Drakensberg mountain range and the Indian Ocean has been told often; this work will look at the neglected role that the garrison played in that long history. The garrison will be placed in the context of a colony that was established next door to one of the most powerful and innovative African societies of the nineteenth century, the Zulu Kingdom. Therefore, it is important to look briefly at the origins of the conflicts swirling around Zululand that created the political and physical space for the erection of a British colony in a region predominantly inhabited by Zulu-speaking people. The acquiescence of the Zulu monarchs in what was happening south of the Thukela River was of greater influence and importance than the parading of the battalion of infantry occupying Fort Napier. The British military presence at the Cape began with conquest: the Dutch were defeated, and the British wanted the harbors, so they took over the gov-

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Dominy_Text.indd 14 1/22/16 3:01 PM ernment and occupied the castle. The British presence on the eastern Cape frontier was also in line with the classic conquer-and-occupy mold. In Natal, however, the British presence grew under the protection of the Zulu kings, and it was the Trekkers who initiated the clashes with the Zulu. The first detachment of British troops sent to Port Natal in late 1838 had, for a few months, a peacekeeping role. The second detachment, which arrived in 1842, did engage in hostilities with the Trekkers. But the permanent colonial administration, of which the garrison formed an integral part, took place as a result of a negotiated settlement between the Trekkers and the British and with the acquiescence of the Zulu king, Mpande ka Senzangakhona. All parties thought that they had gained something from the agreements made in Pietermaritzburg in 1843—an agreement cemented with the occupation of the city by the 45th Regiment and the construction of Fort Napier. Although it began as an obscure frontier outpost, Natal attracted some of the brightest and best minds in Victorian society. As Disraeli pointed out, the goings-on in Natal reverberated in metropolitan society half a world away. The first Anglican, or Church of England, bishop, John William Colenso, who arrived in 1854, was a remarkable man of enlightened political and theological views. He learned to speak Zulu well and listened to the views of those he attempted to convert. He began advancing opinions on biblical interpretation, which led him to be charged with heresy, but he could not be removed from his position as Bishop of Natal because his appointment was by royal warrant and not by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church then appointed Kenneth Macrorie as Bishop of Maritzburg, the colloquial shortened form for Pietermaritzburg and therefore not a “real” place. These characters play their part in the story of the garrison, and the officers had to navigate through the shoals of church politics as well as doing their military duties. Colenso’s political views initially echoed those of Theophilus Shepstone, but the two later diverged sharply, and the trial of Langalibalele caused bitter enmity. Colenso and his daughters became exponents of an early strand of South African liberalism and nonracialism that finally found expression in the constitution of the newly democratic South Africa in 1996. Jeff Guy wrote fine biographies of Colenso and of the second towering figure of early colonial Natal, Theophilus Shepstone, the diplomatic agent to the native population and later secretary for native affairs.13 A contemporary commentator, Sir Bartle Frere, the high commissioner who instigated the Anglo-Zulu War, gave an incisive description of Shepstone: “He is a singular type of an Africander Tal- leyrand, shrewd, observant, silent, self-contained, immobile. Forty years ago he might have been great in Continental diplomacy.”14

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Dominy_Text.indd 15 1/22/16 3:01 PM The latter of Guy’s works appeared thirty years after the earlier and provided the most incisive understanding of the maneuverings of Shepstone across the interstices between colonists and Africans. Guy strongly demonstrated that previous historians have underplayed the extent to which the Colony of Natal was a state construction based on the political concordat between Shepstone and the African lineage and clan leaders, the “chiefs” who ruled the vast bulk of the population of the colony. This pact was initially also to the advantage of the Zulu king, Mpande, but not to the Trekkers, who left the colony. What was the role of the garrison? The raising of the flag over the foundations of Fort Napier provided an “emblem of peace and security” under which loyal subjects of the British queen and the neighboring Zulu king could go about their business. The power of the garrison was less than it sought to portray, but it was a token of the greater power of the empire, which could be brought into play if locally challenged. It also meant that in a very small settler society, surrounded by and battened onto the far larger indigenous communities, the garrison provided management, planning, and labor, to use modern “business-speak.” The first colonial administrators erew mundane officials, Shepstone being the outstanding exception, but by the 1870s, the problems of South Africa, with Natal at the epicenter, required a touch of imperial wizardry. Thus Queen Victoria’s (and Gilbert and Sullivan’s) “Modern Major General,” Sir Garnet Wolseley, was dispatched to Natal. His diaries demonstrate the extent to which the military garrison was a key factor in the manipulation of local politics and of the degree to which military officers, resources, and support had to be trotted out at all levels from expounding imperial policy to overseeing local pick-and-shovel work. The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 gave rise to the second and third parts of Dis- raeli’s quip: The Zulu defeated the generals (Lord Chelmsford being the prime loser) and settled the fate of the Bonaparte dynasty when Prince Louis Napoleon, the French Prince Imperial, was killed during the second British invasion of the campaign. The repercussions of this event echoed from Zululand to London and Paris. The Anglo-Transvaal War of 1880–81 was of short duration, but its outcome was a severe and humiliating defeat on the British by the descendants of the Voortrekkers. Despite this, a heroine emerged from the ranks of the women who always accompanied the army, and the honor she was shown by the Natal garrison was most unusual, given the ethos of the times. The Anglo-Boer War, which began in 1899, brought the movers and shak- ers of the empire and commonwealth in the first half of the twentieth century to South Africa. The Battle of Spioenkop saw Louis Botha, Winston Churchill, and Mohandas Gandhi on the same Natal battlefield at the same time. Later,

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Dominy_Text.indd 16 1/22/16 3:01 PM their influences on the commonwealth shaped South Africa and modern world history. Churchill visited Fort Napier, while Louis Botha had been trained as a school cadet by a veteran of the garrison. Gandhi served as a military stretcher bearer with the British forces in a bid to strengthen the political position of South Africa’s Indian community.

The Origins of This Study By 1986, Fort Napier had been a mental hospital for sixty years, and the town no longer used the old fort as a reference or rallying point. It was hidden behind a railway bridge, with the fences and security required at a mental hospital, its place on the skyline obscured by tall trees. St. George’s Garrison church was still a vis- ible feature but had a dwindling congregation. The authorities required major building works at the hospital and sought the opinion of a prominent conservation architect, Gordon Small, who was president of the local heritage organization, the Pietermaritzburg Society. After his inspection, he arrived at a meeting of the society, enthusing about the historical and architectural gems he had discovered at the hospital/fort. The Pietermaritzburg Society commissioned a report on the building and began campaigning to have the remaining buildings preserved and for a museum to be established.15 It soon became obvious that, although the Brit- ish military occupation was frequently and nostalgically mentioned in settler and colonial histories, little systematic research had been done on the garrison. The short bursts of war had been exhaustively covered, but the decades of peacetime military activities had attracted nothing more than antiquarian interest. The possible development of a museum on the Fort Napier site was fraught by all the complications of late-apartheid ideology and bureaucracy. In terms of the 1983 Tri-Cameral Constitution and the prevailing ideology of P. W. Botha’s securocratic regime, a military history museum would have been categorized as a “white ‘own’ affair,” a matter legally defined as of exclusive interest to the white racial group and funded through the then-powerful all-white House of Assembly. This was an administrative abomination, an intellectual absurdity, and morally unacceptable. Part of my original research agenda was to explode the myth that the British garrison could only be of interest to the “white group” of the South African population, by exploring the interrelationships between the troops and the broader communities of all races. It should be possible to argue that, more than twenty years into a democratic South Africa, such considerations are no longer relevant, but alas, the abuse of history by modern power-brokers still happens. On October 15, 2013, Dali Tambo, a media personality and the son of the late African National Congress President

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Dominy_Text.indd 17 1/22/16 3:01 PM Oliver Tambo, briefed the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Arts and Culture on the National Heritage Monument Project and stated: “This project was particularly important given that in 1993, the then National Monuments Council had put out a report that at that time, 99 percent of South African heritage was about white experiences, white stories, and white figures of history.”16 What is particularly distressing is the slide into clichés: history is racially divis- ible, so now more needs to be put into the black side of the scale to even things out. Regrettably, this crude balancing of the scales is redolent of the even cruder justifications of the separate-but-equal policies of the apartheid era. There is a critical need to unpack history: nothing that postdates the arrival of Portuguese explorers in the fifteenth century belongs exclusively, or can be of exclusive interest, to one or other racial group, and all should be interested in the precolonial history as well. Therefore, the study of the history of a colonial garrison that, from its inception, included and affected all communities remains a necessary exercise in the historiography of current times.

Structures, Methods, and Modern Challenges This work is chronologically and thematically structured. These approaches are not mutually exclusive; both are subjective and relative. What is in a chronological chapter could have been in a thematic chapter, and vice versa. However, the purpose of the combination approach has been to limit the repetitive and mundane detail that underpins garrison life and focus on the broader issues, such as discipline and indiscipline, gender relationships, and economic influences. The sources were largely located in the United Kingdom, and while most of the research was being undertaken during 1989–90, the transformation of South Africa began in earnest. There was extreme tension and appalling violence around Pietermaritzburg and in what is now the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Hundreds of militarized police and units of the apartheid army were quartered in Pietermaritzburg to suppress the violent popular uprising and to try to separate various fighting factions. Fort Napier remained a mental hospital, but troops were billeted in temporary buildings on what had been part of the British military reserve. By the first democratic elections in 1994, a fair number of those troops were black, and there were strong parallels to be drawn between the British military policies of the early 1880s and the South African military responses of the early 1990s. In 1884, the British military presence in Natal and Zululand was primarily deployed parading, patrolling, and posturing. In 1994 the South African troops did much the same and were also largely ineffective.

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Dominy_Text.indd 18 1/22/16 3:01 PM The presence of a garrison in a society on the cusp of dramatic change did engender some sense of security, and the study of the history of a garrison in an earlier era, which also included periods of great change, illuminates some of the underlying trends that continued to influence community and political attitudes and conduct for over a century after the garrison’s departure.

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Dominy_Text.indd 19 1/22/16 3:01 PM Dominy_Text.indd 20 1/22/16 3:01 PM Acknowledgments

his book is the end result of the work and research undertaken for a Ph.D. Tdissertation at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of Lon- don, and awarded in 1995. The book itself has been germinating since then, but with the dawn of the New South Africa, the exciting, invigorating, and tremen- dously hard work needed to bring the rainbow dream to life overtook personal academic considerations, so any thoughts of a book languished on the proverbial back burner. The original research was undertaken in South Africa and Britain with the help of many people and institutions whose kindness and professionalism requires full acknowledgement. I gratefully acknowledge the support and funding received from the various arms of the University of London: the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the Central Research Fund, and the Overseas Research Student Grant. In South Africa, the Human Sciences Research Council and the Council of the Natal Museum generously funded the original research project. In the United Kingdom, I am grateful to the former Public Records Office, the National Army Museum, the Royal Engineers Library, the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, the British Library, Rhodes House Library, and the libraries of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and Senate House. There was also much help and support from

Dominy_Text.indd 21 1/22/16 3:01 PM the regimental museums, libraries, and archives in Aldershot, Brecon, Chatham, Chester, Edinburgh, Enniskillen, and Nottingham. In South Africa, I must acknowledge the help received from the Natal Ar- chives Depot, the Natal Museum’s library, the Natal Society Library, the Killie Campbell Africana Library, the Don Africana Library, the Durban Local History Museum, Macrorie House Museum, the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg Library (including the Alan Paton Centre), the State Archives in Pretoria and Cape Town, and the Standard Bank Archives in Johannesburg. Where designations have changed, the current terms will be found in the bibliography. The institutions are inhabited by remarkable people, and, while some have since died, I am deeply grateful to them and thank them and write as though they are all alive, which they are to me. First and foremost is Emeritus Profes- sor Shula Marks, who was the most patient, supportive, and helpful supervisor a doctoral student could ever wish to have had. The experiences of friends, colleagues, and of my son James (about to complete his Ph.D.) and his friends and colleagues with their supervisors on three continents makes me even more thankful that it was Shula who took on this odd student with his offbeat topic. I am also grateful to her husband, Professor Isaac Marks, for his friendship and kind and insightful questions. Next I must thank Professor John Laband, who, after Professor Colin Webb, was my mentor as an undergraduate student at the University of Natal, a staunch advisor during my various postgraduate studies, a co-conspirator on various occasions, and the person who encouraged me to have this book published. John was a member of the Pietermaritzburg Society when the issue of Fort Napier was first raised and has retained his interest in the old fort for decades. I must add my thanks to his wife Fen, for her patience and forbearance. In the British institutions, I must acknowledge the regimental museum cura- tors: Majors Creamer, Smith, and Stephens and Lieutenant Colonels Etherington and Walton. At the ICS, my thanks are due to David Blake, Rowena Kochanowska, and Mitchell Stone. While I stayed in Britain I was helped by the two Anglo-Zulu War Ians, Castle and Knight (and Carolyn Knight); by Will and June Simpson; and by Charles and Jana Stirton. In South Africa, the list is imposing. To all my former colleagues at the Natal Museum and the Natal Provincial Museum Service, I am most grateful. Maureen Holland (Howick Museum), Val Sterley (Macrorie House Museum), and her husband, Ivan Sterley (who worked at Fort Napier), were also enormously helpful, as was the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Jim Walker. From the museums of Durban, I thank Gillian Scott-Berning, Rooksana Omar, and Robert Papini.

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Dominy_Text.indd 22 1/22/16 3:01 PM In the libraries, thanks are due to David Buckley and John Morrison (Natal Society Library), Bobby Eldridge and Stacey Gibson (Killie Campbell Africana Library), and Brian Spencer (Don Africana Library). Among my colleagues in the archives fraternity, I thank Judith Hawley, Zama Gumede, Frank Nel, Pieter Nel, and Verne Harris. I also thank Alexio Motsi and Mmathapelo Mataboge from the National Archives in Pretoria: Alexio has literally and figuratively been to Timbuktu and back with me (that is another book), and Mmathapelo was the ideal personal assistant whose advice I ignored at my peril. The community of historians is a supportive one, and I am grateful for all their support over the years. Paul Thompson wrote the original report on Fort Napier for the Pietermaritzburg Society, so I must thank him for his role in starting this entire project. More recently, I must thank Jane Carruthers, John and Barbara Lambert, Sean and Barbara Morrow, Alex Mouton, Fransjohan Pretorius, Shelagh Spencer, and Denver Webb (who helped source online material with surprising facility). From “across the water,” so to speak, I thank Ged Martin in Ireland and Robert Hunt in Tennessee, USA. In Australia, I thank Peter Stanley, Robin McLachlan, and Craig Wilcox for help with sources not readily available on the western side of the Indian Ocean. I am most grateful to Ian Cross for his meticulous reading of the manuscript of this book. Danny Nasset and his colleagues of the University of Illinois Press have been very helpful and accommodating. To move on to more personal thanks: my parents, Ernest and Doris, inculcated a love of history in me, and my wife Anne’s parents, Gay and Eileen Murphy, supported us when I was studying. The last four years have been a huge challenge and burden for my family. Anne’s siblings Finn, Ticky, and Nodi gave unstinting and generous support, both moral and material, during these difficulties, which have been successfully resolved. I must also acknowledge the generosity and support of numerous friends—in particular, Cleo and Jude Cobbing, Tim Dunne, and Janeen and Mike de Klerk—without whom we could not have survived the sustained onslaught, and I would not have been in a position to write about Fort Napier. Karen Martin and Ross Musselman have also assisted with the editorial finalization of the work. James, our son, helped me assemble chaotic research notes when I was writing the dissertation and continued to help with critical I.T. support and advice (a task he shared with his wife Amanda), and I appreciate their patience and forbearance. Our domestic life was supported and ably managed by Pretty Mbelu for many, many years, a task now undertaken by Francinah Mavulula.

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Dominy_Text.indd 23 1/22/16 3:01 PM Above all, my thanks and love to go to Anne, who has stood with me for thirty- eight years and, despite her own busy professional life, has shouldered huge burdens, sustained me, motivated me, implacably faced down serious foes with me, and kept me firmly grounded. The title of this book is her suggestion, and she has kept a critical eye and kept me focused when I was inclined to wander off on tangents. Nobody could have done more. Despite all the assistance from others and all efforts to avoid such howlers, I alone am responsible for any errors contained herein.

xxiv Acknowledgments

Dominy_Text.indd 24 1/22/16 3:01 PM Technical Notes

he use of Zulu nouns, pronouns, styles, and forms of address has long been Ta vexed issue. The use of racially derogative and now offensive terms was common in the records of the period examined in this book. In order to convey the historical reality of nineteenth-century Natal, neither the racism of the contemporary writers nor their difficulties with Zulu words has been cosmetically altered. The spelling used is the spelling followed: e.g., “Kaffir” and “Kafir” are both used. Where relevant and appropriate, modern terminology, as so well expressed by Jeff Guy in his recent workTheophilus Shepstone and the forging of Natal, has been used. Imperial rather than metric measurements are used, as they reflect the usage in the sources, and many of the distances were estimated or impressionistic rather than accurate.

Dominy_Text.indd 25 1/22/16 3:01 PM M ap 1. Expansion of Military Forts in Natal. (Drawing by Linda Davis)

1. Durban (Port Natal): 1842 “Camp” (later “Old fort”) 2. pietermaritzburg: 1843, Fort Napier 3. estcourt: 1847, Bushman’s River Post (later Fort Durnford) 4. Fort Nottingham: 1856 5. newcastle: 1877, Fort Amiel 6. rorke’s Drift: 1879, (later Fort Melvill with Fort Northampton across the river, 1884) 7. tugela Mouth: 1878, Fort Pearson (with Fort Tenedos across the river.) 8. eshowe: 1879, (later Fort Curteis, 1884) 9. pinetown: 1879, transit camp 10. Ladysmith: 1898, military barracks (1899: town fortified to withstand a siege) 11. Mooi River: 1901, remount depot

Note: This is a select, rather than a comprehensive, list of all the forts, bases, camps, and posts constructed by the British imperial military in Natal and Zululand. It is intended to illustrate the general expansion of military activity as threats developed on the northern and eastern frontiers of the colony. More detailed works on fortifications are referenced in the bibilography.

Dominy_Text.indd 26 1/22/16 3:01 PM M ap 2. Pietermaritzburg: The “Rough” and the “Respectable.” (Drawing by Linda Davis)

1. Sites 2. Churches, continued: Hospital MC Methodist Chapel (Wesleyan) 1859 Original Ordnance Land pc presbyterian Chapel 1852 areas occupied by NCOs and soldier- rc roman Catholic 1852 settlers 3. Public Buildings: areas where blacks (Indians & “Coloureds”) BP Borough Police Station and whites lived/worked CO colonial Offices areas with houses bought or rented by GH Government House officers GS Government Schoolroom B Brewery 1890 hc high Court t taverns (bars and hotels) LC Legislative Council v victoria Club (Gentlemen’s club— NC “Native” Court officers honorary members) PO post Office CD camp’s Drift 1843 FN Fort Napier (“Camp”) 1843 4. Residences of the elite: rs railway Station 1880 1. Government House (representative of the approximate demarcation of the Crown) “respectable” (elite) area from the 2. residence of Col. Boys “rough”—taverns, trade, etc. 3. Macrorie House (representative of the established church) 2. Churches: 4. sir Theophilus Shepstone’s home (leading ac anglican (Colenso) 1857 establishment figure) ACM anglican (Colenso Mission) 1887 5. rented Officers Mess & OC’s home, Fleming AM anglican (Macrorie) 1868 Street cc congregational Chapel 1905 6. rented home of Gen. Sir William Penn-Symon DRC Dutch Reformed Church 1861 7. home of Sir Charles Smythe (Natal premier) GC Garrison Church 1898

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F ort Napier Surviving Military Buildings (Numbered according to the PWD Planned for the Present Hospital)

A. chapel School 15. hospital. Medical Corps Barrack Room 64. Ordnance Hut (1897) [Barracks Stores B. infant School 16. hospital Wards (1921)] C. cavalry Barrack Room no. 5 (1897); Library 17. hospital. Infection Ward 65. north West Bastion; Water Tank no. 5 [Fort (1921) 19. cavalry Canteen Barracks (Original Fort)] D. Married Soldiers Quarters (MSQ) 22. artillery Canteen 66. Barrack Room; Cavalry Guard; Cells 3. provost Prison 29. Officers Mess (1921) and Orderly Rooms [Fort Barracks (Original 4. service Corps and Ordnance 33. artillery Wash House Fort)] Dept. Stores 52. hospital Wards 68. hospital, Isolation Ward and Prisoners 5. cavalry Barracks: Hut no. 5 53. court Martial and Lecture Room; Barracks Room 11. artillery Barracks: Wardens Quarters [Fort Barracks (Original Fort)] 70. Octagonal Tower. Water Tank no. 6 12. Married Soldiers 60. service Corps Stores (1897) [Barracks 75. Ordnance Department Officers (1897) 13. Quarters (Artillery) Stores (1921)] [Barracks Stores (1921)] 1/22/16 3:01 PM M ap 3. Fort Napier: Surviving Military Buildings. (From the Pietermaritzburg Society Report, 1986) 1

Fort Napier A Garrison among Garrisons

he social history of the imperial garrison in Natal provides an opportunity to Texamine the reproduction, adaptation, and modification of Victorian British society on southern African soil. Although historians have treated colonizers as a “homogeneous class—in and for itself,” this was not a monolithic process.1 A military garrison, according to Jeff Hearn, provides a model of masculinity that is harmful and threatening and that structures “relations of state violence.”2 Analysis of a military garrison, ostensibly a homogeneous group, can reveal class, racial, and gender divisions that differentiate its impact on a divided society, thus giving the colonized indigenous inhabitants opportunities for self-assertion, adaptation, and confrontation. Internal divisions in colonial power structures provide the colonized with opportunities to “insert their own definitions of themselves into the colonial situation.”3 It is therefore, the divisions in colonial society and the influence of the garrison in shaping those division that are, in large measure, the subject of this investigation. The term “garrison” will be used to refer to the elements of the regular British army—infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and support troops, the Ordnance and Commissariat sections providing administrative, logistical, transport, provisioning, and medical services—stationed in Natal between 1842 and 1914. Their headquarters was at Fort Napier in the colonial capital Pietermaritzburg, or Maritzburg, as it is often abbreviated. The garrison occupied the fort for seventy-one years, more than a biblical lifetime, and it outlasted the Colony of Natal by four years.

Dominy_Text.indd 1 1/22/16 3:01 PM Over these seventy-one years of its existence, the garrison took part in active wartime campaigning on four occasions, totaling less than four years. The occupation began with the conflict between Capt. Thomas Smith and the Trekkers under Andries Pretorius (May to June 1842). The Anglo-Zulu War lasted seven months in 1879, and the First Anglo-Boer War (or Anglo-Transvaal War) was a brief campaign of about three months between December 1880 and February 1881. Detachments from Fort Napier also served in the campaigns against the Mashona and Ndebele in 1896 in what is now Zimbabwe. The main (or second) Anglo-Boer War was the most protracted, beginning in October 1899 and ending in May 1902.4 The imperial forces were not involved in the Bambatha Rebellion in 1906. The main focus of this study is what happened to the garrison for the sixty-seven years when it was not at war. It is a truism that the role of military force, in securing control over a country and its inhabitants, is normally considered in the context of battles, campaigns, and overt oppression. It is a somewhat inaccurate cliché that, in Africa, colonial conquest and occupation was completed thanks to the Maxim gun,5 but it makes the point that, in a broader context, imperialism itself was possible because of the technical superiority of European armies over Asian and African societies. However, there are many other subtle and enduring ways in which the presence of a military force can be used to achieve political objectives and mold social, caste, and class transformations. As the nineteenth-century wars in southeastern Africa have generated their own extensive, even voluminous, literature, this work will not focus on the well- studied battles and campaigns but on the behind-the-lines work that expanded out of Fort Napier. The extended patrolling and deployments, such as those that took place in Zululand in the 1880s, will be considered as part of the role of the garrison because they had a profound effect on events at Fort Napier and in Pietermaritzburg itself. These will illuminate the subtle and sometimes hidden social pressures resulting from the long-term presence of the garrison. The imperial garrison arrived in Natal when the southern African frontier was “open,” the situation was fluid, and the garrison was a major agent in the processes of conflict, development, and conquest.6 By the time the garrison left, the frontier was well and truly colonized, so the garrison’s impact on an industrializing South Africa, fraught with racial and class conflicts, differed from its influence in the early Victorian era.7 The functions of the garrison may have remained defense and policing, but these functions were no longer undertaken in a frontier zone but in a well-embedded conquest state. In considering the nonwarlike impact of the imperial garrison on an emerging colony, several issues need to be examined. The first is the nature of the society

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Dominy_Text.indd 2 1/22/16 3:01 PM from which the troops came, and how the garrison was structured and organized. This necessitates examining the Victorian army as a social organization, with its hierarchical divisions between officers and other ranks, and how this influenced Natal society. The influence was largely ideological, as the class-based Victorian society replicated itself on southern African soil through cultural productions and rituals, political pageantry, sport, hunting, and the contracting of marriage alliances. Furthermore, the garrison had a long-term stabilizing effect on the colonial economy. It providing technical support and labor and a market for farmers and traders. This also had an impact across color lines. The emerging state structures were bolstered by the garrison through the reliance on military officers for administrative and technical services. As the colony developed, the garrison provided more psychological than material support. The material and the psychological factors weighed heavily upon settler minds and led to conflict between colonial and imperial authorities over threats to withdraw the garrison. A “respectable” colonial society was the intended outcome of these activities, but paradoxically, the garrison, with its problems of boredom, indiscipline, lust, and drunkenness, added to social tensions through involvement in crime, random violence, and the encouragement of prostitution. These “rough” activities undermined and even subverted the official racial, class, and gender barriers. And there were always women with the army, in legally recognized and in less formal relationships across all racial, class, and gender barriers. Some feminist writers argue, with validity, that the military’s preoccupation with concepts of masculinity makes it impossible to consider the role of women in isolation from men.8 This argument will be explored in chapter 10. In the case of the Natal garrison, women marched up from the Cape in 1842 with Captain Smith and were still at Fort Napier when the South Staffordshire Regiment left in 1914. The army defined their roles, but sometimes women challenged these roles, and sometimes men would challenge the military hierarchy because of women—or, to put matters more sentimentally, for love. Gender issues, in the sense of male-female relationships and in the development and maintenance of male bonding or comradeship, were not only intrinsic to the social functioning of the garrison; these values were transmitted to and reinforced in the wider colonial society over a sustained period. Nevertheless, the themes are interlinked: class and gender, hierarchy and discipline, race and labor, pageantry and government all intersect at many points and in various ways. There is also the major issue of the economic impact of garrisons and their costs. So that these themes can be properly contextualized and the particular and distinctive role of Fort Napier as a garrison center understood, the Natal garrison will be first considered in relation to other garrisons.

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Dominy_Text.indd 3 1/22/16 3:01 PM Garrisons across the Globe Hannah Weiss Muller has described British imperial garrisons as dotting the landscape, where they were “intended to stake claims or to protect fledgling en- campments of pioneers,” similar to outposts of the Roman Empire or Portuguese coastal forts in India.9 She describes their purpose as practical and symbolic: they were intended to “protect the soldiers and settlers of empire from peril” and were conceived of as “bulwarks of state strength,” separating those “who did not belong from those who did.”10 Fortresses such as Gibraltar and Halifax were indeed “bulwarks of state strength,” but they were also naval bases, and as the security of the empire depended primarily on the Royal Navy, they were critical posts for imperial defense. Fort Napier, which was an inland garrison, depended on bluff to project the image of a bulwark of strength in an unsettled but strategically important region. The Australian garrisons guarded convict settlements and acted as frontier police, but they did not have a strategic military purpose. While the Fort Napier troops did not guard any convicts, they did act as a frontier police force and had a strategic military purpose. In New Zealand the situation was more complex, as New Zealand began as an unruly oceanic settlement with a large indigenous Maori population. The garrison initially attempted to police both settler and Maori communities and provide security against a perceived threat of French expansion into the south- western Pacific; it ended up fighting the Maori.11 In the case of Fort Napier, there was an equally unruly but more diverse settler population to be policed, and a large indigenous population of considerable military potential to be deterred. Furthermore, the Natal garrison could project imperial influence into areas occupied by the Boers and other transfrontier societies at the time of the scramble for mineral resources. Scrambles for mineral resources and land grabs are two points of the same pick, and the westward expansion of the United States is perhaps the prime example of this. During and after the American Civil War, the U.S. Army wielded enormous authority in the defeated southern states and in western territories. For many, freed slaves and western Indians included, the army was their first experience of government authority.12 Early colonial Natal was a far smaller political theater than the United States, but the same dynamic operated: expanding civil authority relied on military personnel and processes to begin operating. There are also other parallels between military garrisons in the American West and British garrisons in Australia and South Africa. Adam Davis quotes Zachary Taylor, later the president of the United States, as stating that “the ax, pick, saw

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Dominy_Text.indd 4 1/22/16 3:01 PM and trowel, has become more the implement of the American soldier than the cannon, musket or sword.” Davis uses Taylor’s remarks to highlight the critical role of the army in constructing infrastructure as the frontier moved westward.13 Robert M. Utley describes a complaint to Congress by disenchanted troops, disgruntled at having to perform “fatigues” including logging trees, brickwork, repairing wagons, and hay-making.14 Perhaps the men of the 45th Regiment at Fort Napier would have agreed! A detailed history of the garrisons in Canada, Gibraltar, Australia, and New Zealand is beyond the scope of this work. The purpose here is to explore the differences and similarities between them and Fort Napier as examples of that strange and often emotive entity known as a “garrison” and why the differences and similarities make Fort Napier unique.

Gibraltar, the “Impregnable” Fortress Gibraltar is the first example to be considered for two main reasons: It is not only the earliest example of a colonial garrison; it is the longest lasting, as it is still British territory with a garrison and a strategic purpose. It also has a place in the popular imagination, as Hannah Weiss Muller points out: “Gibraltar was arguably the most famous of the British garrisons, so much so that the word itself has come to connote an invincible, impregnable stronghold.”15 She continues: “In folklore and literature, men who died protecting their garrisons from attack became heroes, and fortresses appealed to romantic notions of national strength and of dying for one’s country. Gibraltar, then, was merely one of many British garrisons that figured centrally in imperial history and captured the popular imagination.”16 Described in a Victorian tome on heroic deeds of empire as undoubtedly the “greatest” fortress in the world, Gibraltar was captured by the British in 1704, legally transferred by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and defended ever since against all comers.17 Known as “the Rock,” its strategic value to a maritime empire was immense, as it controlled the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Fort Napier, in contrast, was an inland garrison and only had an indirect strategic value in relation to the Indian Ocean. Gibraltar (with a surface area of less than two and a half square miles) also faced a hostile Spain across a narrow isthmus and needed to remain alert in case of a surprise attack or a general conflict. The governor was an active military figure with defense issues as his priority, and civil issues were subordinated thereto.18 Gibraltar developed the quintessential “siege” or “garrison” mentality, complete with “wariness” for those deemed suspicious or “other.”19

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Dominy_Text.indd 5 1/22/16 3:01 PM The regiments in the Gibraltar garrison rotated on tours of duty across the empire, accompanied by their wives and families. One effect of this was that the families of the soldiers in the garrison had limited interaction with the civilian population of Gibraltar.20 The Gibraltar garrison ruled the social, cultural, and sporting life of the Rock even more intensely than the Fort Napier garrison dominated Natal colonial life. The legal position underpinned some of the differences. Gibraltar was an imperial “fortress,” and the title commander-in-chief that went with that of governor had meaning and substance. Gibraltar was ruled by military edict until late in the nineteenth century.21 Natal was a colony, and although the lieutenant governors and governors were styled “commanders-in-chief,” it was in form rather than in substance. Conversely, when the Fort Napier garrison commanders acted as lieutenant governors and governors from time to time, they acted quite consciously in a civil capacity in terms of civil law.

Garrisoning the Open Spaces of North America, 1749–1906 The contrasts between the geographical sizes of Gibraltar and of Canada could not be greater. Gibraltar was seized from Spain, but France was Britain’s initial enemy in North America. Halifax was founded in 1749 and provided a secure base for the British forces that besieged and forced the reduction of the French fortress of Louisbourg a decade later. Halifax’s strategic importance dervied from its role as a crucial naval base in conflicts against the French and the Americans. In the strategic sense, Halifax rivaled Gibraltar, although it was never atttacked. The Halifax garrison contributed significantly to the economy of the city and of Nova Scotia, but it also contributed to the social problems in the city.22 The garrison served to protect the harbor, the settlers of Nova Scotia, and, critically, access to the St. Lawrence River. It was therefore of great strategic significance. The citadel, Fort George, was completed in 1856, and the British handed it over to Canadian forces in 1906. During World War I, it housed Ger- man internees, as did Fort Napier. In World War II it was a major command and communications center for the Royal Canadian Navy during the Battle of the Atlantic. Socially and culturally, the Halifax garrison imposed its influence on the city, as did the Fort Napier garrison in Pietermaritzburg. As with Gibraltar, the military influence in Halifax was partially diluted by the maritime influences emanating from the presence of the Royal Navy and a large-scale fishing and merchantile fleet.

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Dominy_Text.indd 6 1/22/16 3:01 PM The British Army seized Montreal from the French during the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763. Montreal became a critical garrison center, as it was strategically placed on the St. Lawrence River, near the Great Lakes and the American frontier. There was an actual war between Britain and the United States between 1812 and 1815, and Montreal became the British headquarters for Upper and Lower Canada in 1814. The threat of war continued into the 1840s, which led the British to retain a substantial garrison in Canada and to build a number of fortifications. However, the British garrison in Montreal spent more time putting down local insurrections and violent disturbances than it did seriously contemplating battles with the Americans. The Natal garrison was never deployed against rioting local mobs during its long service at Fort Napier. How- ever, in 1913, the last garrison regiment was part of a force that acted against rioting miners on the Witwatersrand. Garrison troops in Montreal faced rioters far more frequently, which led the garrison commanders themselves to urge and support the formation of an effective local and provincial police force.23 As the likelihood of war between Britain and the United States receded, the necessity for retaining a garrison in Canada diminished accordingly. The Mon- treal garrison was a drain on military resources, not ony financial but human as well. The garrison was close to the open, unguarded American border, and there was no greater enticement for troops to desert than knowing that there were economic opportunities close by and that the chance of recapture was nonexistent once across the St. Lawrence. Desertion was also a problem at Fort Napier, but troops had to put a little more effort into it than they needed to in Canada.

The Jailer Garrisons, 1778–1870 The garrisons in Australia acted as prison guards. Whereas the garrisons in Hali- fax and Montreal were located strategically, as was the Cape garrison, including Fort Napier, the garrisons in Australia had significantly less of a strategic role. British interests in the South Pacific were better served by the Royal Navy. De- sertion was a major problem, given the open landscape and the ability of military deserters to mingle with and vanish into the ex-convict population. Boredom, drink, and isolation were severe problems in the regiments garrisoning the convict settlements, and these problems greatly encouraged desertion. The first garrison troops arrived in New South Wales in 1788 as guards on the convict ships of the First Fleet. They were naval marines who, “prey to starvation, lethargy, and despair, departed without regret in December 1791.”24 They were succeeded by the British-raised but station-specific New South Wales Corps, the

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Dominy_Text.indd 7 1/22/16 3:01 PM notorious “Rum Corps” that mutinied and overthrew Governor Bligh in 1808. Constitutional order was eventually restored, the Rum Corps was disbanded, and in 1810 the first regular regiment of the British Army arrived in garrison. Regiments rotated in garrison until the last one was withdrawn in 1870. During the 1880s, the Natal garrison was broken up into small detachments to garrison forts and outposts in Zululand, which had a deleterious effect on discipline. The problem was even more acute in Australia, owing to the vast distances between colonial ports and outposts, which necessitated the garrison being broken up into tiny detachments, difficult to coordinate and even more difficult to discipline. Bathurst, inland from Sydney, was garrisoned by a detachment commanded by Lt. William Seymour, Ninety-ninth Regiment. He found his duties as commander of the miniscule garrison of twenty-five men to be far from demanding and completely lacking in any opportunity for excitement and action. In theory, the troops were there in support of the civil power, but by the 1840s the Bathurst district had little to fear from either Aborigine attack or convict uprising. In truth, there was little reason to continue maintaining a garrison in Bathurst.25 Not surprisingly, Lieutenant Seymour went off the rails and was sent back to England. One of the larger garrisons was Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula in Van Diemens Land. In the 1830s, just over a hundred soldiers guarded 1,200 convicts, and in 1846 the number of troops increased to over 260 for approximately the same number of convicts.26 In Australia, as elsewhere in the empire and particularly in Natal, the military were in the “dominant” position in the social hierarchy, and the Victorian class and gender systems were replicated in large part through the social influence of the military.27

Maori Wars in New Zealand (1845–70) One of the reasons given for the increase in the number of troops at Port Arthur in Van Diemens Land in the 1840s is that this garrison was seen as a reserve from which troops could be sent to New Zealand.28 New Zealand was garrisoned for less than half the time that Natal was; however, it was the only other garrison of those in this comparative study to fight a major war against an indigenous foe. There are several similarities between the establishment of a garrison in New Zealand and the establishment of a garrison in Natal. Both territories were remote from their regional headquarters; the Cape in the case of Natal, and New South Wales in the case of New Zealand. There was

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Dominy_Text.indd 8 1/22/16 3:01 PM the anarchic encroachment of settlers in both cases on lands where there were strong and well-organized indigenous societies, Maori in New Zealand and Zulu in Natal. The commanders of the troops were initially instructed keep the peace and prevent settlers from attacking the local inhabitants. In both cases, although with different time frames, war was waged on the indigenous inhabitants. Ironi- cally, the same person headed the colonial governments at the time of the conflicts: Sir George Grey served as high commissioner and governor of the Cape Colony and also as governor of New Zealand when conflicts loomed in each region.29 It is also significant that the British themselves particularly admired the Zulu and the Maori. Disraeli’s remark on the Zulu being a remarkable people has already been cited, while Sir John Fortescue, the magisterial historian of the British Army, describes the British soldier as finding the Maori “the greatest native enemy that he had ever encountered.”30 The major difference between Natal in southern Africa and New Zealand in the South Pacific is between oceanic and continental conditions. The garrison in New Zealand could be withdrawn as soon as the conflicts with the Maori were over, as there were no other potential enemies, except far across the waters. Be- cause the garrison in Natal faced Boer and Zulu enemies close at hand and was also despatched to serve in conflicts deeper in Africa, it needed to stay.

What Makes Fort Napier Unique? All the garrisons discussed show similar characteristics and also degrees of vari- ance. The question to be answered in this work is: Why was Fort Napier unique? This work will show that it is unique for a combination of reasons: the longevity of the garrison is a major factor, as is the stability (real or imagined) that the garrison provided in a volatile area and the cultural and economic influences it exerted. However, the principal issue is that of the legacy: Fort Napier and its garrison influenced not only a settler society but a major African society as well, thus justifying the sobriquet “The Last Outpost.”

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From Whence They Came An Overview of Queen Victoria’s Army

o understand the British military garrison at Fort Napier and its potent and Tlong-lasting influence on Natal (some of whose inhabitants still nostalgically embrace the epithet “The Last Outpost”), a step back needs to be taken, and the organization from whence the garrison came, the British Army, needs to be examined as a social institution.1 The British Army during the Victorian era was a pillar of the established order. This may sound clichéd, but it is fundamentally true. The army’s main function was the defense of the realm in the United Kingdom, the Indian Empire, and the colonies, and the defense of the monarchy and the established political and social order.2 It protected the material advantages of the powerful and the privileged, those with landed estates and those with money. In the period before the establishment of an organized police force, the army maintained internal stability in Britain and, even more significantly, in Ireland. The priorities were officially set down for the first time in a memorandum signed by the secretary for war, Lord Stanhope, in December 1888 and were listed as an aid to the civil power, the garrisoning of India, the garrisoning of the colonies and naval coaling stations, home defense (of the whole of the United Kingdom, including Ireland), and the “improbable” employment of two army corps in a European War.3 Events in South Africa tested the assumptions upon which Lord Stanhope’s memorandum was based. When plans were dusted off at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, the assumptions were severely challenged by reality. To move

Dominy_Text.indd 10 1/22/16 3:01 PM an army corps required transport, which required horses and draught animals, and South Africa lacked the numbers required. There was the climate, there was the lack of fodder, and there were great difficulties coordinating movements on the railway lines.4 These problems occurred in the context of an army that was smaller than that of any other major European power. It was a professional force, as conscription was politically unpopular, and it was viewed with ambivalence by the British public. The defense of an expanding world empire made the army a necessity, and it was well equipped and usually well led by educated and trained officers. Primarily designed for service in Europe, it was adaptable enough to change tech- niques to suit local conditions when fighting colonial campaigns and to make use of local auxiliaries, both black and white. It represented a social and economic order very different from that of the Zulu Kingdom, its potential and once actual enemy in Natal.5 To maintain its predominance as the world’s first superpower, Britain relied on two very different forces: the Royal Navy, primarily, as it was the largest maritime force in the world, and the Indian Army. Seapower secured the trade routes and protected the colonies from attack by other European powers. The seizure of the coastal cities of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras enabled the British to dominate the Indian subcontinent.6 The possession of India made available a continental-sized army, paid for out of funds raised in India and therefore not directly accountable to the House of Commons.7 At the outbreak of the First World War it was as large as the British Army.8 South Africa was one of the most strategically important imperial arenas and one where the British could not employ Indian troops for combat purposes. During the Anglo-Boer War, Indian Army units served in South Africa in medical and auxiliary roles in deference to the racial prejudices of white settlers, Boer and British.9

Administration and Reform The army was run from the War Office in Horse Guards, Whitehall, with the expression becoming as catchy a shorthand term for the Victorian military high command as the Pentagon is for the military overlords of the United States of America.10 The commander-in-chief, the Duke of Cambridge, was a royal duke, born in Germany. Although he cared for the welfare of the troops, he was conservative and antagonistic to reformers. His relationship to Queen Victoria strengthened his ability to impose his will on the army.11 When the War Office was moved to new premises in Pall Mall, Cambridge persisted in heading his correspondence, “Horse Guards, Pall Mall.”12 The cabinet minister responsible for the army was

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Dominy_Text.indd 11 1/22/16 3:01 PM the secretary of state for war who, until 1854, was also secretary of state for the colonies. Disputes between the politicians and the duke were frequent, as there were overlapping areas of responsibility.13 The logistical disasters and appalling death toll from disease in the Crimean War, exposed by William Russell of The Times (of London), led to a major shake- up of the lethargic military bureaucracy. Not only was political responsibility for the colonies removed, but the venerable Board of Ordnance was abolished and its military functions transferred to the commander-in-chief, and civil functions were transferred to the secretary for war.14 Thereafter, the War Office bureaucracy included both the Commissariat and Medical departments. The administration has best been described as a “labyrinth . . . with dark cor- ridors of boards and officials.”15 Nevertheless, the army underwent many organizational reforms during the Victorian era. The most significant were the “Cardwell Reforms,” initiated in 1870 by Edward Cardwell, the secretary of state for war in Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone’s Liberal government. Cardwell’s objectives included cutting back on expensive colonial garrisons and introducing greater efficiencies and cost savings in the army. The most important reforms were the abolition of the purchase of commissions by officers and the creation of a six-year “short-service” system for other ranks, with a period in the reserves. This would allow the creation of a “linked-battalion scheme,” with the aim of providing a territorial identity to the previously numerically distinguished regiments. These links aided recruiting and kept a battalion at home training, while another battalion of the same regiment served abroad, often in India. Hugh Childers, the secretary of state for war in 1881, took the Cardwell Reforms further and entrenched the territorial designations (based on regimental districts) for most regiments.16 The regiment assumed its central position in the organization of the army because imperial defense was the army’s main strategic role. The regiment was a convenient administrative unit that could be moved comfortably in a troopship and was neither too large nor too small for independent operations against “dissident natives.” The professional soldier, “isolated for long periods from his homeland, made it the focus of his life.”17

Officers and Gentlemen It is an oft-repeated cliché that the army was drawn from the two opposite extremes in British society, the landed gentry and the urban and rural poor.18 Mili- tary service was part of the process whereby the gentry defined itself in terms of other groups in society. Service as an army officer was an occupation compatible with the gentlemanly ideal, and it reinforced the prestige and influence of the

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Dominy_Text.indd 12 1/22/16 3:01 PM landed classes.19 Until the passage of the Cardwell Reforms in the early 1870s, officers purchased their commissions, and a military career was a commodity largely reserved for the wealthy and well-connected. Although flawed and much abused, the purchase system endured for two centuries and gave the country its minimal demand, “a cheaply financed officer corps that in no way threatened the established order.”20 The class structure of the officer corps did not change significantly after the abolition of purchase because junior officers were not well paid and were expected to meet heavy expenses for uniforms, sport, horses, and mess bills. Donald Huffer has argued that many more officers came from the middle classes (including sons of clergymen, lawyers, and the landed gentry, who were not necessarily very wealthy) than was previously thought.21 However, Gary Sheffield correctly cautions that while British officers did not form a distinct caste, their ethos was that of the landed interests.22 The attitudes of the boys seeking, or being placed in, military careers were molded by their schooling. The British public-school system meshed with the training and education of aspirant officers. The system, according the arch-conservative Duke of Cambridge, was the best arrangement that could be made. Future officers, he said, “imbibe a tone at these institutions which is seldom found elsewhere. The education may be in some respects defective, but it is the education of the best class of English gentlemen.” He quoted Prime Minister Lord Palmerston’s views on the main qualities of an officer with great approval: contempt of danger, fearlessness of responsibility, a quick eye to estimate the nature of surrounding circumstances, a rapid decision to act in every emergency, and a resolution to take the course that, upon reflection, he thinks best.23 Active participation in team sports was also regarded as essential for incul- cating the qualities prized by Palmerston. Hunting and shooting were zealously pursued by officers on leave and on active service, often to relieve the monotony of campaigning and garrison duty. Abundant opportunities to participate in such sport appealed to boys, who could turn fun into a career.24 The prevailing military philosophy was best expressed in an article in a military journal, which claimed that hunting and other sports keep a man “out of mischief” and occupy his spare time in a way calculated to develop that “factor of manliness essential to a leader of men.”25 Victorian ideals of manly and gentlemanly conduct demonstrate that the concept of masculinity is “fluid, changing, and historically constructed.”26 It included notions of chivalry, which entailed respect for the weak, especially women (the so-called weaker sex), as a key value.27 Within the British Army, these ideals were played out within the concept of the “regimental family” (in which there was, ironically, no mother figure) and within the hierarchies of rank and class.

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Dominy_Text.indd 13 1/22/16 3:01 PM The utility, ideology, and purpose of sport was also critical to the construction of masculine identity of army officers, particularly “elite” equestrian sports, of which polo was particularly seen as an imperial sport. The linkage between sport, war, and physical and mental self-control was more than a metaphor for moral or spiritual conflict: “the game itself [is] a training in the military spirit.”28 Captain Robert Weir and J. Moray Brown eulogized sport in general, with each sport assisting to “bring to the front and encourage qualities that are essentially manly.” No sport, they continued, combines all these lessons so much as polo, none makes a man more than this “entrancing game, none fits him more for the sterner joys of war or enables him better to bear his part in the battle of life.”29 Sir Samuel Baker raised his sights from the individual to the national level, writing, “The love of sport is a feeling inherent in most Englishmen, and whether in the chase, or with the rod or gun, they far excel all other nations.”30 These “inherent” qualities were inculcated into future officers in the public schools, which emphasized character and a classical mental training and promoted order, authority, discipline, and physical training through the “cult” of team games. The physical aptitudes required for the games transferred readily to military requirements, and the games also fostered the “moral virtues” of self- discipline and team spirit, which transferred readily in adulthood into loyalty to a regiment, the nation, and the monarchy—in short, gentlemanly qualities.31 The army placed great value on heroic, chivalrous, honorable conduct, which was valued more than professional skill. Gentlemen were expected to serve the state because, in an unspecialized age, their “character” qualified them to do so. The state may not have paid for their services, but it “guarded their privileges and possessions and, if only for this reason, they owed it loyalty.”32 The officers were largely drawn from the English landed gentry, the families of the clergy, and, to a lesser extent, the professions. The officers of the Irishegiments r were drawn from the “Protestant Ascen- dancy,” the landed gentry of Ireland. To Victor Kiernan, they had “imperialism in their bones.” To James Pocock, they were a “garrison landholding class,” perhaps even the British equivalent of the Prussian Junkers.33 The army’s duties and experiences in Ireland form a bridge between home service and colonial service. In many areas of Ireland, the army worked as an occupation force, combating political resistance, enforcing evictions, and securing the interests of the Anglo- Irish Ascendancy.34 Ireland also provided an important source of recruits for the ranks of the army. In practical terms, the emphasis on gentlemanly codes of conduct meant that promotion from the ranks was extremely difficult for social and financial reasons.

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Dominy_Text.indd 14 1/22/16 3:01 PM The sporting and social pursuits deemed essential ingredients of life in an officers’ mess cost money. A parliamentary investigation in 1902 estimated that the annual expenses of dining in the mess, sport, recreation, and relocation costs presumed an annual private income of £100 to £150 for an infantry officer and of £600 to £700 for a cavalry officer.35 These costs were beyond the reach of men promoted from the ranks, competent and tough though they may have been. Officersrelied on the noncommissioned officers for a great deal of the leadership and management of the troops to the extent that, according to Sheffield, the “NCO stood between the private and the officer much as the pre-Reformation priest stood between man and God.”36 In peacetime, the Victorian officer’s duties were not excessively demanding. Subalterns spent their time training and understudying company commanders, who were responsible for inspections, supervising guard duties, drills, parades, canteens, libraries, and overseeing the company accounts. The most hard-worked was the adjutant, a lieutenant selected by the colonel to supervise drilling, duty rosters, disciplinary matters, preparing orders, correspondence, and monthly returns. Young artillery and engineer officers, given the specialist and technical nature of their training and duties, often had more work and greater responsibilities given to them than to infantry officers. This was certainly the case with Lieutenant. C. J. Gibb, who was responsible for the construction of Fort Napier. Despite their lists of formal duties, officers could delegate much of the training and many of the disciplinary tasks to the NCOs and specialized instructors. Cleri- cal staff, paymasters, and color sergeants attended to the administrative work, and young officers found plenty of free time for sports, hunting, and social activities. This could have severe consequences, as discipline suffered, which happened at Fort Napier on several occasions, while the general slackness militated against young officers developing habits of initiative and responsibility.37 This was not unique to Fort Napier. Robin McLachlan has written an account of the colorful but disastrous life of Lieutenant William Hobart Seymour, Ninety- ninth Regiment, who commanded the tiny detachment at Bathurst in New South Wales. Isolated and bored, Seymour caroused with the locals, became heavily involved with horse racing, and plunged into debt. One of his fellow officers described him as having “glided down the slippery path” into a “vortex of dis- sipation” through his association with the racing community.38 While junior officers vorted,ca senior officers spent their time (before and after the abolition of the purchase of commissions) intriguing and calculating their chances of promotion. As late as 1887, at a time when discipline in the regiments of the Natal garrison was at a low ebb, Colonel Henry Sparks Stabb,

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Dominy_Text.indd 15 1/22/16 3:01 PM commandant of Natal, devoted much of his correspondence to complaints about being underpaid and about the failure of the War Office to promote him. The simmering problems at Fort Napier were not at the front of his mind.39

Other Ranks The “other ranks” of the British Army were drawn from the opposite extremes of society from the officers. The urban and rural poor provided the material from which the recruits were drawn, although, by the Victorian era, the Duke of Wellington’s remark that his men were the “scum of the earth” no longer held true.40 Areas of regional poverty, such as Ireland or Scotland, still contributed disproportionately to the ranks. Poverty was the principal stimulus for recruitment, and the Victorian army was virtually the only social-welfare system in the kingdom.41 Large numbers of recruits came from the ranks of the unemployed, especially those least likely to find stable employment near home and consequently the least skilled of the working classes.42 As many as 90 percent of soldiers had been cold and hungry when they joined up.43 The War Office experienced persistent problems in recruiting sufficient men of satisfactory caliber to the colors. Agricultural laborers were most favored by recruiting sergeants because of their strength and stamina and because they were more obedient than slum boys. This pool dried up slowly during the nineteenth century, in line with demographic and social changes brought about by industrialization. The army also shielded men from the consequences of their domestic responsibilities. Men joined up to avoid marriage or having to maintain children. Youths were sometimes attracted by the glamor of uniforms, the opportunities to travel, or the wish to join brothers or friends in a regiment. Soldiers’ own children, who had been to the military-run schools in Dublin and Chelsea, men from the militia regiments, or lads who had grown up as regimental children also provided many recruits.44 During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a disproportionately large number of Irishmen in the British Army. Emigration after the Irish potato famine (1845–52) reduced the number of potential Irish recruits, and in the latter years of the century, there was also opposition to serving the Crown from Irish nationalists, which discouraged some recruiting. In 1868, 31 percent of the army was Irish, but by 1888, this figure had declined to 15.6 percent, which was still higher than the Irish portion of the population of the United Kingdom.45 The proportion of Scottish troops also fell. In the 1830s, the Scottish and Irish troops together provided more than half the soldiers in the army, but by 1898, the Scottish proportion had dwindled to a mere 8 percent.46 The Scottish military

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Dominy_Text.indd 16 1/22/16 3:01 PM experience was similar to the Irish, as landless highlanders joined the army as a means of escaping rural poverty. Service in South Africa and Canada was popular with the Scottish soldiers because of the opportunities for desertion that the two large and open countries offered.47 Australia was another large and open country offering enticing opportunities for soldiers to desert. As Peter Stanley has shown, despite the ferocious military discipline and the success of the army in inculcat- ing pride in the regiment and self-respect in the troops, the army could not avoid the fact that “its soldiers came from precisely the same parts of British and Irish society as the convicts they guarded . . . they were equally casualties of Britain’s transformation from a rural agrarian to an urban industrial society.”48 As shall be seen, the first regiments to garrison Natal contained large numbers of Irish troops, so the Irish influence in the British army had an important impact in Natal and beyond the colony’s borders. By the 1870s, many more recruits were drawn from the slums of Britain’s industrial cities, and although the Twenty-fourth Regiment, of Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana fame, claimed to be Welsh (its territorial designation changed from Warwickshire to the South Wales Borderers in 1881), the majority of its soldiers came from the industrial centers of the English Midlands. Before the Army Enlistment Act was passed in 1870, part of the legislative implementation Cardwell’s reforms, new recruits from Ireland, Wales, or the slums literally received a shilling as basic daily pay. Deductions for clothing and kit meant that the recruits often entered the ranks in debt. Deductions and low pay remained sources of deep grievance throughout the nineteenth century. Conditions of service underwent major changes in terms of the Army Enlist- ment Act, which reduced the period of enlistment from ten years (infantry) and twelve years (cavalry, artillery, and engineers) to six years with the color and six years with the reserves. Although in later years pay was improved and stoppages were reduced, military pay remained uncompetitive with commercial and even agricultural wages. The only advantages for a soldier was that he was housed, fed, and regularly paid, whereas agricultural work was seasonal, and periodic unemployment was a danger in the cities.49 The daily routine in garrison for the troops was dull and repetitive, unless out on a campaign, when it was usually uncomfortable and likely to be dangerous. In garrison, reveille sounded at 6:00 a.m.; at 7:30 the ranks paraded and breakfasted. This was followed by “fatigue duty”: polishing kit, cleaning the barrack rooms and latrines, peeling potatoes. At 12:45 p.m. they paraded before dinner; in the afternoon they were again drilled. Tea would be consumed at 4:30 p.m., and the troops had free time until 9:30, when roll call was taken, followed by guard duty and “lights out” at 10:15.

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Dominy_Text.indd 17 1/22/16 3:01 PM The guard was on duty for twenty-four hours and changed at 9:00 a.m. The guard was required to provide an armed sentry at the barrack gate who was en- joined to “remain sober and attentive, not to smoke, talk, or whistle, and to wait till the end of his two-hour duty before attending to any pressing needs of nature.”50 Soldiers leaving camp had to be neat and properly dressed, and returning drunks had to be able to walk past the guardroom. Cavalrymen had more demanding schedules, given the extra care they had to give to their horses and equipment. The same was true for artillerymen with cannons and equipment to maintain. These monotonous routines were occasionally broken by formal military training, which was restricted to infrequent rifle practice and field days.51 This routine was followed at Fort Napier, day in and day out, year in and year out, almost placidly. However, when things went wrong, there could be serious consequences. The troops did not often openly express their feelings and attitudes in forms accessible to historians. They often appear as automatons because their military activities seem simplistic and rigid. Peter Stanley argues that the “mental uni- verse” of the British soldiers in Australia is “beyond our grasp,” because “[t]heir lives were on the one hand stark and simple; their appearance uniform; their days regulated and ordered; their recreations few and basic. And on the other their thoughts and feelings, values or beliefs, their jokes and slang—their interior lives—are virtually unknown and seemingly impenetrable.”52 Given the lack of organized recreation, drunkenness was a recurrent problem in the Victorian army and was a factor in other misconduct and ill-discipline, including desertion. Retributive punishments were relied on to deter crime and to curb the excesses of drunken behavior. Capital punishment was applied in a similar set of circumstances to those in civil trials, with the additional offenses of mutiny, desertion, and violence to a superior officer. The army hierarchy did, however, take a pragmatic approach to punishment at times. The Duke of Wel- lington, as commander-in-chief, issued a general order warning officers against coming into contact with “soldiers overcome by liquor,” in case the drunk lashed out at the superior and the offense changed from drunkenness (with a few days in the cells) to a capital offense, which would not necessarily result in execution but in transportation.53 In either event, the trained soldier was lost to the army. Corporal punishment was resorted to with far greater frequency, and branding was only abolished in 1871.54 Flogging was the most common form of punishment and was used brutally, frequently, and degradingly, inflicted in public parades in front of the entire regiment.55 The British Army was described as the “best flogged army in the world,” and in 1846, it took a major scandal at the Hounslow Barracks in London, when Pte. Frederick John White of the Seventh Queen’s Own Hussars, died a few days

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Dominy_Text.indd 18 1/22/16 3:01 PM after receiving 150 lashes, for public sentiment to be open to a “new view of a soldier as a human being—and of the army as a part of the nation.”56 The public disapproval of floggings was part of the stigma attached to military service and was captured in the sentimental ballads of the period: The night my Willie listed, how merry did he seem, To think he had the honour to serve our British Queen, Never thinking of the lash that was lying in his way To torture him so cruel if he went astray. If the lash it is not burned, and banished from our land He shall ne’er remain a soldier to guard our native land.57 As a result of increasing public disapproval, the number of lashes that could be inflicted for various offenses was steadily reduced, and its use increasingly restricted. However, it was still allowed when on campaign, and as late as the Anglo-Zulu War, soldiers were still being flogged. Six floggings took place in Piet- ermaritzburg and more on the line of march to Zululand.58 Even The Times commented that there was “a good deal of flogging” during the Zululand campaign.59 The publicity about flogging during this campaign ekindledr a public outcry, and Gladstone’s ministry finally abolished the practice in 1881, over the protests of the military hierarchy.60 Nevertheless, eight years later, there were press reports that a nineteen-year-old soldier was publicly flogged in Eshowe with a stirrup-iron strap.61 As the army reduced its dependence on institutionalized violence for enforcing discipline, the actions of various far-sighted officers in encouraging constructive leisure-time activities became more widely supported. Sports became generally organized and more popular in regiments; libraries were formed on the initiative of individual colonels, but the War Office feared the spread of subversion. Savings banks were established in 1843, but were not popular, except when the troops were serving abroad. Illiteracy and the attractions of women and drink militated against savings and reading in libraries.62 Organized efforts to escuer soldiers from the “demon drink” were begun by members of the Nonconformist churches, followed by the Church of England, and by the 1890s, all churches were cooperating in a nondenominational Army Tem- perance Association, which even had its outreach in Natal. Drunkenness began to decline in the army, but not sufficiently to change the character and reputation of military service. Even during the Edwardian era, a military career in the ranks remained a choice of last resort. One key reason was that the army remained an institution distinct and separate from the rest of society, at least in Britain and Ireland.63 In a semi-settlement colony such as Natal, it was a different matter.

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Dominy_Text.indd 19 1/22/16 3:01 PM The Regimental Family The regiment was the focus for communal loyalty in the British Army. It replaced the lost community of civilian life, whether in a slum or on a farm: “Men fought for it, not Queen and Country.”64 Drill and discipline was designed to ensure obedience to orders and superiors and to instill pride in the regiment, which became a man’s family and ideology. Within the rigid system, the regiment looked after soldiers and gave them a measure of protection. From the civilian perspective this was not always a general social benefit, as will be seen from events at Fort Napier when soldierly solidarity prevented racist bullies from being identified and brought to face civil justice. Shortly before World War I, an article appeared praising the regimental system and comparing its impact on the other ranks to the impact of a public school on its products: “Considering the lack of character training and conditions under which our recruits have lived before enlisting, is it not marvellous that 75 percent of them become the excellent fellows that they are before they leave the army? A good regiment sets a stamp on a man just as a good public school or university stamps a boy.”65 Michel Foucault drew explicit links between prisons and the military as “bonded” institutions. Both control, discipline, and make “docile” the human body, and the regiment was the functioning instrument for this process in the Brit- ish Army.66 The framework was laid down in the Queen’s Regulations. Soldiers who married without the consent of their commanding officer were not permitted to have their wives in barracks and had restricted rights to visit them outside the barracks. Only six women per hundred soldiers (excluding sergeants) were permitted to stay in barracks, receive rations, and use regimental transport and other facilities.67 The army may have seen married men and their wives as a liabil- ity, but it was prepared to support the small number of wives and their children to improve its public image and because the labor of women and children was useful for domestic chores. The official attitudes were contradictory, the morality of soldiers’ wives was often questioned, and yet wives were also idealized as a steadying influence on licentious soldiery.68 When a regiment was sent overseas, the “lawful” wives of soldiers were permitted to embark in the ratio of six to one hundred, but when selecting the wives, commanding officersere w strictly instructed to take care that “those of the best character, and most likely to be useful to the Troops are first chosen.”69 The consequences for wives and children left behind were devastating, with the un- fortunates being driven to the poor house or into bigamy or prostitution.70 Many cases were recorded in Ireland, such as that of Susanna Price, driven to prostitu-

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Dominy_Text.indd 20 1/22/16 3:01 PM tion and crime while her soldier husband was overseas on imperial service, or Eileen Byrne, who committed infanticide because she could not get admission to the workhouse with her infant.71 The inevitable corollary of the restricted marriage opportunities for soldiers was prostitution, which was tolerated by the army because it did not entail long- term commitments, and a man’s allegiance to his regiment was not placed at risk.72 However, widespread prostitution led to widespread venereal diseases, which compromised the efficiency of the army.73 Victorian public morality demanded that prostitution be condemned, while military efficiency demanded that it be allowed and controlled. This underpinned the Victorian double standard and played out in Natal as well as in Britain. If the army acceptance of wives was grudging, it was more generous in providing education for the children of the soldiers. The regimental schools were conducted on military principles and run by school master-sergeants (for the boys) and comparably paid and ranked school mistresses for the girls, with the utility of the children for the army being of prime concern: “Their object is to instil into the minds of the Children the duties of Religion; to implant in them early habits of morality, obedience and industry; to give them that portion of Learning which may qualify them for Non-Commissioned Officers, and to enable them to become useful members of the community.”74 The skills were gendered: boys were taught trades—to become armorers, tailors, saddlers, or boot- and shoemakers; girls were taught plain needlework and knitting. The purpose was to ensure that from an early age they would be “rendered useful to the Regiment.”75 The success of this process was not simply a function of the schools; it was due to the whole structure of the regimental family. The sons of soldiers grew up in barracks with their fathers, mothers, and siblings; they often spent years abroad and knew little of any other way of life. By enlisting and following in their fathers’ footsteps, they helped to keep their natural families together in the regimental family.76 As the conclusion to the regulations on regimental schools put it, the main purpose for which the schools were established was to give the soldiers the “comfort” that the education and welfare of their children are “objects of their Sovereign’s solicitude; and to raise from their offspring a succession of Loyal subjects, Brave Soldiers and Good Christians.”77 These pious sentiments paled in the face of the squalor of communal living in overcrowded barracks, but life in a colonial garrison was probably far better than life in a hovel in famine-stricken Ireland, or in a tenement in a Manchester slum.

• • •

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Dominy_Text.indd 21 1/22/16 3:01 PM The Victorian army reflected and magnified the class structure of the society from whence it came: it was masculine, hierarchical, tightly knit, and paternalistic toward women and the broader society. Ambiguities and contradictions existed, and in colonial Natal they were accentuated by the racial factor. The garrison was one of the most important components of colonial society, and its value system was inculcated in that society. The relationship between the garrison and broader society was more dynamic than in the United Kingdom, as the troops participated to a greater extent in the civil, cultural, and economic life of the colony. Through this interaction, they perpetuated military values in civil society over a prolonged period.

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Establishing an Imperial Presence Bayside Battles, Diplomacy, Women’s Revolts, and the Reluctant March on Maritzburg

he imperial garrison in Natal did not simply arrive out of the blue and build Ta fort. Its presence was the result of internal conflicts in the region and their actual and potential effect on the Cape frontier. The circumstances under which British troops were initially deployed in Natal and the factors that led to the establishment of a permanent presence will be discussed. This requires sketching the events preceding the arrival of a British column in 1842. The first phase of the British military involvement took place on the coast at Port Natal, or Durban, between 1842 and 1843. Thereafter the scene shifts to Pietermaritzburg, the former Voortrekker capital where the garrison established a fort in September 1843. The permanence of the military presence was a fact the Whitehall authorities would not admit to themselves for many years. Two processes were at work, as far as the military was concerned: initially there was a battle and a siege in Durban, from which the Voortrekkers eventually retired defeated; then followed a prolonged period of negotiation and uncertainty, during which the garrison began exerting its influence on the communities around it by threats and economic pressures, the second process. The troops were physically positioned so that they could control the landing and flow of goods and supplies through the harbor. Threats and economic pressures were part of the major long-term impacts of the garrison on Natal. The British Army never fired a shot in anger from Fort

Dominy_Text.indd 23 1/22/16 3:01 PM Napier, but it exercised a profound influence on colonial and African societies in a variety of ways: economic, social, and cultural being the most important.

Background to British Military Intervention The debates over the origins of the wars that afflicted southeastern Africa in the early nineteenth century in general and over Zulu state formation in the 1820s in particular, have engaged the energies of many scholars since the 1960s.1 While a full discussion of these debates is unnecessary here, an understanding of the earlier interactions between white hunters, traders, missionaries, and settlers and the dynamic African societies is essential for an understanding of their responses to the arrival of British troops. Cetshwayo ka Mpande, the last independent Zulu king, is credited with the pithiest summary of imperialism: “First came the traders, then the missionaries, then the red soldier.”2 In the eastern Cape, colonial encroachment was accompanied by lengthy, brutal, and bloody conflict, as the Xhosa put up a doughty resistance to settler land and cattle seizure, which was backed by formal military campaigns and “punitive expeditions.” These clashes have been somberly described by Ben McLean, depicted in popular form by Noel Mostert, and recently placed in a geopolitical context by Denver Webb.3 The imperial authorities in London remained ever sensitive to the costs of military intervention on the Cape eastern frontier, and the frequent halts called to campaigns were an expression of metropolitan attempts to curb the costs of colonial expansion. In Natal the dynamics of settler and colonial expansion functioned differently, as Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore have shown. Unlike in the eastern Cape, British penetration in Natal was “not accompanied by overt, armed conflict between white and black Natalians.” They suggest that the battles between the Voortrekkers and the Zulu, and the British and the Voortrekkers, in which superior firepower played an important role, “probably” played a part in the absence of African resistance to the later encroachment of white settlers during the nineteenth century.4 There are other reasons for the differences, and these can be sought in the structures and tensions of Zulu society and how they had developed by the time of sustained imperial intervention and the occupation of Port Natal in 1842. This was some twenty years after the arrival of the first British hunter-traders at the Bay of Natal. In the early 1820s, the founding king of the Zulu state, Shaka ka Senzangakhona, was at the zenith of his power when the first British hunter- traders arrived to hunt the teeming game and exploit the natural resources of the region. A mutually beneficial relationship developed between the Zulu monarch

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Dominy_Text.indd 24 1/22/16 3:01 PM and the traders, although the latter were distinctly clients of the king. Carolyn Hamilton has demonstrated that this relationship of mutual tolerance between the Zulu kings and the British, first in the Cape and later in Natal, lasted from Shaka’s reign to that of Cetshwayo, with some tension during the reign of Dingane.5 King Shaka was assassinated by his half-brother, Dingane ka Senzangakhona, on September 24, 1828; Dingane then took charge of a more fractious state. Less popular than his predecessor, he was beset by the fears and suspicions of a usurper and certainly seemed more suspicious of the intentions of the traders at Port Natal than Shaka had been. These fears were further aroused with the arrival of the Voortrekkers from the Cape in the late 1830s. The new arrivals were welcomed by the Port Natal community, but not by the Zulu authorities. The Trekker-Zulu clash of 1838–40 became a central feature of Afrikaner mythology. The main events—the killing of Piet Retief, the Zulu attacks on the laagers, the successful Trekker counterattack at Blood River on December 16, 1838, and the subsequent overthrow of Dingane by his half-brother Mpande—are well known and need not be discussed further here.6 Norman Etherington has advanced the argument that the Great Trek was largely a “land scam.”7 This revisionist twentieth-century historian’s view had contemporary echoes. The Rev. Daniel Lindley, an American missionary accompanying the Trekkers, stated in a letter to Sir George Napier, the governor of the Cape, “They [the Voortrekkers] think they have improved their condition by obtaining possession of greatly the best part of South Africa. Many of them, who had no farms in the Colony, now have valuable ones. They have all provided their sons with farms, which, in their view, is a most important improvement. They did hope that, by their emigration, they had escaped most of their Colonial troubles; but some doubt on this point has been entertained, since the arrival of the 75th Regt at Natal.”8 Lindley’s letter is one of the earliest mentions of the first arrival of British troops in Natal, which is the focus of this narrative. On December 4, 1838, twelve days before the Battle of Blood River, a small detachment of the 72nd Regiment, under the command of Major Charter, arrived at Port Natal and occupied the Point, the headland separating the bay from the Indian Ocean. The purpose of this deployment was to intervene to prevent hostilities between the Trekkers and the Zulu. They arrived too late to prevent this, but Charter’s successor, Captain Jervis, succeeded in negotiating a ceasefire in 1839. The detachment was then withdrawn in November 1839, two months after serious divisions had broken out within the Zulu Kingdom. Mpande ka Senzangakhona, Dingane’s half-brother, rose against the king with the support of the Trekkers. Mpande destroyed Dingane’s power after severe fighting in 1840, and the deposed king fled north to the Lubombo mountains,

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Dominy_Text.indd 25 1/22/16 3:01 PM where he was assassinated by Sambane, the leader of the Nyawo polity. Mpande became king, but as a vassal of the Trekkers and their state, the Republiek Nata- lia. Mpande’s position was also insecure, and internal opposition took the form of organized flight to the haven of the Trekker state south of the Thukela River. This became a factor of considerable importance when the British established themselves in the region.9 The rudimentary Trekker republic was a considerable source of instability in southeastern Africa. It claimed frontiers that included half the Zulu Kingdom, north of the Thukela, and much mPondo and Bhaca territory south of the Mzim- khulu River. This was a vague dominion, as the Trekkers did not exercise effective control over this vast area but followed contradictory policies in relation to the African population. Essentially, their patriarchal pastoral economy required thousands of rural peasants as virtual slave laborers, while the Trekkers sought to remove those inhabitants whose labor was surplus to requirements from their land. The Trekkers viewed the land near the Mzimvubu River as a suitable dumping ground. In 1840 they launched a large cattle-raiding expedition on the Bhaca, led by Ncaphayi. Some three thousand head of cattle were seized, as well as thousands of women and children who were “apprenticed” to Trekker families.10 The consequences reverberated across the Cape frontier to Cape Town. Con- flict on this scale had the potential for creating major disturbances on the volatile frontier. Faku, the Mpondo chief, was in the frontlines and felt at high risk after the raid. Through the agency of Wesleyan missionaries, he appealed to the British for protection. In January 1841, the Rev. William Shaw advised the Cape governor, Sir George Napier, that British troops should be sent to protect the Mpondo people. This request was approved by the authorities on the frontier and in Cape Town. Napier was not authorized to reoccupy Port Natal, but he decided that a smaller forward movement was within the scope of his instructions.11 In early 1841, Capt. Thomas Charlton Smith, with a detachment of the 27th Regiment, was sent to the Mngazi River mouth in Mpondo territory to deter any further raids. This force was also well-positioned to march on Port Natal should such a move be authorized by London. The Volksraad was undeterred and in August 1841 made plans to move the “surplus” African “refugee” population in Natal and dump them in Faku’s territory south of the Mtamvuna River and to apply the necessary physical force to the unwilling.12 When this was reported to London, Lord John Russell, the secretary of state for war and the colonies reluctantly authorized the advance of Smith’s force from the Mngazi River to effect the reoccupation of Port Natal.13 Russell had to weigh the potential costs of a widespread frontier war against those of sending a small military expedition more than two hundred miles along the coast in an

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Dominy_Text.indd 26 1/22/16 3:01 PM effort to prevent such a war. Despite the imponderables, he decided on the latter course of action, which appealed to the missionaries in Mpondo territory.14

Bayside Battles Captain Smith’s advance was delayed by the onset of the summer rains. His force had a distance of 260 miles to cover and 122 rivers to ford between the Mngazi River and Port Natal. It was therefore essential to wait until water levels in the rivers had subsided. Eventually the march began on April 1, 1842, at the beginning of the drier southern autumn. The force comprised two hundred men of the 27th Regiment, with two field guns (and their human gunners from the Royal Artillery, pulled by oxen, not horses), a detachment of Royal Engineers under young Lieutenant. C. J. Gibb, and a partially dismounted troop of Cape Mounted Riflemen. Captain Smith apparently feared that Natal was rife with horse sickness, hence the unwise decision to leave CMR and artillery horses behind. This force was supported by a baggage train with herders, “voorlopers,” transport riders, and the regulation number of regimental wives and families, plus the families of the men operating the baggage train. They endured an epic march of thirty-three days through dense coastal bush and fording major rivers in deep, tangled valleys.15 From the beginning, the British military presence in Natal was never simply a male endeavor. Smith’s force, with the accompanying wives and children, set the precedent for the continuous involvement of women with the life of the garrison. On the march up the coast, two women gave birth to healthy infants, while one soldier died crossing the Mkhomazi River. The women therefore endured all the hardships that the men did.16 The successful advance of the British force was dependant on the cooperation of local African communities and their leadership. Lieutenant Gibb believed that the advance had been kept a secret by cooperative local chiefs and that when the force appeared over the hill at Seaview, south of the Bay of Natal, on May 3, 1842, it was a complete surprise to the Trekkers. Anthony Cubbins, however, believes that the Trekkers were aware of the British advance, but preferred to avoid opening hostilities and wait to deliver a formal protest on the arrival of the force at the bay.17 Given the later Boer penchant for proclamations, ultimatums, and formal declarations stressing their rights and sovereignty, Cubbin’s surmise is probably correct.18 Trekker protests at the British intrusion were to no avail, and a series of military clashes took place at Port Natal in May and June 1842. Legalistically, they can be described as clashes between the armed forces of the British Crown and the

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Dominy_Text.indd 27 1/22/16 3:01 PM Trekkers who were in law, the rebellious subjects of the Crown. In reality they were clashes between two groups of intruders fighting on a third party’s territory. The fighting took place in, around, and among the majority African population, who were nominally the subjects of the Zulu king. However, as Sean Redding has indicated, Africans who moved to Natal did so because they desired to live outside of the control of the Zulu king.19 Boer and colonial mythologies drew heavily on the heroism of their respec- tive sides and condemned the treachery of the other. In reality, cattle raiding and counter-raiding formed major parts of this conflict as in so many other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African conflicts. The skirmishes form an introduction to the seven decades of the presence of the garrison in Natal, so they will be discussed briefly.20 Captain Smith and Lieutenant Gibb selected their camp site on a sandy plain near the bay known as “Itafa amalinde” (the plain of the lookout), which gave them access to the nearly landlocked bay and to the open beaches and space to graze cattle, as well as a somewhat inadequate vantage point for watching the Trekkers to the south at their rudimentary settlement of Congella. For some time Andries Pretorius, the Trekker commandant-general, and Smith conducted a war of nerves punctuated with salvoes of memoranda. Mpande, the Zulu king, kept himself informed of developments but did not intervene. The arrival in May of two ships carrying supplies for the British troops prompted the Trekkers to step up their pressure, and they seized the regimental cattle on May 23, thus rendering Smith’s force largely immobile. Smith retaliated by launching a surprise attack that night on Congella. It was neither a surprise nor a success. The British were sharply repelled with considerable loss of life. Smith was thereafter confined to his camp, and a siege began. Smith used the services of a local British trader, Richard King (known in settler history as Dick King) and his Zulu companion, Ndongeni, to take despatches on an overland ride to Grahamstown seeking reinforcements.21 Pretorius allowed Smith to evacuate the regimental wives and families to the supply ship Mazeppa. This chivalry was unwise because it enabled Smith to stretch his food supplies, and the women escaped in the Mazeppa on an unsuccessful search for a British warship. There were, however, racial limits to Preto- rius’s chivalry, and he forced Smith to keep the families of the wagon drivers in the British camp where they had to be fed and housed.22 After enduring a siege of thirty-three days, Smith was relieved by a force from the Cape, supported by HMS Southampton, the flagship of the Cape Squadron. The relief troops were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Josias Cloete, an officer of Cape Dutch origins, who was better placed than Smith to negotiate a ceasefire

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Dominy_Text.indd 28 1/22/16 3:01 PM with the Trekkers, who were driven back from the strategically important places around the bay by the reinforcements. Once the British victory was secure, Mpande offered his congratulations and military support, an offer that was politely refused. The British nevertheless relied heavily on the local inhabitants around the bay for assistance. Dick King’s escape had been facilitated by Mnini, the resident chief on the Bluff, who had obliterated King’s tracks and misled the Trekkers as to his whereabouts. After the siege had been lifted, Smith asked Mnini and other local leaders to assist him with recovering the cattle that the Trekkers had seized in May. Mnini undertook this task with enthusiasm and settled a few scores with the Trekkers in the process.23 Having arranged the ceasefire, Lt. Col. Cloete returned to the Cape with his troops, who then continued their interrupted journey to a posting in India. Smith, now promoted to the rank of major, was left at Port Natal with a vague and ill- defined control over the Trekkers. Smith’s authority was limited by the range of his recaptured field guns, but he did control the bay and its shipping and could levy customs revenues. To support the exercise of this control, the Royal Navy sent a guardship to the Bay of Natal. The brigantine HMS Fawn, under the command of Lieutenant Joseph Nourse, crossed the bar and entered the bay where, as a relieved Smith wrote, “by exercising her guns, [they] duly impressed interested parties that all hope of retaking the Bluff or Block House or of recovering Congella, was at an end.”24 To escape this irritation, the Trekkers retreated to their inland center, Pietermaritzburg. Even at that distance the British exercised a chokehold over the trade of the Trekkers, which continued throughout the southern winter of 1842 and the following summer.

Diplomacy and the Women’s Revolt From May 1843 to December 1845 Natal was, in the words of Edgar Brookes and Colin Webb, “in a curious state of transition.”25 Although it was formally annexed to the Crown, its status and form of government remained uncertain—perhaps one of the most constant factors in its subsequent history. The Voortrekker Volksraad continued to meet unhindered in Pietermaritzburg, Major Smith controlled the harbor and access to the sea, but not the political capital, while the most powerful force in the region was that of the Zulu king, Mpande. Each of the three powers had suffered defeat at the hands of one of the others, and none of them could exercise effective control over the whole region. Further- more, none of their leaders could really control their own subjects. Major Smith had his troops under military discipline but had little or no control over traders or missionaries.

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Dominy_Text.indd 29 1/22/16 3:01 PM Large-scale and relatively unhindered population movements took place in the Natal-Zululand area. Africans, in homestead or kinship groups or individually as political refugees, sought to reestablish themselves on ancestral lands vaguely claimed by the Trekkers, or in other desirable areas suitable for growing crops, building homesteads and grazing cattle. Hunters, traders, and Trekkers moved with little political hindrance between the coast and the Highveld, or from the Cape to Natal, according to economic imperatives or political prejudices. Many of the problems facing the new colonial government in the later 1840s originated in the confused conditions of the immediate precolonial period. Perhaps, given the degree of success in negotiating with the Trekkers that Josias Cloete had enjoyed, in contrast to Thomas Smith, the Cape authorities decided to rely on another member of the same family. On June 5, 1843, Henry Cloete (Josias’s brother) arrived at Port Natal, with a commission to sort out the tangled affairs of the region. His intention was to proceed to Pietermaritzburg to begin negotiations with the Trekker leadership, as the Volksraad was due to meet in session in August. However, Cloete’s relations with Smith began to de- teriorate rapidly. Reporting his arrival in Natal to Cape Town, Cloete stated that Smith and the military had received him with “every remark of respect and attention.”26 This mutual respect did not, however, last long. Shortly after his arrival in Natal, Cloete urged Smith to send troops to the capital and clashed with him over the levying of customs dues at the port.27 Smith refused to leave his protected camp at the bay unless he received reinforcements. Sir George Napier, the governor of the Cape, acceded to the request, and on July 21, 1843, the troopship Thunderbolt arrived off Port Natal and landed a detachment of the 45th Regiment with a battery of artillery, supporting troops and the regimental women. Despite this addition to his strength, Smith wrote gloomily to Cape Town that he was unable to send troops to Pietermaritzburg because of the increasing numbers of armed Trekkers congregating in Natal in preparation for the Volksraad meeting.28 Cloete was “utterly surprised” and disappointed at Smith’s refusal to support his mission and vowed to travel alone to Pietermaritzburg to meet the Volksraad and the contingent of hostile Trekkers from the interior.29Andries Pretorius and the other Natal-based Trekker leaders agreed to guarantee Cloete’s safety during the Volksraad session, provided that he was not accompanied by any troops.30 Relying on this promise, Cloete, rather bravely, set forth to Pieter- maritzburg alone, to monitor the vigorous debates in the Volksraad on August 7, 1843. Smith and the reinforced garrison remained in their camp on the plain of the lookout.

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Dominy_Text.indd 30 1/22/16 3:01 PM The following day, August 8, Cloete was able to report that, to his “heartfelt satisfaction,” the Volksraad had agreed to accept Sir George Napier’s conditions for the governance of Natal, “despite the opposition of a numerous and lawless rabble.”31 Many of the Trekkers so branded by Cloete were men from the parties to the west of the Drakensberg mountain range and from north of the Vaal River, the regions furthest from British officialdom, and were therefore the least willing to compromise or submit again to the British crown. Cloete’s compromise was to limit British control to Natal, east of the mountains, and to leave the “Overberg” areas out of his agreement with Pretorius and the Volksraad. In the same despatch, Cloete also reported that he was accosted by a deputation of Voortrekker women, led by the formidable Susanna Catherina Smit, the wife of one of the Trekkers’ religious leaders. Mrs Smit declared in words that rang down through Afrikaner nationalist folklore that she and the women “would walk out by the Draaksberg barefooted, to die in freedom, as death was dearer to them than the loss of liberty!” Nevertheless, the obdurate delegates from the Overberg parties decided to withdraw, and the remaining members of the Volksraad decided by twenty-four votes to one to submit to British rule, despite the opposition of the women. The decision was generally accepted by the Natal Trekker community, although, according to Cloete, there were still irreconcilables who committed “outrages” in the dead of night on the property of Pietermaritzburg’s “most respectable inhabitants”—meaning, presumably, those who now supported British rule. This led the local landdrost (the Trekker magistrate), Jan Philip Zietsman, to request the presence of British troops to protect the lives and property of the “respectable inhabitants” from the “lawless state of the lower classes.” Cloete knew from bitter experience how reluctant Smith was to move his force inland, but he backed up Zietsman’s request and urged the commandant to march, claiming that a force could reach Pietermaritzburg “with as much security as through any part of Her Majesty’s dominions.”32

The March on Maritzburg The surrender of the Volksraad and the subsequent British occupation of Pieter- maritzburg on August 31, 1843, were only indirectly the outcome of the military actions at Port Natal in 1842. There were more immediate nonmilitary reasons of greater importance. In the first place, there was the pressure exerted on the Trek- kers by Smith and his troops at Port Natal through their control and retention of the customs revenues. Secondly, Henry Cloete’s diplomatic blandishments

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Dominy_Text.indd 31 1/22/16 3:01 PM contributed to the desire of the Trekker notables to make peace with the British. Thirdly, and most importantly, there was a growing realization by the Trekkers that the main beneficiaries of the unstable system of divided powers were the local African communities. Families and clans who had been sheltering in the hills were returning to their fields and rebuilding their homesteads; refugees fleeing from the political turmoil in Zululand were establishing themselves south of the Thukela. These population movements posed challenges to each of the three political structures. The dissidents from Zululand could defy the authority of King Mpande because of the presence of the British garrison. The Trekkers found numerous communities reestablishing themselves on farmlands that the Volksraad had allocated to various notables and their extended families. The British lacked the official and military resources to manage the situation, and Cloete complained to the authorities at the Cape that a considerable garrison would be required to “ensure public tranquillity.”33 Many years would elapse before the strength of the garrison was increased to the six hundred men recommended by Cloete. Pressured by Cloete and running out of excuses for inaction, Major Smith began his preparations for a march on Pietermaritzburg on August 16, 1843, and spent several days organizing troops, transport, equipment, fodder, and weapons. Contemporary sources differ on when the march actually began, with the 45th’s regimental history claiming that the force left Port Natal on August 25, while Charles Gibb, the Royal Engineer officer, gives the date August 28, which is confirmed by Thomas Green, a veteran of the 45th who later settled in Natal.34 Whether on August 25 or three days later, Captain Kyle led two companies of the 45th, bolstered by detachments of the Cape Mounted Riflemen, Lieuten- ant Gibb’s small body of Royal Engineers, a few men of the 27th Regiment, and supported by a half battery of the Royal Artillery up the road from Durban. Major Smith commanded the whole force, which included wagon drivers, store- men, cattle herders, soldiers’ wives, and children and other less formally defined camp followers, both male and female, totaling between 200 and 250 persons. Smith ordered the troops to march in full battle dress and carry sixty rounds of ammunition each, but there was no interference from the Trekkers, and the force arrived on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg on August 31, 1843, after an uneventful journey.35 The new garrison marched through the dusty streets of the Voortrekker town with the regimental fifes and drums playing Major Smith’s favorite Irish marching tunes, such as “The Sprigg of Shillagh” and “Garry Owen,” up to a hill at the western end of the long streets, where they planted the Union Jack and pitched camp. The site had been suggested by Henry Cloete and was where the Trekkers had their magazine.36

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Dominy_Text.indd 32 1/22/16 3:01 PM Lieutenant Charles Gibb RE was given the responsibility of implementing Cloete’s suggestions for fortifying the encampment. The dedication and skill he demonstrated was much admired by his fellow officers in the 45th Regiment, who noted that he “at once chose the most defensible position, and proceeded to occupy it as if the whole country were well known to him.”37 Cloete felt that his mission had achieved a significant success with the arrival of the troops, and he wrote with some relief to the colonial secretary in Cape Town a few days after the troops had arrived, stating: “The British flag is now displayed as an emblem of peace and security.”38

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Dominy_Text.indd 33 1/22/16 3:01 PM 4

Building a Fort Plans, Impermanence, and Imperial Policies

he arrival of the garrison in Pietermaritzburg marked the beginning of the Ttransformation of the settlement from a Trekker hoofdplaats into a Victorian colonial capital in an African context. The design and construction work on Fort Napier was largely done by the military, but it had a profound influence on the city and the embryonic colony. The fort was also used as the base from which the small garrison began extending its influence over the colony and its hinterland. A study of the disputes over the expenditure on the construction of Fort Napier and on the maintenance of the Natal garrison reveals a degree of ambivalence on the part of the imperial government about the long-term existence of the Colony of Natal not previously noted in the historical literature. There is an interplay between the minutiae of the building process on a hill in Pietermaritzburg and the sweeping views of the war and colonial offices in London, and the link is the perennial propensity of bureaucracy to avoid taking decisions. While bureaucrats and ministers dithered, soldiers built. The fort grew along with the city, and a colony became a fait accompli.

Planning the Fort On September 1, 1843, Lieutenant Charles Gibb began planning and building a fort, which was named in honor of Sir George Napier, the governor of the Cape Colony. The Voortrekkers had established the town of Pietermaritzburg in 1838,

Dominy_Text.indd 34 1/22/16 3:01 PM Figure 4.1. Fort Napier: The earliest sketch plan by Lieutenant Gibb. (BPP South Africa, 1844–1848, “Correspondence Relative to the Settlement of Natal”)

but over the following five years their buildings remained simple and few and far between. The construction of the fort was the first major building project in Pietermaritzburg, and it took more than two years to complete. Gibb began with the erection of two redoubts at opposite ends of the barrack square. These redoubts were for the placing of artillery pieces carefully sited to cover the town, the river crossing below the fort that marked the end of the road from Port Natal, and the road to the interior that wound up Town Hill to the Midlands, the mountain passes and the high interior plateau of southern Africa. The reports on the construction of the fort demonstrate the influence of a garrison on urbanization on a remote frontier. They illuminate areas such as construction costs, the exploitation of natural resources, the use of troops as laborers, and the early employment of African labor in a proto-urban environment. While the barracks were under construction, the troops lived in tents on the site, and the officers lived in rented houses in upper Loop and Longmarket Streets. This division along the lines of rank and class from the earliest stages of

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Dominy_Text.indd 35 1/22/16 3:01 PM the military presence became one of the semipermanent features of garrison life in colonial Pietermaritzburg. The officers lived away from their men in the fort, to the detriment of military discipline. The officer commanding the 45th Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Boys (successor to Major Thomas Smith as garrison commander), who arrived in Pietermaritzburg in 1845, lived in upper Loop Street, near Theophilus Shepstone, the colony’s most influential government official. After his retirement, Boys’s property was leased by his successor, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Cooper, from another military officer, Lieutenant George Coxon, and remained in the hands of army officers until the 1860s.1 Meanwhile, the accommodation for the troops and the walls for the defense of the post had to be built. On September 5, 1843, Lieutenant Gibb wrote to the officer commanding the Royal Engineers at the Cape, Lieutenant Colonel Marshall, describing the march from Port Natal to Pietermaritzburg and his progress with the construction of the fort. This document not only reveals the structural history of Fort Napier, but it has its own archival and bibliographic history and reveals much about Victorian “knowledge management,” to use a twenty-first-century term. The report is headed “Camp ‘Bushmans Rand,’” which probably indicates that the name Fort Napier had not been decided on by September 5. After describing the terrain between Port Natal and Pietermaritzburg and the journey from the port, Gibbs described the site of the fort and the early work done: We are encamped on the hill above the town, which I have mentioned to you in previous letters. It is on the whole a very good position, looked down by some hills on the north side, but at a great distance. It appears to be the only position at all eligible for a post. We have all been at work making the post defensible, but, I am sorry to say, have had some heavy rains, which have delayed us. The barracks I have traced in the form of a square, and have thrown out two small redoubts at opposite angles, each for one gun and musketry. . . . These redoubts will be finished in the course of a few days, and will give protection in case of need. They are rivetted with stone, having command of 7' 6" parapet, 3' thick, ditches 5' deep and 9' wide. The soil is very hard, being almost entirely loose stones, with only about 18" of earth at the surface. The ground falls gently on the four sides from the Work forming a natural glacis. When the redoubts are finished the barracks can be commenced. I have traced them in the form of a square of 240'. This will give room for the accommodation of the detachment of 200 of the 45th, the Artillery, Cape Corps, Commissariat and Ordnance stores, stables, officers’ quarters. &c.,

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Dominy_Text.indd 36 1/22/16 3:01 PM complete. Stone is close at hand, and the roofing materials can be procured in the village. The outer walls being loopholed and flanked by the redoubts, the post will, I should imagine, be defensible. The report has been cited in detail because it gives an indication of the difficulties under which Gibb was working, the material available for the construction of the fort, and its proposed uses. Furthermore, it is the only traceable text describing the original core of Fort Napier, although plans for subsequent addi- tions do contain some details of the earlier structure. Gibb concludes: “By the next opportunity, I will send you a plan of the post, and by that time shall have been able to make more enquiries about the price of materials, etc., to send you further particulars.”2 The construction of Fort Napier was regarded as a matter of great significance by the military authorities in Cape Town and London, by their political masters, and by twentieth-century chroniclers and historians. The original of the report was sent to the Commanding Royal Engineer in Cape Town (CRE), Lieutenant Colonel Marshall, who submitted a copy to the governor, Sir George Napier, for approval and another copy to Colonel Fanshawe at the War Office in London.3 Napier forwarded his copy to Whitehall on October 6, 1843, and his successor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, sent a further copy in June 1844. This version was later tabled in both houses of Parliament at Westminster and published in the British Parliamentary Papers.4 Alan Hattersley, the prolific historian of colonial and settler Natal, also reproduced the report in 1936.5 With all the interest shown in Gibb’s initial report in Whitehall and the Horse Guards, it is unfortunate that the second report he undertook to write, giving more details and enclosing his original plan for the fort, is untraceable. It is difficult to ascertain when Gibb sent it to Cape Town, but there was an inordinate delay in forwarding it to London, and properly completed specifications, plans, and estimates for Fort Napier were not submitted at all in 1843 or 1844. In December 1843, Marshall, the CRE at the Cape, described Fort Napier to the inspector general of fortifications (IGF): The walls of the Barracks are stone, and the roof will be tiled, or slated with material from a quarry close at hand. This post, it is expected, will be finished by the 1st of January or February, if no particular hindrance takes place, and the labour being executed by the Troops at a reduced rate of working pay, the expense will be comparatively small.6 Marshall did not, however, enclose a plan of Fort Napier with this report. The plans at the CRE’s offices in Cape Town seem to have been in a perpetual mess,

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Dominy_Text.indd 37 1/22/16 3:01 PM and in 1847 the IGF complained that he could not check them because of incon- sistent numbering and suggested that the lists of plans submitted to London be returned to the Cape for checking and correction. A further list was sent a year later, which contains some Natal plans, but none of Fort Napier.7 The lack of plans prompted a lengthy and acrimonious correspondence between Sir Peregrine Maitland, the new governor of the Cape, and the War Office, not only over bureaucratic inefficiencies but over the very need for a military post in Natal at all. Maitland had to resubmit Gibb’s original despatch of September 5, 1843, to London in June 1844 and defend the young engineer’s actions with all his authority as governor. He asserted that Fort Napier was an “indispensable” set of military works, “urgently and immediately required,” given “the state of the Emigrant farmers and the readiness with which they are excited—the near neighbourhood of others of the same class beyond the Draakberg [sic], who still assert their independence of Her Majesty’s authority, and the consequent necessity of keeping up a force in that remote territory.”8 The lack of plans and estimates made the Treasury extremely restive, as the expenditure on this remote outpost seemed to increase rather than decrease. By the end of 1844, a further two thousand pounds over and above the original expenditure was needed for military works at Natal, including Fort Napier. The Treasury demanded full explanations and proper plans and threatened to reduce the power of the officer commanding at the Cape to initiate projects on his sole authority.9 Maitland responded to the stream of criticism from London with an increasingly feeble series of excuses that exasperated both sections of the linked War and Colonial Offices. Mr. Peter Smith, a senior official at the War Office, minuted James Stephens, the powerful undersecretary at the Colonial Office, complaining that “the Governor’s explanation is so unsatisfactory as to make one almost doubt whether he [could] have been cognisant of the terms of the regulation.”10 In time-honored bureaucratic fashion, the buck was passed. The CRE in Cape Town blamed civilian clerks at the Cape for their inefficiency and ignorance and requested the appointment of new clerks of works at Cape Town, Simon’s Town, and Port Natal. The latter post was justified by the coastal voyage of 1,200 miles between Cape Town and Port Natal and the fact that the officer in charge of the district was stationed at Fort Napier a further fifty-five miles inland, and “costly expenditure has already attained and must still ensue.”11 Stung by the criticism from London, the CRE bestirred himself to visit the Cape’s eastern frontier and, with his new firsthand knowledge, extended the blame from the clerks to the tyranny of distance, castigating rapidly changing imperial policies regarding the frontier, which meant that the army “does not know what works to follow and it is impossible to follow the spirit of the Colonial Service’s views on frontier defence.”12 The CRE made a powerful point: British

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Dominy_Text.indd 38 1/22/16 3:01 PM frontier policy was weak and vacillating, and this affected not only the eastern Cape but accounted for the long delays in adopting a formal system of government in Natal.13

Pressing On: The Circumstances of the Country Despite the complaints over expenditure, the design and construction of Fort Napier and the person and abilities of its designer, Lieutenant Gibb, were highly praised. In March 1845, in the midst of the slanging match over plans and expenditure, the IGF’s comments on Gibb’s plans were forwarded to the Colonial Office with the flattering remark: What I have done was more by way of suggestion, than to cavil at, or disap- prove what has been done by that meritorious young officer Lieut. Gibb in planning and executing in the best manner that the circumstances of the country, and the urgency of the case would probably admit, for the security of the Post against any Force at that time likely to be brought against it, and viewing it therefore as a Field operation, I do not think that the Master Gen- eral and Board are in a position to offer any objections to the propriety of the Services, or the expenditure incurred upon them.14 Gibb himself gave much credit to his senior noncommissioned officer, Sergeant Young, and the men of his small detachment.15 As the IGF said, Fort Napier was built under field-operation conditions as a temporary structure, but Gibb’s structure was still standing and still in use more than 150 years later. The troops of the 45th Regiment were the manual laborers who actually built the fort under the supervision of Gibb and his small section of engineers. Details of men were sent into the nearest wooded areas, such as the slopes of Swartkop Mountain, to cut timber for roof supports and door and window frames. Swartkop is a considerable distance from the site of the fort to drag timber, but as Gibb had stated in his first report, there was a constant shortage of timber in the area. In June 1844, when the first minor extensions were being finished, Gibb reported that the completion of the fort was being further delayed because “the various additional Buildings, and our being obliged to cut and saw the Timber ourselves (there being scarcely any to be purchased, and a great demand for it) will probably delay the completion of the Fort about two months longer than the period mentioned in my letter of the 27th April last.”16 In 1991, the Natal Provincial Administration reroofed Ward A of the Fort Na- pier Mental Hospital, and the original yellow-wood roof beams were exposed, still showing the marks of hand-sawing and the wooden pegs and handmade nails that were used to secure the beams. So much for a temporary structure!

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Dominy_Text.indd 39 1/22/16 3:01 PM The troops also quarried the stone for the foundations and redoubts from the immediate vicinity of the fort. Fort Napier was originally designed for the detachment of some two hundred men who had marched up from Port Natal in 1843, but within less than a year additional accommodation had to be provided. In 1844 Gibb began the construction of the “central range” of barracks, which divided the original rectangular shape of the fort. The new accommodation was occupied by the small detachment of artillerymen, the Cape Mounted Riflemen (CMR), and the commissariat. Given the uncertainties of Natal and, doubtless, Smith’s experience under siege in Durban in 1842, the commissariat was instructed to maintain a three-month supply of provisions and forage within the fort.17 All the additional construction resulted in there being insufficient space within the barrack rectangle for use as a parade ground, and the troops were then paraded outside the original walls of the fort, within sight of the town and with a view of the hills—including the Swartkop, which is generally the direction of bad weather, the relevance of which will be seen in a later chapter. So parading moved into the open, and eating followed shortly afterwards, as Gibb built a fortified cookhouse on the site of the quarry the men of the 45th had made digging up stones for the construction of the original fort.18 Within a few years, the way in which the troops were utilizing their physical spaces and the hilly topography and access to water was beginning to define the relationship between the garrison and the city. Lieutenant Gibb returned to Britain in 1848, by which time he had supervised the construction of three more “temporary barrack ranges” on the western slope of the fort (one of which was so temporary that it collapsed in a thunderstorm in November 1846).19 The rapid expansion of the barracks was necessary because the size of the garrison was increasing, and in 1845 the headquarters of the 45th Regiment moved to Fort Napier from the Eastern Cape frontier.20 The arrival of the regimental headquarters signified the increasing importance of the garrison in Natal, and also why so much money was being spent on this isolated spot. In 1846, the CRE at the Cape, Lieutenant Colonel Piper, arrived to inspect Fort Napier. His brief was to assess the military construction in Natal and at Fort Napier in particular, in light of the controversy over the expenditure on these works. Piper was impressed by Gibb’s work and satisfied with the construction of Fort Napier, but he was concerned that the troops were still living under cramped conditions. He suggested various improvements to the fort, which he believed would have a major effect, even a political effect, as the fort would “establish an Entrepot for the whole Interior of the Colony; and, being the seat of Govern- ment and Central of every other point to be occupied as posts of Defence, it will at once form a Depot at which the Troops may be able to concentrate in case of

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Dominy_Text.indd 40 1/22/16 3:02 PM Emergency and from whence aid may always be dispatched to the neighbouring or distant Outposts.”21 After the receipt of Piper’s report at the War Office, bureaucratic carping at the expenditure on Fort Napier seems to have ended. However, there was still uncertainty as to the permanence of the garrison in Natal, more than a year after the formal annexation of the territory to the empire. One of the officials over whose desk the Piper report passed saw little purpose in forwarding it to the highest authorities, “until the Government notify their decision in respect to the military occupation of the Natal settlement.”22

Impermanence and Imperial Policies The permanence of the Natal garrison was a small part of the larger sweep of issues underlying High Commissioner Sir Harry Smith’s aggressively expansionist policies in South Africa. Smith was a flamboyant soldier with a swashbuckling record of military actions on a variety of fronts, including the Peninsular campaigns against Napoleon, campaigns of conquest in India, and two wars in the eastern Cape. His bombast and exhibitionism used to be looked upon indulgently by colonial and military biographers, but on his return to South Africa in December 1847 he has been pithily described as having an “overwhelming arrogance further bloated by victory in India and the favour of Wellington.”23 Jeff Guy’s recent work on Theophilus Shepstone and Natal contains a scathing depiction of Smith’s conduct in the Cape frontier conflict in 1835: “Smith strutted and bullied while the troops, militia and commandos burned homesteads, plundered food stocks, drove off thousands of head of cattle and terrorised non-combatants.”24 The high commissioner spent three days in Pietermaritzburg as the guest of honor of the officers of the 45th Regiment. As a “soldier’s soldier,” he was greeted as a hero by the isolated garrison, which paraded before him as he left for Port Natal on February 12, 1848, with the regimental band playing “See the Conquer- ing Hero Comes.”25 After the inspection of the regiment, Smith congratulated Colonel Boys on the “high state of discipline” of his troops and expressed his satisfaction with the arrangements made for him. Smith’s visit was primarily political, and therefore he does not appear to have troubled himself with the requirement that, as a very senior officer, he should have submitted a full inspection report to the War Office. Such reports usually give a wealth of information on the health of a regiment, the state of its supplies, discipline, and accommodation. In the absence of such a report by Sir Harry Smith, Colonel Piper’s report remains the most comprehensive account of Fort Napier during the first five years of its existence.26

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Dominy_Text.indd 41 1/22/16 3:02 PM South Africa was in a state of flux during the late 1840s and early 1850s, and vacillating British policies mirrored the confusion; the retrocession of the Trans- vaal and the Orange River Sovereignty have been staples of the colonial history narrative.27 It is not, however, generally recognized that Natal’s fate as a colony also hung in the balance for several years. Edgar Brookes and Colin Webb select the arrival of Martin West as the first lieutenant governor of Natal on December 1, 1845, as the moment that settled the status of the region. They state, quite emphatically, that, for “good or bad, Natal was now a British Crown colony.”28 None of the more recent works of synthesis question the permanence of colonial status after the establishment of West’s administration.29 Only Basil le Cordeur has suggested that until at least 1848, there was doubt as to the permanence of the British settlement in Natal.30 All these writers rely on Colonial Office records in London, on Natal colonial records, or on secondary sources based on these records. Many writers do not seem to have accounted for the fact that the War and Colonial Offices had the same secretary of state and closely related internal administrations. An examination of the War Office records reveals a very different picture from that of the Colonial Office. In 1852—the year of the Sand River Convention, ten years after Captain Smith arrived at Port Natal, and four years after High Commissioner Smith’s flying visit—the War Office was still uncertain as to whether or not the British garrison in Natal was permanent. The CRE at the Cape had submitted a set of plans for a large range of barracks at Port Natal, at an estimated cost of £7,928/17/8d. The War Office balked at this price tag, and clerks began rummaging in old files for precedents and revisiting old arguments. Peter Smith, the chief clerk in the Colonial Office,31 compiled a memorandum outlining the strength of troops in Natal and noted that the “present military occupation of Natal” could only be considered as “provisional.” The establishment of the garrison, or the “amount of the force to be permanently settled there, has never been fixed.” The official mind of Mr. Smith recalled that in 1845, Secretary of State for War and Colonies Lord Stanley had refused to take a decision on the matter and that in 1847, Lord Grey had suggested that a “native force” guard the district, but no action was taken at that stage. A report from the governor of the Cape was therefore requested.32 While decisions and actions in Whitehall were pending, building work in Natal continued, and the bureaucrats at the Horse Guards had to consider the question of funding for extending the barracks in Durban (as Port Natal had become known). The report from the new governor of the Cape finally arrived in London early in 1853. General Cathcart claimed that he had approved the plans because Sir Harry Smith had recommended them, and he had no personal knowledge of

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Dominy_Text.indd 42 1/22/16 3:02 PM the situation. Cathcart then applied the age-old first principle of bureaucracy, the fig-leaf principle, and covered himself. He expressed himself as being dubious as to the effectiveness of so small a garrison as that in Natal. In his opinion, its “only practical use . . . might be to protect or cover the embarkation of British subjects and their property . . . in the not impossible event of their being suddenly overwhelmed by a Zulu irruption and general insurrection of internal native tribes.”33 The fear of an internal African combination linking local communities with better-organized outside states, the Zulu Kingdom in particular, loomed large in settler, military, and official minds for most of the nineteenth century and lurked in the background, even as World War I broke out, and the garrison finally withdrew from Fort Napier. However, in 1853 the fear did not overwhelm the minds in Whitehall. Mr. Smith considered Cathcart’s despatch and wrote a noncommittal minute for the attention of the secretary of state: This is a difficult subject. All Secretaries of State have declined, since the time when a body of troops was sent to Natal, to decide what should be the military establishment of that settlement. A small body of troops was originally sent to that place by Sir George Napier, with the reluctant consent of Lord Glenelg. It was supposed that the necessity for affording military protection to the settlers was only transient. But by degrees the original small detachment has been increased beyond a Battalion of Infantry. In ordering the plan of a barracks for such a large force Sir Harry Smith acted upon his own judgement.34 Even at this stage, almost ten years after the establishment of Fort Napier, no final decision was made, and the question of the permanence of the Natal garrison was deferred, with the concurrence of the Duke of Newcastle, until the “general question of the Establishment of the Army for South Africa” was to be considered, at an undetermined date in the future.35 No formal decision finalizing the permanent garrison of South Africa can be traced in either War Office or Colonial Office records, but the “temporary” presence of the imperial garrison in Natal remained on the administrative and political agenda until 1914. Nevertheless, the status of the colonial administration of Natal was certainly accepted as permanent by 1856, when the Charter of Natal was passed, and the colony received a partially elected legislature.36 By this date, thirteen years had passed since Fort Napier was laid out, and the troops had developed deep bonds with the settler community, as fort walls rose, soldiers dug water furrows, and an appearance of peace lulled the isolated colony.

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Pageantry, Pioneers, Panics and Punitive Expeditions The Pivotal Role of the Garrison in Creating a Colonial State, 1840s–1860s

he garrison began building Fort Napier two years before a formal colonial ad- Tministration was established, and although there was long debate in London as to its permanence in Natal, gradually the facts on the ground emerged in stone, in roads and ditches, in practice, and in relationships. The engine for changing Pietermaritzburg from a Trekker settlement to a Victorian colonial capital was the garrison. Firstly, there was the ability of the garrison to exercise an economic stranglehold on the town and district—an extension of Captain Smith’s control of the customs revenue in Durban in 1842 and 1843. Secondly, there was technical expertise provided by the troops in an era when communications were slow, officialsere w few and far between, and the duties of government were slight and generalized. Thirdly, there was the role of the garrison in bolstering imperial prestige; the 45th Regiment, according to Jeff Guy, “by its drilling and trumpeting was a daily and worrying reminder of what ultimately underpinned the safety and security of the district’s three thousand settlers.”1 This military pageantry served two purposes: it bolstered the prestige of the colonial state, and it masked the military weakness of the garrison in relation to the colony’s potential enemies, within the poorly defined and controlled frontiers and across those frontiers in the Zulu Kingdom, or across the mountains in the new Boer republics to the north. The isolation of the Natal settlers and the weakness of the garrison fostered rumors of “native” conspiracies and Boer attacks, which undermined the tenor of settler life and sent farmers into laager,

Dominy_Text.indd 44 1/22/16 3:02 PM Maritzburg citizens into the sanctuary of Fort Napier, and detachments of troops to man outposts on cliffs and hilltops. There were several of these “panics” in the early decades of the colony. Almost as an extension of the parading on the barrack square of Fort Napier, the garrison marched out on a few “punitive expeditions,” or glorified raids, intended to seize cattle, the universal wealth in southern Africa before the discovery of diamonds, and stamp colonial authority on a community not inclined to accept the overlordship. Some of these expeditions in turn created panics.

Contest and Cooperation over Resources To this day, the old center of the city of Pietermaritzburg retains the indelible shape of a Trekker settlement, with large rectangular blocks laid out so that water could be led down the eight long streets running from roughly south to north along the ridge between the two main rivers.2 Dominating the settlement was Fort Napier. Lieutenant Gibb’s proposals for the reservation of land for military purposes left an equally important imprint on the shape of the city and helped determine its development. His proposals were strenuously opposed by Henry Cloete, the special commissioner, and by Landdrost Zietsman, the Trekker magistrate, because they placed a considerable portion of the economic assets of the town under military control. These included the only brick and tile works, the main water furrow, much grazing land, and the main access route to Port Natal across the river at “Camp’s Drift.”3 Gibb’s rationale was to provide and protect resources needed by the garrison, but his proposal had the potential for imposing an economic blockade on the town should it prove necessary. Cloete and Zietsman foresaw conflict between troops and townspeople over these resources. Although the War Office felt that Gibb’s plan was a “very extensive reservation,” they were accepted because it was believed that the “settlement of Port Natal, its tranquillity and prosperity, if not its existence depends on it having military protection.” The War Office reasoned further that the military reservation of land should embrace “not merely the posts of defence, acco[mmodation], etc. but the means of ensuring a supply of water, fuel, and pasture for the Commis[saria]t. Livestock have also to be provided; or the military force would be dependent for its sustenance on uncertain supplies—and the Commissariat liable to exorbitant charges until the settlement be so far advanced as to maintain ordinary markets.”4 Perhaps in compensation for their control of the settlement’s potential assets and resources, the 45th Regiment played a major role in civil construction in Pi- etermaritzburg and in Natal more broadly. The soldiers dug the water furrows (or

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Dominy_Text.indd 45 1/22/16 3:02 PM “sluits”) down the sides of the streets, and they constructed roads, with the road between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, including the well-known “45th Cutting” on the outskirts of Durban, as the top priority. They erected the earliest public buildings in Pietermaritzburg, including the Government School Room, which doubled as the first Legislative Council chamber.5 The troops received extra pay for their construction work, although this was not always acknowledged.6 The 45th Regiment served an unprecedented sixteen years in the garrison in Natal, and many soldiers took their discharge in the colony. Thomas Green, a 45th veteran who settled in Natal, described his comrades as the “real pioneers” of the colony. He described them as poorly clothed and fed, but always “ready and willing” to do “every work that came their way.”7 The regiment’s own historians claimed that the “traditional capacity” of the men of the 45th for making themselves liked assisted the Dutch and the British to settle down peaceably together, although the Trekkers had been “sullen and uncivil” at first.8 The regimental record was over-optimistic, for most of the Trekker inhabitants abandoned their homes in Pietermaritzburg within four years of the arrival of the garrison. Gradually Pietermaritzburg grew—a settlement in Africa, ruled by settler oli- garchies dependent on local labor and exploiting the potential of the traditional pastoral and hunting economies. The perceived security provided by the garrison began attracting African groups into the urban environment. In 1844 the Trekker council, the Volksraad, received a petition from sixty-five inhabitants complaining at the “verbazend en alarmeerend getal van kaffer-kralen welke na van alle kanten rondom en zeer naby de Stad opgerigt zyn, en onder ander van eene welke by het groot water-reservoir digt aan Fort Napier staat” (amazing and alarming number of “kaffir kraals” that are being erected on all sides around and very near the city, amongst which is one right next to the large water reservoir at Fort Napier).9 These developments added to the complexities and ambiguities of labor relations in the isolated town. The men of the 45th Regiment worked as artisans and laborers constructing public and private buildings and digging ditches and building roads; but they in turn began employing African men in domestic service at the fort, not always with happy results. In May 1846, the barrack master complained to Colonel Boys, the officer commanding, that local African men transporting water from the water course to the fort were damaging the army- issue beer cases during their work.10 The garrison also relied on civilian transport to move equipment and supplies and used the rudimentary local newspapers to advertise for wagons and oxen, but also for drivers and span leaders, who, according to the divisions of labor in the

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Dominy_Text.indd 46 1/22/16 3:02 PM mid-nineteenth century, were African or of mixed descent.11 Colonel Piper also mentioned in his inspection report that the married troops at Fort Napier lived in “huts” of their own construction, and when we look at contemporary illustrations, these are clearly homesteads built for the climate of local materials—in other words, local African-style dwellings of thatch-grass and “wattle-and-daub”—and it is more than likely that the married soldiers employed Africans from the area to build them.

Supporting the Civil Power Jeff Guy describes the town of Pietermaritzburg and the new colonial administration as “rough and underfunded.”12 The garrison provided the fledgling colonial state with its major source of technical and administrative skills. The construction of roads, water furrows, and public buildings made settlements possible and movement between the port and the interior less difficult, which facilitated the growth of a state structure. However, in the 1840s, officials were few and far between. There were half a dozen senior officials on Lieutenant Governor Martin West’s Executive Council, including the officer commanding at Fort Napier, Colo- nel Edmund Boys. Other members included William Stanger, surveyor general, and Theophilus Shepstone, diplomatic agent to the native population and one of the most prominent figures in nineteenth-century Natal history. Nevertheless, there were more officers in the garrison than there were civil servants. The status of the officer commanding the oops—ortr commandant of Natal, as the post was also known—was second only to that of the lieutenant governor, and this placed the temporary responsibility for leading the colony on the senior military officer’s shoulders whenever there was a vacancy in Government House. Colonel Boys acted as lieutenant governor from the death of Martin West on August 1, 1849, until Benjamin Pine succeeded to the office in April 1850.13 Boys’s successor at the fort, Colonel Cooper, acted as lieutenant governor from March 1855 to November 1856 between the departure of Pine at the end of his first term in office and the arrival of Lieutenant Governor John Scott.14 Cooper was popular with the colonial establishment and “held in high esteem for his private worth and general urbanity.”15 While the commanding officers served on the Executive Council and even ruled from Government House, other officers were also brought regularly into the government. Officers served in rotation as aides-de-camp to the lieutenant governor, and men from the other ranks, including the CMR, served as orderlies at Government House doing clerical duties, announcing visitors, calling carriages, and taking messages.

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Dominy_Text.indd 47 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 5.1. Colonel Cooper, OfficerC ommanding the 45th Regiment: the model of urbanity. (PAR)

One of the most important actions that the new colonial administration undertook was the appointment of a commission to establish “locations” for the indigenous population of Natal. Stanger and Shepstone were the most prominent official members, but the third official member was none other than Lieutenant Charles Gibb of the Royal Engineers. The shortage of skills in Natal placed one of the most junior, though one of the most capable, officers in the garrison in a critical position on one of the most important political investigations in the history of Natal. Gibb’s specific brief was to assist with the laying out of towns. Another critical appointment of a military officer in a vilci post was that of Captain Gould Lucas, who was posted as “native magistrate” in the Klip River district, a position he still occupied in 1873, at the time of the Langalibalele Re- bellion. This appointment was reluctantly acceded to by the GOC at the Cape

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Dominy_Text.indd 48 1/22/16 3:02 PM because of the “extreme difficulty” experienced in Natal in “procuring other competent persons to fill such offices.”16 Had the garrison been withdrawn, the colonial administration in the late 1840s and probably until the early 1860s would have collapsed, not simply because of a lack of security but because it would not have had the personnel to function as a rudimentary government.

Pageantry and Propaganda The Colony of Natal and its garrison had an almost symbiotic relationship in the early decades, and it is difficult to disentangle the history of the garrison from the wider history of Natal during those years. This is particularly apparent when considering the role of the garrison in the parades and pageants that unified and attempted to exalt colonial society and in the minor panics and skirmishes that punctuated nineteenth-century Natal life, sending waves of panic through Afri- can and settler communities. The weakness of the colonial state was masked by pageantry and ceremony, and Guy’s “drilling and trumpeting” at Fort Napier was an essential feature of the mask. Military pageantry was a central part of what Robert MacDonald describes as the “poetics of imperialism,” which incorporates the “intricately complex set of tropes, signs, codes, discourses, plots and myths which constitute the social meaning of the popular imperial myth.”17 Eric Hobsbawm identifies three types of invented tradition: those “establishing or symbolizing social cohesion or the membership of groups”; those “establishing or legitimizing institutions, status, or relations of authority”; and those with the main purpose of “socialization, inculcation of beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour.”18 Public ceremonies in colonial Natal generally fit Hobsbawm’s patterns of symbolizing social cohesion and group membership for the settlers and legitimizing political authority and the new institutions that enhanced the status of the colonial established order. Missionary ceremonies were of the third type: they encouraged socialization and the inculcation of beliefs, value systems, and a “remaking” of conventions of behavior.19 Military church parades, color parades, and colonel’s inspections fit into this category, as they reinforced codes of behavior, regimental identity, and group loyalty. Colonial pageantry also had links of causation and coincidence with instances of panic, as on some occasions military “punitive” expeditions were preceded or concluded by elaborate parades to highlight a minor success or disguise a setback. On other occasions, ceremonies designed to enhance the authority of the colonial rulers did the opposite and provoked “panics” among the African

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Dominy_Text.indd 49 1/22/16 3:02 PM population. Such panics fed the almost pathological fear that the settlers had of a “native” rising or “combination.”20 This fear was, of course, fertile ground for the spreading of rumor, and as Shula Marks has stated, mutual suspicions and antagonisms were a constant feature of Natal society.21 The ostentatious rituals of a strange ceremony conducted by the military or by a leading colonial official, such as Theophilus Shepstone, may have been intended to impress urban or rural Africans, but it was often seen as alien and frightening rather than imposing. The so-called Zulu-invasion scare of 1861 was precipitated by Shepstone’s controversial visit to the Zulu Kingdom to “recognize” Cetshwayo kaMpande as the old king’s heir.22 The garrison policed Natal and its frontiers through a mixture of bombast, pageantry, and bluster: Sir Harry Smith writ smaller. Too weak to take effective action on its own against any major foe, the garrison asserted the imperial presence through pageantry and by preempting disturbances. In 1846, shortly after the establishment of the new administration, messengers arrived from King Mpande bearing complaints to the lieutenant governor about the seizure of royal cattle by Princess Mawa, a refugee from Zululand in 1840, and of the attitude of the Swazi king, Mswati, toward Mpande. On their arrival, the garrison was paraded, and mock volleys were fired to impress the Zulu diplomats.23 The short-lived bilin- gual newspaper The Natalier commented, “The effect produced by this military display on the minds of the chiefs must have been striking.”24 This minor display of military bravado took place almost contemporane- ously with Sir Harry Smith’s extravagant public humiliations of the Xhosa. The newly appointed governor of the Cape and high commissioner, Smith upheld his swashbuckling, ruthless image by conducting extravagant ceremonies designed to impress, overawe, and humiliate the Xhosa.25 Smith had a reputation and an adequate military force to give weight to his menaces. The situation in Natal, however, was totally different. The new administration was too understaffed, underfunded, insecure, and ignorant of regional circumstances to indulge in major exercises of saber-rattling before the representatives of the Zulu king. Martin West reported to Governor Maitland in Cape Town, “The attitude I have assumed with Panda is rather that which I deemed due to the dignity of the British Government than the one which in the event of hostilities can be maintained by the means at my command.”26 Theophilus Shepstone had hardly arrived to take up his post as diplomatic agent when the Zulu messengers arrived, so he was in no position to venture into the hinterland to negotiate between kings Mpande and Mswati. In another instance of the dependence of the early colonial administration on the military, Lieutenant Armstrong was despatched from Fort Napier to conduct the negotia-

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Dominy_Text.indd 50 1/22/16 3:02 PM tions. West asked Colonel Boys to advise on whether he could form a field force in the event of the young officer’s mission failing and hostilities affecting the colony. The commandant estimated the total military strength as 431 infantry of the 45th Regiment, thirty-five mounted men of the CMR, twenty-six artillery men, and sixteen engineers. He could defend Durban and Pietermaritzburg, but his force was “too small to undertake any operations of this nature with due regard to the safety of the troops,” especially as he could not rely on the Trekkers.27 In this instance, the military were paraded to impress Zulu representatives with the “dignity” of the British government and to mask its relative lack of power. A year later, the military were deployed in the field, but having failed to achieve any serious success during the expedition, ceremony and propaganda were resorted to in order to create an impression of colonial power and triumph: the expedition against Fodo kaNombewu.

The First Punitive Raid and the First Panic Fodo kaNombewu was chief of the Nhlangwini. He had played a prominent role in the triangular conflicts in the region in the late 1830s and early 1840s, even commanding the Trekkers’ African auxiliaries during their raid on Ncaphayi in 1840.28 In 1847 Fodo clashed with a group of Bhaca refugees under Chief Dushani who were fleeing into southern Natal to escape from the Mpondo—an act with long precolonial antecedents.29 Guy believes that the expedition was instigated by Theophilus Shepstone to “show his authority over an inkosi well known for his independent history and aggressive qualities.”30 A small field force under the second in command, Major Kyle, marched out from Fort Napier in support of Shepstone’s expedition, which consisted of Af- rican levies under several leaders who later proved to be the bulwark of Shep- stone’s location system. Shepstone demanded that Fodo surrender himself, but the wily leader evaded the colonial force without offering any serious resistance. Fodo’s homestead was burnt down, four people were killed, and five were taken prisoner. Large numbers of cattle, sheep, and goats were seized.31 The campaign was hailed as a triumph for the military and the colonial authorities. The Natal Witness wrote glowingly of the livestock seized and spoke of the “triumphant approach” of the force to town. The soldiers of the force were recorded in the same report as describing the expedition as the “Milking Campaign.”32 Fodo was not captured, and claims of victory over an “enemy” who fled, leaving troops to burn homesteads and seize livestock, is reminiscent of similar claims made in the Anglo-Maori conflict in New Zealand. James Belich has pointed out the hollowness of claims of victory after ineffective bombardments and pointless

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Dominy_Text.indd 51 1/22/16 3:02 PM assaults on abandoned Maori fortified settlements and asserted that those who hold convictions of their superiority “find it difficult to be fair to their ‘inferiors.’”33 The Milking Campaign took the field force from the garrison into the rough country of the south of the colony, in the opposite direction to the greater menace of Trekker and Zulu forces. Minor though the expedition was, it left Pieter- maritzburg almost denuded of troops and strained the military resources of the garrison to the limit. Four years later, in 1851, the eighth frontier war erupted on the Cape eastern frontier, and the Natal authorities were prompted to raise a force to threaten Xhosa territory from the northeast. This time Shepstone did not use a detachment from Fort Napier but took a single officer of the 45th Regiment, Captain Gordon, to help him raise a large force of African levies from the locations south of the Mkhomazi River. Some three thousand men were raised from reluctant chiefs, and many deserted at the first opportunity.34 The force was never put to the test, as it was disbanded on orders from Cape Town.35 The idea of African levies was also very unpopular with the settlers, and the press portrayed it as a government blunder.36 The tensions on the Cape frontier resulted in the circulation of wild rumors in Natal. The Natal Witness commented in frenzied tones that “surrounding tribes” were being “incited to fall upon us, and the bloodhounds of war turned loose into an arena of present peace.”37 One of the rumors was that Mpande was going to combine with local chiefs and seize the powder magazine at Fort Napier. This panic sent farmers’ wives and children into Pietermaritzburg to be placed “under the range of the guns of Fort Napier and the immediate protection of the gallant 45th.”38 However, the panic fizzled out, as no threatening armies appeared on any side of the colony, and farmers and their families drifted home.

Post-panic Parading The standard method whereby the garrison soothed jangled colonial nerves after a “panic” was to march out the regimental band, an event described by a “lady visi- tor” to the colony as the “great weekly festival here.”39 This was the pseudonym of John Robinson, founding editor of the Durban newspaper the Natal Mercury and later the first prime minister of Natal under responsible government in 1893. The “lady” made much of the social rituals, such as the exchange of “scandal” and the display of the latest fashions. African domestic workers carried the chairs from town up to the parade ground where the band performed. Another “lady” witness—this time a genuine female, Frances Colenso, the wife of Bishop John William Colenso—wrote of the band performances to a friend: “the music there is no great matter, but the élite of P.M.B. collect there to

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Dominy_Text.indd 52 1/22/16 3:02 PM sun themselves in each other’s eyes.”40 The ladies of the colonial elite paraded almost as purposefully as the troops, but the performances were popular with all sectors of the city’s population: working-class settlers, Boers, and Africans, “the grinning happy Kafirs.”41 In this respect, the activities of the garrison provided a rare opportunity for racial and class intermingling. Newly arrived immigrants raised funds to present a “Christmas Box” of fourteen pounds to the bandsmen in a gesture organized by the Pietermaritzburg city council.42 As Mark Francis has remarked, colonial ceremonies were not “restricted to extraordinary occasions, but were intertwined with the weekly habits” of tiny provincial cities.43 Pietermaritzburg was only one such city. However, the band performances were not universally popular, and shortly before the 45th Regiment left Natal in 1859, members of the “nonconformist” congregations submitted a “memorial” bearing 107 signatures, complaining about the desecration of the Sabbath by the band performances and the offense this gave to “God fearing patriots.”44 The urbane Colonel Cooper rejected the petition, as the performances took place on military land after the hours of “divine services.” A counterpetition, signed by 119 residents, condemning the “coarse and bigoted attitude” of the objectors and supporting the colonel was then presented.45 Ceremonies dignifying official occasions were also crucial, and in 1856, the first colonial legislature elected in terms of the Charter of Natal was opened in the government school room (which had been built by soldiers of the 45th). The recently formed colonial volunteers provided a guard of honor, the band of the 45th Regiment performed, and a salute was fired by the guns of Fort Napier.46 An otherwise unimpressive gathering of a mere sixteen men in a school class- room thus became a “legitimised institution,” in Hobsbawm’s terms, through military pageantry.

Royal Pageantry In 1860, the high commissioner, Sir George Grey, accompanied Queen Victoria’s fifteen-year-old son, Prince Alfred, on the first royal visit to South Africa. Terence Ranger has said that the British carried the “monarchical ideology to its greatest elaborations.”47 One of the earliest pioneers of the “elaboration” was Sir George Grey, who invested the young prince’s progress with as much symbolism and political meaning as possible. Grey accompanied the prince from the Cape to the Orange Free State and down into Natal via the “Overberg” route followed by Sir Harry Smith in 1847. Alfred met Xhosa and Basotho leaders and “enjoyed” a hunting spree, which was the most massive slaughter of game seen at that time on the Highveld.48

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Dominy_Text.indd 53 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 5.2. Sir Theophilus Shepstone. (Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, vol. 4, 198)

The expedition arrived in Natal on August 31, 1860, and entered Pieter- maritzburg to “great rejoicings—royal salutes, parade of troops, addresses presented, and no end of excitement.”49 The 45th Regiment had finally left Natal, and the 85th Regiment, under the temporary command of Major Williamson, welcomed the prince. Williamson was also acting lieutenant governor at the time, so the role of the military took on an additional status. On September 4, on the Market Square, Prince Alfred presented new regimental colors to the regiment, “with all the eclat which the limited resources of the little garrison could command.”50 There was a great ceremonial ball, with the regimental band blaring and the garrison officers leading settler daughters in the dancing.51 This was totally eclipsed by the assembly, directed by Theophilus Shepstone and his chief African assistant, or induna, Ngoza kaLudada Qamu, of four thousand Natal Africans, who performed a “novel and exciting” war dance.52 The Natal Courier boasted

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Dominy_Text.indd 54 1/22/16 3:02 PM that these refugees now “crouch under the sheltering protection of the British Lion; and the sceptre of Britain’s Queen guarantees to them safety, security and salvation.”53 As Guy reminds us, this was a “colonial exhibition within colonial borders, and thus the more terrifying the savagery the more impressive the achievement of those who had brought it under control.”54 The leading figure to whom the achievement was attributed was Theophilus Shepstone.

Panics Revisited In April 1861, the year after Prince Alfred’s visit, Shepstone led a Natal delegation north of the Thukela River to “recognize” Cetshwayo as heir to King Mpande. This expedition was a near disaster, both in terms of the interactions with the Zulu and because Lieutenant Governor Scott and Shepstone were trying to shape a policy contrary to the overall frontier policy of the high commissioner, Sir George Grey. Shepstone had acted on his own initiative in an attempt to defuse the Zulu royal family’s animosity over the protection given by Shepstone and Bishop Co- lenso to a young prince, Mkungo, who had fled to Natal in 1856 with his mother Monase, a favorite wife of Mpande.55 Mkhungo and another of Mpande’s sons, Mthonga, were settled at Bishopstowe, Colenso’s mission station outside Pieter- maritzburg. The princes were schooled by Colenso and seen by the authorities as possible heirs to the Zulu throne.56 The garrison was not involved in Shepstone’s expedition, which was hailed as a success and a personal triumph for Shepstone in the official reports and in the colonial press. Shepstone assumed for himself an African ceremonial importance he had no right to and claimed that he had quelled a rampaging mob through iron will and courage. His assistant, Ngoza, had spoken to young women in the isigodlo, a serious violation of custom, and Shepstone, in his own account, had to calm emotions and extract his followers without violence and without causing additional offense.57 The incident was used in colonial and imperial writings with none other than Rider Haggard submitting an article to the Natal Witness and using the event in his later fiction. Locally, Charles Barter wrote doggerel hailing Shepstone: Clear rang his voice upon the air; The lawless rabble crouch, and stare; Drop down the spears; and hark! A cry Inkos! Inkosi! Rends the sky. Then all is still; and soon the kraal Is empty as deserted hall.58

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Dominy_Text.indd 55 1/22/16 3:02 PM Shepstone’s confidential eportr was sent to London by Lieutenant Governor Scott. George Grey was furious, as he believed that the Natal officials trespassed into his sphere of authority. The report also mentioned possible conspiracies between Cetshwayo and the Swazi and Basotho leaders. The conspiracy theory was reinforced by a message, purporting to come from Mpande, that the Basotho were going to send armed horsemen to seize Mkhungo and Mthonga as a prelude to an attack on Natal by Cetshwayo’s army.59 Scott summoned the Execu- tive Council, which ordered the mobilization of the colonial volunteers and the despatch of a field force of regular troops from Fort Napier to protect the frontier with Zululand. Scott also appealed to Grey for reinforcements from the Cape.60 A detachment of the 85th Regiment, led by their commanding officer, Lieu- tenant Colonel J. W. Grey and accompanied by the lieutenant governor himself, marched for the Thukela River. The force also included a mounted troop of the CMR, a half battery of field guns, and a section of Royal Engineers.61 However, a strong force was left at Fort Napier in case the Zulu army evaded the field force on the high ground at Krantzkop and dashed for Pietermaritzburg to seize the Zulu princes. As an extra precaution, the colonial government hurried the young men from Bishopstowe into protective custody at Fort Napier.62 The field force reached the heights overlooking the Thukela on July 20 and began building an outpost, named Fort Buckingham. Two days later, Shepstone arrived with three thousand levies under their “feudatory native chieftain,” in this case Shepstone’s confidant, Ngoza.63 The usual manifestations of a settler panic were evident, and farmers and families moved into Pietermaritzburg, Durban, and other defensible settlements. In Cape Town, Grey, still seething over the report on Shepstone’s expedition into Zululand, responded to the alarmist despatch from Lieutenant Governor Scott by sending all able-bodied troops (and even invalids) from the garrisons in Cape Town and Simon’s Town to Durban in HMS Narcissus. The reinforcements, under Lieutenant Colonel Burmester of the 59th Regiment, were only in Natal for a matter of weeks before being withdrawn.64 No Zulu invasion materialized, and Cetshwayo sent a message explaining that his regiments had been assembled for hunting purposes. The colonial press, however, claimed that a Zulu invasion had been forestalled by the government’s “timely and energetic measures.”65 There were other explanations. The Reverend Robertson, an Anglican missionary in Zululand, claimed that Cetshwayo feared a sudden Boer raid aimed at seizing St. Lucia Bay.66 Frances Colenso, the bishop’s daughter, later claimed that the scare was manufactured and that it was the Zulu who were alarmed by the

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Dominy_Text.indd 56 1/22/16 3:02 PM sudden appearance of troops on the southern heights overlooking the Thukela, and they panicked as much as the Natalians had at the “imaginary Zulu army.”67

Panics and Paying for the Military Presence The 1861 Zulu-invasion scare raised a question that endured until 1914: paying for the garrison. At the height of the panic, the Natal Courier reported that the imperial authorities drastically reduced the garrison of New Zealand when that colony received responsible government. The newspaper consoled itself and its readers with the thought that it was not possible for the British government, “even in its present temper, to think of removing her protection from us.” How- ever, if Natal had responsible government and Britain was required to deploy more troops in the colony, then the home government could rightfully demand payments of the costs of such a military expedition. The editor recommended that the colonists should not yet seek responsible government: “Natal is just yet too young, too feeble and too poor . . . to think at present of responsible government.”68 The economic influence of the garrison and its costs to the taxpayer will be considered in chapter 11.

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Ceremonies and Crises The Garrison in the Established Colony, 1860s–1890s

he previous chapter described the pivotal role played by the garrison in the Testablishment of the colonial state through its control of the key resources around the port and capital, the work of the troops in building the infrastructure of the colony, and the critical role of the garrison in filling key government positions and assignments. The garrison masked the weaknesses of the state through military pageantry and marched out on minor expeditions in response to panic and rumors of invasions. By the 1860s, nearly two decades after the establishment of Martin West’s fledgling administration and the first raising of the Union flag at Fort Napier, the colonial administration had been stabilized. The Location Commission (with Lieutenant Gibb as a member) had recommended the division of land that formed the cornerstone of Shepstone’s policy for managing the African population of Natal. The settlers had unsuccessfully experimented with cash crops such as indigo and cotton until success was achieved in the late 1850s with sugar, and indentured laborers were brought from India in 1860 to work in the sugar plantations. In 1856, the Crown granted the Charter of Natal in which the settlers received elected representation in the Legislative Council, and the district became the fully fledged Colony of Natal.1 Perhaps the garrison could be expected to fade away as the colony grew, but this did not happen. This chapter will continue to explore the themes of crisis and ceremony as the colony matured and the garrison faced greater threats, particularly from beyond its borders.

Dominy_Text.indd 58 1/22/16 3:02 PM Basotho Raids and Inspecting Generals The panic of 1861 was followed four years later by an actual threat to Natal. Moshweshwe, the founder of the Basotho nation, was resisting Boer encroach- ments from the Orange Free State, and the strife spilt over the mountains into Natal. This conflict seriously affected Natal’s “Overberg” trade and threatened businesses with ruin. There was also the fact that many of the Free State Boers owned property in Natal and moved their herds seasonally between their farms on either side of the mountains.2 They made a tempting target for one of the Basotho border chiefs, Lesaoana, known for his “independent aggressive qualities,”3 who launched a raid on a party of Boers moving between Klip River County in Natal and their farms in the Free State.4 The raid caused waves of concern from Pietermaritzburg to Cape Town and London. There was a panic among Natal farmers and settlers, and the press carried demands for satisfaction at the violation of Natal’s sovereignty and expressed fear at the Basotho combining with the Zulu.5 Never one to waste a good crisis, Theophilus Shepstone rode to the rescue. He assembled a contingent of African levies and headed for the Oliviershoek Pass, demanding reparations from the Basotho and sending despatches to the high commissioner and Colonial Office requesting permission to occupy Moshweshwe’s mountain kingdom to exact the necessary cattle and other reparations.6 Key to the Natal campaign as pushed by Shepstone was the exaggeration of the losses suffered by African location dwellers and settlers alike.7 The high commissioner, Sir Philip Wodehouse, like his predecessor, Sir George Grey, was suspicious of Shepstone’s and Natal’s ambitions. For Wode- house to be able to thwart Shepstone’s plans, he needed accurate information from Natal and was extremely fortunate that, by happenstance, the general officer commanding in South Africa, Lt. Gen. Sir Percy Douglas, was on the spot in Pietermaritzburg, where he was conducting an inspection of the garrison. Douglas made a powerful ally for the high commissioner, as he greatly outranked Shepstone and the lieutenant governor and was highly experienced in assessing risks realistically. The GOC’s visit to Natal was prompted by War and Colonial Office concerns about the frequent calls for reinforcing the garrison and at the expense and difficulty in getting troops to the colony and landing them at Durban. Douglas had prepared for his visit by writing to Lieutenant Governor Scott stressing the “great” cost in landing troops and transporting regimental baggage at Natal—costs that ended up in the pockets of colonists. He had asked Scott for free use of the Natal government steam tug and harbor facilities at Durban, adding that the “surest means of your remote colony obtaining the addition to its garrison, so much

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Dominy_Text.indd 59 1/22/16 3:02 PM desired by its inhabitants, is, that they consent to lighten, as far as possible, the cost of landing reinforcements upon their shores.”8 Douglas was also concerned at the continual bickering between the military and local authorities over access to military land in Natal (predicted by Commissioner Cloete ten years earlier) and intended to deal with these issues on his tour of inspection in June and July 1865.9 However, Lesaoana’s raid intervened and diverted the general’s attention from costs and logistics. He planned his initial troop deployments on the as- sumption that the panicky news conveyed by the Natal authorities was correct, but as more information became available, the general changed his mind.10 Douglas’s report was compiled and updated over several days and reveals the change in his thinking as successive reports came into Pietermaritzburg. Initially, on July 4, 1865, he swallowed the Natal government’s exaggerations, including the alarmist stories of widespread carnage and the worst settler nightmare: the abduction of a white woman.11 However, within a week he had reached a more measured assessment of the situation and moderated his plans, placing clear limits on the freedom of action of the local garrison commander. By July 11, Douglas had received firmer figures of losses and casualties and recorded that one white man had been killed in Lesaoana’s initial attack and that some black British subjects had also been killed. When it reached London, Douglas’s report circulated between the War and Colonial Offices, where a favorable note was made that “Sir Percy Douglas has completely adopted Sir P. Wodehouse’s pacific views.”12 Douglas left Natal and wrote a covering note to his report in September 1865 in which he demonstrated his identification with the high commissioner’s views and strong deprecation of Shepstone’s annexation plans.13 However, at a critical moment in the crisis, the lieutenant governor of Natal, John Maclean, was incapacitated, depriving Shepstone of some much-needed high-level support, and the administration of the colony devolved on the commandant of Natal, the garrison commander, Col. John W. Thomas. Thomas, under General Douglas’s carefully worded orders, had accompanied Shepstone and his African levies with the field force from Fort Napier to Klip River County. While Shepstone did manage to exert some influence on the colonel, whose despatches indicate some support for Natal’s expansionist agenda, Thomas nevertheless stuck rigidly to his orders from General Douglas and saw his primary duty as being the protection of the lives and property of British subjects, white settlers and black location dwellers alike, within the borders of the colony.14 Theophilus Shepstone was stymied: the fortuitous presence of General Doug- las and the incapacity of Lieutenant Governor Maclean resulted in far greater power and influence being exerted by the garrison commander over the political affairs of the colony than would normally have been the case. Even though Colonel

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Dominy_Text.indd 60 1/22/16 3:02 PM Thomas was sympathetic to the expansionist visions Shepstone outlined to him while they shared the rigors of patrolling the high mountain passes, two factors swayed Thomas: his general had given him strict orders, in which a Shepstone-led raid on Basotho territory had played no part; and, for a critical period while Ma- clean was out of action, Shepstone had to defer to the colonel, who had stepped up to exercise political power as administrator of the Natal government—which meant that the “buck” stopped with Thomas. There was fury among the colonists, and an effigy of the high commissioner was carried through the streets of Durban by an angry crowd. The Legislative Council sent a petition to the queen railing against the timidity and hesitancy of the high commissioner’s policy and its damage to British prestige.15 The Natal Witness spoke out strongly in Shepstone’s support: “Twenty-two years of peace, with a handful of military at the fort near the city, and not a single outpost in a settlement, containing upwards of two hundred [thousand] so-called savages, and less than twenty thousand Europeans, scattered sparsely over this territory, is eloquent in praise of the man, of whom a correspondent justly says, ‘he is an army in himself.’”16 Natal’s reaction to the raid followed the usual “panic pattern” that had manifested itself during the raid on Fodo and the 1861 “Invasion Scare.” Wild rumors spread, and the colonists panicked and fled for shelter; the government called up the colonial volunteers, and Shepstone called up his African levies. The imperial regulars were sent into the field, and Cape Town was asked to send reinforcements. The presence of General Douglas and the temporary installation of Colonel Thomas as administrator of the colony undoubtedly played a significant part in curbing Shepstone’s “Overberg” ambitions. However, Shepstone’s eyes were roving, and he was also looking in other directions.

Firing a Salute across a River Although Shepstone’s ambitions for expansion into the interior were thwarted in 1865, there was a minor coastal extension to the colony’s borders in the New Year. The southern boundaries of Natal followed the course of the Mzimkhulu River through precipitous valleys from the mountains to the sea. The indigenous inhabitants included the followers of Fodo and also various Bhaca chiefdoms and fragmented refugee groups who had moved north from the Mpondo territory. South of the Mzimkhulu was the area colonists labeled “Nomansland,” recognized as being part of the territory of Faku, king of the Mpondo. Shepstone, who had grown up on a mission station in Mpondo territory, had long had designs on Faku’s territory, including moving Natal’s “surplus” Afri-

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Dominy_Text.indd 61 1/22/16 3:02 PM can population south of the Mzimkhulu River and subjecting their chiefs to his personal rule. The expansion of Natal’s territory was stamped on by Whitehall in 1854, but Shepstone continued scheming. The boundaries were vague, the gorges long and deep, and the vegetation tangled: ideal conditions for informal encroachment and the slow erosion of Mpondo sovereignty.17 Pressures in the west of South Africa were also mounting, and the Griqua community under Adam Kok was losing land and resources to the expanding Boers of the Orange Free State. With Natal pressure from the north and Boer pressures in the west, the high commissioner and governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Grey, granted the vaguely defined area to Adam Kok of the Griqua. Kok left the contested “Griqualand West,” soon to be even more contested by diamond prospectors, in the early 1860s and led his people on an epic trek east- ward over the Drakensberg to the “vacant” land promised to him by Sir George Grey.18 Natal was also eyeing the territory, which had been half-promised to them as a buffer zone. Grey left Cape Town in 1861 and was replaced by Sir Philip Wodehouse. After examining the muddle in Nomansland, Wodehouse decided that the coastal area would go to Natal, and the Griqua would get the highlands.19 Half a loaf, or half a territory, was better than none, and it was important for Natal to mark the annexation as impressively as possible. Shepstone left the mountains and headed for the coast with the acting lieutenant governor, Col. John Bisset, and a detachment of the 99th Regiment. Bisset was determined to make an impression and wrote: “I have brought a gun and a few red-coated soldiers with me and intend firing a Royal salute on the border over the ‘Umtamvuna River’ on the 1st January, and so indelibly fix the line in the minds of the natives, both old and young.”20 The troops formed up on the river bank, the gun boomed out, and the flag was hoisted. Adam Kok and an entourage of Griqua attended the ceremony, and the Griqua “Kaptyn” was presented with a tunic of an officer of the Ninety-ninth Regiment as a sign of colonial approval. This garment remains as a prized relic in the Kokstad Museum. The small territory was named Alfred County, to com- memorate the visit of Queen Victoria’s son a few years earlier. Although the annexation was not universally welcomed by the local people, who saw themselves as Faku’s subjects, there was no overt resistance at the time of the ceremony or in the period thereafter.21

Diamonds, Guns, and Punitive Raids: Langalibalele and the Flight of the Hlubi Less than two years after the annexation of Alfred County to Natal, the economic transformation of nineteenth-century southern Africa began with an event occur-

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Dominy_Text.indd 62 1/22/16 3:02 PM ring far to the west, when a diamond was discovered near the Orange River in Griqualand West. Suddenly there was a resource of enormous value and prestige in the South African interior, and British interests no longer focused on protecting overextended frontiers. What lay beyond those frontiers became increasingly interesting to policy makers, as prospectors, traders, speculators, and investors flocked to the diamond fields. The Colony of Natal was not unaffected. White settlers left their farms and headed for the reputedly easy riches in the new city of Kimberley. Africans followed them. The colonial authorities had imposed hut taxes and enforced public labor service (isibalo) on the male population of the locations in order to pressurize men to work on white farms to earn the money to pay the taxes. The new opportunities for wealth in the west were attractive to young black men, as they could earn more in the diamond fields than on white farms, and they could acquire guns. One of the groupings most active in sending young men to the diamond fields to earn money and buy firearms was the Hlubi, led by Chief Langalibalele ka- Mthimkhu. The Hlubi had been a vassal chiefdom of the Zulu kings until attacked by Mpande in 1847. This prompted Langalibalele to move his people into Natal and seek British protection. In accordance with the Locations Commission report, the Hlubi were placed in a “location” on the upper reaches of the Msuluzi (Bloukrans) and Mtshezi (Bushman’s) Rivers to act as a buffer between cattle- keeping white settler farms and the bands of San hunter-gatherers who still lived in the mountains and raided the colonists’ cattle.22 Despite colonial taxation, the Hlubi prospered sufficiently to compete commercially with white farmers in crop production. The economic independence and pride of the Hlubi prompted resentment from the white settlers. The organized arrangements Langalibalele made for his young men to work in the diamond fields and purchase firearms turned resentment to hostility. John Macfarlane, the magistrate of Weenen County, ordered Langalibalele to register all firearms owned by his men. Langalibalele temporized, there was a fracas, and the government messengers alleged that they had been assaulted. Macfarlane’s attitude toward the Hlubi hardened. Langalibalele was ordered to Pietermaritzburg to appear before the lieutenant governor, in his capacity as supreme chief, but he refused.23 The lieutenant governor, Sir Benjamin Pine, had previously served in Natal and was welcomed back with a dinner at which Bishop Colenso proposed a toast to “the Army, the Navy, and the Volunteers.”24 Shortly after the dinner, Shep- stone set off for Zululand with a detachment of the Volunteers, a military band, and a force of Natal-location African levies. His aim was to “crown” Cetshwayo KaMpande, who had become king of the Zulu after the death of his father. The

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Dominy_Text.indd 63 1/22/16 3:02 PM tensions between the settlers, their magistrates, and the Hlubi simmered while “Somtsewu” paraded north of the Thukela. What is significant about the events taking place on both sides of the Zulu border in 1873 is that the imperial garrison was not at the forefront bolstering colonial power: the colony was flexing its own muscles. After Shepstone’s return from Zululand in September 1873, an ultimatum was sent to Langalibalele commanding his attendance in Pietermaritzburg. Volunteers and African levies, already on an active footing after the Zululand expedition, were placed on the alert. Tensions boiled over, white farmers began heading into laager, and the Hlubi began fleeing up into the mountains. The imperial garrison was requested to supply a standby force in support of the volunteers, and the military planning for the expedition was undertaken by the commandant of Natal, Colonel Milles, officer commanding the 75th Regi- ment. He was supported by the CRE, Maj. Anthony William Durnford, who was also serving as colonial engineer. The Weenen magistrate, John Macfarlane, was supported by the long-serving magistrate of Klip River, Capt. Gould Lucas, formerly of the 45th Regiment at Fort Napier. Macfarlane and Lucas played de- plorable roles in the brutal suppression of the Hlubi and the breaking up of the communities and families. Durnford, later killed in action at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879, personi- fied the complex interrelationships and influence of garrison figures on Natal and Zululand. Administratively and technically gifted and with wide experience, including service as a colonial engineer in Ceylon, he was an asset to the Natal Colony as colonial engineer. His personality was a curious combination of headstrong and indecisive. His private life was not straightforward: his marriage was unhappy, and Mrs. Durnford had not accompanied him to Natal. He later formed a relationship with Fanny Colenso, the bishop’s daughter, and developed a reputation as an “advocate of just and humane dealing with the natives.”25 The political and military leadership of the colony left Pietermaritzburg for Fort Nottingham (originally built by the 45th Regiment a decade earlier) to direct the operations against the Hlubi. The reserve force of imperial troops was held at Meshlynn farm, and the volunteers advanced under the command of Maj. Charles Barter (magistrate and member of the Legislative Council). The whole expedition was placed under Major Durnford. The Milles-Durnford plan envisaged using colonial volunteers and African levies as a mobile force to prevent the Hlubi escaping by blocking the mountain passes and to sweep through the area seizing cattle and women and children as hostages. The major flaw in the plan was the general ignorance of the mountain topography and the lack of consideration for the changeable spring weather, with

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Dominy_Text.indd 64 1/22/16 3:02 PM mountain mists, slippery ground, and chilly, soaking rains. Durnford was also ordered not to fire the first shot.26 The expedition was a fiasco.27 The volunteers blundered up the wrong mountain pass in appalling weather and made contact with the Hlubi rearguard, who were armed and ready to fight their way to safety. Durnford had seriously injured his arm climbing the mountain and did not give clear leadership. The Hlubi fired first in the fracas that ensued, and the volunteer unit, the Natal Carbineers (despite having an experienced regular NCO responsible for rallying the men), fled. Three Carbineers and two African colonial levies were killed. One of the colonists was the son of the colonial secretary, and one of the Africans was Elijah Khambule, a prominent member of the Edendale Wesleyan Mission community, the amaKholwa. Durnford was widely blamed for the fiasco, and he in turn blamed Sergeant Clarke, the regular NCO, for spreading panic among the young volunteers at a time when they “naturally” relied on the imperial army regular for his experience.28 The incident prompted a full-scale panic among Natal settlers. Martial law was declared, and imperial troops were sent from the Cape.29 A punitive expedition was organized, and the Hlubi and the neighboring Ngwe (or Putili) chiefdoms were savagely attacked. The suppression was so savage that the first official history of the Natal Carbineers describes the operation as “ratting expeditions” and as “disagreeable work.”30 The young volunteers in the local militia regiments were the products of the new elite settler schools, which fostered and transmitted Victorian manly values and consciously pointed to the imperial garrison as their exemplar.31 Their bloodletting in this devastating attack on a civilian population was boasted about in the local press, with serious consequences, as Bishop Co- lenso took up the cudgels to defend Langalibalele.32 The role of the imperial garrison itself was limited, but the press coverage also exposed the regular force to official censure. A rocket battery under the command of Lieutenant Clarke of the Royal Artillery, was used in the attack on the caves in which Hlubi and Ngwe refugees, including women and children, were sheltering. Clarke was subsequently tried by a court martial for killing a refugee in cold blood, and press reports of the court martial refer to the volunteers killing women and children sheltering in the caves.33 He did not deny his actions but claimed that he had killed his victim “out of motives of humanity,” as the man was badly wounded. The court martial was reluctantly arranged by the newly appointed special commissioner, Sir Garnet Wolseley. Wolseley was afraid that a trial would revive interests and passions when he was trying to quiet things down and get the colonists to reflect on the “many very foolish things” they had done as a result of the “panic that at the time held

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Dominy_Text.indd 65 1/22/16 3:02 PM possession of their minds.” Wolseley had seen a similar killing happen in action in India and thought Clarke “mad” ever to have mentioned the matter. He was forced to remove Clarke from his post as a colonial magistrate while awaiting court martial and to place him under open arrest.34 In the aftermath of the affair, the imperial troops together with African levies called up under the isibalo system, as well as Putili prisoners, were placed under Durnford’s direction and sent to block the mountain passes through which the Hlubi had fled. There were later accusations that men of the 75th Regiment defaced the San Rock Art in the mountain shelters, but this has been disproved by recent archaeological research.35 The capture and trial of Langalibalele ended with the Hlubi chief being sent into banishment and imprisonment on Robben Island, nearly ninety years before Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there. Bishop Colenso was appalled by the travesty of a trial and campaigned vigorously to have the verdict overturned. There was much concern in London, but little in the way of restitution for the Hlubi and Putili. The attack on Langalibalele was difficult to assimilate into colonial mythology, and no fake victory parade was possible. There was defeat, brutality on an appalling scale, and the only option was to ignore as many of the unpalatable issues as possible, as Wolseley had suggested in the case of Lieutenant Clarke. The explorer-artist Thomas Baines, who had accompanied David Living- stone on his Zambezi expeditions, was resident in Natal at the time and painted a heroic portrait of the action. He portrayed Durnford confronting the Hlubi. The preliminary sketch of the action showed death, destruction, and the Natal Carbineers in flight, but the final version is markedly different. It is highly likely that Baines was pressured into modifying his work to portray an image of a grand “civilized” defiance of menacing barbarians rather than the panicky retreat he first sketched. Image in art as well as in ceremony and pageantry, in both colonial and in metropolitan depictions of imperial power, was everything, and the minor matter of Baines’s Langalibalele depiction was dramatically re-echoed in the selections made by greater imperial artists in the depiction of the battles of the Anglo-Zulu War.36 British public condemnation of Sir Benjamin Pine’s handling of the Langali- balele affair had a major effect on imperial policy, and it was decided to recall Pine and replace him at the head of affairs in Natal and around Zululand with the glamorous figure of Maj. Gen. Sir Garnet Wolseley, the “very model of the modern Major General” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. This appointment brought the Natal garrison even closer to the center of colonial life than before and heightened the importance of its ceremonial role.

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Dominy_Text.indd 66 1/22/16 3:02 PM Sir Garnet, the Garrison, and the Wooing of Natal Lord Carnarvon, the colonial secretary in the British cabinet, motivated to a considerable degree by the debacle over Langalibalele and the Hlubi, decided that the colonies and territories in South Africa needed to be brought together in a “confederation.” One of the steps in achieving this goal would be to persuade the Colony of Natal to accept a reduction in the powers of its legislature. The overwhelming figure of Sir Garnet Wolseley was despatched to persuade Natal politicians to neuter themselves. Wolseley was one of the rising stars of the mid-Victorian army and had a reputation as a reformer. An intensely ambitious man, he made his name in campaigns in Canada and West Africa. To further his career he accepted “quick fix” posts in colonial administration, with the special commissionership in Natal being the first. His responsibility in Natal was to persuade the local legislature to accept an amendment to the fairly recent Charter of Natal that would reduce its powers so that the colony could be more easily incorporated into Carnarvon’s proposed Confederation of South Africa. John Robinson, editor of the Natal Mercury, described Wolseley’s tactics as drowning the “independence of Natal in sherry and champagne.”37 The special commissioner’s conduct was shameless, and he exploited his aristocratic military staff officers and the officers, band, and ceremonials of the 13th Regiment (Prince Albert’s Light Infantry) to overawe the colonial elite, whom he despised, in a “whirlwind social offensive and the inauguration of a spirited style of calculated flattery, entertainment and seduction.”38 Wolseley’s diaries are liber- ally scattered with offensive personal remarks about Natal settlers in general and about numerous individuals in particular. Ladies watching tennis at Government House were described as an “ugly headed lot”; Mr. Hartley, a Durban merchant, was “very pompous,” and in general, the colonists had “offensive breath.”39 From the moment of his arrival, Wolseley ensured that there was as much ceremony as possible wherever he went. When he was sworn in at the court house in Pietermaritzburg, the garrison provided the regimental band and the guard of honor to “increase the importance of the event as much as possible.”40 The opening of the threatened legislature also took place in the new court house building, with the military band and the guard of honor in attendance. The application of the sherry-and-champagne policy was best illustrated on the occasion of the Queen’s Birthday Ball at Government House, when Wolseley adjured his staff to remember that the ball was a “serious affair not given for amusement” and ordered all officers to ensure that they danced with all the wives and

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Dominy_Text.indd 67 1/22/16 3:02 PM daughters of the members of the Legislative Council.41 Wolseley also remarked that, with the exception of a few naval and military officers and a few others who had settled, there was “scarcely anything approaching an English gentleman” in Natal; most colonists were of lower middle-class or lower origins and claimed their gentlemanly status because they were “too lazy and idle to work.”42 Wolseley spent a significant amount of time dining with the officers of the 13th Regiment at Fort Napier and thought they were a “very nice set of young fellows indeed,” with a steady commanding officer from the north of Ireland with a rich brogue and a “desponding” view of human nature and regimental affairs.43 Wol- seley avoided taking sides in Natal’s religious politics by attending divine service with the garrison, thus avoiding the churches of the rival bishops Colenso and Macrorie. This meant that the special commissioner did have to endure the mum- bling of the ancient regimental chaplain, the Reverend Nesbitt.44 The “nice set of young officers” boasted of their conquests of young colonial ladies to such an extent that the officers of the ill-fated Twenty-fourth Regiment, which arrived at Fort Napier in 1878, recalled with “hopeful anticipation, the amorous adventures in Natal of Wolseley’s aides.”45 The military parading, the seductions and the sherry and champagne had the desired effect on the members of the legislature, and Wolseley’s bill was passed by the men he despised. One of the colonists he did not despise was Theophilus Shepstone, who significantly influenced his thoughts and recommendations. Wolseley sent a major despatch to Carnarvon warning that the Zulu menace (and, to a lesser extent, Boer opportunism) required a significant increase in the size of the garrison, the raising of a mounted police force, and the construction of a strategic railway network to enable the rapid deployment of military force.46 Jeff Guy and Adrian Preston see the seeds of the policy leading to the 1879 Anglo- Zulu War in this despatch and, of course, Shepstone’s strong influence. This is a critical despatch, as Wolseley’s recommendations regarding the expansion of the garrison took effect over the longer term, and in less than ten years the military policy and the railways were more or less as Wolseley had envisaged them. As the despatch proceeded to London, Shepstone and Wolseley undertook a six-week tour of Natal and the Zululand frontier, which again emphasized Shepstone’s views of the Zulu menace. Wolseley left Natal in August 1875, to be replaced by Sir Henry Bulwer, with the more humble title of lieutenant governor, befitting the reduced status of Natal as a mere building block in the mooted confederation. The confederation policy failed, but Shepstone’s obsession with the menace of the Zulu Kingdom grew, and the reluctance of the Colonial Office to countenance the expansion of South African territory waned.

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Dominy_Text.indd 68 1/22/16 3:02 PM The Crisis of the Anglo-Zulu War The events of the Anglo-Zulu War bring the themes of pageantry and panic, ceremony and crisis into acute focus and into close relationship with each other. The various colonial panics during the thirty years preceding the invasion of Zululand were as nothing when compared with the effect of the news of the British defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana, which produced the worst panic of all the panics in the history of the colony. The invasion was, in one sense, the largest-scale punitive expedition to be launched, and it began, for its British participants, as a glorious sporting adventure, a pageant of imperial force projected across the Thukela River. As stated in the introduction, this work does not focus on the Anglo-Zulu War, as the regular garrison of Fort Napier was but a small proportion of the in- vading army. The focus here is on the impact of the war on the city and the fort. In the months before the outbreak of war, in late 1878 and during the first few weeks of January 1879, there was a great and overweening confidence in imperial power, both political and military. The high commissioner of South Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, and the general officer commanding, Frederick Thesiger (who inherited a peerage as Lord Chelmsford shortly before the war began), were commanding affairs from Pietermaritzburg. Socially, the settler elite enjoyed as exciting a period as they had during Wolseley’s brief governorship. A dazzling array of officers were made honorary members of the Victoria Club as the regiments gathered for the campaign. There were dinners, dances, and parties, which lightened the load of military preparations.47 There was also a concerted effort to boost public confidence, with parades through the city and the ceremonial departure of troops for the Thukela. One of the young colonists who was deeply impressed was Robert Mason, a small boy at the time. He and other boys, both black and white, marched along in step with the soldiers as they proceeded out of Fort Napier with bands playing.48 The fort was also the assembly point for the African levies, both the mounted troops from amaKholwa mission communities and the Natal Native Contingent raised from the locations. Their departure impressed Mason almost as much as the departure of the imperial regulars. The ultimatum was presented to the Zulu envoys on the banks of the Thukela River in a grimly choreographed ceremony with imperial troops in the background. A month later, on January 11, 1879, the three columns of British troops crossed into Zululand, and eleven days later, on January 22, the Central Column suffered a shattering defeat at Isandlwana. Although the outpost at Rorke’s Drift held out against an attack that night, Chelmsford’s invasion plans were in complete disarray.

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Dominy_Text.indd 69 1/22/16 3:02 PM At Isandlwana, an imperial battalion, colonial volunteers, and African levies died on the same field. Two colonels were killed: Pulleine of the 24th Regiment and Anthony Durnford, who was leading the Natal Carbineers and volunteers. This time the Carbineers did not desert him. The news of the disaster affected settlers and all sections of Natal’s population. African workers in towns and on farms took flight astounded, for the possibility that British troops could be defeated had never occurred to them.49 There was the deepest distress at the loss of life among imperial officers and men well known in the colony. All sectors of society were affected by the losses among black and white colonial forces. Theophilus Shepstone lost his son, George, and there were deaths of young men from mission stations and from African reserves. Thousands of settlers flocked to Pietermaritzburg and Durban for protection. A laager was built in the center of Pietermaritzburg protecting the government offices, the law courts, and the main businesses. The colonial secretary, Lt. Col. Charles Mitchell, was in charge of arrangements.50 The mood was panicky, and little incidents such as the signal gun being fired unexpectedly or blasting from the town quarry produced stampedes for the laager, the prison, or the fort. What was the role of Fort Napier, the center of the garrison, during the war? It was a key point for the protection of the settler elite who resided in its vicinity. Ironically, racist colonists asked for African refugees to be sent there instead of to the colonial laager. Normal signals by the Fort Napier time gun were canceled, and a special sequence of shots was announced in the event of an impending Zulu attack. There was also concern that able-bodied young colonists who had been allocated to the defense of the town laager were planning to flee to the fort, where they would get some protection from the few remaining imperial troops.51 From March 1879, Fort Napier was garrisoned by small detachments of the 88th Regiment (Connaught Rangers), the 2/21st Royal Scots Fusiliers, and the 99th Regiment. The fort was the key supply base for the campaign and became the headquarters of Maj. Gen. H. H. Clifford, who was sent with the rush of reinforcements after Isandlwana to command the lines of communication. The reduced garrison not only kept supplies moving but played a key role in the soothing pageantry of the wartime period. Ceremony also returned to Maritzburg in March. The lieutenant governor, Sir Henry Bulwer, proclaimed Sunday, March 12, as a day for mourning British and colonial dead. Facing a congregation of bereaved military families, colonial officials, and settler parents from his pulpit, Bishop Colenso showed great courage and condemned the war and reminded his listeners of the grieving Zulu families.52

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Dominy_Text.indd 70 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 6.1. Prince Louis Napoleon, the French Prince Imperial. (Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, vol. 4, 270.)

The sense of panic diminished as reinforcements arrived, Eshowe was relieved, and Chelmsford mounted his second invasion of Zululand. However, an incident on June 1, 1879, threw Natal back into a further fit of despair. Eugene Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the exiled Prince Imperial of France, was killed in a skirmish with a local Zulu force in the Tshotshosi valley. His father, the Emperor Napoleon III, had fled into exile in London in 1870. His only son had joined the British army and, through the personal intervention of Queen Victoria, got himself sent out as an observer in Zululand. The prince’s death brought forth all the Victorian sense of melodrama and reverence for royalty. All the losses suffered by the colony were projected through the ceremonies held as the body of the last of the direct Bonaparte line was brought from the battlefield through Natal to Durban with all due marks of respect and sorrow. An elaborate ceremony was arranged in Pietermaritzburg by Major General Clifford and the colonial government.53 As many regular troops as could be gath-

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Dominy_Text.indd 71 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 6.2. Victorian solemnity: invitation to the secretary of native affairs to attend a Catholic religious ceremony honoring the “mortal remains” of the Prince Imperial, 1879. (PAR)

ered and smartened up at Fort Napier lined the streets together with reconstituted volunteer regiments, all under the command of Major Chamberlain of the battered 24th Regiment, who was in charge of the fort. Robert Mason recalled the black drapery in the shops and the hard work of the undertakers in preparing a lead-lined coffin in which the prince’s body would be taken to England, adding

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Dominy_Text.indd 72 1/22/16 3:02 PM that every shaving from the coffin was kept as a souvenir.54 The Times of Natal described the guns of Fort Napier being fired, the regulars and volunteers lining the streets, and many being touched by the impressive ceremony.55 General Clifford (coincidently, a Roman Catholic)56 and Lieutenant Governor Bulwer followed the coffin in procession to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic church, where the body lay in state overnight and where a funeral mass was held the following day. Even the quarrelsome Anglicans, led by Bishops Colenso and Macrorie, together with Colenso’s bitterest clerical enemy, Dean Green, made an unheard-of joint appearance at a Catholic service, of all places. The prestige of the Catholic church in Natal was uniquely enhanced by the event and the ceremonies.57 Major William Butler, who was the responsible for the ceremonies in Durban, where the body would be handed over to the Royal Navy, issued a special order that sums up the purpose of colonial ceremony and the irony of the situation, concluding that the “Troops will also remember that the PRINCE IMPERIAL of FRANCE fell fighting as a British soldier.”58 Robert MacDonald’s “poetics of imperialism” echo resoundingly through the ceremonies surrounding the progress of the prince’s corpse. Unlike most colonial ceremonies, they also echoed globally, because (unfortunately for Lord Chelmsford) there was a “host of newspaper correspondents” accompanying the second invasion of Zululand and the death of the prince, and the solemn ceremonies made excellent copy for newspapers and journals in Britain and France.59 General Wolseley, with his staff coterie, replaced Chelmsford in command in Natal and Zululand for the mopping-up operations after the Battle of Ulundi. As the troops began returning from Zululand, Pietermaritzburg once more turned festive and ceremonial. The Natal Volunteers received a civic reception, and the 24th Regiment, the garrison regiment before the war, and the veterans of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift were given a feast in the Market Square, and the schools were given a holiday.60 Separate celebrations were held in Edendale to mark the return of the mounted amaKholwa contingent. Sir Henry Bulwer presided, and an “epoch-making” aspect of the ceremony was that for the first time on record, African women sat together with husbands, fathers, brothers, or betrothed “at meat.”61

Railways, a Mountain Battle, and a Parliamentary Parade After the end of the Anglo-Zulu War, the garrison settled back into a normal routine, but this was soon interrupted. On December 1, 1880, the railway line from Durban finally reached Pietermaritzburg, and the garrison and the city turned

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Dominy_Text.indd 73 1/22/16 3:02 PM out to welcome the first train. Daniel Headrick describes the link between technology and imperialism as a three-phase process: exploration and penetration; conquest and the imposition of European rule; and finally, adding value to a colony by forging a transportation network.62 The Fort Napier garrison played an integral role in all three parts of Headrick’s process: it was part of the conquest and imposition of British rule; officers fanned out across southern Africa as hunters and explorers; and the engineers played their part in technological and infrastructural improvement. The ceremony on December 1, 1880, linked the force responsible for conquering the Zulu Kingdom with the technological triumph of a railway line that would soon service the gold mines of the Witwatersrand and bring profit to Natal and Britain. The regimental band played, the guard of honor paraded, the train tooted, and the fort and city turned out to cheer the chugging marvel.63 However, while Pietermaritzburg celebrated, demonstrations against the British in the Transvaal were turning hostile. A gathering of Boers at Paardekraal repro- claimed the old republic, and by December 15, the Potchefstroom garrison was besieged. A British force marching from Lydenburg to Pretoria was ambushed at Bronkhorstspruit and severely defeated. War came again to the frontiers of Natal.64 Although there was a humiliating British defeat on Majuba Mountain on the borders of Natal, the campaign was brief, and the impact on Natal and its garrison was not as profound as the recent Anglo-Zulu War had been. Defeat was a difficult concept for theictorians, V unless it was a noble sacrifice against overwhelming odds that embraced ideas of Christian sacrifice in the imperial cause (such as Isandlwana or Colonel Gordon’s death at Khartoum).65 James Belich has written that an enormously powerful British expectation of victory pervades the interpretation of colonial wars, particularly in New Zealand.66 This was also true of South Africa and the rest of the empire; therefore, defeat at Majuba rankled, and Majuba was lied about. When the appeal for help in the Transvaal arrived in Natal, the governor, Sir George Pomeroy Colley (one of Wolseley’s inner circle), gathered his available forces at Fort Napier. The press claimed that he refused to deploy the Natal police and volunteers, because “Boers are not Kafirs.”67 Colley’s general order to his troops reinforced this impression, as he described the Boers as a brave people entitled to British respect and distinguishing between the action that may be taken against “furious” insurgents (the sepoy mutiny in India was an example) and the actions permissible against the Boers.68 During the brief campaign, Fort Napier served as the main base camp and general depot, but its meager artillery battery was sent hastily to the front.69 Ev- elyn Wood, who assumed command of the Natal Field Force after Colley’s death,

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Dominy_Text.indd 74 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 6.3. Sir George Pomeroy Colley, the vanquished at Majuba. (Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, vol. 4, 361.)

spent most of the campaign shuttling between the front and Fort Napier, organizing the lines of communication and reinforcements, which arrived in dribs and drabs. Under great pressure, Colley acted too hastily and with far too few troops. After reverses at Laing’s Nek and Ingogo, he clambered up the dominant mountain of Majuba (which he did not know) in heavy mist. The Boers outwit- ted and outfought him, creating chaos and a rout of the small British force on the mountaintop. Colley fell on the battlefield (it has been speculated that it was by his own hand).70 The 92nd Regiment (the Gordon Highlanders) were so sensitive to the stain on their honor that the officers took advantage of a visit to Britain by the victorious Boer general, Piet Joubert, ten years later to publish a pamphlet emphasizing the regiment’s heroism and heaping all the blame for the disaster on Colley’s shoulders.71 Pietermaritzburg became the logistical center for organizing the flow of reinforcements that arrived after Majuba had been fought and lost. They were not deployed in action, as Colley’s successor, Sir Evelyn Wood (also a veteran of the

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Dominy_Text.indd 75 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 6.4. Sir Evelyn Wood. (Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, vol. 4, 282.)

Anglo-Zulu War), had quickly arranged a ceasefire with the Boers. The line of communications troops were commanded by Col. William Bond of the 58th Regi- ment, from Fort Napier.72 He had to rally the troops and the Natal community after the defeat on Majuba by resuming the usual round of band performances, sporting tournaments, and parades. Bond also gave pep talks to dispirited troops and started a compassionate fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of the troops killed in the brief conflict and for wounded men who had been discharged and who could not find employment.73 The terms of the peace were bitterly unpopular in Natal and elsewhere among the English communities in South Africa. The British in the Transvaal felt that they ought to have been able to rely “absolutely” on the protection of the Crown. The African inhabitants of the Transvaal, who had largely supported British rule, were also appalled.74 In Pietermaritzburg, angry crowds dragged an effigy

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Dominy_Text.indd 76 1/22/16 3:02 PM of Gladstone, accompanied by a coffin labeled “Liberal Ministry,” through the streets and then burned the effigy in the spirit of the November 5 Guy Fawkes celebrations.75 When the Queen’s Birthday parade took place in Pietermaritzburg in May, Bond described it as a very “motley” performance. Motley though this parade was, Bond persevered with a schedule of military pageantry that helped rebuild civilian and military morale.76 By October 1881, when Sir Evelyn Wood opened the session of the Legislative Council, the garrison could again provide an impressive ceremony with an artillery salute, an immaculately turned-out guard of honor, and a superb performance by the regimental band.77 During the 1880s and early 1890s, South Africa was transformed by the discovery of gold, first in the eastern Transvaal (now the province of Mpumalanga) and subsequently on the Witwatersrand on the Highveld. Railways pushed forward, and there was rapid expansion of the infrastructure in Natal. Constitutionally, Natal pushed for responsible government, and one of the issues that bedevilled negotiations was the cost and retention of the British garrison, which will be discussed later. It is appropriate that there was a major ceremony on October 19, 1893, when the first “responsible government” legislative session was opened in the new Pietermaritzburg City Hall by the governor, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson. This ceremony was on a “far grander scale” than openings of the Legislative Council sittings had been over the previous few years.78 The 3rd Dragoon Guards provided cavalry to line the streets. The 84th York and Lancaster Regiment provided a guard of honor and a band outside the City Hall to play the royal salute and the national anthem.79 The Royal Artillery fired a nineteen-gun salute when the governor left Government House and His Excellency was accompanied into the City Hall by a brilliant array of imperial officers and their ladies. The colonial press, conscious of the importance of the inauguration of the first legislature that the settlers fully controlled, claimed that the “natives and coolies” were fascinated.80 The imposing imperial military presence at the opening of the legislature masked the shift in power from British officials (including imperial military officers), who had provided a fairly impartial, paternalistic, and often benign, but rigid and underfunded, administration of the Indian and African communities in Natal, to a more self-interested and ruthless settler regime. Nevertheless, the new regime remained dependent on the garrison for the ultimate enforcement of its edicts and for protection from external threats. In the sixteen or so years of its existence, the self-governing Colony of Natal still had to face a major war, fought partly on its territory, but provoked by imperial

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Dominy_Text.indd 77 1/22/16 3:02 PM policies, and a major internal rebellion, provoked by its own policies. The garrison was no longer the pivot of the state but a symbol and a critical psychological support. It remained a pawn in politics and a crucial talisman bringing the luck of the empire to the backwaters of the Msinduze River. The next chapter will consider the “interior life” of the garrison and how its own tensions and stresses affected the grand image.

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Dominy_Text.indd 78 1/22/16 3:02 PM 7

Soldiers in Garrison Discipline, Indiscipline, and Mutiny

he garrison symbolized power, stability, and the ultimate shield for the col- Tony. That shield had cracks, and the armor had chinks. The army did not like admitting to its problems, and in many cases, official regimental and War Office records are silent, evasive, or no longer exist. Other sources have to be drawn upon to work out the puzzles. Fortunately, the colonial press, particularly the Natal Witness, provides many of these clues. The most acute and persistent problem facing the Victorian army was drink. Drunkenness was almost all-pervasive at Fort Napier throughout its existence as a garrison center. The abuse of alcohol provided the fuel for conflict in almost all the incidents to be examined in this chapter, both minor and major. The earlier of two mutinies will be discussed first: the mutiny of the CMR detachment at the Bushman’s River post in 1852. The second, the mutiny of the Inniskilling Fusiliers at Fort Napier in 1887, will be discussed in the following chapter. Neither of these events took place in isolation, and the broader contexts will be explored as far as possible, as each mutiny seemed to be motivated to some extent by events in the home areas from which the regiments were recruited. In the case of the CMR, the mutiny must be seen in the context of the Eighth Frontier War (1850–53) in the eastern Cape, and in the case of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, there were the disturbances in post-famine Ireland and the rise of the Home Rule movement in the 1880s. These two events were the most pronounced episodes of indiscipline to occur during the seven decades of military occupation. In addition to the external

Dominy_Text.indd 79 1/22/16 3:02 PM political factors, the focus will be on issues of leadership and the “interior life” in garrison. Trying to understand what lay behind them entails looking at the rotation of the regiments in and out of the colony and their deployment within the colony. In many cases, small sub-units of troops were deployed in remote areas for prolonged periods of time. Early on in the history of the colony, small posts were manned in the foothills of the mountains, and after the Anglo-Zulu War, there were significant deployments of troops in scattered detachments in fractured and fractious Zululand. In the earlier mountain deployments, the perceived threats came from the south and the west, as Natal was affected by ripples of disturbance from the Cape and Free State frontiers. During the 1880s, the garrison was used as a band-aid over the gaping wounds in Zulu society left by the imposition of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s settlement at the end of the Anglo-Zulu War, which deposed King Cetshwayo and divided the Zulu nation into thirteen chiefdoms, perpetually at each other’s throats, the proverbial “Kilkenny Cats.”1 These two incidents are part of a broader picture of indiscipline and inhumanity in the garrison in Natal. However, this tendency is not unrelieved, and, as seen when considering Colonel Tulloch’s handling of the 41st Regiment, effective leadership could overcome the problems of scattered and isolated detachments and the tendency of the troops to revel in drunken disorder. Poor leadership tended to be covered up as far as possible, as an incident affecting the 20th Regiment in 1869 also reveals. This was a consequence of an entirely avoidable natural disaster and also seems to have had an attempted cover-up. Nevertheless, just as the garrison spent less than four of its seventy-one years in Natal at war, it should not be concluded from a small number of comparatively rare incidents, over the same length of time, that Fort Napier was a seething mass of perpetually drunk, mutinous, and anarchic men. Charles Van Onselen may call the fort a “College of Banditry,”2 but overall it was well disciplined and adequately to well managed and led. However, during 1887 there were particular problems.

Ringing in the Changes It is necessary to place the incidents of indiscipline and mutiny into the chronological context of the garrison. This entails sketching the early sequence of changes in regimental occupation of the fort.3 The first troops to arrive in Pieter- maritzburg were members of the 45th Regiment (later the Sherwood Foresters), which remained in garrison at Fort Napier from 1843 to 1859. This total period of fifteen years and ten months was longer than that of any other regiment in the history of the colony. If a soldier had been a young man in his twenties when

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Dominy_Text.indd 80 1/22/16 3:02 PM he marched into Maritzburg, he would have been well into his forties when he marched out again (if he had remained enlisted for the entire period). The CMR did serve for a longer period overall, but their detachments were rotated between the Cape and Natal on a far more regular basis. The abnormal length of service of the 45th Regiment can be attributed to the isolation of Natal and its poor maritime communications with the Cape and, of even greater importance, major international crises such as the Crimean War (1853–56) and the Indian Mutiny (1857–59), which completely disrupted the War Office’s troop-rotation program.4 There is also the prolonged uncertainty as to whether Natal would have a permanent garrison or even remain British territory, which must have inclined the War Office to leave the 45th Regiment in place for the extended period. The delays in the departure of the 45th from Natal illustrate the logistical problems referred to by General Douglas a few years later in 1865. The 45th Regiment eventually departed from Natal aboard the troopship Himalaya on April 20, 1859, more than seven months behind schedule. It was to be replaced by the 85th Regiment. There was much confusion. The original exchange was scheduled for September 1858, and a few weeks earlier, the proceeds of the garrison theater’s special farewell performance were devoted to the erection of a memorial to the men (and their dependants) who had died in Natal during their long service. A grand banquet given by leading citizens followed, and men of the Natal Carbineers acted as the waiters. The regiment then marched out of Fort Napier for Durban, where there were further festivities. They camped, waiting for the troopship to arrive, but weeks and months passed. Finally, on December 11 they marched back into Fort Napier. On April 16, 1859, the “Old Stubborns” marched out again and found the Himalaya at anchor in the outer harbor awaiting their arrival. They began em- barking on April 20 and sailed two days later. Sixteen men took their discharge in Natal as the regiment finally departed.5 The troopship touched at Port Elizabeth on its voyage back to Britain and embarked the small detachment of the 45th, which had been stationed in the eastern Cape for the past sixteen years.6 The effects of the protracted delays and the insecurities faced by men no longer in the first flush of youth who had not seen their home country since the early 1840s must have been severe. The local press did not, however, make much mention of acts of indiscipline or drunkenness, possibly because the men of the regiment were so well known within the settler community. Between 1859 and the mid-1870s, a period equivalent to that during which the 45th Regiment had been at Fort Napier, eight different infantry battalions succeeded each other in garrison. During the 1860s, communications between

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Dominy_Text.indd 81 1/22/16 3:02 PM Natal and the Cape and the wider world had improved, and iron-built steam- ships were rapidly appearing on the ocean routes of empire, speeding up travel considerably. This made the more frequent changeover in garrison regiments practical and affordable for the War Office.

The Cape Corps in Natal Detachments of the Cape Mounted Riflemen (often referred to as the Cape Corps, even in official documentation) were present as part of the Natal garrison from 1842 until the regiment was disbanded in 1870. The CMR was a unit of the imperial army, not part of the military forces raised by the Cape Colony. Part mounted infantry or cavalry, part mounted police, the CMR had a critical and arduous set of duties.7 Despite its small manpower, the CMR had to guard settler farms from cattle-raiding San bands in the Drakensberg, the only form of guerilla warfare and resistance available to their severely pressured kinsfolk. The CMR also acted as a police force capable of pursuing and apprehending criminals. Their patrolling and skirmishing talents were much admired by their British-born comrades, and their cleverness in tracing the “faintest spoor or track left upon the feldt [sic]” by man or beast elicited great respect.8 The men of the CMR were drawn from the Khoikhoi communities in the Cape Colony, referred to by contemporaries as “Hottentots” or “Totties,” a term of affectionate abuse by military contemporaries.9 Recruiting for the regiment was done at Moravian mission stations such as Genadendal or Wupperthal, although some troops were recruited on the eastern Cape frontier in areas such as the Kat River valley. Their irascible and aristocratic commander on the frontier, Col. Henry Somerset, highly appreciated their “docile character” but deemed it “most essential” that the “Totties” should be under “constant and effective supervision.”10 Somerset, known for his ruthless reputation, was correct in this respect. Close supervision was not possible in Natal, where the detachment was broken up into patrol-sized units such as the one at the Bushman’s River Post (on the site of the modern town of Estcourt), which mutinied in 1852. As Peter Stanley has shown in the Australian context, the deployment of a regiment in scattered detachments was always believed to damage discipline and efficiency.11 This problem persisted and affected not only the CMR in the 1850s but other imperial regiments in the 1880s, when they were scattered in small detachments across Zululand. Desertion plagued the garrison, particularly from outposts. One of the earliest recorded cases of desertion in the CMR occurred in 1849, when the officer in charge at the Bushman’s River Post, Lt. James Howell of the 45th Regiment, reported to Theophilus Shepstone that he had arrested a deserter from the CMR

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Dominy_Text.indd 82 1/22/16 3:02 PM who had hidden with a band of the San in the mountains. He had been identified within colonial jurisdiction and forced to guide a patrol to the “haunts of the Bushmen.”12 The mutiny at the Bushman’s River Post in January 1852 should be seen in the context of the Eighth Frontier War and the rebellion of Khoikhoi and Mfengu communities against the colonial rulers, whom they had previously supported. The Kat River settlement was a focal point for this rising.13 It had been established in 1829 near Fort Beaufort on land seized from the Xhosa leader Maqoma, as a settlement for some 250 Khoikhoi and “Coloured” families. Preference was given to men who had been property owners or who had served in the Cape Corps.14 When the rebellion took place in 1851, it shocked the assumptions of the colonists and the imperial military, as many men who had previously fought with the colonial forces against the Xhosa now fought against the settlers and the British Army. There were varied reasons for the change in loyalty. One of the most relevant is that the men who had fought in the Seventh Frontier War had not received the payments and benefits they had been promised by the military. To add injury to insult, when they returned from campaigning, they found that their cattle had been sold on public auction.15 The rotation of detachments of the CMR between the eastern Cape and Natal meant that there were contacts between men serving in each region. The rebellion and desertion of the CMR veterans in the Kat River Settlement and elsewhere on the frontier had ramifications in Natal.16 The jittery Cape authorities suppressed the Khoikhoi rebels with great ruthlessness and seized their land and cattle. Even “unimpeachably loyal” Khoikhoi from Kat River were threatened with the loss of their land.17 Some white settlers with Colo- nel Somerset’s force paraded through the valley with a red flag bearing the word “Extermination,” and the brutalities stretched loyalties to the “breaking point.”18 The officialecord r of the events at the Bushman’s River Post in January 1852 is scanty, but a picture can be assembled from colonial and press sources. Small though the detached garrison was, it had been further reduced to make up a force urgently needed in the Orange River Sovereignty following a defeat of the British by the Basotho at the Battle of Viervoet.19 Klip River Magistrate Struben put together a force of African levies with a stiffening of regulars of the 45th and officers from the Cape Corps.20 This deployment lasted some time and clearly affected the morale of the remaining troops, undoubtedly because their leadership was weakened by the absence of some of their officers at a time when the men’s morale was unsettled by the news from the eastern Cape frontier. On January 17, 1852, five men of the CMR deserted, taking their horses, carbines, and ammunition. They fired at and wounded their NCO and also opened fire on civilian homes in the area before escaping over the Drakensberg.21 Other troops were sent

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Dominy_Text.indd 83 1/22/16 3:02 PM in hot pursuit, and four of the mutineers were captured and court-martialed at Fort Napier in May 1852. One man remained at large for longer. No officialecord r of the court martial has survived, but press reports indicate that the sentences were lenient. The man who fired at the NCO received transportation for life, but the other three, charged with desertion, were each sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. The press was outraged, particularly because in other trials at the fort, two white soldiers of the 45th Regiment (the race of the men was heavily emphasized) had been tried for desertion and sentenced to five years’ transportation and for branding with the letter D.22 The last CMR deserter to be captured was Hendrick Geisman, who had apparently struck an NCO before riding off with his comrades. He was sentenced to death and executed at Fort Napier on November 15, 1852.23 It is likely that Geisman’s execution was depicted in the earliest traceable ar- tistic representation of activities at Fort Napier. Twentieth Century Impressions of Natal, a magnificently produced volume extolling the virtues of the colony, contains an illustration titled. The Execution of “Cape Boy Piet”: Fort Napier, 1848. It is out of place among the portraits of moustachioed grandees, posed Zulu warriors, and scenes of economic, agricultural, and technological progress, and there is no explanation for its selection. It is, however, a reproduction of a watercolor in the Sherwood Foresters Regimental Museum in Nottingham Castle titled War against the Kaffirs: SA 1846–1859—Execution of a Hottentot Irregular for Mutiny: Troops on Parade: 45th Regt. of Foot and Hottentot Irregulars, 1851.24 As there is no record of any other executions at Fort Napier in the 1840s and early 1850s, it is highly likely that “Cape Boy Piet” is Hendrick Geisman.25 Stronger evidence comes from the caption of the reproduction in the Hall of History at the Natal Museum, which refers to the “First Execution in Pietermaritzburg” and names “Geizman” (sic). The Natal Museum also records the name of the artist, Robert Bristow Tatham, who served briefly in the 45th Regiment and was attached to the CMR before settling in Natal.26 The involvement of black troops and veterans of the CMR in the Kat River rebellion and in the minor mutiny in Natal led to the development of a policy of “whitening” the regiment by a steady reduction in the number of blacks in the service.27 The implementation of this policy was accelerated by the shock of the Indian Mutiny a few years later, which led the imperial government to discourage the recruitment of indigenous troops in other parts of the empire.28 It is likely that the whitening of the CMR was self-defeating in one respect: the new British recruits did not seem to have the special tracking skills attributed to the Khoikhoi men who were being edged out, and the regiment began losing its unique focus and abilities.

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Dominy_Text.indd 84 1/22/16 3:02 PM The process of the whitening of the CMR is reflected by the changes in the names in the regimental pay lists over time. In 1851 there are names such as Pri- vates Able Able (No. 1406), Conrad Jager (No. 1378), Jonker Danster (No. 1291), Hendrick Matross (No. 1366), and Dolly Telemachus (No. 1403).29 By 1858 these names are more thinly spread among English names such as Privates Thomas Couling (No. 2051), Robert Edwards (No. 2100), William Hodgson (No. 2011), Archibald Petrie (No. 2112), and William Roberts (Nos. 2730/2204).30 In 1870, when the CMR was finally disbanded, only one “colored” name remained on the pay list, Farrier-Sgt. Gert La Fleur (No. 1866).31 The issues underpinning the disciplinary problems of the CMR—the difficulties of maintaining cohesion and discipline when broken into small detachments, and the effect on leaderless men of the news of political and social traumas from home—resonate with the problems experienced in the 1880s with regular infantry and cavalry regiments.

Leadership and Lightning: The Twentieth Regiment on Parade The 2nd Battalion of the 20th Regiment (the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers), under the command of Col. H. R. Browne, was in garrison at Fort Napier from 1867 to 1870 and arrived in Natal after service in the Far East.32 Contemporary descriptions of peacetime garrison life, especially from the perspective of the lower ranks, are difficult to find, not only at Fort Napier but throughout the Victorian army. For example, the life of the men of the little garrison at Port Arthur in Van Dieman’s Land has been described as “notoriously hard to document.”33 Fortunately, there are two good accounts of life in the Twentieth Regiment at Fort Napier: one by the regimental medical officer, William Cattell, and the other from the pen of Bandsman Frederick Davies.34 Davies was an unusual soldier in that he was highly literate, observant of his surroundings, and also very religious. Had he taken his discharge in Natal, his career as a settler would probably have made him a member of the colonial gentry. There were good reasons as to why Davies did not settle in Natal; other than Bishop Colenso, for whom he had a profound respect, Davies regarded the Pietermaritzburg colonists as the “most dull people I ever came across in my life,” although the Natal Africans and the Zulu are described as a “fine race of men.” Colenso conducted the service confirming Davies into the church; he described the bishop as a “remarkable man” and the service as one of the greatest events of his life.35 Both Davies and Cattell hint at Colonel Browne’s lack of concern for the welfare of the troops while they served in Hong Kong and Japan.36 In Natal, Browne

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Dominy_Text.indd 85 1/22/16 3:02 PM increased his unpopularity by ordering frequent route marches through the broken, cold, and wet country in the Zwartkop Location and in the Karkloof hills.37 Many soldiers suffered from respiratory problems resulting from exposure to the elements and to frequent waist-deep crossings of cold rivers without being given the opportunity to dry their clothes or warm their bodies. Davies himself was among the many men invalided back to Britain as a result of bronchitis, which he attributed to his route marches in wet clothing. Criticism of commanding officersy b junior officers and men in the ranks was severely frowned upon, and the criticism of Colonel Browne is most unusual. The particular incident that brought the hostility into the open happened on Sunday, October 14, 1869, during the changeable weather of the southern spring. The regiment was on parade at Fort Napier with fixed bayonets, and a heavy thunderstorm was threatening, but Browne kept the men in place on the parade ground. Davies’s description is vivid: “In a few minutes thunder was heard, very close, with flashes of forked lightning, which could be seen playing amongst the Bayonets in the ranks; at last, after a tremendous crash, a sheet of blinding flame entered the ranks of the second company, striking one man into the presence of enternity [sic], without a moment’s warning, and wounding eleven others standing in the same rank with him.”38 Browne ordered the troops to stand firm to prevent panic on the parade ground, but then took no further action to assist the “poor fellows . . . writhing on the ground in agony from the burning of their clothes.”39 Two officers then broke ranks, without orders, to assist the injured men and to send for Surgeon Major Cattell. Cattell, who had been pottering in his garden when he heard the thunder and lightning, raced to the fort to tend to the injured as soon as he was called. Sixty men had been struck, seven severely injured, and one, Pte. Robert Hill, killed. The injured and those rendered “sensitive to lightning” had to be invalided home.40 Hill was given a military funeral and buried in Fort Napier cemetery. All were deeply “affected,” and theNatal Witness severely criticized Browne, accusing him of “foolhardiness,” describing his conduct as a “considerable disgrace,” and accusing him of exhibiting a degree of “ignorance and inhumanity” not expected to be found in an officer of his “rank and experience.”41 The men of the regiment were furious, and according to Davies, they would have given a verdict of “Manslaughter against Colonel Browne.”42 Browne, who also left an unpublished memoir, made no mention of the incident, being completely wrapped up in his role as acting lieutenant governor and the social and political preening this involved. He was the son of Gen. Sir T. H. Browne and had several other relatives in senior positions in the service.43 Despite his mishandling of the 20th Regiment, Browne was later promoted to general, and efforts to expose the lightning-strike incident were unsuccessful.

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Dominy_Text.indd 86 1/22/16 3:02 PM William Cattell discovered that the junior officers on parade had suggested that swords and bayonets should be sheathed, but Browne had ignored their advice. Cattell wrote a monograph on the incident that included a detailed study of the effects of lightning in Natal and submitted it to the egimentr and to the War Office. It was suppressed, and his manuscript disappeared.44 The regimental history gives the barest details of the event, describing it as a “solitary” incident of a company of soldiers being struck down by lightning.45 A trace of the incident remained embedded in the collective memory of the army, however, and when Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Cunynghame, the GOC in South Africa, visited Fort Napier nearly a decade later, the only fact he could recall about the fort was the lightning strike. He remembered enough to lay the blame for the incident on the regimental commander, whose conduct in keeping the bayonets fixed during a thunderstorm was “imprudent.”46 One aspect of the incident seems to have been completely ignored; the officers who broke ranks to help the men struck by lightning did so in defiance of the colonel’s orders. Their conduct was not “imprudent,” to use Cunynghame’s words, but it certainly was insubordinate; yet there is no traceable record of any of them having been charged. Perhaps Colonel Browne was paralyzed with shock on the parade ground and never pressed charges.

Praying, Patrolling, and Piquet Duty: Detached in Zululand with Snakes and Spirits After the Anglo-Zulu War, garrison life at Fort Napier resumed its routine, and there is a rare glimpse of the activities in the barracks during their occupation by the 60th Regiment (King’s Royal Rifle Corps). A single copy of the regimental magazine has survived, and its contents are devoted to the results of musketry practice and sporting competitions, interspersed with doggerel verse and a dash of schoolboy-style humor. The polo teams were renamed after the detachment leaving for the southern border, the “Basutos,” and those remaining, the “PM Burg Garrison.” The match report parodies reporting on a military conflict, a mirror reflection of the war-as-sport metaphor.47 This magazine is an example of the efforts to improve morale in the fort. This was all the more necessary because of the need for the garrison to police the chaotic consequences of the Wolseley Settlement in Zululand. The restoration of Cetshwayo to limited power in 1883 increased the stresses, and within two months full-scale warfare had broken out. The king’s main opponent was Zib- hebhu kaMapitha, the leader of the Mandlakazi, a faction that gained significant power under the terms of the Wolseley Settlement. The royalist uSuthu faction suffered an initial reverse on March 30, 1883, and Zibhebhu followed this up by

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Dominy_Text.indd 87 1/22/16 3:02 PM inflicting a catastrophic defeat on Cetshwayo at Ulundi on July 21, 1883, where the rebuilt royal homestead was burned down for a second time. Cetshwayo was forced to flee to Eshowe in the British-administered Reserve Territory, where regular troops were stationed.48 The deposed king died soon afterwards under suspicious circumstances, and his son Dinuzulu sought the aid of the Boers on the Transvaal borders with Zululand. The following year it was Zibhebhu’s turn to suffer a complete defeat by Dinuzulu and a Boer commando at the battle of eTshaneni. The Boers then established the New Republic on territory Dinuzulu was forced to cede and made an effort to extend their control to the coast. The role of the British force was initially limited to protection of the reserve territory, and strict instructions had been given not to intervene in the intra-Zulu conflicts. The colonial press contrasted the actions of the Boers at eTshaneni with the passivity and inaction of the imperial military in scathing terms.49 Their restrictive mandate could be compared to those of United Nations peacekeepers, or European and NATO troops in Bosnia in the early 1990s. As the territorial ambitions of the Boers became more apparent, the British quickly annexed the Zululand coastline and allowed the troops in the Reserve Territory a freer hand.50 By 1887 the rump of Zululand was annexed by the Crown, and in 1888, imperial troops had to suppress a predictable “rebellion” by Dinuzulu. Service in Zululand brought out contrasting reactions from officers and men. For the regimental rank and file, patrolling in Zululand was arduous, tedious, and unpopular. It was popular with the officers, however, because of the opportunity it gave them for hunting. There are good accounts of garrison life in Zululand from the perspectives of officers and other ranks in the 41st Regiment (1st Welch Regiment), which was one of the first units to be sent to Zululand in 1883.51 The mounted company of the 41st was part of the military escort that met Cetshwayo at Port Durnford in January 1883, when he landed to commence his short-lived and unhappy restoration. Colour Sergeant Goodall and Corporal Barford were part of the mounted infantry detachment and describe their service in Zululand in contrasting terms.52 Edward Goodall grew up in rural Hampshire and did a variety of odd jobs after he left school at the age of twelve. He was disturbed by his youthful misconduct, joined the army, and became a devout Wes- leyan. His reliability sped his progress through the noncommissioned ranks. He served happily at Fort Napier, where he was blessed by many Christian friends and had the privilege of impressing the Word upon the ungodly. He transferred to the mounted infantry company, which he described as the “darkest corner of the Regiment.”53 Corporal Barford’s account of life in the 41st is more down- to-earth. While Goodall describes worship in the garrison, Barford complains

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Dominy_Text.indd 88 1/22/16 3:02 PM that the barracks were full of fleas and that thunderstorms blew down tents and temporary huts at Fort Napier. Barford also mentions that after the duty at Port Durnford, the regiment moved to Eshowe, where the tented encampment was struck by lightning and six men were injured.54 There is a traditional Zulu account that at the time of Cetshwayo’s restoration, King Shaka’s spirit (in the form of a snake) was seen crossing the Thukela on a journey north from his grave, signifying the return of the king’s spirit to the heart of the kingdom.55 It is a myth worth remembering in light of the fate of the officer commanding the 41st Regiment a few months later. In September 1883, Lieutenant Colonel Montgomery led the bulk of the 41st Regiment from Pietermaritzburg to Eshowe to protect the Reserve Territory. The regiment crossed the Thukela on September 21, 1883, and camped on the northern bank near Fort Tenedos. Three days later, Montgomery and the adjutant went hunting in the dense bush. The colonel was bitten in the leg by a “large mamba snake,” one of the most lethally venomous snakes in Africa. Despite being rushed back to the camp for medical attention, he died in the early hours of September 25. Barford recalled how the colonel’s tent had fallen down the previous night, and his death, which aroused superstitious comment among the troops, “cast a gloom over the whole regiment.”56 Perhaps Shaka’s spirit was protecting his kingdom from invaders; however, there is no record of Montgomery’s death having found its way into Zulu mythology. Montgomery had been popular with his regiment because he ensured that the men were fed properly, according to Barford.57 Once the regiment arrived in Eshowe, the men were put to work digging trenches, preparing fortifications, and moving supplies—“pick and shovel work.” There were also monotonous patrols, and Fort Napier acquired a retrospective aura as an earthly paradise, fleas notwithstanding.58 Colour Sergeant Goodall continued his proselytizing activities in Eshowe and became the butt of teasing and jokes in the sergeants’ mess. He also complained of the monotony and exhausting nature of the work in Zululand, which encouraged many of the troops to drink excessively. Goodall became the victim of a false charge laid against him, but he was acquitted by the new officer commanding, Colonel Tulloch. Shortly afterwards, Goodall was transferred back to Fort Napier, where he remained until 1886, committed to “working in the Lord’s vineyard,” inside and outside the walls of the fort. In his leisure hours he preached in African mission chapels and at cottage prayer meetings.59 Some of the tensions among the troops in Zululand can be gleaned from Goodall’s account. The false charge demonstrated divisions among the NCOs, the bedrock of discipline in a regiment; the drinking led to criminal behavior

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Dominy_Text.indd 89 1/22/16 3:02 PM and abusive conduct towards civilians, both men and women. That the record of the 41st Regiment was better than other regiments that served in Natal and Zululand in the 1880s was due to the ability of Colonel Montgomery’s successor, Col. Alexander Tulloch. Tulloch took over an exhausted and demoralized regiment and acted quickly to restore efficiency and morale. He also left a well-written memoir describing his methods of discipline and management.60 While Tulloch’s own word needs to be treated with the same caution as all firsthand accounts, the 41st Regiment was not mentioned as often, or as negatively, in the Natal press as other regiments of the period. Tulloch was motivated by a clear desire to improve the efficiency of the regiment by reducing ill discipline and drinking, even if it meant bending the rules. At a practical level, he improved the men’s diet and established a “comfort- able regimental restaurant” that served cheap, tasty extra meals. He claimed that this had such a positive effect that, during his command at Maritzburg, it was practically unknown for a man to disgrace himself by getting drunk in the town.61 Tulloch then embarked on a more important step: treating his men with trust and dignity. He reestablished the unofficial “ancient” system of “barrack-room courts-martial,” which placed the good name of the regiment in the hands of the men themselves. This was a clear example of taking the sense of the regiment as an extended military family to a logical conclusion. He claimed that this system stamped out the use of obscenities and objectionable language. He informed a regimental parade of his views and left the matter in the hands of the ‘“old soldiers” in every barrack room. Tulloch found that treating “self-governing” men as gentlemen led them to behave like gentlemen and treat themselves as such.62 This sense of self-respect was enhanced by the publication and application of a standard set of punishments so that men did not feel that their cases “depended very much on the state of the colonel’s liver.” Tulloch was also concerned about offenses affecting the wider community, such as “hammering a native.” When he could not discover the culprit, a short address to the regiment on parade would ensure that the offender was turned over for punishment.63 The risks with Tull- och’s approach were that older soldiers could bully younger men, and often the “barrack room court-martial” would give more than the regulation punishment.

Drinking and Crime in Maritzburg While the 41st Regiment performed well under good leadership, the dispersal of small units across Zululand undermined the cohesion of other regiments in garrisons in the 1880s. This added a special local factor to the general problems

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Dominy_Text.indd 90 1/22/16 3:02 PM of crime and drunkenness, which were acute in the army. In 1887 alcohol was responsible for 75 percent of military crime.64 Access to alcohol was more restricted in Zululand because of the lack of facilities, but Pietermaritzburg was full of pubs and taverns, and Fort Napier itself had several canteens where alcohol could be obtained. Troops returning from Zululand to Fort Napier tended to go out on drinking sprees. The 64th Regiment (1st North Staffordshire) arrived in Pietermaritzburg from the West Indies in February 1887 and rapidly established a reputation as a de- bauched battalion. The regimental history admits that discipline was not at its highest in South Africa when it was broken up into small detachments. During 1888 there were eighty district and thirty-four regimental courts martial. Insub- ordination was the prevalent crime, and it was attributed to inexperienced NCOs “under the short service system” and the extent to which the battalion had been split up. Drunkenness was also rife, and a special order was issued at Fort Napier warning soldiers who had visited the station bar of the dangers of “sleeping it off on the railway lines.”65 The colonial press reports corroborate the regimental history. The Natal Wit- ness reported on scenes of drunkenness in the town and on court cases in which soldiers of the 64th Regiment faced charges of drunken and disorderly conduct. One accused claimed in mitigation that drunkenness was the “general state of the regiment.”66 Desertion also plagued the North Staffords, as the possibility of acquiring great wealth on the goldfields, beyond the reach of British law, appealed to men whose morale had been undermined by the short service system and the endless picquet duties in Zululand.67 Between 1881 and 1890, the Natal garrison cavalry regiment was the 6th In- niskilling Dragoons, which also had an ill-disciplined reputation. One case in the magistrate’s court involved the assault of a middle-aged African, “Umfenye” by Pte. R. King. Umfenye was a washerman, one of the amaWasha who had been employed by several Dragoons to wash their clothes. When he asked for payment he was assaulted, robbed of the money he was carrying, and thrown out of the barrack window. He registered a complaint at Fort Napier, and the troops were paraded for him to identify his assailants. Initially Umfenye could not do so, but as he passed the sick lines a stone was thrown at him, and he pointed out the thrower as one of those who had attacked him. Private King’s comrades produced cast-iron alibis for him, and the magistrate acquitted him. However, he remarked from the bench that he regarded the offender as being unworthy of the name of a British soldier, adding that it was well known that soldiers were “constantly assaulting the Kafirs, and all being dressed alike when paraded it was impossible to find the black sheep out. During this

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Dominy_Text.indd 91 1/22/16 3:02 PM period the local magistrate was none other than Charles Barter, who had been in charge of the Natal Carbineers at the fracas in 1873 with Langalibalele’s Hlubi.”68 The reports on cases against the military in the Pietermaritzburg magistrate’s court during 1887 reveal a pattern of ill-discipline, drunken misconduct, and theft from civilians. Two examples will suffice. In May 1887, Corporal Brooks of the 64th Regiment was found guilty of stealing ten shillings from the Maritzburg Borough Police.69 A few weeks later, Corporal Martin of the same regiment and Trooper Marshall of the 6th Dragoons were charged with shooting an African civilian, “Umjeba” at Fort Napier. The two accused formed part of the guard for a group of military prisoners working in the ash pit at the fort, when Umjeba passed by carrying a finesjam - bok. The soldiers offered to buy it from him, but he refused to sell it. One of the accused loaded his carbine, and the other accused “caused the weapon to fire accidently,” severely wounding Umjeba in the face. The two soldiers were acquitted by the magistrate because he believed that they had not intended to shoot the “native,” but the caution from the bench was that the troops were careless in their use of firearms and that soldiers should not joke and chat with “Kafirs” while on duty.70 Carelessness with firearms, laxity on duty, and drunken sprees indicate that there were severe problems with discipline and supervision at Fort Napier in 1887. These reached a climax when there was a mutiny in the ranks of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

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The Inniskilling Fusiliers Bandits, Brawlers, or Mutineers?

There was a row in Silver Street that’s near to Dublin Quay, Between an Irish regiment an’ English cavalree; It started at Revelly an’ it lasted on till dark: The first man dropped at Harrison’s the last forninst the Park.

—R udyard Kipling, “Belts”

efore the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, the garrison of Natal usually consisted Bof an infantry battalion and small attached units of artillery and engineers. During the war it swelled to a considerable army, but it did not shrink back to its previous level after the cessation of hostilities. The situation in Zululand demanded that the strength of the garrison be significantly increased. For most of the 1880s, two or three infantry battalions, a cavalry regiment, and a full mountain battery of artillery were deployed in Natal and Zululand. Fort Napier remained the center for the garrison, but small detachments were scattered across Zululand, undertaking tedious and arduous patrolling. As has been shown in the previous chapter, regimental discipline was compromised by the breakup of the regiments into small units serving in out-of-the-way places. This was nothing new. There are many examples in the Australian context of how military discipline and cohesion, which depended on the close supervision of officers and NCOs, suffered when regiments were split into company-sized detachments and posted to widely scattered and isolated convict stations across the outback.1 Closer to home, there was the example of the desertions and mu-

Dominy_Text.indd 93 1/22/16 3:02 PM tiny of the CMR at the Bushman’s River Post in 1852. This event took place in the context of the deployment of a small contingent to an isolated post, which was then affected by the detached service of some of its officers in the Orange River Sovereignty. The leadership vacuum occurred at a time when there was an insurrection in the eastern Cape affecting the veterans of the CMR and the extended familial structures of the men deployed to Natal.2 In the 1880s, small detachments of troops were spread over the Reserve Territory and the rest of Zu- luland, as the previously unified Zulu people fought each ferociously under the appalling conditions imposed on them by Wolseley and the British. It is against this background that a mutiny broke out in Fort Napier among the men of the Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1887. As the the mutiny took place among Irish troops, it is necessary to look at the conditions in Ireland at the time. The mutiny, which has also been described as a mere “drunken brawl,”3 took place on Sunday August 7, 1887, among the men of the Inniskilling Fusiliers (the 27th Regiment). This regiment was recruited from the Ulster counties of Derry (or Londonderry), Down, Fermanagh, and Tyrone—areas with mixed Protestant and Catholic populations and considerable degrees of rural poverty. As the 27th Regiment it had served in Natal and southern Africa in the 1840s and specifically at Durban in 1842 under Captain Thomas Charlton Smith. They returned to southern Africa in the 1880s. From early 1886 to mid-1887, the major part of the regiment was stationed in Zululand patrolling the Reserve Territory, an arduous, uncomfortable, and unglamorous duty, as Barford and Goodall’s memoirs have shown.4 In the previous chapter, the disorderly conduct of the Inniskilling Dragoons and the North Stafford Regiment revealed the stresses experienced by garrison regiments exposed to duties in small detachments in Zululand. What will now be considered is whether or not the Inniskilling “brawl” or “mutiny” was more of the same, on a larger scale. There were two fatalities, a breakout from the fort, and political-slogan shouting. Given the fact that external factors played a part in the CMR mutiny in 1852, the question arises as to whether external factors played any part in the Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1887. This entails a discussion of the situation in Ireland and among the Irish communities in England at the time.

Ireland in the 1880s: Land Wars and Home Rule The island of Ireland was incorporated into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland by the Act of Union in 1801. The Irish Parliament was abolished, and Irish M.P.s were returned to Westminster. Catholics were virtually excluded from the franchise. By the 1880s this situation had changed, and radical M.P.s such as

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Dominy_Text.indd 94 1/22/16 3:02 PM Charles Stewart Parnell were taking their seats in the House of Commons and exercising a profound influence on British politics. Sir Garnet Wolseley, one of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy who despised the Irish as much as he despised the Natal colonists, wrote in his diary while in the Transvaal in early 1880: “Riots in Ireland and some of the mob wounded—for their ignorance a number are killed & terror is struck into these discontented wretches nothing will go well there.”5 His opinion of British politicians was as trenchant, and he wrote, “Gladstone and Co. will ruin Ireland and the Irish, for their ignorance of Irish character and of the influences that work upon the Irishman’s heart and sympathies, will and must lead eventually to open rebellion.”6 Ireland was, for much of the grand career of the great nineteenth-century Lib- eral leader William Ewart Gladstone, his “central purpose.”7 As prime minister between 1880 and 1885 and briefly in 1886, he devoted much time and energy to land reform and devolved government for Ireland, the issue of Home Rule. This was vigorously espoused by the Irish nationalists, led by the eloquent Parnell, upon whom Gladstone’s majority depended. However, Home Rule for Ireland split the Liberal party, and the bill was defeated in 1886, bringing about Glad- stone’s resignation, a general election, and a defeat for the Liberals. The incoming Conservative ministry of Lord Salisbury had rejected Home Rule as a solution for the political issues of Ireland. The Tories believed that law and order had to be restored, although they recognized the need for land reform. The agrarian economy of Ireland deteriorated, there were fears of another famine, and evictions of tenant farmers increased.8 Some radical nationalist Fenians formed the Land Leagues to oppose evictions and boycott (the word was coined at this time) land owners and land grabbers. There was violence, and the new Tory Irish secretary, Arthur Balfour, embarked on a serious of repressive measures and earned the nickname “Bloody Balfour.”9 Lawlessness and repression spread in equal measures, and the Land Wars spread across the island for nearly three years. Balfour’s measures included referring offenses such as boycotting, intimidation, and resistance to eviction to courts of summary jurisdiction. Tensions rose, culminating in the Mitchelstown Massacre in September 1887, when the police killed three people in a crowd.10 Ireland has been described as being convulsed by “rebel lawlessness and dra- gooned by arbitrary authority.”11 Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee took place in this atmosphere of great tension and suffering. It was not a joyous occasion in Ireland, and the Corporation of the City of Dublin rejected the Lord Chamberlain’s invitation to attend the Jubilee Service in Westminster Abbey. The corporation’s resolution deplored

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Dominy_Text.indd 95 1/22/16 3:02 PM the “distressing condition” of Ireland and the passage of legislation that would “abolish the ordinary constitutional liberties of this Kingdom and be productive of cruel injustice, much undeserved suffering, and consequent discontent and disorder among our people.” The resolution also called for the restoration of an Irish Parliament.12 This account by the Natal Witness (which was edited by the radical anti-establishment figure Francis Reginald Statham) would have circulated among the troops at Fort Napier who had paraded for the Jubilee celebrations in Pietermaritzburg. The Natal Witness also condemned the extent of “Bloody Balfour’s” repression, reporting that draconian measures had been imposed in terms of the Irish Crimes Act on ten Irish cities, including Dublin and Belfast, and that virtually the whole country, except for portions of County Antrim, had been proclaimed.13 The newspaper did circulate at Fort Napier, but what direct effect it had on the Irish troops has not been recorded. There is no evidence of any causal link between Irish politics and the mutiny at Fort Napier. Irish soldiers in the British Army seldom gave any sign of being affected by anti-British feeling.14 Allen Skelley has stressed that military discipline not only stifled initiative but also prevented agitation from the ranks in support of virtually any cause, “whether a political movement or a campaign to improve the terms and conditions of service,” and infringements of the regulations were unhesitatingly punished. As a consequence, in 1872 there were only seventeen soldiers in prison for “Fenian activities,” a relatively small number given the number of Irishmen serving in the army.15 Charles Van Onselen places a deeper meaning on the Irish background to the events at Fort Napier, his “College of Banditry” in the 1880s, and draws different lessons from the patrolling in Zululand.16 Poverty and rural despair in Ireland, with much land being in the hands of absentee landlords, encouraged violence and aggression in the countryside. Stick fights between rival gangs were common, and highwaymen roamed the roads. Secret societies were formed, which undertook attacks on landlords and property: arson, theft, and mutilation of animals. The Potato Famine of 1849–52 led to widespread starvation and mass emigration. While much has been written about Irish emigration to North America, there was also a substantial migration just across the Irish Sea to the expanding industrial cities of Britain: Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester all had large Irish communities. Many of the Irish migrants to Britain did not escape poverty but simply swapped rural poverty for urban poverty. Cultural patterns from rural Ireland were adapted in the new urban slums, including gang violence and secret societies. One such grouping of gangs in Manchester was known as the “scuttlers.” Van Onselen claims, “It was these unruly-boys-turned-anarchic-young men who . . .

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Dominy_Text.indd 96 1/22/16 3:02 PM seized the chance to convert the adolescent social fantasies and rebellious politics of their nineteenth-century cult of Irish masculinity into something approximat- ing lived reality.”17 South Africa, with divided racial and political structures and allegiances, its diamond and gold rushes, and extensive dependency on horse- and ox-drawn transport, was a strong magnet for rural Irish youths and Lancashire slum youths alike. The most important escape route for these young men was to join the army. In the army they could operate in cliques and learn survival skills suitable for a life of crime and skulduggery on the mines and transport routes of southern Africa. Wolseley fulminated against the Irish regiments, declaiming that the “purely Irish Regts. are always the worst in our Army and that in any Regt. where the Irish element is in the ascendant, discipline is extremely bad and the fighting qualities are not good.”18 It was units such as these that brought the rural Irish, refugees from the “Land Wars,” and the Lancashire slum “scuttlers” to Fort Napier and Zululand, where there were triggers for mutiny and opportunities for desertion to the gold fields of the virtually lawless eastern Transvaal. Van Onselen neatly categorizes the problems for regimental commanders and the opportunities for regimental scoundrels in Natal and Zululand in the 1880s. The 82nd Regiment (2nd South Lancashire Regiment) and the 27th Regi- ment (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) were newly amalgamated, post–Cardwell and Childers Reform units. They needed forging into unified entities with common loyalties of purpose. The prerequisite for this was deployment as a combined unit developing common loyalties and practices and traditions. The situation in Zululand, however, demanded that the garrison be scattered in picquets and patrols from Helpmekaar on the highlands above Rorke’s Drift to Fort Tenedos on the banks of the Thukela near the sea to Eshowe, where the British Resident was, to patrols near the Ivuna River. Centripetal forces called for the barracks, the parade ground, and the city to build regimental pride, but realities on the ground made for centrifugal tenden- cies that pushed men out into the countryside.19 This was bad for discipline, and it took an exceptional regimental commander such as Colonel Tulloch to make the best of the situation. The other ranks were forced into mounted infantry roles, and Irish farm lads and Lancashire slum scuttlers had to care for horses, read the ground, find drinkable water, and hunt small and large game for food. It also taught them a few words of Zulu or Afrikaans/ Dutch and how to work closely with mates far from the eagle eyes of sergeant majors and company commanders. In short, it set them up to survive on their wits as bandits. For Van Onselen, this enhanced Fort Napier’s reputation as a College of Banditry.20

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Dominy_Text.indd 97 1/22/16 3:02 PM The Inniskilling Fusiliers were largely recruited from the religiously mixed counties of Derry, Down, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, although some men came from cities such as Dublin and Belfast. There were large pockets of rural poverty in the counties, and the recruits came into the regiment with all their religious, social, and cultural baggage. The regimental center was the garrison town of Enniskillen on an island in the lovely Lough Erne in County Fermanagh. Enniskillen played an important role in the Williamite Wars in Ireland in 1688 and 1689, and the Protestant Orangemen of Enniskillen rode into battle bellowing “No Popery,” a cry that reverberated through the centuries of Irish “troubles” and conflicts.21 Enniskillen was also the regimental center for the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, also stationed at Fort Napier and in Zululand in 1887.

The Mystery of the Mutiny After a year patrolling Zululand, the 27th Regiment arrived in Pietermaritzburg from Eshowe on June 1, 1887, looking “much fatigued, very dusty and travel stained.”22 A week later they were inspected by the officer commanding the troops in Natal and Zululand, Col. Henry Sparks Stabb, and the Natal Witness reported that everything was in “perfect order.”23 The entire garrison set about preparing for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. While the Jubilee was not spon- taneously celebrated across the length and breadth of Ireland, in settler society in colonial Natal it was a reaffirmation of imperial status and an expression of a “common community between ruler and subject.”24 The celebrations in Pieter- maritzburg reached a climax on June 21, with a major parade, a mock battle, the Royal Salute, and ending with a fireworks display.25 However, the stresses within the garrison were showing, and at the end of Jubilee Week, the Natal Witness reported that a drunken soldier was alarming townspeople by spreading rumors that “drunken troops with fixed bayonets” were about to attack the town.26 This is approximately six weeks before the mutiny occurred, but despite this warning, no precautions seem to have been taken by the garrison commanders. Although settler historians such as Ruth Gordon have underplayed the incident by claiming that “such goings on were so rare as to make the odd case stand out as an exception,”27 members of the colonial elite suspected more. Denis Shep- stone (the grandson of Theophilus and provincial administrator of Natal during World War II) was aware that there had been “friction amongst the N.C.O.s and men of the R.I.F. off and on for some time, whether on religious matters or regimental, was never quite clear.”28 The events of August 7, 1887, are shrouded in mystery, despite extensive press

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Dominy_Text.indd 98 1/22/16 3:02 PM coverage and intense speculation in the city and the colony. The mutiny was the main story in the Natal newspapers for days at a time, but the reports are often more significant for what was left unsaid. The mutiny began at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 7, 1887, according to the first press reports.29 Although the taverns in the city were closed because of Sabbath observance, the military canteens at Fort Napier remained open, and the troops of H Company, Inniskilling Fusiliers, were drinking heavily. When the roll was called in the company barracks at lights-out, five men were missing. Four reappeared within minutes (the fifth had deserted a day or two earlier) and began creating a disturbance. The duty sergeant ordered their arrest, but the soldiers ordered to perform the duty were assaulted and overwhelmed by the drunken men. A major fracas broke out in the barracks. Weapons were seized, NCOs and soldiers were assaulted, subversive slogans were shouted, windows were broken, beds overturned, doors were kicked in, and furniture was smashed. The duty NCO fled to raise the alarm, alert the officers, and call out the guard. In the midst of the melee lay the body of Pte. Matthew Scarlett, who had been bayoneted to death by his comrades. Four men, armed with their bayonets, broke out of the camp, crossed the railway lines into the city, and began to rampage through the streets. They battered on the doors of closed pubs, smashing windows and street lamps and causing havoc. The sentries on duty at Government House were threatened and civilians were terrorized, but the men passed rapidly on to the Waterloo Tavern in Church Street, where they tried to smash down the tavern door. They lightly wounded Miss Froomberg, the publican’s daughter, who was trying to drag her expostulating father to safety. The mutineers then attacked Corporal Lamont of the garrison military police and stabbed him to death with their bayonets. By the time the mutineers reached Chapel Street, where they disturbed a number of Methodists leaving chapel late, the alarm had been sounded at the fort, and troops were assembling to mount a pursuit. The civilian police had also been alerted and were fanning out through the streets in support of the military patrols and to help calm the agitated populace. Long after midnight, a patrol of Dragoons found one of the mutineers lying in a drunken stupor in a ditch beyond the Commercial Road cemetery. The patrol crossed the Msinduze River and continued along Durban Road. At about 3:00 a.m. they found the other three men hiding under a wagon beyond the Star and Garter tavern, near Polly Shortts Hill. The mutineers were disarmed, tied across the Dragoons’ horses, and dragged to the borough police station, where they were locked up before dawn broke.

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Dominy_Text.indd 99 1/22/16 3:02 PM Cover-Up and Court Cases The major question to be asked is, Was this an isolated incident, a more violent version of a typical drunken brawl, as Ruth Gordon has claimed, and as the authorities of the day wished to convey, or was this the manifestation of more serious tensions within the garrison, as Denis Shepstone believed? One thing is certain: Pietermaritzburg was beside itself with excitement, and everybody, however remotely connected with the garrison or the liquor trade, had a comment on the matter.30 Francis Statham, the editor of the Natal Witness, raised several pertinent issues in his first editorial on the subject.31 Acknowledg- ing that details were still vague, Statham suggested that the “military authorities are not too anxious to let this discreditable affair be talked about.” He also asked how it was that inflamed and intoxicated men could have such easy access to rifles and bayonets. More significantly, Statham alleged that there had been signs of dissatisfaction in the regiment before it arrived in Natal, and “this, perhaps, may account for the sudden action of the men on Sunday night.” He demanded a strict enquiry, not only into the deeds committed by the mutineers but also to examine “any circumstances” that may have led to “such an unfortunate ebullition.” Although the military commanders were anxious to limit discussion of the matter, there was a further leak to the press that hinted at something seriously amiss in the garrison. An NCO, writing to the Natal Witness under the nom de plume Discipline, accused the “young officers of the garrison” of “riotous behaviour,” of “galloping and hallooing about the camp and country . . . with impunity.” Discipline also remarked that the presence of both of the Inniskilling regiments in the same barracks provided the officers with an excuse to show their “good fellowship” by “nightly turning the camp into pandemonium.” He warned, “If officers go unpunished for riotous behaviour, it is to be expected that discipline is lost, as the soldier follows his officers’ example.”32 This was grist to Staham’s mill, and the following day he wrote a strident editorial beginning, ‘“Quis custodiet custodes ipsos [who will guard the guards]?” Nobody, he declaimed, had ever imagined that “Maritzburg would lie awake at night listening for the sound of patrols of Dragoons hunting up armed and desperate mutineers.” He accused the garrison officers of irregular conduct and asked who would be chastised.33 Other newspapers joined the chorus. The Times of Natal expressed the “greatest surprise” that the soldiers could have been allowed to “reach such a pitch of excitement.” The editorial pointed out that there were fifteen NCOs in a company and asked where they had been on the night and what steps had been taken to quell the row.34

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Dominy_Text.indd 100 1/22/16 3:02 PM The transoceanic telegraph lines had linked Natal to London for some years, and they hummed with the news. In London, The Times reported that four privates of the Inniskilling Fusiliers were to be tried for murdering two comrades: “Pending enquiry, steps have been taken to allay alarm regarding the repetition of mutinous proceedings. The bulk of the regiment is said not to sympathize with the rioters. The prisoners are very young men.”35 This report hints at possible problems of loyalty in the regiment (while emphasizing the loyalty of the majority of the troops) but makes no mention of in- competent officers or regimental indiscipline. The report also mentions that an official military enquiryas w held, but the records no longer survive. Extensive searches in the War Office records in Kew, the regimental records in Enniskillen, and in the broader collections in the National Army Museum in Chelsea drew a complete blank. There are also no traceable records in South Africa. Fortunately, the death in the city streets necessitated a public enquiry, conducted by the city magistrate, Charles Barter. It began on Wednesday, August 10, in a crowded courtroom. Barter recorded that he had held preliminary “confidential” meetings with garrison officers and had been told that a military enquiry had begun at Fort Napier, but that the results were not to be made public. The civil enquiry was firstly into the death of Pte. Matthew Scarlett at Fort Napier and secondly into the death of Corporal Lamont in Church Street. Ptes. Patrick McKeown, Joseph McCrea, Charles Orr, and John Campbell, all from Belfast, had been arrested by the Dragoons, and the purpose of the enquiry was to establish whether or not there was a case against them. Numerous witnesses were called, and pages of evidence were printed in the newspapers. It became clear that the unfortunate Matthew Scarlett had passed out in a drunken stupor on his bed and was stabbed to death in the darkness during the initial outburst of violence after the abortive roll call. The four mutineers had at least two other accomplices in the camp, one of whom, Private Wilson, was heard to yell, “Where are the Dublin Orange Bastards?”36 The situation at the fort took a while to return to normal. On the night of Au- gust 10, after Charles Barter had opened his public enquiry, which led to charges of murder being preferred against Campbell, McCrea, McKeown, and Orr, a second attempted mutiny occurred, with a large group of Fusiliers threatening to march on the borough police station to rescue their comrades. The military authorities were on the alert on this occasion, and the culprits were arrested. The sentries were doubled and issued with live ammunition. The Dragoons were placed on full alert and ordered to keep watch over the Fusiliers. The garrison commander also denied that any serious situation had developed.37 The following

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Dominy_Text.indd 101 1/22/16 3:02 PM day, the Natal Witness reported that shooting had been heard during the night from Fort Napier, but no news could be obtained from the military authorities.38 The military gave an official public reaction in the form of a letter from a rattled Colonel Stabb to the Natal Witness stating that enquiries were being made into the allegations against the young officers made by Discipline and demanding that the editor release the correspondent’s real name.39 Stabb did not keep a personal record of events around the mutiny, but his private papers do contain a revealing letter from one of his friends at the War Office, General Harman. The general told Stabb that he hoped that “very short business” had been made of the “murderers” and that the “whole lot” had been hanged so that if they had sympathizers in the regiment, their example would have a deterrent effect.40 Barter continued sifting through evidence over the following weeks, and a picture of drunken chaos at the fort was revealed. It became clear that Private McKeown was the ringleader who ordered the march on the town with bayonets fixed, but there was confusion as to his role in the murder of Corporal Lamont. Some of the evidence hinted at political and religious hostility, which erupted in the brawl. Private Martin, identified as an accomplice of the mutineers, although he did not march into the town, was heard shouting, “I’ll rip and roast the Queen.”41 On Tuesday, August 23, the magistrate ordered that Privates McKeown, Mc- Crea, Orr, and Campbell be committed for trial in the Natal High Court on charges of murder.42 The army, however, had not been idle. General Torrens, the GOC in South Africa, arrived in Pietermaritzburg for a surprise inspection, which coincided with the withdrawal of the first contingent of the Inniskilling Fusiliers from Natal. The Natal Witness headlined the event “Moving the Muti- neers.”43 By October, only the regimental headquarters and a single company of the regiment remained in Natal. Given the furor, the extensive publicity, the rapid arrival of General Torrens, and the equally rapid withdrawal of the Inniskilling Fusiliers from Fort Napier, it is frustrating to know that very few military records concerning the mutiny have survived. That there is no mention of the mutiny in the official history of the regiment is perhaps understandable, as regimental histories are the equivalent of church histories on the lives of the saints combined with parish newsletters—a strange combination of the glorious and the mundane. The regimental pay lists record only the death of Corporal Lamont; Matthew Scarlett’s name has been omitted.44 Lamont was at least killed on duty. Scarlett’s death could not be described in any such way. Colonel Stabb reported that Privates Martin, Wilson, Orr, and Campbell were

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Dominy_Text.indd 102 1/22/16 3:02 PM tried in separate regimental courts martial, but no record has survived.45 Accord- ing to archivists at the then Public Records Office at Kew, court martial records for the 1880s were destroyed by German bombing during World War II, and only the register entries survived.46 When the Natal High Court heard the matter, extensive records were kept, but Patrick McKeown, Joseph McCrea, Charles Orr, and John Campbell only faced charges for the murder of Corporal Lamont in the streets of the city, not for the murder of Private Scarlett in his barrack room at the fort.47 Mr. Justice Wragg, the presiding judge, directed the jury to forget the events in the camp; except as they referred to the identity of the prisoners, they were to concern themselves solely with the death of Corporal Lamont.48 The trial took five days, from October 4 to 8, 1887, and excited enormous, if not morbid, public interest. The prisoners were brought from the civil prison to the courtroom by an escort of Dragoons, not by an escort of Fusiliers. The evidence of the Dragoon witnesses provides the best picture of the mental state of the mutineers when captured. Campbell, the first captured, had been found in a drunken stupor near the cemetery and made no comment on his arrest, but according to the police witnesses, he denied that he had ever left Fort Napier! The evidence of some of the African witnesses provided some insight into the emotions of the mutineers. “Ugwapuna” gave evidence that he met the other three accused at 2:00 a.m. on the Durban Road near the Star and Garter tavern. McKe- own offered to sell him a bayonet, and when Ugwapana said he had no money, McKeown shook hands with him and moved on. “Mevana,” a wagon driver, told the court that he was asleep under his wagon beyond the Star and Garter when three soldiers crawled under the wagon. Mevana told the boy sleeping with him to hang on to the blankets, as he suspected the soldiers of being about to steal them. When the Dragoons arrived, Orr and McCrea were captured easily, but McKeown tried hiding under a tarpaulin until Mevana pointed him out to the Dragoons. One of the Dragoons testified that when McCrea was captured, he said, “By Jasus it will be transportation for life.” The jury acquitted Orr and Campbell, but found McCrea and McKeown guilty of the murder of Corporal Lamont. Justice Wragg sentenced McCrea and McKeown to death, but McCrea then confessed to the court that he was solely responsible for killing the corporal, and McKeown’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.49 The charges against McCrea and McKeown for the murder of Matthew Scarlett were withdrawn. This meant that there was neither a public hearing on the events that occurred inside Fort Napier on August 7, nor was any evidence as to the causes of the outbreak ever made public.

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Dominy_Text.indd 103 1/22/16 3:02 PM The Execution and the Evidence for Mutiny Pte. Joseph McCrea was executed in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday, November 15, 1887, after a public furor. On November 9, the Natal Witness published an interview it had conducted with him in his condemned cell. McCrea gave his age as twenty-one and his home town as Belfast; he had joined the army at the age of seventeen and come to South Africa with a draft in 1885. Some pointed and leading questions were put to him: Was he among the draft that had mutinied before leaving England? Were there any political organizations in the regiment, such as Orangemen or Fenians? He denied having been in any mutinous draft, and he denied that there were political groupings in the regiment. He admitted that he was very drunk on August 7, having spent one pound, seventeen shillings at the Dragoons’ canteen. His assault on Corporal Lamont was as a result of the drink. McCrea had received a letter from his mother asking if he was the McCrea who had killed a man in Africa, but he had not yet found the courage to reply. He was described as sincerely penitent and spending a great deal of time with the Reverend Father Follis, a priest from St. Mary’s Catholic church. The Natal Witness then launched a campaign for the reprieve of Joseph Mc- Crea, which generated a great deal of popular support, with meetings and peti- tions to the governor being sent from Verulam, Durban, Ladysmith, and Pieter- maritzburg.50 Prominent members of the colonial elite, such as Harry Escombe and Henry Bale, both lawyers and politicians, supported the move. Colonel Stabb commented sourly that there was nothing new in the campaign to justify a reprieve, but there was antipathy in the colony against hanging a white man.51 While Stabb was undoubtedly correct in his analysis of the colonists’ racial feelings, there were other important and very specific issues at stake. The Natal Witness expressed a widespread feeling that McCrea was being made into a scapegoat. It was argued that if the ringleader, Patrick McKeown, could be sentenced to life imprisonment (working on the Durban harbor break- water), then McCrea should receive the same sentence. There was also a strong feeling that the fact that McCrea could get fighting drunk in a military canteen on the Sabbath made the army an accessory to the murder. The inability of the officers to stop the breakout from the fort and the delay in organizing a pursuit also raised Statham’s ire.52 Henry Bale made some of the most telling points in a letter published the day before McCrea’s execution: “Constituted authority is not infrequently lacking in the quality of mercy, and the disclosure of truth is not always pleasant to the official mind.” He asked for an investigation into the opening of the military canteens on Sundays, but his most percipient point was to raise the question of the

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Dominy_Text.indd 104 1/22/16 3:02 PM murder of Matthew Scarlett: “Is it not remarkable that no one has been tried for the offence of murdering Scarlett? Many will agree with me in thinking it strange that all the preceding circumstances were not properly inquired into at the recent trial.” Despite this sharp criticism from one of the most influential figures in the colonial legislature, there was no reaction from the governor or the garrison. Sir Arthur Havelock, the governor of Natal, refused to exercise clemency towards McCrea, who was hanged in the Pietermaritzburg Prison at 6:00 a.m. on November 15, 1887. The newspapers were filled with morbid and sentimental accounts of the execution and McCrea’s subsequent burial in a grave prepared by convicts in the Roman Catholic cemetery.53 The sheriff was compelled by the settler criticism to justify the employment of a hangman of Indian rather than European origins. “Mr Cheddie [Chetty] was experienced, competent, and Christian which left ‘nothing but the question of colour to be objected to.’”54 Even after McCrea’s execution, the mutiny continued to raise passions. The Natal Advertiser, which had not supported the campaign for clemency, reasoned that it was well understood that the reprieve of McCrea would “imply nothing less than a censure by the Crown on army discipline in Natal.” The newspaper called for an independent and prompt enquiry and accused the young officers of being “gadabouts” who put their social activities before the welfare of their men.55 Reviewing the unfolding of events and the narrow focus of the High Court case, it seems likely that the military authorities wished people to draw the conclusion that the incident on August 7, 1887, was simply a drunken brawl with tragic results. The mutiny could not be covered up, as too much had happened in the streets of Pietermaritzburg in the public eye, but by getting the court to focus on the murder of Corporal Lamont in the street, rather than on the riot at the fort, the circumstances surrounding the death of Private Scarlett escaped public attention. The evidence on whether the situation in Ireland had any influence on the mutineers is inconclusive. However, it is unlikely that the mutineers had a direct political agenda. The argument that it was just an isolated drunken brawl is also weak. There is the evidence that at the conclusion of the Jubilee celebrations, some soldiers were planning to storm the town with bayonets fixed, some six weeks before it actually happened. There is also the evidence that soldiers wanted to storm the police station to release their comrades and the newspaper reports that shots were heard from the fort that night. Clearly, this was not an isolated incident of ill-discipline, simply a drunken brawl. Alcohol played a major part in the incident, particularly as a catalyst for trouble. Once trouble began, the drunken aggression was expressed in nationalist and anti- authoritarian forms. So what could have started it? Robert James Mason, an old

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Dominy_Text.indd 105 1/22/16 3:02 PM settler, claimed that the presence of the Inniskilling Dragoons and the Fusiliers in the same barracks at the same time is significant. He had heard that the infantry were told to tidy up the cavalry barracks, as the Dragoons were busy grooming their horses. This resulted in a resentful fatigue party of Fusiliers refusing to do so, and the infantrymen were arrested and put in the guard room.56 Whether or not this party included Patrick McKeown and his cronies is not clear. McCrea did admit to drinking heavily in the Dragoons’ canteen and a quarrel breaking out, but he was too drunk to remember the cause of the quarrel.57 It is likely that an inter-regimental fight broke out and that frustrated Fusil- iers, angered by the taunts from the Dragoons and mindful of their own officers cavorting unchecked with the Dragoon officers, went over the edge when they were bawled out for being late for roll call. They turned their drunken rage on the nearest representatives of the “enemy,” the minority of Orangemen, or supposed Orangemen, in their own company and followed a half-thought-out scheme to escape through the city. Was poor Matthew Scarlett an Orangeman? We cannot know. The group was clearly led by Patrick McKeown, and his actions fit neatly into the patterns of behavior described by Van Onselen: the formation of a gang with its own sloganeering, and an acceptance of violent behavior as a norm. McKeown and his gang did kill, they did desert the colors, and the only option open to them would have been escaping across the colonial frontier and becoming bandits on the gold fields of the eastern Transvaal. Another strong contributory cause has become clear: the regiment was in- competently led. This brings the focus to one of the least-mentioned and most shadowy figures in the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the commanding officer, Col. -Dom ville Mascie Taylor. He is barely mentioned in the regimental history, and he left the regiment shortly after the mutiny. He clearly ignored the warning signs from Jubilee week and took no steps to tighten up discipline or control his young officers, let alone the men. The slow reaction to the riot in the H Company barracks and to the breakout of McKeown and his cronies and the delay in organizing a pursuit indicates a distinct failure of planning and management and a lack of decisive leadership. In 1991, the curator of the Enniskillen Regimental Museum expressed an opinion that Taylor’s failure of leadership was partly responsible for the mutiny, and that Taylor has been virtually written out of the regiment’s history. He was also convinced that because of the way the battalion had been deployed “by companies on detachment that morale and consequently discipline had suffered.”58 The military authorities were seriously concerned about the situation in the Inniskilling Fusiliers, but details of their concern are sketchy. General Torrens

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Dominy_Text.indd 106 1/22/16 3:02 PM informed the Duke of Cambridge that conditions in the regiment had improved since the mutiny, as the “behaviour of the men . . . since that lamentable occurrence has been orderly, soldierlike and creditable.” Torrens made urgent arrangements for the withdrawal of the regiment from Natal and ensured that the entrainment of the troops at Pietermaritzburg was supervised by Colonel Stabb, not Colonel Taylor. This may be further evidence of Taylor’s lack of competence. Torrens praised the steadiness of the regiment while waiting to embark on the troopship, and he felt that the troops viewed “with regret and shame the reckless and outrageous acts of a few notoriously bad characters which have tended to throw such discredit on the service.”59 It seems that the mutiny, the court case, and the military cover-up struck a raw nerve in settler society. McCrea was not executed in public, and the military and civil establishment was clearly angry at the interview he granted to the Natal Witness in his condemned cell. The press revelled in describing all the points stressed by Michel Foucault in his description of the “gloomy festival of punishment.”60 There is the penitent criminal, the presence of the priest, the worried mother. They also feature as icons of Victorian sentimentality. The descriptions of the execution continued in the same vein. Clearly political points were being scored, particularly by Statham, but even establishment figures such as Henry Bale were alarmed, and there were profound issues raised by the mutiny that went way beyond local political point-scoring. The mutiny and the way it echoed around colonial society exposed a number of raw nerves. It exposed the ambiguities and contradictions in the relationship between the garrison and the settler and indigenous communities. The evidence heard in court revealed the type of abuse that Africans feared would be inflicted by soldiers. Despite this, there were moments during the mutineers’ rampage when they cast racial superiority aside and greeted an African wagon driver as a brother and equal. Yet, it was this African who revealed McKeown’s hiding place to the Dragoons.

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The Garrison and the Wider Society Placing the “Rough and the Respectable” in the Colonial Context

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An’ if sometimes our conduct isn’t all your fancy paints, Why single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.

—R udyard Kipling, “Tommy”

riters on the social history of the military tend to emphasize the separation Wbetween military and civilian life, particularly in the United Kingdom.1 In Natal, however, the garrison was critical to the reproduction in the African context of an English-speaking settler oligarchy and class system, albeit more flexible than in the home country. Garrison activities were integral to the wider social and cultural life of settler society, but they also played a noteworthy role in the refashioning of African society during the mid to late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. One of the key factors is the length of time the garrison remained in Natal. Another factor is that Natal remained a colony with a small settler population, so the garrison wielded a disproportionately greater influence for most of its stay in Natal than it did in Australia or Canada. This chapter will examine the reflection of the military hierarchy in the class divisions in settler society. The “respectable” actions of soldiers taking their discharge and becoming settlers will be contrasted with the “rough” actions

Dominy_Text.indd 108 1/22/16 3:02 PM of drunkenness and desertion. This is not a binary set of behaviors; there were gradients, and, mediated by class and caste, there was much tolerance for extravagant and extroverted or ebullient behavior. Officers slaughtering vast numbers of game during ostentatious hunting expeditions across the colonial borders were acclaimed and admired. Hunting was not only perceived as socially respectable; it was an important aspect of the culture of masculinity, and it reinforced the class position of the officers. The role of the military in establishing social, cultural, educational, and sporting events and organizations is also crucial in the development of the political and cultural consciousness of settler society, which lasted long beyond the formal collapse of the colony into the Union of South Africa in 1910.

The Garrison’s Influence in City and Colony Judith Fingard has shown how, in the Canadian context, the imperial garrison in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reinforced the division between the “rough and the respectable.”2 The situation in Natal was more complex: the position of the garrison and the settler society as an intrusive and ruling minority in the broader African context presupposed the need to ensure and maintain cultural and racial unity. Social mechanisms were needed to ensure that the military roughness did not undermine settler and official respectability. Settler society was also far from homogeneous: in addition to land-owning settlers, officials, and missionaries, there were hunters, traders, and transport- riders who earned their livings and made their lives far from Government House and Fort Napier. Religious and temperance groups sought to reinforce social respectability and conformity, but the soldiers drank and caroused, and many attempted to desert, usually trying to flee across the colonial borders to safety in the Boer republics or African chiefdoms. Other soldiers took their legal dis- charges in Natal where, in the early years of the colony, they provided the bulk of the colony’s artisans. Many soldier-settlers entered the liquor trade, running pubs and taverns. Some officers even entered the trade in alcohol, albeit within the narrower confines of their class and caste. The nature of the social interactions between the garrison and the civilian population changed as the composition of the broader settler and African populations changed. In the 1840s, there was lingering hostility between Trekkers and the troops, but from the end of the decade, the predominantly British settlers held attitudes toward the garrison that were broadly affectionate and tolerant, although occasionally hostile or disparaging remarks were made. In the mid-1840s thousands of Africans arrived in Natal from Zululand, and in the late 1840s, almost all

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Dominy_Text.indd 109 1/22/16 3:02 PM the Trekkers left Natal for the republics west of the Drakensberg mountain range. From the end of the 1840s, German and British settlers began arriving to occupy niches within the expanding hunting and trading economy. In many ways, the new settlers merely filled the gap left by departing Trekkers, but in other ways they were a decisive influence in the transformation of the nature of colonial hegemony in Natal because their loyalty and identification with the colonial state and the imperial connection was infinitely stronger than that of the Africans or Trekkers. A key focus of the imperial connection was the garrison in Fort Napier, which was a powerful factor in the evolution of Natal and the “Natalians.”3 The quintessential historian of settler Natal was Alan F. Hattersley, who wrote numerous gentle hymns of praise to the settlers.4 His approach partly informed Edgar Brookes and Colin Webb’s synthesis of Natal history and Shelagh Spen- cer’s mammoth biographical register of settlers.5 Hattersley demonstrated that the social distinctions of Victorian England could not be fully replicated in colonial Natal because of the cheapness of land and the comparative wealth to be gained from “trade.” Social discrimination within the colonial community was based on closeness to the officers of the garrison. Closely guarded social circles to which only executive office or a military commission could guarantee access were characteristic of South African garrison towns, particularly Pietermaritzburg.6 The officials of the colonial hierarchy, headed by the lieutenant governor and later the governor, lived close to Fort Napier. The garrison officers tended to live outside the barracks in the upper part of the town, and the senior officials near the governor.7 Notwithstanding their accumulation of wealth, tradesmen did not associate readily with the officers and the official elite. Conversely, many middle- class emigrants brought with them from Britain a traditional dislike of soldiering as being “not quite respectable.”8 Harry Hopkins commented that soldiers were “untouchable” to the “respectable middle class” and “equally suspect to the thinking working class.”9 The resentments and minor conflicts between soldiers and civilians, which manifested themselves in petty feuds and court cases, should be seen against this background. The atmosphere was aptly captured by John Robinson in his articles penned under the nom de plume “A Lady.” Robinson needs to quoted at some length, not only because his is an astringent and acutely observant commentary, but because Tom Sharpe echoes it in his description of “Piemburg” quoted as the epigraph of this work: Maritzburg is the most clique-ridden town it has been my lot to dwell in. Cape Town and Grahamstown are nothing to it. There each set is large enough to form a social circle in itself. Here a well-disposed stranger, not over nice about

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Dominy_Text.indd 110 1/22/16 3:02 PM social liens and grades, runs a risk of being left out in the cold altogether if she tries to make herself agreeable to all. You begin with one or two grand divisions, and these are again cut up into minor cliques. Thus there are the officials and the non-officials—these latter being esteemed quite below caste. They, too, are parcelled out into the Executives, who hold their noses high above the local trade-ocracy—and the smaller fry of clerks, &c., of whom of course, I see little and know less. Need I say that there are the military and the civilians—although to be just, the two commingle, so far as I can see, with less clashing than you witness in other directions.10 Natal was a favored station for British officers, particularly bachelors, and there were requirements for maintaining their lifestyle that give us a window into the “gentlemanly” and “respectable” lifestyle in Natal, which included hunting, sport (cricket, football, and polo), and an active social life in the colonial community. Married officers faced higher expenses than bachelors, who lived in the fort and depended on the officers’ mess. The military-officer families paid higher rentals for accommodation and faced the perennial “servant problems.” A senior officer with a wife and children would require three British servants (cook, groom, and nurse) and three or more “native boys,” who would want to go back to their “kraals” every six months or so. Officers were also advised that “Kaffir servants” were more honest than the more intelligent “coolies,” who were “slippery and untrustworthy.” Officers were warned of the high wages demanded by white servants in Natal (three pounds or more per month for both men and women). “Native wages” were lower, varying between eight shillings per month for a young “kitchen boy” to thirty shillings per month for a “head man.” African women entering the domestic labor force were virtually unknown in Natal, even at the close of the nineteenth century.11 Because of the long-term military presence at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg’s settler society presents a different social pattern from later settlement colonies. Terence Ranger commented that in Rhodesia and Kenya it became “gentlemanly to be a store-keeper or a prospector.”12 In Natal, between the 1840s and the 1880s, storekeepers and prospectors were not regarded as gentlemen by an elite that aped the military. It was only when the mineral discoveries of the 1880s began transforming the regional economy that prospecting and transport-riding, which promised dramatic increases in wealth, became acceptable activities for gentlemen.13 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, imperialist writers such as Percy Fitzpatrick and H. Rider Haggard began romanticizing such activities and turning them into adventure stories to be avidly absorbed by British public schoolboys. Haggard published King Solomon’s Mines in 1885 as a boy’s adventure story, and

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Dominy_Text.indd 111 1/22/16 3:02 PM his other works all followed the formula of “simple heroism in the midst of exotic adventure.” Likewise, Percy Fitzpatrick packaged his experiences as transport- rider, journalist, and innkeeper in his adventure story Jock of the Bushveld, set in the Lowveld and gold-rush centers of Pilgrim’s Rest and Barberton.14 Further afield, Victorian gentlemen-adventurers such as “Maori” Hamilton- Browne and Stanley Hyatt published their life experiences transport-riding, fighting, and swashbuckling across the empire in the decades before the First World War in books speaking of a masculine world, with their place on the frontiers doing their “duty by the empire” and testing its ideals.15 The colonial frontiers made remittance men and adventurers respectable in the late Victorian and Ed- wardian eras. However, in Natal, particularly in the 1880s, it was control of land and labor that bestowed status on a settler. That status was then confirmed by “respectable” social and religious activities, including volunteering in the colonial militia units, which aped the ideals of the imperial army.16 The depth of class distinctions within the Natal settler community should not be overstressed, because the community was very small, and the officers of the garrison and the “small circle” of colonial officials was “scarcely sufficient of itself to constitute a class.” With the exception of the officers and officials, a settler population in a new colony was composed “almost entirely of working men, tradesmen, farmers and labourers.”17 Class position in colonial Natal was not stable and changed as economic and social circumstances and opportunities changed. What is clear is that the garrison provided a reference point in terms of which social standing and changes in class relationships were measured.

The Social Side of the Garrison: Distance, Identity, and Class Differentiation The garrison remained the prop of the colony, even as the settler state expanded through immigration, the establishment of sugar plantations, the spread of the railways, and the opening of more reliable communications with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. All these activities were stimulated by the discovery of diamonds in 1869 and later of gold. The demographics of Pietermaritzburg also changed as the colony expanded. The earliest reliable figures are from 1852 and give a “white” population (including those of “mixed” races) of 1,508 and an African population of 892, for a total population of about 2,400.18 A further thousand settlers arrived over the next few years, and by 1856 the city had a settler population of about 2,500, when the whole colony’s settler population was some six thousand. The garrison of six

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Dominy_Text.indd 112 1/22/16 3:02 PM hundred men made up a full 10 percent of the settler population and nearly 30 percent of Pietermaritzburg’s population.19 While there were still Trekker families in the city in the 1840s, the garrison commanders acted to provide activities that would not only occupy bored troops but would entertain the disaffected civilians. The regimental band performances, theatrical entertainments, and horse racing were among the activities held to try to thaw Trekker hostility.20 The troops also turned out to help the Trekkers harvest their crops. This encouraged the development of commercial relations between the two groups, and the garrison provided the locals with a ready market for the purchase of butter and other produce.21 Another witness was John Bird, a colonial official who had arrived in 1846. He recorded the dependence of the little community on the “melody” of the regimental band. He also calculated that there were between two and three hundred “Afrikander” inhabitants of Pietermaritzburg and as many troops. The nonmilitary English population in 1846 consisted of some fifty to sixty residents, almost exclusively civil servants and their families. Under these circumstances, the separation between military and civil society, as was the norm in Britain, was impossible in Natal. The officers of Fort Napier “could have no association except with the civilians, and they soon took part in social amenities.”22 The 45th Regiment, the pioneering regiment, set the class and caste parameters for entertainment involving the civilian population. In 1846, Lieutenant Colonel Boys and his officers entertained the “ladies and gentlemen” of Pietermaritzburg to a “ball and supper.”23 When the Queen’s Birthday was celebrated the following year, the sergeants’ mess gave a separate entertainment. Tradesmen and their wives and daughters joined the women of the regiment, and their conduct reportedly would have graced occasions of “higher social standing.”24 The small community’s need for bonding social amusements and leisure-time entertainments was deeper than simply alleviating boredom; there was an ideological basis. Victorian British society was attempting to replicate itself on African soil. There was something of a political agenda underpinning the establishment of the garrison theater, as the performance of light musicals by amateurs was a favorite middle-class activity in British society. The regular dramatic performances by officers and soldiers were active ingredients in the growth of popular British culture in the colonial setting. The army itself recognized the importance of military theater in developing relations with civilians, and especially with women: “It is therefore by no means surprising, seeing that the female element dominates the theatre from the back of the gallery to the front rows of the stalls, to find in the military drama one of the most popular theatrical entertainments of the present day.”25

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Dominy_Text.indd 113 1/22/16 3:02 PM The 45th Regiment set a tone for amateur dramatics and popular musicals that persisted in Pietermaritzburg until the television era. The structure was that of “play, musical interlude, and ‘screaming’ farce.” The first play,Zorinski, was performed on New Year’s Day, 1846, in the largest room in the barracks. The performance included a musical interlude, with the regimental band playing and the audience dancing, and included a theatrical farce, The Honest Thieves. The 45th Regiment’s bandmaster, Signor Faccioli, was widely respected as an outstanding musician who extended the band’s repertoire beyond martial music to include popular composers such as Mozart, Rossini, and Verdi. While most amateur theatrical performances in Victorian Pietermaritzburg were farces or burlesques, the 45th Regiment was also credited with a performance of Mac- beth in 1847. The 75th Regiment had a madrigal club in 1872, and the Eightieth Regiment produced Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury in the aftermath of the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. Before the war, in 1872, the 75th Regiment followed up the example set by a visit of the Christy Minstrels by performing a Zulu parody called the “Isivimbo Ministrels.” Rather than understand African culture, the soldiers and the settlers chose to burlesque it.26 The sports field provided opportunities for broader and greater social interactions, and these reached across the divide between the rough and the respectable. For Afrikaners, sport evolved from what was available on trek, and consequently riding and shooting were vital activities. English-speaking South Africans tended to organize themselves in clubs within towns, “a habit given impetus by the soldiers who came to fight Queen Victoria’s wars in South Africa.”27 Games gave young men a chance to let off steam, a necessary release of physical energy in young all-male social groups such as those living in crowded barracks. Organized sport also provided an arena within which hierarchy and systems of command could be safely challenged: for example, an officer could be beaten in a game by a common soldier without discipline being prejudiced. Sport also added excitement to a dull garrison routine and enabled challenging activities to be devised when a lack of funds or imagination restricted intensive training.28 What happened in Natal mirrored what happened elsewhere in military cen- tres of the empire. In the Cape Colony, British troops encouraged the indigenous inhabitants to adopt western sport.29 In Pietermaritzburg, the officers of the 45th Regiment established the local Turf Club, and the first races were held on December 30–31, 1844, to the excitement of troops and Trekkers.30 The club continued meeting regularly under the auspices of a racing committee dominated by military officers.31 Other sports, such as polo, cricket, croquet, gymkhanas, and steeple-chasing, “all gave Pietermaritzburg a sparkle that many other South African towns lacked entirely.”32 However, while at times the troops may have

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Dominy_Text.indd 114 1/22/16 3:02 PM encouraged Africans and Indians to play sport, the ideologies behind the sports introduced by the troops reinforced settler hegemony and exclusiveness. Cricket and rugby in particular became icons of white virility, as they inculcated the moral qualities required by those “born to rule and lead.”33 Rugby, in particular, was enthusiastically played by the soldiers of the garrison, whose teams dominated the local leagues, and the changes in regiments brought in new players familiar with the latest developments in the sporting code.34 The Royal Visit of Prince Alfred in 1860, which has already been mentioned, certainly provided an opportunity for Pietermaritzburg to sparkle. A sports day was organized, with troops from the garrison and townsmen participating; women are not recorded as being participants. Young Duncan Moodie, the son of the colonial secretary, beat Private Georghan of the 85th Regiment in an epic foot race.35 Special activities were also arranged for black participants as part of the broad program. They are not named but are likely to have been Wesleyan converts, the amaKholwa from Edendale, servants of the military, and probably the Natal Africans from the locations who performed in the “war dance” for the prince.36 In addition to breaking the class barriers, such as by having the son of one of the most senior officials compete against a soldier from the ranks, this was also Natal’s first “multiracial” sports festival. This trend did not last, as segregation became strongly entrenched. By the end of the nineteenth century, Africans and Indians were not permitted to enter the sports grounds and parks frequented by whites.37

Soldier-Settlers and the Cementing of Class Relations Soldiers taking their discharge in Natal were among the first and most important sources of settlers in the colony.38 This was part of a mid-nineteenth-century phenomenon of imperial migration. According to Ulbe Bosma, soldiers “primed the pump for settler colonies.”39 Social relations and the sense of settler identity were shaped by admiration and imitation of the military and colonial elites by the broader settler community. The influx of ex-soldiers with ideas of hierarchy, discipline, and status reinforced this. In 1849, the Natal Witness contrasted the situation in the eastern Cape, where the “worst troops” had been discharged, with the “diligence and respectability” of those discharged in Natal.40 The following year, the paper applauded the fact that a corporal and fifteen men of the 45th Regiment took their discharge in Pietermaritzburg, noting that as soldiers they had helped with building projects in the city and now hoped for employment. Some had acquired land and houses. The article listed their trades as: eight agricultural laborers, one lacemaker, one framework knitter, one

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Dominy_Text.indd 115 1/22/16 3:02 PM copper-plate printer, one weaver of Irish linen, two shoemakers, one groom, and one tailor.41 Thomas Green described many of the discharged soldiers of the 45th Regiment as “good and useful citizens.”42 His views were echoed from the top of the colonial social scale by Sir John Robinson, the colony’s first premier, who believed that some of the best colonists in Natal had come from the ranks of the 45th Regiment.43 Again, this was a reflection of an international trend; Bosma argues that although colonial soldiers have been excluded from migration history, they settled in substantial numbers in the colonies after military life “as a much appreciated, white labour force.”44 Scots were prominent among the soldier-settlers, particularly members of the 45th and 91st Regiments who took their discharge and remained in the colony. John Anderson became a boot- and shoemaker in Pietermaritzburg; William Anderson from Glasgow received land in the colony and later worked for the Natal Government Railways; and James Cruickshank and William Cunningham became landowners and ran stores aimed at trade with the African population.45 These provide examples of the lack of class rigidity in Natal. Access to land is the key differential, as the cases of the two Andersons demonstrate: John Anderson was a bootmaker, but William got his feet onto the social-mobility ladder through land ownership, even though he later worked on the railways, which in the early days was seen as being part of a technical elite. A study of social stratification in the colonial context of the eastern Cape46 is useful for placing military settlers in the local hierarchy, ranging from the top category, the “upper class” into which officers were firmly placed, to the last two categories, into which most discharged other ranks would be placed. There was considerable potential mobility between the categories, and the mechanisms for upward mobility included membership in a Nonconformist religious denomination (such as the Wesleyan Methodists, Congregationalists, or Baptists) and membership in a military temperance organization. These were the marks of respectability that enabled a discharged soldier to enter colonial society at a higher level and establish commercial and social contacts with the “middling class.” Most of the discharged troops from Fort Napier would fall into the categories of skilled or unskilled manual laborers (categories IV and V), according to the extensive list of occupations of Irish soldiers, largely from the 45th Regiment, who took their discharge in Natal, as compiled by Shelagh Spencer.47 While many of the Irish soldier settlers would have been Roman Catholics, many Nonconformist soldiers also took their discharge. The temperance-organization-membership route to respectability would have been common to both religious traditions. For Irish and Catholic troops, there

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Dominy_Text.indd 116 1/22/16 3:02 PM Table 9.1 Colonial Class Categorization i upper Class Army officers, gentry, with birth as the initial criterion II Upper Middle Class Professional, civil establishment, and merchant elite; income as the criterion III Middling Class (nonmanual) intermediate occupations, rising professionals, small shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, victuallers, etc. Gentrification of the middling class is an important means of upward mobility, and this class is characterized by Nonconformist church affiliation IV Skilled Manual Workers artisans, artificers, and mechanics V Unskilled Manual Workers Laborers, shepherds, etc.

was the powerful example of the Cork temperance preacher Father Mathew, who spread the message of total abstinence across Ireland, Britain, and the United States.48 Protestant troops had a range of examples, one being a Natal settler, James Erasmus Methley, originally from Yorkshire. The Methley family began as Wesleyans and farmed in the Karkloof hills. The temperance movement played a role in their “gentrification,” as it was regarded as a “respectable” social activity. The Methleys also changed their religion to Anglican, which cemented their respectable status, and James Methley became a justice of the peace. Methley was a tireless temperance preacher and specifically included the troops of the garrison in his harangues.49 However, there was vocal opposition to the temperance cause from sections of society who regarded the Methleys of the colony as killjoys. A dinner arranged for the officers and men of HMS Fawn, when the crew were being returned to Cape Town, caused the De Natalier to comment in Nelsonian terms, “Pietermaritzburg EXPECTS THAT in spite of the Canting Preachers of Temperance, EVERYONE on that occasion WILL DO HIS DUTY.”50 While James Methley preached as an outsider to the troops, the regimental chaplain also supported the temperance cause. From 1853 to 1858, the Rev. John David Jenkins, a clergyman in Bishop Colenso’s diocese, served as regimental chaplain.51 He ran the garrison school in the military chapel and took the education of the solders’ children very seriously.52 If he encountered drunken troops in the streets at night, he would help them back to barracks and then, the following day, persuade them to sign the total-abstinence pledge.53 The garrison’s temperance organization was firmly backed by the commandant of Natal and aimed at the “respectable” troops of the 45th Regiment, the engineers, the artillery, and the CMR, regardless of race.54

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Dominy_Text.indd 117 1/22/16 3:02 PM Another route for a discharged soldier to enter the middling class and become a “good and useful citizen” was appointment to an official post. Many soldiers and NCOs who did not take up trades took up government posts such as jailers, messengers of the court, local policemen, and hospital attendants. One of the latter was a former soldier in the 45th Regiment, William O’Hara, who became a male attendant at the new Grey’s Hospital, perhaps through the influence of his wife, who became the matron of the hospital.55 John Smethwick, a former sergeant in the 75th Regiment (Gordon Highlanders), became the first “Keeper of Lunatics” at the new Natal Government Asylum in February 1875. He was assisted by his wife and various Indian and African guards.56 A former drill instructor and school master at Fort Napier, Andrew Muirhead, became a teacher at the Hermannsburg School (where young Louis Botha, Boer general and first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, was a pupil). This school was established by the German Lutheran Hermannsburg Mission Soci- ety in 1857, near the frontier with the Zulu kingdom. Muirhead established the school cadet corps in 1871, the first to be established in the colony. Cadet training at boys’ schools was a critical part of the development of settler Natal’s culture of masculinity, and the school cadet detachments had close links with the garrison.57 It is one of the ironies of history that Botha, one of the most successful of the Boer generals against the British, learned his first soldiering steps in a cadet corps at a German school under the instruction of a British army veteran from Fort Napier. A curious incident relating to the discharge of a senior NCO occurred during the tenure of the 1/13th Regiment at Fort Napier. Richard Alexander, the regimental sergeant major (he was appointed to the post at the age of twenty-three, making him the youngest sergeant-major in the British Army),58 became involved in a dispute with the regimental schoolmaster and his wife over the issue of prayers in the garrison schoolroom. Alexander was charged, court-martialed, and sentenced to a reduction in rank. Because of the fragmentary nature of court-martial records, little is known of the background to the incident. However, it was clear to some in the military hierarchy that an injustice had been done, because the sentence was remitted, and he was reinstated in his rank. Nevertheless, the incident effectively ended his military career. He applied for and immediately obtained the post of superintendent of the Durban Borough Police. His application was supported by most of the officers of the 1/13th Regiment, and he went on to serve with great distinction for thirty years. At one stage he saved the young M. K. Gandhi from a rioting mob of colonists, at considerable risk to himself.59 The first superintendent of the Pietermaritzburg Borough Police, George Freshwater, was also an NCO of the 45th Regiment who marched to Maritzburg in 1843 and helped

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Dominy_Text.indd 118 1/22/16 3:02 PM build Fort Napier before taking his discharge in 1847. He was appointed jailer of Pietermaritzburg in 1847, before becoming chief constable in 1852.60 The Victorians regarded themselves as the leaders of civilization and pioneers of industry and progress.61 In Natal, as in many other colonies, there were active moves to pursue these ideals through cultural organizations or learned societies. In 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition in London, the Natal Society was formed on a bitterly cold early-winter night with an unusual blanket of snow on the hills above Fort Napier. Enjoying the active support of settlers and military officers, it had the general aim of fostering knowledge about Natal and its natural, physical, and cultural resources and saw itself as a local version of metropolitan societies such as the Royal Colonial Institute. The city’s library, known as the Natal So- ciety Library, the Natal Museum, and the Royal Natal Agricultural Society were all spawned by the Natal Society and have continued in modified forms into the present day.62

Respectability by Example: The Garrison and the “amaKholwa” In 1851, the Rev. James Allison, a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, established a community in the Msunduze River Valley, some six miles from Fort Napier, which he named Edendale. Sheila Meintjes has studied the community and described the missionaries as the “spiritual wing of imperialism.”63 Here in close proximity were the spiritual and the forceful wings of imperialism, and they worked on each other in subtle ways. The nexus between the two wings of empire was the Crown, exemplified by Queen Victoria. The queen was both Defender of the Faith and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Her image was the most used symbol of empire and identity. Victoria symbolized church, state, and family. This had a particular resonance with the Christian converts of Edendale, the amaKholwa, as they provided the new reference points for a community attempting to define itself in terms of middle-class respectability. The parades and pageantry of empire, as provided by the garrison, were targeted at the African population as well as at the settlers. The African population included rural and traditional communities and modernizing converts. In 1866, the acting lieutenant governor, Colonel Bisset reviewed the Queen’s Birthday parade outside Government House, watched by settlers and a “large number of natives” who “behaved in a very orderly manner.”64 The emphasis on orderliness reinforces the public purpose of the ceremony. The act of homage to the Crown was an act of respectability for all the queen’s subjects, black and white. The code of respectability extended to dress as well. While the Edendale amaKholwa moved easily in and out of Pietermaritzburg in

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Dominy_Text.indd 119 1/22/16 3:02 PM western dress, traditional Africans preferred their own dress. However, local city by-laws prohibited traditional dress from being worn within the city limits. An enterprising African manned a kiosk at Camp’s Drift, the river crossing below Fort Napier, and rented out old army trousers to visiting traditionalists. As they left the city and returned the trousers, they “cast them off joyfully.”65 A sketch of Fort Napier by E. Tatham in the 1860s shows “wattle and daub,” or traditional thatched round dwellings, in the complex that were built as temporary accommodation. In 1857, there were recommendations in the press that only “Christian kafirs” should be employed for thatching and wall building.66 This would have favored the amaKholwa of Edendale and indicates that they were sufficiently trusted to work in the center of military power. However, the soldiers often treated African laborers roughly, even brutally. As late as the Anglo- Boer War, floggings were common and racially motivated. A contemporary writer complained of the “laziness” of African laborers and the need for an overseer to use “moderate corporal punishment,” because “anyone who can get labour out of a Kaffir without carrying a sjambok is equal to the Australian who can drive a team of bullocks and not swear.”67 A tasteless joke perhaps, but nevertheless indicative of Victorian attitudes of racial superiority. There was also an important symbolic point of contact between the garrison and the African labor force of the city. The amaKholwa attempted to emphasize their “respectability” to a colonial society that determinedly excluded them. Tra- ditional African visitors to the city put on army trousers as they passed beneath the fort, and it was from the fort that industrial time was enforced on a pastoral people used to the rhythms of the seasons and the movement of the sun. In an effort to impress the importance of structured working hours on an African labor force, the most audible and dramatic methods were adopted in the colony’s two urban centers. In Durban, church bells were rung, and in Pietermaritzburg, a time-gun was fired from Fort Napier, initially at 8:00 a.m. but eventually later at 9:00.68 The Zulu name given to the gun was ubainbai, a transference of the English “by-and-by,” the frequent instruction given to black workers by their employers to “come by-and-by” when the gun fired.69 Church bells and booming artillery were auditory symbols of a transforming world. In mission stations, clocks and the instruments of timekeeping were seen as symbols of the imposition of order and civilization, markers on the road to respectability.70 The daily ritual of firing the time-gun was the responsibility of the district staff officer of the garrison, and during Sir Garnet Wolseley’s tenure at Government House, this was Maj. Henry Hallam Parr. He described his duties as those of a sort of “handyman.” Besides the staff routine, he was in charge of the military prison and took over the gun battery when the artillery officer was not available.

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Dominy_Text.indd 120 1/22/16 3:02 PM Parr was “assailed by bitter complaints” from officialdom and from the people of the town, “all of whom seemed to depend on the nine o’clock morning gun” to set their timepieces and regulate their days and their workers. The gun’s timing varied from five to fifteen minutes each day, and Parr discovered that the garrison chronometer was an “old seven-and-sixpenny timepiece of venerable aspect.”71 He hastened to make amends, but the problem of erratic time signaling recurred in the 1880s and provoked a revival of an old spat between the military and civil authorities over the costs of firing the gun.72 The penny-pinching took place in the context of a dominant settler society using the symbols of military power to regulate the work discipline and behavior patterns of African laborers accustomed to the natural seasons. The Fort Napier gun was also used to signal the arrival of the English mail. Before the unreliable garrison chronometer was pressed into service, the time of the colony had been dependant upon the accuracy of John Bird, a senior colonial official who signaled the correct time for the firing of the time-gun from the gable window of his home in Loop Street by waving a large napkin.73 The impression that the settlers wished to give the African population of the precision and technological perfection of ubainbai can best be described as a trick. Ubainbai itself still stands under the colony’s Anglo-Zulu War memorial, opposite the Pietermaritzburg City Hall. It was originally a naval twelve-pounder cannon mounted aboard HMS Fawn, which was wrecked on the Bar at the entrance to Durban Harbor in 1844. Initially mounted to protect the harbor, it was soon thought to be of greater use in Pietermaritzburg, so it was dragged up to Fort Napier, where it was used as the signal- and time-gun and also wheeled out as part of the defenses at the fort during the Anglo-Zulu War.74

Drink, Desertions, and Disturbances: The “Rough” Side of the Garrison Despite the efforts made to combat drunkenness in the army generally, and at Fort Napier in particular, drink played a prime role in acts of indiscipline and low morale. The Temperance Societies that were officially recognized and endorsed throughout the army in the 1890s reinforced lower middle-class mores and ideology, much prized in settler society. However, many discharged soldiers established themselves as canteen owners and ran other liquor outlets. This was a “respectable” activity and positioned the soldier-settler-cum–pub owner firmly in the “middling class,” even at the wealthier end of the scale. Thomas Green mentioned that a discharged soldier, George Ross Nottingham, established the Aliwal Canteen in Longmarket Street and “got rich.”75 He may have increased

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Dominy_Text.indd 121 1/22/16 3:02 PM his military patronage because of the triumphal name of his establishment; Aliwal was a battle in India won by Sir Harry Smith. Conversely, civilian traders, no matter how devout, sought to make money from selling liquor to the garrison. There is an interesting example of this contradictory relationship in the 1850s. J. P. Symons, registrar in Shepstone’s Native Affairs Office, attempted to supplement his meager official salary by selling liquor to the officers at Fort Napier. This aroused the ire of Lt. Edward Stanton of the Royal Engineers, and many personal insults were exchanged, with Symons being accused of overcharging and engaging in “trade,” despite his position as a civil servant. The matter went as high as the Executive Council, which at the time was chaired by the commandant of Natal, Colonel Boys of the 45th Regiment. The council took Stanton’s side, and Symons’ career was well and truly blighted, at least temporarily.76 To make matters worse, Symons was almost completely fi- nancially ruined, as the military-led Executive Council closed ranks behind the army officer. As a government official, Symons was of a higher status than a tavern-owning tradesman, but this made his dealings with the officers illicit and unprotected. He could not call in the forces of the law when an officer repudiated a debt. Symons slunk off to Durban, where he received another government post after a discreet interval and was given the responsibility of taking the appeal for reinforcements to Grahamstown at the time of the Zulu-invasion panic in 1861. The 45th Regiment had already been at Fort Napier for a decade by the time the Reverend Jenkins became the chaplain, and there were problems in the garrison with lax discipline and desertion. At the root of the problems was drunkenness. One of the regimental subalterns, Lt. William Fleming, commented in a letter to his mother that the extraordinary manner in which the British soldier drank puzzled him greatly: “His only pleasure seems to be a glass of Grog and [he is] never happy till he is drunk. The many rewards held out in the shape of Promo- tion, Good Conduct Pay and Pensions seem to have but little effect, a man gets drunk, takes his punishment and as soon as released he is drunk again.”77 One of the offenses that accompanied the pattern of drunkenness was desertion. In the open spaces of Natal this was of concern to the settlers because deserting soldiers undermined the settlers’ sense of hierarchy and security. The senior military medical officer in South Africa, Sir John Hall, recorded that in 1850 the 45th Regiment had ten cases of habitual drunkenness, and that there were eleven in 1851. In 1850 there were eleven cases of desertion and seven in 1851. Hall also remarked that the “facilities for drunkenness” were great, owing to the number of licensed canteens in all the garrison towns, of which Pietermaritzburg was a prime example.78

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Dominy_Text.indd 122 1/22/16 3:02 PM This concern was reflected in the press in articles describing the unhappiness of garrison deserters who had settled with the Boers. In 1847 there was a report from a correspondent on an Overberg trip that he had met several deserters from Fort Napier living with the Boers. They had tales of “woe” and regret and were “in despair.” They reportedly envied their comrades still serving under the colors. They complained of arbitrary injustice at the hands of their Boer employers and that they were paid less than “kaffirs.” The correspondent urged the military authorities to consider pardoning the men.79 Some time later, the governor and high commissioner, Sir George Grey, did offer pardons to returning deserters.80 During the 1850s, numerous cases of drunkenness and desertion were heard at Fort Napier involving men of both the 45th Regiment and the CMR. A frequently recorded name is that of Pte. Charles Doneley, who was charged in July 1852 with being “absent” and “habitual drunkenness” and sentenced to fifty lashes and four months hard labor. The sentence was remitted on referral to the War Office in London.81 In October, Doneley was again charged with being “absent” and with “kicking a private.” This time his sentence was not remitted.82 A year later he faced similar charges, as well as that of using “abusive language.” In September 1854 Doneley was again charged with being “absent” and with “habitual drunkenness.” The sentence was raised to 168 days hard labor.83 Another repeat offender was Private Ziame of the CMR, who was sentenced to four months hard labor in August 1852 for theft. He deserted the following year, but was recaptured and was sentenced to six months hard labor for desertion and for “losing necessaries.”84 This latter charge was automatic when charged with desertion, as unless a deserter left in civilian clothes or stark naked, the “necessaries” were their uniforms and anything else on their person, which was military property. Between 1852 and 1855 more than seventy offenses were referred to Lon- don for adjudication of sentence, the overwhelming majority involving alcohol. Desertion accounted for eighteen offenses in 1854, which does not include the deserters who were never recaptured or who returned voluntarily. British army deserters fought on both sides in the conflicts between the Boers and the Baso- tho. The press reported that a Natal deserter was apprehended in the eastern Cape, having served with the Boers besieging Thaba Bosigo, while other British deserters served King Moshweshwe, defending Thaba Bosigo, by manufacturing gunpowder and maintaining his artillery.85 The monotony of garrison life, the mind-crushing military discipline, and the alcohol-dependent lifestyle, combined with the lure of a free life across the frontiers and beyond the reach of the military provosts, made desertion a persistent problem in the Natal garrison. There was also concern that deserters were shel-

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Dominy_Text.indd 123 1/22/16 3:02 PM tered by civilians in Pietermaritzburg, and the military had no powers to search private homes. In 1856, the adjutant of the 45th Regiment requested the Crown prosecutor to detail a civil constable to accompany army patrols to search civilian houses where deserters were suspected of hiding.86 Police assistance could not always be counted on, as there were often strong individual links between police officers and garrison soldiers. For example, in 1892, Frederick Wallace McAvoy was discharged from the Natal Mounted Police in “consequence of having connived at the escape of a deserter.”87 Civilians living in the Natal countryside also had their encounters with soldiers heading for the frontiers. Marina King, a farmer’s wife, living in the Karkloof hills recorded that she and her husband frequently came across discarded red uniforms hidden in the bush near their home, and the passing deserters regularly stole chickens, eggs, and illicitly milked their cows. Once, when her husband was in Pietermaritzburg, she was accosted in her home by a deserting soldier who threatened her, but she kept calm and escaped the house. In the yard she rallied her farm workers, who managed to overpower the man and spear him in the but- tocks with a pitchfork. He was ignominiously dragged away to face eventual court martial.88 This is a small illustration of the uncertainty and threat to the colonial order that the desertion of the “rough” of the garrison occasioned. The discovery of diamonds in the late 1860s added the promise of wealth to the lure of living free beyond the frontier. Frances Colenso, the bishop’s wife, thought the lure of diamonds would tempt officers as well as the men.89 Surgeon Major William Cattell reported that the regimental adjutant deserted for the diamond fields, as the regiment was preparing to board a troopship and depart the colony.90

Hunting and the Metaphors of Sport, Class, and Warfare The opportunities for hunting made Natal a popular station for officers.91 Hunting was a highly exclusive activity in Britain, but less so in South Africa, as there were vast open spaces and better access to game, although the need to use horses and hire bearers and wagons imposed an economic limitation on those who could mount hunting expeditions. There was also a distinct hunting ideology that fed into broader concepts of masculinity, aggression, and images of warriors, which we shall examine. The 45th Regiment led the hunting pack, so to speak. During the late 1840s, the regimental history recorded that, on a single expedition out of Pietermaritzburg, the officers killed an elephant and twenty-six eland. The fact that they missed ten lions and two other elephants was bemoaned.92

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Dominy_Text.indd 124 1/22/16 3:02 PM The mention of the number of eland shot by the hunting officers gives a different perspective on the pressures the indigenous inhabitants of Natal were facing, particularly in this instance, the San. They used the term “people of the Eland” to indicate their symbiotic relationship with these beautiful animals. As commercial and military hunting decimated the eland herds, the San were forced to raid cattle on settler farms, prompting the deployment of the garrison to prevent this activity that the soldiers had partly brought about. The extent of the depredations of the hunters was recorded in the Natal Witness under the heading “Sporting Intelligence.” Captain Faddy (the artillery officer at Fort Napier) returned from a hunting expedition to the “interior” having shot “137 Elephants, 42 Buffaloes, 39 Elands, 17 Rhinoceros, one Lion, 8 Koodoos, 1 Hippopotamus, 7 Wild Boars, 1 Leopard, 2 Brindled Godoos, 10 Riet Bucks, 4 Haartebeests, 1 wolf.” The article continues with the revealing remark, “With us hunting expeditions are of such frequent occurrence as to attract little notice.”93 The itinerary of the hunters is often vague and difficult to determine from many of the surviving records, but the devastating effect on the wildlife of Na- tal and the interior was profound. Much of the trade in animal products went through Pietermaritzburg, with the garrison participating and supplying carcasses as zoological specimens for taxidermists to turn into trophies to adorn the walls of gentlemen’s clubs, officers’ messes, and the cases of museums, including the predecessor to the Natal Museum.94 One of these expeditions was recorded by Capt. Robert Garden of the 45th Regiment.95 He set out hunting in 1852, accompanied by Lieutenants Fleming and Grantham, Garden’s military orderly, Private Hill, and ten wagon drivers, “voorlopers” and assorted “coloured” and African servants. They headed for Zululand, as there were dwindling numbers of large game within the colony. They crossed the Bushman’s River, the outpost manned by the CMR, where the ferry was operated by a soldier-settler, James Fox. Garden was a good observer and recorder of detail and enjoyed the thrill of the chase and emotion of the kill. At the Bushman’s River Post, he noted that a local resident Boer, Mr. Scheep- ers, was on very friendly terms with the officers of the outpost and hired out and repaired wagons for expeditions. Scheepers had plenty of business, as Garden records several expeditions into the far interior, hundreds of miles beyond the formal imperial frontiers, by officers at Fort Napier. The rationale was that the officers would get to know the country in which they may have to fight and also that hunting honed militarily useful skills. The expedition crossed northern Natal and the soon-to-be-termed “Disputed Territory” en route to the Phongolo River. They shot for the pot and were only

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Dominy_Text.indd 125 1/22/16 3:02 PM once reduced to eating army rations, including beef so salty and tough that Garden considered sending it to the British Museum as a specimen of the food provided by a “Liberal Government for its gallant soldiering in foreign lands in the 19th Century.”96 Garden traveled as far north as the Lubombo Mountains to the east of Swaziland, where he bartered with local women near Ingwavuma using trade goods and trinkets. Garden had intended to publish his memoirs, but Colonel Boys refused permission in a “most brutal and ungentlemanly manner,” snorting that he would not have any of his officers “write books”!97 Chastened, Garden soon took his discharge from the army, and it is fortunate that his diary and papers have survived. Lt. William Fleming, the officer who had marveled at the ability of the British soldiers to consume drink, also kept a journal of the expedition, but it is written in bald, military reporting tones.98 Fleming’s description of the sport of hunting as a military campaign highlights the pervasive attitude among the officer class that the battlefield was an extension of the sports field: “to call war a game was the ultimate euphemism, a provocative assertion of caste power.”99 Many officers who served in the Anglo-Zulu War -de scribed the conflict and their own individual involvement in the killing of Zulus in hunting metaphors.100 Both Ian Knight and R. H. MacDonald recount the rhetoric of George “Maori” Hamilton-Browne, an archetypical imperial adventurer, who commanded the First Battalion of the Natal Native Contingent. Hamilton-Browne wrote of the commander of his rear company committing a most “dashing act,” rescuing men from a swollen river, and of white men longing to strike the Zulu enemy, and described the assault on Sihayo’s stronghold in clear sporting metaphors: “he refused to call on us for afternoon tea, but we called on him for early coffeenext morning.”101 Lt. Nevill Coghill (the posthumous recipient of a Victo- ria Cross for the “Saving of the Colours” after Isandlwana and Sir Bartle Frere’s aide-de-camp in December 1878) expressed his enthusiasm for the campaign on the Zulu frontier and having a “turn with those (s)able gentlemen.”102 It should not be forgotten that the metaphor of sport and war was not particular to the British alone. The young men of the Zulu regiments were supremely confident and ouldw not accept that “war with the abelungi [sic] was more than a sporting contest.”103 Cetshwayo admitted that his young men were “getting rest- less and quarrelsome, being anxious to get a chance of ‘washing’ their spears.”104 There is an irony in observing that in the settler colony and in the Zulu King- dom, there was an ultimate self-defeating nihilism: sport and war were seen as defining, interchangeable social virtues, especially for young males. Whereas the class strata were designed for stability and perpetuation, their flip side caused

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Dominy_Text.indd 126 1/22/16 3:02 PM instability and the diffusion of attitudes that contradicted the social foundations on which the colony and kingdom depended. The making of a respectable settler community was promoted by the lengthy presence of the garrison, not only through the diffusion and reinforcement of the military and class attitudes of the colonial elite but through the reinforcement of the colonial “middling” class by the recruitment of respectable soldier-settlers. However, while temperance and chapel links sustained respectability, drink and desertion undermined that facade, and there would never be a fully “respectable” settler Natal.

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“For the Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady Are Sisters under Their Skins” Class and Gender Relationships in the Garrison

udyard Kipling’s poem “The Ladies” describes the rollicking sex life of a RBritish soldier who has “rogued” and “ranged” his way across the empire with women of all races.1 It expresses all the misogyny, racial superiority, and sexual irresponsibility of an adventuring Victorian soldier. It can be read today at one level and condemned for its casual and blatant amorality, while there is still enjoyment to be found in the pace and Kipling’s skilled writing and imagery. At a slightly deeper level, there is a hint of ambiguity and female agency and a clear depiction of class, caste, and color within each fleeting relationship. The previous chapter examined the influence of the military on the development of class relations in Natal. To take the debate further and with a wider focus, it is necessary to look beyond the relationships between soldiers and women, and between officers and ladies. The very constructs of “officers” and “ladies” and “soldiers” and “women” immediately focus attention on class issues; but a gender debate cannot be separated from a debate on class and social hierarchy. This poses the question of how the colonial elite aligned the military concepts of hierarchy and deference within the shaping of gender relations that were designed to underpin assumptions of class, caste, and race within the colonial social structure. For many years, historians wrote women out of history, or did not write women into history.2 While this gap has been addressed in many ways since the 1980s, it is necessary to write women and the gendered roles of men and women into

Dominy_Text.indd 128 1/22/16 3:02 PM an understanding of the impact of the garrison on Natal by approaching the issue in an integrative rather than additive manner. An interesting question to raise is the value of domestic labor. Cheryl Walker has argued that the colonial ideology of gender was played out within the framework of a market-orientated economy based on the exploitation of the land and labor of indigenous people, and that as settler women’s reproductive and productive labor was in the home, they lacked the social prestige of African women.3 Robert Morrell argues that gender identities in colonial Natal, especially for men, need to be understood in terms of the institutions they created. Man, he argues, is considered to have an “essence—aggressive, violent, acquisitive, insensitive, unemotional. What is not problematised is his social identity. What is not acknowledged is the social construction of masculinity.”4 The regiments of the garrison played a pivotal part in the construction of masculine identity in colonial Natal. The Victorian era was also an age of homophobia, which became a strong factor in the construction of masculinity. The official attitude to homosexual conduct in the army was to clamp down ferociously on the “unnatural vices.” However, a blind eye could also be turned, and the ferocity of the punishments was sometimes ameliorated by mercy. In 1846, Pte. Henry Day, 45th Regiment, was court martialed at Fort Napier on a charge of “beastly and unnatural conduct” and sentenced to transportation for twenty-one years. The case was referred to the judge advocate general in London, who reduced the sentence to that of discharge from the service.5 Double standards also applied, and discretion in relationships was essential for survival. Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener’s intimate circle of young male friends were known as his “band of boys,” but when there was no flagrant public scandal, there was no harm to an officer’s career.6 Pte. Henry Day was at the opposite end of the army hierarchy and had no protection from the legal consequences of an intolerant age. As will be shown from incidents during the Anglo-Boer War, young black men and boys who had been sexually molested by British soldiers did not receive justice from either civil or military courts. Gender issues in the Natal context were closely interwoven with class and racial issues in unexpected ways. African women were the most oppressed individuals under colonialism, suffering the double oppression of race and gender discrimination. Yet African men rather than women performed domestic services for settlers during the nineteenth century. Soldiers in the garrison and in the field also performed domestic chores such as sewing and repairing clothes, “making cook houses, washing our clothes, for no women to do them in Africa.”7 Soldiers suffered the oppression of rigid discipline as well as class discrimination. For a soldier to associate with black women was tolerated, but it was not “respectable”

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Dominy_Text.indd 129 1/22/16 3:02 PM conduct. While race and class, especially when based on divisions of labor and capital, seem to be rigid, they are not immutable, and even when examined in the apparently monolithic context of a garrison, they are fraught with ambiguities. Gender relations in Natal were similar to those in other colonial garrisons, and in some senses they were derived from the class and social relations of the army in the United Kingdom.8 We have seen how appropriate Judith Fingard’s division of society into the “rough” and the “respectable,” with the officers en- hancing the “genteel tone of the urban elite” and the other ranks contributing to the “drunkenness and destitution of underclass Halifax,” has been for our understanding of Natal.9 Peter Stanley’s study of the imperial garrison in Australia mentions the concern felt by the governor of New South Wales that the men of the 73rd Regiment were forming “matrimonial or less proper connexions” with the “Women of the Country,” which led them to “lose sight of their military duty” and identify with the “lower class of inhabitants.”10 There is evidence of similar “connexions” being formed in Natal, with similarly negative effects on discipline. However, we have also seen how NCOs and soldiers could climb into Natal’s “middling” class through association with Nonconformist religious and temperance groups. Respectable marriage of a soldier to the daughter of an upwardly mobile settler reinforced the social order. While garrison officers were also seen as highly desirable catches for young settler women, this did not necessarily reinforce the resident colonial elite, as the officers followed their regiments to stations elsewhere in the empire, and their wives tagged along as well. The “connexion” between soldiers and women, whether respectable or not, took place within the cultural ethos of the regimental family, which was the framework within which the male bonding critical to the development of the common purpose of the garrison took place. For such reasons, the military forms an ideal institution for exploring ideas of masculinity, as soldiers and officers were explic- itly mobilized around “manhood” and were expected to render passive and active obedience and maintain their discipline and esprit de corps under extraordinary circumstances.11

Marriage Alliances: The “Colonel’s Lady” and the “Sergeant’s Wife”

What did the Colonel’s Lady think? Nobody never knew. Somebody asked the Sergeant’s Wife, An’ she told ’em true!

—R udyard Kipling, “The Ladies”

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Dominy_Text.indd 130 1/22/16 3:02 PM The poetry of imperial adventure leads back to class, gender, and agency. Given the lengthy military presence at Fort Napier, many marriages took place between officers of the garrison and women of the colonial elite. The voices of these married ladies are not heard in the historical records for various reasons. None of the officers stayed on in the colony, and their wives had to follow them across the empire, particularly in the early period. Four of the daughters of Henry Cloete, the commissioner who faced Susanna Smit and later became recorder of Natal, married garrison officers, despite their father’s avowed antipathy to the military.12 Surgeon Major William Cattell courted and married Miss Goodricke, a daughter of a member of the legislature. He even transferred from the 99th Regiment to the 20th Regiment to stay on and pursue his romance. However, as with many other officer-settler marriages, the Cattells left the colony at the end of the 20th Regiment’s tour of duty.13 Toward the end of the years of the garrison and the end of the colony, Miss Joyce Carmichael became the “Colonel’s Lady” when she married Lt. Col. C. T. Shipley, the officer commanding the 3rd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (stationed at Fort Napier between 1908 and 1909). Lt. H. E. Meade of the same regiment married Miss Marion Chadwick. The regimental history claimed that “Maritzburg ladies were noted for their charm.”14 The “charms” of the military men were also noticed by women, as a perceptive female observer showed in her first impressions of Pietermaritzburg in the 1890s: “It is easy to see at a glance, on leaving the railway station, that one has arrived at a garrison town. There could not be two questions as to the calling of those tall, well-set-up young men, who are to be met riding and driving.”15 Bandsman Davies described the effect on the locals of the arrival of the 20th Regiment in 1867. The city’s population, of all races, turned out in a “lively fashion” to watch the new garrison regiment march in with “fashionable ladies” to the fore, as the “troops in the Colonies generally form one of their chief attractions.”16 The attraction was not only for the settlers; the regiments were objects of curiosity and amusement for the African population as well. The 41st Regiment marched from Fort Napier to the Thukela River (where Colonel Montgomery had his fatal encounter with the black mamba), attracting considerable attention, and the Natal Africans followed the column for miles, enjoying the regimental music, while the troops enjoyed the attention of the nearly naked young African women.17 Meanwhile, back at the fort, settler parents set their hearts, or ambitions, on their daughters being noticed by the military officers, as can be seen in a satire of an apocryphal conversation between a mother and her daughter at a ball at Fort Napier:

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Dominy_Text.indd 131 1/22/16 3:02 PM Mamma: Now miss, have you written down the distinctions of rank as I told you? A lice: Yes, Ma. Mamma: Very well, then, recollect you’ve no excuse this time; and if I catch you dancing with anyone below a captain, you don’t go out for a month!18 A captain who was nearly ensnared by a local settler daughter was Lord Gif- ford, one of Sir Garnet Wolseley’s aides-de-camp. Wolseley wrote scathingly that Gifford was “such a goose” that as he imagined himself in love with “Miss Worsing or some name like that, he may propose for her at any moment. She is one of those vulgarly pretty looking women that one meets in the Colonies and in Regent St.”19 According to Wolseley’s biographer, Sir Garnet told Gifford that the woman was of Jewish parentage and poor, that her mother was a drunk, and that her brother and sister had a milk-delivery round in Durban. It was only at the last moment that Gifford agreed to abandon his lover and return to Britain with Wolseley.20 For a nervous settler society clinging to its “Britishness,” one of the most effective methods of reinforcing their internal hierarchical position and linking themselves imperially was to marry their daughters to army officers. While the officers may not have stayed on in Natal, the marriages strengthened Natal’s links to the Mother Country and other parts of the empire, even if nobody in Natal would ever know what the Colonel’s Lady thought! Some of the soldiers who settled in Natal were already married, within the strict limitations of the military codes on marriages, which only allowed six wives per hundred men to accompany the regiment or live in barracks.21 Soldiers in service with the colors required their commanding officer’s permission to marry, and if this was not given, no relationship could be permanent, and no surviving partner would receive any benefits. A colonel’s decision was rarely challenged, but just such a challenge happened in 1852 in the Natal courts. Lt. Col. Edmund Boys, the commanding officer of the 45th Regiment, was astonished when Pte. George Guest of his regiment asked the Natal District Court to compel the Wesleyan minister, Rev. Horatio Pearse, to perform a marriage ceremony for him and his fiancée, Miss Margaret McCoy. Reverend Pearse had refused the request because Guest was a member of the Church of England, and Margaret McCoy was a Catholic (or at least her parents were). Pearse argued further that as a soldier, Guest was bound by his commanding officer’s decisions, and Boys had the power to prevent an “improvident” marriage. This marriage, said the reverend gentleman, would be “improvident because Margaret McCoy was deaf and dumb.”22 The case was heard by Henry Cloete, who, as the record

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Dominy_Text.indd 132 1/22/16 3:02 PM shows, had clashed with the military in 1843, and the local media were agog. It was a minor sensation in the little settler community. Cloete ruled that the court could not compel a Wesleyan to marry an Anglican to a Catholic. However, he seriously questioned the right of the commanding officer to forbid a soldier to marry, as the Queen’s Regulations could not “deprive a soldier of his rights and privileges.”23 Boys promptly queried the court decision, and Cloete objected to having an army officer query a judicial decision. Serious issues became subsumed in name calling, and both judge and colonel complained of the rudeness of the other’s messengers and orderlies.24 Margaret McCoy was the daughter of an Irish sergeant in the 45th, and Boys described her as having a “violent and dangerous disposition,” whereas Clo- ete had found that she had “intelligence and capacity.” The squabble was referred to the War Office in London for a final ruling, where matters were left to lapse. The War Office reasoning was that as the court had ruled in favour of the Reverend Pearse, the legal force of the Queen’s Regulations did not have to be tested, as the marriage could not proceed.25 When a woman on the strength of a regiment committed an offense, whether sexual or otherwise, she was as subject to military discipline as her husband. For example, Mrs. Kavanagh was found guilty of “very irregular conduct,” and the commanding officer of the 45th Regiment directed that she be “struck off the strength of the regiment,” which would have deprived her of rations, transport, accommodation, and education for her children.26 Many other soldiers married more safely after taking their discharge. One of these was Thomas Green, who married a sister of Dick King, the “hero” who rode to Grahamstown in 1842.27 A “respectable” marriage for a soldier-settler enhanced the “middling class,” and there is a strong contrast between these alliances and those of the officers and the daughters of the settler elite. Mr. Smethwick, the “Keeper of Lunatics,” worked with his wife, who also had an official position at the Natal Government Asylum. Mr. O’Hara’s wife was the first matron of Grey’s Hospital. These women were agents outside the home, and worked in institutions with hierarchies and structures, although Mrs. O’Hara as a hospital matron would have been far more senior than Mrs. Frost as a laundress. Mrs. Alexander, the wife of former Sgt. Maj. Richard Alexander who became superintendent of the Durban Borough Police, exhibited all the Victorian virtues of personal courage and moral authority when she shielded young Mohandas Gandhi with her parasol from an angry mob of white settler youths when he landed in Durban on January 13, 1897, until her husband and his police could disperse the mob. Superintendent Alexander later smuggled Gandhi out of Durban, disguised as a police constable.28

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Dominy_Text.indd 133 1/22/16 3:02 PM While the Alexander-Gandhi incident demonstrates military values of honour to the highest degree, soldier-settlers imbued with the “manly” ethos of the army tended to reinforce all the paternalistic and hierarchical attitudes in settler society, particularly within marriages and family networks. In other words, the domestic ideology of the army influenced civil society by direct transfer, which was reinforced over and again across decades and even generations.29 Limiting the number of women who could accompany regiments sent to far- flung places across the empire meant that the army was ambivalent about soldiers forming liaisons with local women. If strong action was taken against this, it could encourage the “unnatural vices” of “masturbation and homosexuality.”30 Yet consorting with prostitutes exposed soldiers to sexually transmitted diseases and social environments that could endanger discipline. The double standard was double-edged.

Prostitution, Dalliances, and Temporary Alliances: The Judy O’Grady Effect It is probably safe to assume that prostitution, as opposed to the domestic concu- binage likely to have been practiced by the Trekkers, began in Pietermaritzburg when the 45th Regiment marched up in 1843. Court records are fragmentary, and the first reliable series only begins in 1901.31 Fortunately, there is another reliable source for the early years from the health perspective. The Natal garrison was part of the responsibility of Sir John Hall, who was deputy inspector general of hospitals at the Cape in from 1846 to 1851. Thereafter he served in the Crimea, where he clashed with Florence Nightingale.32 At this time, British military medical services were in a stage of decay, and there were not even any military sanitary regulations. Medical care was based on the regimental system, and regimental surgeons were under the authority of regimental commanders.33 We have seen the effects of this at Fort Napier in the 1860s, when Surgeon Major Cattell came to the rescue of the men struck by lightning on the parade ground. As a senior military medical officer, Hall recorded statistics and debated policies. In 1846 there were 348 cases of venereal disease in South Africa among white troops and twenty-seven cases among black (at Fort Napier this would have meant the CMR). This outstripped any other reported cases of disease. The following year there was a slight drop, with 294 cases of venereal disease among white soldiers and twenty-six among black.34 The following year, Hall observed that when troops were in the field, the “vice” of “intemperance” was almost unknown, but in the towns it was a “fruitful source of disease.” Hall debated as to whether reading rooms and coffee rooms would attract troops away from liquor, but concluded:

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Dominy_Text.indd 134 1/22/16 3:02 PM “Wine and the attractions of women would at all times draw young men away from them.”35 It was also in 1848 that Hall referred to the problems at Fort Napier: “Venereal affections have been common from the filthy and depraved nature of the Hot- tentot women with whom the men cohabit. Mr. Menzies [regimental medical officer] yssa he tried to get this nuisance abated through the police magistrate but failed.”36 We can only speculate as to the origins of these women. They may have accompanied Captain Smith’s column up from the eastern Cape in 1842, or the 45th Regiment to Pietermaritzburg in 1843. In any event, it is likely that men and women were equally responsible, over a long period, for the diseases arising from their mutual “filth and depravity.” Some may have accompanied transport riders or Trekkers to Natal from the Overberg, and certainly the reference to ineffective civil policing implies that the women were not under military control at the fort. What is clear is the ubiquitous class, racial, and gender bias explicit in the remarks. This was not unique to Natal, and the military authorities in Bengal encouraged women to provide sexual service to the troops and victimized them for infecting the men.37 By emphasizing the depravity of women, the British military authorities ignored the need to provide prophylactic treatment for troops, as was French and American practice.38 The ideology of military male bonding enabled young soldiers to take the disease lightly as a masculine rite of passage or a source of pride and, at the very least, made the most of the compulsory hospitalization as a break from barrack routine.39 By the Anglo-Boer War, the numbers of soldiers suffering from venereal disease, especially in South Africa, had increased dramatically since Hall produced his statistics. Venereal disease was so prevalent that it was regarded as a risk to the security of the empire.40 During the 1880s, efforts were made to control prostitution in Pietermaritz- burg, but as can be seen from the Anglo-Boer War statistics, they were not successful. Two reasons became apparent for the campaign: venereal diseases were increasing dramatically, and there was a scare that white women were in greater danger of being raped by black men. In 1886, the superintendent of the Borough Police, William Fraser, compiled a confidential report on incidents of rape and indecent assault committed by “Natives.” He solemnly warned of increasing “outrages” against white women and children and blamed young African domestic workers, who were “partially civilised,” or men from beyond the Natal locations, who were “without wives and possessions.”41 Fraser claimed that the example of the military and their “intercourse with the Native women throughout our City” had a “disastrous” effect on the “Native mind.” The police focused on controls,

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Dominy_Text.indd 135 1/22/16 3:02 PM and Fraser urged the council to adopt a strict system of registration of African workers, a policy that reached its zenith under apartheid more than sixty years later. As if this was not enough, the superintendent advocated the registration of African women prostitutes and their regular examination by a medical officer. He did not think that it would be practical to suppress prostitution, “taking into consideration the large male population of our City, both Military and Native.” With a grand rhetorical sweep, he continued: “the precedent conveyed through ages is before us—where there exists no direct outlet for certain passions, hideous crimes and unnatural offences constantly crop up.”42 A few years later, the colonial press began blaming white youth for the increasing immorality among young black women. In 1894, the Natal Witness raged against prostitution among young black women, claiming that “Tommy Atkins is blamed for a lot, but in this connection he cannot hold a candle to the city swag- gerer.”43 It is possible that the press muted its criticism of the imperial troops because of the fear that the garrison would be withdrawn after responsible government was granted. It was during the previous decade that riotous behavior among the troops reached its zenith in two incidents. In 1887 it was the mutiny in the ranks of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, but two years earlier the town was excited by an outbreak in the ranks of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. This event brought concepts of roughness and respectability into sharp focus. A certain Sergeant Downie—a senior NCO, not a young private—and two of his comrades were arrested and charged with creating a disturbance by breaking the windows of the home of Annie Thomas, a “coloured woman” living in Boom Street.44 The police claimed that Thomas was a “respectable” woman and that Sergeant Downie and his cronies had attempted to break into her home. Downie claimed that he was being “molested by a lot of Kafirs who gave him a beating,” and he chased them to the house, where he threw stones at them. The resident magistrate, Charles Barter, exclaimed that this was yet another case of “loose discipline” among the men of this regiment and sentenced Downie to a stiff term of imprisonment. The severe sentence and the magistrate’s remarks provoked an angry reaction among the Highlanders at the fort. A mob of more than a hundred soldiers assembled in front of the borough police station with the intention of attacking the building and releasing Downie and his friends. Superintendent Fraser formed up his handful of black and white constables to protect the building and break up the mob. For once, cooler heads prevailed among the troops, and the soldiers retreated slowly up Longmarket Street toward the fort, “frightened at their riot.”45 Clearly this was an act of gross indiscipline, but unlike the Inniskill- ing mutiny two years later, the Highlanders’ rowdiness appears to have been

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Dominy_Text.indd 136 1/22/16 3:02 PM prompted by regimental pride and solidarity. This may explain why military and colonial authorities showed some leniency toward the soldiers. Within a few weeks the governor, Sir Henry Bulwer, received a request from the general officer commanding in South Africa that Downie should be released from prison on the grounds that the police evidence was weak.46 Bulwer referred the matter to the attorney general, Sir Michael Gallwey, who made “private enquiries’”and concluded that Annie Thomas was “not respectable.” He went on to suggest that her home was a “house of ill-fame” and that the other women present were of “nefarious character.” Given the lack of respectability of the women, Gallwey recommended that Downie’s sentence be drastically reduced, and, in fact, he was released within a few days.47 Charles Barter was unrepentant and insisted that Annie Thomas was not a prostitute, but that there were other women of the same name, two of whom were St. Helenan, who were prostitutes. He claimed that while the “value” of a “native woman” might not be the same as “her European sister,” she was still entitled to protection by the courts.48 For the military, the respectability of the woman was the determining factor in the punishment of the troops. Officers could behave with the same rowdy arrogance as the troops they commanded. A local newspaper editor made a snide remark about the “attentions” that a Captain Yardley paid to a “certain young lady” at a dance at Fort Napier. The garrison officers “took umbrage” at the report and demanded an apology in the newspaper, which the editor refused to do. A dozen officers then called on the editor’s home and, when he refused to sign a written apology, they attempted to tar and feather him. The editor may have been William Watson, the editor of the Times of Natal, who was saved by the sudden arrival of his daughter, which startled the officers. She was “roughly pushed aside,” and tar and feathers were scattered across the room as the officer-hooligans fled.49 The matter was reported to the police, and the officers were arraigned before Magistrate Charles Barter, but the case was withdrawn. According to Mason, this is because Barter was a “typical old English Squire” who knew that a conviction would ruin the young officers’ careers, so he persuaded the editor to accept an apology.50 When we examine the “Sergeant Downie/Annie Thomas” incident, as opposed to the “Editor/Tar-and-Feather” incident, the pattern is subtly nuanced. The “rough” sergeant was briefly jailed for an assault on a woman of contested respectability, but military solidarity led to pressure on the civilian authorities to release him. The “respectable” officers committed an act of similar aggression toward a member of the settler elite because of now-unknown remarks about the behavior of an officer toward a young lady at a garrison ball. They were released

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Dominy_Text.indd 137 1/22/16 3:02 PM by a member of the settler elite, the magistrate, to protect members of one of the most important agencies underpinning the colony, the garrison. During the late 1880s, efforts were made to control prostitution through public- health measures, and in 1890 the Legislative Council considered a Contagious Diseases Prevention Bill. The Legislative Council was, of course, all white and all male, and only white males gave evidence to the Select Committee. William Fraser, the Pietermaritzburg superintendent of police, gave evidence to the Select Committee and advocated testing males for venereal disease and punishing them. He admonished the military authorities, stressing that the “Imperial Government should use the most stringent measures possible for dealing with the soldiers, and provide a certain number of women, who could reside within the Camp or near to it.”51 Moral efforts to curb prostitution were also made. In August 1887 a meeting was held at the Wesleyan chapel to encourage local support for the Magdalena Home in Port Elizabeth. The speaker, Mr. Wheeler, spoke eloquently of a young girl sent to Natal from one of Dr. Barnardo’s homes in England. These had been established mainly for destitute children, but young girls vulnerable to sexual exploitation were also cared for. The efforts being made in South Africa were a local reflection of a major metropolitan concern, supported at the highest levels. William Gladstone also devoted long night hours to rescuing prostitutes.52 Mr. Wheeler moved his audience with his account of how this girl had wan- dered away from a “pure” life, and army funds had been used to send her to the home in Port Elizabeth for rehabilitation. He stressed that Pietermaritzburg was not a suitable place for such a home, because a “garrison town was no place for the establishment, either of a Home, nor one in which it would be judicious to place rescued girls.”53 The coding of respectability was noted, if imperfectly understood, by many Africans in the city. Violet Markham described how a lady traveling companion of hers requested a Zulu rickshaw puller to take her to the Imperial Hotel. In- stead she, a woman traveling by herself, was taken all around the town before being deposited at the gates of the fort. The garrison orderly had to rescue the rickshaw puller, as the angry passenger was “belabouring” him with her parasol.54 The evidence given by Qalizwe, one of James Stuart’s informants who had worked as a rickshaw puller and had taken many passengers to illicit rendezvous, demonstrates that this rickshaw puller had learned from experience that a lone unknown woman was likely to be immorally involved with soldiers.55 The outbreak of war provided soldiers with the opportunity to engage in sexual crimes with less fear of retribution. Mitchell Stone’s research on the Anglo-Boer War indicates that rape was a widely committed offense, especially in garrisons

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Dominy_Text.indd 138 1/22/16 3:02 PM behind the front lines, and that soldiers who raped black women were punished far more leniently than those who raped white women.56 Some of James Stuart’s informants discussed encounters with British soldiers who wanted ”jigijigi” and who offered money. Ndukwana was horrified, and he and his friend Qalizwe -re ferred them to some brothels and hurried off.57 Another informant, John Kumalo, told of a soldier propositioning his daughter because he believed her to be a prostitute. When she indignantly denied this, the soldier not only left her alone, but when he next met her in the street, he “touched his hat to her, and humbly said, ‘Good Day, ma’am.’” Khumalo, an educated Christian kholwa, believed that soldiers would always be attracted to dissolute women and, “being unable to distinguish,” would go up to “respectable native women, thinking all are inclined to loose living.”58 His daughter, who had also received an education, was probably able to rebuff the soldier in English, which would have accounted for the fact that he touched his hat to her on their next meeting. The military socialization toward “respectable” women was occasionally color-blind. Qalizwe, the rickshaw puller, repeated allegations that soldiers at the convalescent hospital near Howick, a few miles from Pietermaritzburg, lurked along pathways at night, and “not only women” but boys and men were attacked and sodomized.59 Although complaints had been made to the magistrate, the soldiers knew that they were safe, as it was not possible to point out offenders among so many others. Such conduct, Stuart was told, had “greatly stirred the native mind.”60 The war prompted rumors to circulate among the African population that were almost as extravagant as those that sent whites into laager in 1861. Qalizwe told Stuart that Africans were afraid that their daughters would be required to marry British soldiers so that more young soldiers would be born to fight Boers. There was an economic concern as well; African men would have their wages withheld so they could not pay lobolo for wives. Stuart mused that the origins of the rumors had to be in the plans to settle discharged soldiers in South Africa at the conclusion of the war in a bid to Anglicize the country.61

Women and the “Most Honourable Prospects” Robert Morrell examines several institutions responsible for shaping settlers’ masculine identities, especially the schools, but makes little mention of the role of the imperial garrison.62 It is also important to understand the early development of feminized institutions and their relationship to the garrison. During the Victorian era, virtually the only independent profession open to women was nursing, and it was a profession that became progressively more “militarized” as

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Dominy_Text.indd 139 1/22/16 3:02 PM the century wore on. It offered the “most honourable prospects” of public service, it enhanced women’s status, and it offered the chance of earning medals.63 The Anglo-Zulu War marked the first deployment of trained women nurses in an area of military operations, and the Fort Napier base hospital received a contingent sent by the Stafford House South African Aid Committee. Another small group were Anglican nuns from the order of the Sisters of Charity who served in the military hospital in Ladysmith.64 The Stafford House Aid Committee was an elite committee chaired by the Duke of Sutherland, and its workings were paral- leled by a “Ladies’ Committee,” with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts as president. The approach and execution of the tasks of the committees fall squarely within the range of charitable duties carried out by English “gentlewomen.” The Fort Napier base hospital was not overburdened with patients when the nurses arrived on July 12, 1879. Most of the war wounded were being treated in field hospitals closer to the Zululand frontier and in Pietermaritzburg. Mrs. Agnes Macrorie, the wife of Bishop Kenneth Macrorie, was responsible for organizing comforts for the troops.65 Her work was highly praised in the Stafford House Aid Committee report.66 Fort Napier also became a dumping ground for army wives and families, as had happened during the Anglo-Zulu War. As the reinforcements urgently called for by Lord Chelmsford marched hastily to Zululand, they left their families behind at the headquarters. Many of the women assisted with nursing duties and the provision of “comforts” for the troops. Many were traumatized as the news of the casualties at Isandlwana spread (although many of the new widows of the 24th Regiment were stranded in King Williams Town, and the news took a while to reach them).67 The brief campaign of the Transvaal War of Independence (or First Anglo- Boer War) did not have a major impact on the garrison of Natal. At the end of the war, the survivors of the 94th Regiment, which had been defeated at the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit, were apathetically received by the civilian population but honored at Fort Napier. One member of the regimental family was elevated to heroic status. Mrs. Marion Smith was the widow of the regimental bandmaster and was present during the battle. She devoted herself to the care of the wounded on the battlefield, tearing up all her spare clothes for bandages, despite having been slightly injured herself and having her daughter to care for. She remained a nurse for the rest of the short war, and when she and the other survivors entered Natal at Mount Prospect, the 60th Regiment, which was holding positions in the border mountains, idolized her. Marion Smith embodied the noblest qualities of Victorian womanhood. Like the queen, she was a tragic widow, she was nobly dedicated to alleviating human suffering, and she had a quality that the

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Dominy_Text.indd 140 1/22/16 3:02 PM soldiers particularly admired: considerable moral and physical courage, which was recognized by the award to her of the Royal Red Cross decoration.68 During the Second Anglo-Boer War, Pietermaritzburg was the principal base hospital during the campaign to relieve Ladysmith in 1899 and 1900. The military hospital was overwhelmed by the numbers of sick and injured soldiers pouring back from the front. The majority of the recently emptied barrack rooms at Fort Napier were turned into hospital wards, and by these means the Royal Engineers increased the available number of beds from the prewar tally of 150 to 810, which was still far from adequate.69 Winston Churchill described the fort as having long barracks that “before the war were full of healthy men, and are now crammed with sick and wounded.”70 Other public buildings were called into service to to cope with flood of casualties: St. George’s garrison chapel, the new colonial parliament building, and the city’s biggest white boys’ school, Maritzburg College. The main civilian Grey’s Hospital was also virtually commandeered by the military, with the nursing staff being recruited into the Army Nursing Service Reserve for the duration.71 All these activities provided opportunities for women wanting to nurse soldiers. The work began before the outbreak of the war when the “Uitlander” refugees from the gold-mining centers around Johannesburg poured into the city to be accommodated on the show grounds and on military land (originally reserved by Lieutenant Gibb in 1843). The city notables formed a Relief Com- mittee, which, like the Stafford House Committee, was all male, with a parallel Ladies Committee that did the practical relief work and attended to all cases where women and children were concerned.72 The clergy preached from the pulpits, and Lady Hely-Hutchinson, the governor’s wife, headed the fund-raising effort. As the war casualties mounted, the religious and associated organizations mobilized. The Templars were active in the temperance campaigns, while the South African General Mission ran a home for soldiers that provided comforts and moral support for troops on their way to the front.73 The hospital visits by religious organizations and “society ladies” were often irritants to the medical and nursing staff, and even annoyed the convalescent troops. The society ladies were using their class status to overcome their gender disadvantage, and the hospital visits and provision of comforts were consciously used as leverage.74 The militarization of the nursing staff at Grey’s Hospital was managed by the matron, Mrs. Elizabeth MacDonald, the daughter of an army officer and widow of the late Capt. Robert MacDonald of the Ninety-seventh Regiment.75 However, the nurses complained that soldiers were not ideal patients, and the Board of Trust- ees noted that white nurses preferred nursing “coloured men,” whose behavior

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Dominy_Text.indd 141 1/22/16 3:02 PM was “at all times excellent,” to white men in wartime, who “necessarily are very mixed characters” whose conduct was “not always what could be desired.”76

• • • While the ideal for a notable settler family was a marriage alliance with an officer, for the other ranks marriage was restricted and complicated. Many only married after they had taken their discharge in Natal. The inevitable consequence was prostitution, which was tolerated, or homosexual relationships, which could be severely punished. Gender relationships were mediated through the prisms of class and race in colonial Natal.

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Dominy_Text.indd 142 1/22/16 3:02 PM The execution of “Cape Boy Piet.” Watercolor by R. B. Tatham. (Mercian Regimental Museum, Nottingham)

Fort Napier in the 1860s. Watercolor sketch by E. Tatham. (Durban Local History Museum)

Dominy_Text.indd 1 1/22/16 3:02 PM “Ubain-bai”: The Fort Napier signal gun retired as a memorial, pointing menacingly at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall. (PAR)

Rev. Canon Jenkins, military chaplain, with officers of the 45thR egiment. (PAR)

Dominy_Text.indd 2 1/22/16 3:02 PM Sketch showing troops returning from Basutoland in 1865, with booty. (PAR)

Preliminary sketch of the Bushman’s River Pass Incident. Sketch by Thomas Baines (1874). (KwaZulu-Natal Museum)

Dominy_Text.indd 3 1/22/16 3:02 PM Lord Chelmsford and his staff in Natal, 1878–79. (PAR)

Pageantry and the icon of colonial sacrifice. The garrison parades for the unveiling of the “Zulu War” memorial, 1880. (PAR)

Dominy_Text.indd 4 1/22/16 3:02 PM Band of the Forty-first (Welsh)R egiment, with regimental mascot, in garrison 1881–86. (PAR)

Anglo-Boer War: Natal Legislative Assembly Chamber used as a volunteer hospital, 1900. (PAR)

Dominy_Text.indd 5 1/22/16 3:02 PM Parading for a prince: The garrison turns out on the Pietermaritzburg cricket oval to honor the visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York, 1901. (PAR)

Bambatha Rebellion and the return of pageantry: the band of the Cameron Highlanders marching down Church Street, watched by the curious, 1906. (PAR)

Dominy_Text.indd 6 1/22/16 3:02 PM The end of an era: officers of theS outh Staffordshire Regiment pose on the steps of the officers’ mess, Fort Napier, prior to leaving for the Western front of World War I, August 1914. (PAR)

Garrison legacy in African societies: dancing followers of the Prophet Isaiah Shembe wearing kilts based on those of the Cameron Highlanders. (Durban Local History Museum)

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Spending the Queen’s Shilling The Economic Influence of the Natal Garrison

Shillin’ a day Bloomin’ good pay Lucky to touch it, a shillin’ a day.

—R udyard Kipling, “Shillin’ a Day”

he influence of the garrison on class and gender relations and how the mili- Ttary acted as the reference point for settler hierarchical and class structur- ing has been examined. The extent to which the early colony was built, in many senses of the word, around the fort and the garrison has also been highlighted. This chapter will consider the influence of the prolonged military presence on the local economy, which can be approached from five angles: the financial -ex penditure on the garrison by the imperial government; the question of supplies; the degree of economic security provided by the presence of the garrison; its impact on the livestock market and on transport; and the exploitation of African labor, particularly during times of war. It is probably true to say that of all the institutions that had an impact on the colonial economy, the garrison’s was exerted for the longest period, considering that there was hardly any government when it arrived in 1843, and it outlasted the Colony of Natal by four years. There was a relative decline in influence as the colony grew and the expenditure of the garrison lessened proportionately in relation to the impact of other activities. However, the military influence peaked during the wartime campaigns, and, while this is not a history of the three major wars, the economic effects of those campaigns must be considered as part of the overall economic influence of the garrison. Furthermore, the lines of communi-

Dominy_Text.indd 143 1/22/16 3:02 PM cation work during a campaign; the provisions of supplies, transport, and labor were managed from Fort Napier and are therefore integral to the overall study. The economic influence of the garrison has been largely neglected, with the general economic histories mostly ignoring the subject.1 Writers have tended to focus on the effects of war on the economy, particularly the Anglo-Zulu War.2 Although there has not been a focused study on the long-term economic effects of the Anglo-Boer War, John Lambert has weighed the loss of mining jobs in northern Natal (during the Boer occupation) against the increased employment opportunities for Africans in other parts of the colony. Prices for agricultural produce increased, which benefited the African peasantry as well as the settler farmers. Not only were there thousands of extra military mouths to feed, but the military also employed African laborers in large numbers and at better wages than the colonists were prepared to pay. The conclusion that there was increasing African prosperity is based on the rise in the import of goods for the “Kaffir trade,” from £159,910 in 1899 to £230,180 in 1901.3 Finding sustained evidence for a period of over seven decades has been difficult, but this is not unique to the Natal situation. In her study of British regulars in Montreal, Elinor Senior has shown the profound impact of the military garrison on the local economy. She stresses that the city “without doubt” benefited finan- cially from the presence of a garrison of a thousand or more men. The barracks required daily supplies of food, fuel, candles, drink for the men, and forage for the horses.4 In Natal, the garrison made similar demands on the local economy. Senior does not give a comprehensive picture of the overall economic impact of the Montreal garrison but focuses on the issue of colonial monetary policy and currency problems. This was not an issue in Natal, but it would seem that there is a general paucity of records for commissariat purchases and contracts in both Canada and South Africa—which is not surprising, as these are the most mundane and repetitive of the garrison’s activities. Napoleon may have said “An army marches on its stomach,” but the bills for the groceries and meat needed to fill those stomachs have not often been preserved. What is of political interest is attempting to identify which individuals, or groups, in colonial Natal benefited from the military contracts. The two major strands in the colonial economy that produced competing political interests were the commercial and the agricultural sectors. The tension was clearly highlighted by the editor of the Natal Witness, Alfred Aylward, a Fenian, in a New Year’s editorial in January 1881.5 Given his Irish-nationalist sentiments, Aylward’s editorials were free from the jingoism being expressed in other newspapers in Natal, and he honed in on the divergent interests of the commercial and agricultural sectors. Natal’s trading houses were almost entirely

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Dominy_Text.indd 144 1/22/16 3:02 PM dependent on the Overberg trade, especially with the Transvaal, and merchants faced ruin if the struggle was prolonged. However, the “reinflux of an Imperial army promises a temporary revival to local commerce.” This too interested the agricultural sector, as transport and commissariat contracts might again become “handsomely profitable” for every sector of industry, from the harbor to the canteen established at the foot of the Berg. His conclusion was that hostility between the “two leading agencies of European civilisation in Africa may do more harm to the true interests of the country than can be gained by rapid fortune making, whether by means of Transvaal trade or Imperial Army contracts.”6 As Aylward shows, the commercial and agricultural interests were not mutually exclusive, and issues of common interest united them.

Imperial Funding for the Natal Garrison The original costs of building Fort Napier have been discussed in chapter 3, and the earliest reliable colonial financial statistics were published in the 1860s, which makes an appropriate starting point for examining the financial costs of the garrison to the British exchequer. In the early 1860s, the 85th Regiment was in garrison, together with the small detachment of the CMR, a half battery of Royal Artillery, and stores commissariat and medical personnel. The overall numbers were twenty officers, 650 other ranks, and approximately a hundred horses. In 1861 the War Office spent £39,774 under the Commissariat heading of pay and provisioning the troops in Natal. A further £4,871/10/6 was spent under the Ordnance Vote on construction work and repairs to buildings.7 The garrison cost the taxpayer approximately forty- four thousand pounds per annum. Four years later, in 1865, the commissariat expenditure had slightly increased to £41,453/18/9 and ordnance expenditure had slightly decreased to £3,923/14/7.8 In 1868 there was a significant reduction, as both commissariat and ordnance expenditure together amounted to £36,916/6/3.9 Expenditure remained at similar levels until the mid-1870s, with small fluctua- tions for repairs to the barracks and the minor field forces sent out in response to the various “panics.”10 It has been estimated that in 1870 the annual cost of “governing Natal” was not less than forty-four thousand pounds.11 In other words, the expenditure on the imperial garrison was approximately the same as the whole cost of the civil government of the colony. There was substance to War Office and Treasury concerns at the burden of the Natal garrison on the British taxpayer. In 1864, the colonial legislature agreed to a minor alleviation of the imperial burden and began contributing an annual allowance of four thousand pounds to the costs of

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Dominy_Text.indd 145 1/22/16 3:02 PM garrisoning the colony. The contribution remained at this level until after the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the twentieth century, regardless of the increase in imperial expenditure.12 Allowances and remissions on import duties were also credited to the imperial account. These were minor footnotes in the ledgers during normal times, but during wartime, or times of rapid military buildup, they were significant, and during the Anglo-Boer War they were extremely large.13 Military expenditure in Natal remained high until the garrison withdrew in 1914.14 The buildup of British military strength in Natal began in 1877, shortly after Sir Theophilus Shepstone undertook his ill-considered annexation of the Transvaal. Between 1875 and the end of 1877, imperial military expenditure increased from £34,241/2/2 to £83,943/3/10.15 The Natal government reported that military expenditure on the Anglo-Zulu War cost the imperial exchequer some £674,000.16 More bills trickled in over the next two years, and small sums are reflected in the statistics until the early 1880s. One estimate is that the war cost the imperial government approximately six million pounds!17 This figure may well be incomplete, as the far briefer campaign against the Boers in 1881, which involved significantly fewer troops and less disruption on lines of communication, cost £968,700.18 By 1882, the garrison had more than doubled since 1877 and consisted of two infantry battalions and a cavalry regiment, together with the supporting artillery, engineer, and ancillary units. The cost to the exchequer was £231,800.19 The annual expenditure on the Natal garrison remained over two hundred thousand pounds for the rest of the 1880s, but savings were made in the early 1890s, as the advent of responsible government approached. In 1892–93, imperial expenditure was down to £132,000.20 As tension mounted, with the approach of the Anglo- Boer War, expenditure increased once more, and in 1898 it rose to £355,213.21 The Natal government ceased publishing details on imperial military expenditure, but its domestic returns reflect expenditure on the colonial volunteers and what can broadly be described as “war damages.” Expenditure on the volunteers and the police amounted to £217,635, but the war-related costs to other departments, including public works and engineering, amounted to £451,607/16/6.22 The statistics included the standard four-thousand-pound allowance for the imperial garrison, which was a token amount by this period. What was of far greater significance was the amount in rebates on military customs and import duties, which soared to £33,165.23 Much of the imperial expenditure on the garrison was spent in Natal, including the military pay, which circulated through the local economy. Colonists benefited from the expenditure on forage, rent, and lodgings. In 1868, £5,802 out of a total expenditure of £33,559 was spent on forage, and in 1882 it was £46,000 out of a

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Dominy_Text.indd 146 1/22/16 3:02 PM total of £231,800. Rent and lodgings cost less, but were still significant in 1868 (£1,303) and in 1882 (£6,410). These figures do not always seem to be accurate, as the figures given for the purchase of forage during the Anglo-Zulu War amounted to £31,000, while the far shorter Majuba campaign in 1881 cost £114,000. Many other local services are listed as cost items, from the washing of hospital bedding, to the purchase of dry grass for thatching, to ill-defined “miscellaneous barrack services.”24 The statistics peter out as the colony matured, and by the time of responsible government in the 1890s, it is virtually impossible to separate garrison expenditure (other than the four-thousand-pound annual subsidy) from other expenditure. There are two likely explanations: the increasing complexity and elaboration of the maturing colonial government (and the concomitant decreasing centrality of expenditure on the imperial garrison), and centralization of imperial military expenditure and controls before, during, and after the Anglo-Boer War.

Supplies For many years the garrison served as the cornerstone of the local colonial economy, as it provided an assured market for produce, transport, and services at a time when the settlers were carving out their economic niches within the hunting and trading economies of the Boers and Africans. Every year the commissariat advertised tenders for supplies to Fort Napier and the small camp in Durban. These advertisements give a clear impression of the economic needs of the military. For example, in January 1849, tenders were invited for the twelve-month period from April 1, 1849, to March 31, 1850. The tender included services such as the unloading of military supplies from ships at Port Natal, and the provision of bullock wagons to carry supplies between Dur- ban and Pietermaritzburg and from Fort Napier to the post at Bushman’s River. Rations for the troops included tea, sugar, pearl barley, rice, salt, soap, starch, pepper, mustard, port wine, milk, fowls, eggs, and vegetables. Freshly baked bread was also required, together with fresh meat (mutton and beef), firewood, and tallow candles.25 The need to pay the garrison also brought about the first official issue of coinage in Natal. The troops had to be paid regularly in the coins of the realm, and in the early years, before the Colonial Treasury began functioning properly, the pay of the soldiers was the principal source of money in the Natal economy. An official of the Ordnance Department at the GOC’s headquarters in Cape Town sailed to Port Natal at irregular intervals with specie to provide pay for the garrison. This injected cash into what was essentially a barter economy. The soldiers

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Dominy_Text.indd 147 1/22/16 3:02 PM desperately needed the honey and “kidney potatoes” that Africans produced to supplement their poor rations, but rural African peasant producers would not accept coins, so beads became the favored medium of exchange.26 No record of to whom the tenders were awarded has survived, but the settler gentry would have dominated the responses. Many of the supplies were imported so that Durban merchants, middlemen in the Cape, and shipping agents would have benefited from the tenders. One firm that advertised itself as an “army con- tractor” in the 1890s and early 1900s was Pechey Bros., which operated from a grandiose and opulent castellated set of premises in West Street in Durban. The advertisements also described the business as “corn seed and produce merchants,” all core commodities for army contracts.27 The settler worthies may in turn have outsourced the supplies to the “lower orders,” Indians and kholwa. There is no evidence for or against this in the official record. However, deductions can made from other sources indicating that the settled African communities around the city were active in the local market. In 1850 it was reported that the heavy rains, following an unseasonable drought, had led African producers to bring large quantities of a “very superior potato” into Pietermaritzburg, and these producers were also growing peas, lentils, and beans.28 Given the strategic location of Fort Napier, overlooking the route into the city from the Wesleyan settlement in Edendale, the first sales point for the kholwa vendors would have been the commissariat personnel of the garrison. However, the garrison also produced its own food, following an instruction issued by Sir Harry Smith after his visit in 1848. Laudable though this objective was, it provoked tensions between townspeople and troops over the issues of access to fresh water and land. Commissioner Cloete and the Trekker landdrost, Mr. Zietsman, had complained bitterly at the army’s extensive reservation of land for military purposes. The water course, dug by men of the 45th Regiment, owing to the topography and the choices of Lieutenant Gibb, served the fort first and the town second. In 1850, the first of many disputes arose over the obstructions caused by the garden for the officers’ mess to the access of the townspeople to the watercourse.29 The dispute wended its way in dispatches to the Colonial Office, which, in the days before effective colonial and municipal governments, laid down the procedures for the disposal of land.30 Lt. Col. Boys reasserted military rights over land and water in 1852,31 and the council fought back. It remained one of the touchiest issues between the garrison and the townspeople for decades. During the 1890s, the water disputes worsened, as an increasing garrison and city population placed greater pressure on the erratic water supply. White city dwellers blamed Indian market gardeners living near the Msinduze and Dorp-

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Dominy_Text.indd 148 1/22/16 3:02 PM spruit rivers for drawing too much water for irrigation. In 1897, water to the market gardens was rationed so that Fort Napier could be supplied with fresh water during the night and early morning hours. This arrangement not only angered the market gardeners, but it failed to satisfy the military. The CRE complained that he was forced to draw water from the fort’s reserve tanks to satisfy the troops’ daily needs. This was followed by a threat to withdraw the garrison from Fort Napier unless the municipality improved the water supply. Local officials calculated that the garrison had one hundred officers, 4,550 other ranks, five hundred women and children, and seven hundred horses and mules. They consumed more water than any other town outside Durban and Pi- etermaritzburg, but to lose so large a population would be a social and economic disaster for the city.32 A new mains water pipe to the city was laid via Fort Napier, with the military having priority use, except in the event of a fire. This was some relief, but during dry years such as 1898, the whole city faced water restrictions. The council had to turn to the garrison and request the services of a squad of soldiers (hastily sworn in as special constables), each assisted by three African workers, to police the restrictions.33 Bickering over the quality of the water took longer to resolve, with the locals blaming the troops for discharging sewage into the water “sluits,” and the garrison blaming the council for contaminating the water before it got to the fort.34 The commissariat also tendered for building materials, including tools, bricks, scaffolding, wood, lead, and latches for maintenance work at Fort Na- pier and for the construction of small outposts such as Fort Nottingham in the mountainous Lions River area and Fort Scott on the balmier North Coast.35 Not all the contracts went to members of the settler elite. In the early, less socially differentiated days of the colony, men of modest means won contracts. One of the earliest local settlers to win military contracts was the hunter-trader Piet Hogg, who in the late 1840s and early 1850s supplied timber, which he had cut himself, and victuals to the troops in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. He also made bricks for the fort, but none of these activities brought him great wealth, and in his declining years he was a marginal figure, still illiterate and torn in his loyalties between Boer and Brit.36 Unlike Piet Hogg, some of the wealthier settlers with larger farms obtained more lucrative contracts from the army and made their fortunes. Charles Smythe (who was premier of Natal when the Bambatha Rising took place in 1906), and Joseph Baynes, the “model” farmer, were prime beneficiaries of the largesse of the commissariat, particularly during times of conflict and increasing military activities.37 Before the invasion of Zululand in 1879, Baynes was dissatisfied with the prices he was receiving from the commissariat for the oats and hay he provided

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Dominy_Text.indd 149 1/22/16 3:02 PM to the garrison and attempted to break his contract.38 Within months, the military buildup began, and Baynes settled his differences with the commissariat and remained one of the garrison’s major suppliers and politically most influential contractors into the 1890s and beyond. Baynesfield was less than fifteen miles from Fort Napier, and Baynes continued to supply the garrison with horses, milk, and grain on a daily basis.39

Economic Security At the beginning of the 1860s, the Colony of Natal was enjoying a period of apparent prosperity, based largely on entrepôt trade, local commerce, and agricultural marketing. The garrison provided the most stable market for agricultural produce and related services. The prosperity was illusory, and an economic and agricultural depression began in the mid-1860s. A major factor was the colony’s inability to develop staple export crops. This resulted in an imbalance of imports over exports and the disruption of Natal’s Overberg trade by the Basotho War, which occurred within the context of the unstable financial system, as there was also a general imperial banking crisis.40 Pietermaritzburg was particularly hard hit, as the local city council had large debts, and the colonial government was crippled by the overextended colonial credit system. Trade dwindled, the Market Square stood empty, public works were halted, and bankruptcies spread, also affecting banks and insurance companies.41 The presence of the garrison alleviated the situation to some extent, as it remained an important and stable market for produce. In many depression-hit South African towns, military expenditure made up the most important elements in local cash transactions, and the commissariat contracts helped see merchants and farmers through the lean times. In Pietermaritzburg the additional troops brought in as a precaution during the Basotho War made a significant economic contribution at the right time.42 The Standard Bank congratulated itself that it only began operating in Piet- ermaritzburg in 1867, noting that if it had opened two years earlier, it would have suffered severe losses along with all the other institutions. These losses resulted from a sudden check being put on land speculation, which led to overtrading, the withdrawal of capital and credit, and inflation.43 While the garrison provided a measure of market stability, it also became a source of employment for some colonial youths. Working-class boys began enlisting in the 99th Regiment at Fort Napier, and the press sympathized with poor parents anxious to get “great hungry boys” off their hands. The army, grim choice though it was, at least prevented boys from “falling into more serious temptations.”44 But the choice was

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Dominy_Text.indd 150 1/22/16 3:02 PM grim enough for a local recruit, Pte. Daniel Richard Calverley, who enlisted on November 16, 1866, to desert less than two months later.45 The Natal garrison was gradually increased from 1876, with the reluctant consent of the imperial Treasury, which foresaw that this was likely to be a long-term and steady drain on the exchequer.46 Sir Theophilus Shepstone’s expedition to the Transvaal in January 1877 with a Natal Mounted Police escort was matched by supportive moves by the imperial military. In March 1877, Colonel Montgomery took the 1/13th Regiment to New- castle on the Transvaal border, where a new fort was built. Just as Fort Napier, more than thirty years earlier, had been the largest building in Pietermaritzburg, so was Fort Amiel (named after Lt. Col. F. Amiel, 80th Regiment) the largest building in Newcastle. Timber was scarce in the vicinity, and wagon drivers made considerable sums of money hauling building materials and military supplies up from Pietermaritzburg.47 The 13th Regiment had been living under canvas at Fort Napier since its arrival in January 1876, and while waiting for the diplomatic games to develop, the troops had worked on new barrack buildings at the fort and dug away on the new railway line from Durban to Pietermaritzburg.48 After Shepstone proclaimed the annexation of the Transvaal in April 1877, the 1/13th left Fort Amiel for Pretoria, and Colonel Montgomery became the first commandant of the Transvaal. More drafts of troops were sent to Fort Napier to secure the long lines of communications with the new colony, and the troop movements occasioned great excitement and anticipation among the settlers, especially those of the midlands farming community. The future premier, Charles Smythe, then a young farmer, described the settlers’ feelings: “There is great excitement about the military movements here. The whole of the 13th Regiment is marching upcountry with seven guns. The 3rd Buffs have arrived at Pietermaritzburg and the 80th has just landed at Durban. There have never been so many soldiers here before. It is supposed they are going to annex the Transvaal. It has put up the price of cattle and horses already, which is a good thing.”49 This rapid expansion of the garrison forced the military authorities to address the lack of accommodation at Fort Napier. African labor was requested for the construction of ninety “sod huts,” and Shepstone’s loyal supporter, Chief Te- teleku, supplied men and materials from the Zwartkop location.50 The municipal authorities were not as obliging as Teteleku and were reluctant to allow wattle trees to be cut down on the town lands as frames for the huts.51 The inadequate sod huts and the difficulties with the local authorities forced the new commandant, Colonel Pearson of the Buffs, to request the construction of “iron huts” for married soldiers so that single men could go back into the barracks.52

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Dominy_Text.indd 151 1/22/16 3:02 PM Of great interest to the younger, single men of the garrison, as well as to the old soaks, was the selection of Pietermaritzburg as the site for South Africa’s first commercial brewery, the Natal Brewery that begun in 1890. The city provided the fortunate combination of proximity to a major port and good rail and wagon links with the newly developing gold-mining centers on the Witwatersrand and a stable large local market, given the presence of the biggest military garrison in South Africa at the time.53 The 1890s were years of economic and industrial expansion, and Pietermaritzburg and Natal boomed as a result of the carrying trade (the old Overberg trade) to the gold fields. Nevertheless, the garrison remained a local economic sheet anchor in the sober assessment of the bank inspectors, who concluded that the “military establishments are one of the financial mainstays of the town and contribute materially to its support. A regiment of Hussars, a regiment of infantry, a half battery of artillery, army service and Hospital corps are stationed at Fort Napier, in all about 1,400 men, a good many of whom are married with families, and about 800 horses.”54 As early as 1888, the Standard Bank began negotiating to operate the military account in Pietermaritzburg and secured the business of the garrison pay- master on offering a discount on all military transactions.55 The army accounts were significant business for the bank, especially during the Anglo-Boer War. The army-pay bills negotiated in Pietermaritzburg in the second half of 1899 amounted to three hundred thousand pounds, a figure that increased dramatically to £2,600,000 for the first half of 1900. The bank recovered 10 percent on the exchange, which was described as an “extraordinary revenue.”56 The Anglo-Boer War turned Pietermaritzburg into an important military headquarters and supply base, as had happened during the Anglo-Zulu War twenty years earlier. Fort Napier was occupied by troops on “line of communications duties,” but it remained one of the British military operational nerve centers until 1902.57 This time, however, there was the railway, and troops (and celebrities like Winston Churchill) passed up and down the line between the front and the coast. Within a month of the outbreak of war, hotel keepers, grocers, and butchers had increased their prices dramatically.58 Trade, however, was slow because of the abrupt cessation of the Overberg trade and the domination of the sea routes by the military, which reduced the availability of cargo space for civilian goods. Pietermaritzburg shop keepers had a slow Christmas at the end of 1899.59 The following year was worse, especially for agriculture. The Natal Witness’s columnist “Agricola” described the dismal state of the farming industry: forage was an “absolute failure”; there was rust in the crops, mealies had increased in price, and more fodder was being planted to meet military needs, so normal plant- ings were neglected. Mealies and fodder were the most profitable crops during

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Dominy_Text.indd 152 1/22/16 3:02 PM the war, and horses sold well to the military, but breeding was not well organized. Potatoes were being imported to feed the troops because the local crop suffered from drought conditions. One windfall for settler farmers was that African labor suddenly became plentiful and cheaper, because men could not go and work on the mines.60

The Impact of the Garrison on Transport and Livestock Markets At a time when cattle made up the major assets in a preindustrial, four-hoof- transport-dependent economy, an army garrison had a large influence on the regional market for livestock and horses. In 1850 the commandant decided to discontinue the mounted company of the 45th Regiment and the mounted section of the Royal Artillery, and twelve artillery horses were sold by public auction in the Market Square in Pietermaritzburg.61 Sales of horses and cattle on this scale occurred regularly during the years of peace, but when campaigns were planned, or after raids on neighboring communities, the military dramatically influenced the local market, whether through the purchase of animals urgently needed, or through the sale of large numbers of stock seized in punitive raids. The “Milking Campaign” against Fodo in 1847 had brought thousands of head of cattle onto the market in Pietermaritzburg. Ten years later, another expedition, organized and headed by Theophilus Shepstone, swept the Mkhomazi Valley in pursuit of Sidoyi kaBaleni, a relative of Fodo’s. Shepstone’s force consisted of a large number of African levies, backed by small detachments of the 45th Regi- ment and the CMR. The sweeping operation failed to net Sidoyi, but did net huge herds of livestock, some seven thousand head, according to Shepstone’s estimates. Sidoyi’s people lost 90 percent of their stock, the mainstay of their wealth.62 The captured animals were auctioned off in Pietermaritzburg for the colonial treasury at thirty-four shillings a head.63 The earliest statistics for the monetary value of cattle are available from the early 1860s, and in 1861 “horned cattle” had an average value of eight to ten pounds per head.64 There is no evidence that this price had changed significantly since 1857, so for settler farmers to buy such large numbers of cattle so cheaply as a result of the military expedition was a huge economic windfall for them, at the cost of deprivation and misery for Sidoyi’s people. As Charles Smythe had so cheerfully remarked, the reinforcements that began arriving in 1877 had an impact on the livestock market, and the buildup during the latter half of 1878 for the invasion of Zululand had a major impact. The nature and timing of the invasion was dependent on a variety of factors, including economic

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Dominy_Text.indd 153 1/22/16 3:02 PM and environmental considerations, as there had been a severe drought during 1878.65 The military and naval preparations for the campaign in Zululand began during the dry winter months, and assembling draught animals, wagons, and transport was critical.66 It became the all-consuming preoccupation of General Thesiger (who became Lord Chelmsford in October 1878 on the death of his father).67 The commandeering of transport had a hugely disruptive effect on the Natal economy, as local movements and needs were superseded by the military. However, the provision of draught cattle and wagons for the army was one of the most profitable activities for the settler farmers and for the African peasantry, especially for the kholwa, who made considerable profit from the war.68 Vast demands were made on the available supply of draught animals, as Dep- uty Commissary-General Strickland strove to assemble the invaders’ transport columns. The price of oxen rose from nine pounds to between eighteen and twenty-five pounds per head. The army was forced to use mule-drawn wagons, as the drought and lung-sickness and demands of the Overberg trade all reduced the number of oxen available in Natal. The cost of hiring wagons rose from two to six pounds, as transport riders realized that the army was desperate for their services. Six months before the war broke out, a harassed Strickland predicted the escalation of prices and warned of administrative chaos at Fort Napier unless he received more accountants and trained NCOs.69 When Chelmsford’s three columns crossed into Zululand in January 1879, they were supported by a supply train of 977 wagons, 56 carts, 10,023 oxen, 803 horses, and 398 mules.70 After the shattering defeat at Isandlwana, with the concomitant destruction of supplies and wagons of the Central Column on January 22, as well as the trapping of Colonel Pearson’s Coastal Column in Eshowe, the whole supply process had to begin again. One of the main effects of the huge concentration of cattle, mules, and horses in military hands was the spread of diseases among the herds of the colony and region. Settlers and Africans were affected, as lung-sickness spread among cattle, horse sickness spread among horses, and the lack of grazing and overwork killed many more. By the time Chelmsford was able to mount his second invasion, the commissariat calculated that it was losing at least ten oxen a day, and for each animal that died in Zululand the imperial government had to pay an indemnity of twenty pounds. The accountants that Strickland had asked for had their work cut out for them.71 The army was forced to commandeer cattle from every part of the colony, over the protestations of the lieutenant governor, Sir Henry Bulwer, who feared civil unrest. Disputes lasted throughout the war and lingered into the 1880s, as the costs were counted. The kholwa felt that they had been shabbily treated, and

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Dominy_Text.indd 154 1/22/16 3:02 PM the colonists were bitter at having to contribute to the costs of the war when they had suffered economic disruption and heavy losses in livestock and wagons.72 Settler views were well expressed by Ellen McLeod from the Byrne Valley, who indignantly informed her sister in England that the colonists had been “very unjustly” accused of making their fortunes from the war when the opposite was true, because the military had spread lung-sickness throughout the colony, and an influx of cattle, seized in Zululand, brought about losses for all.73 The entire population of southeastern Africa had to contend with another side-effect of the war that hampered movement and trade and undermined cattle farming: the grazing areas within access of major transport routes had been exhausted by the army.74 However, many of those plying the transport routes did benefit from the Anglo- Zulu War, particularly transport riders. Before the war, the average rate for transporting goods between Durban and Pietermaritzburg was four to five shillings per hundredweight (cwt.). By October 1879, it had risen to ten shillings, six pence per cwt., and in December 1879 it peaked at fifteen shillings per cwt.75 Journeys to more remote military outposts, such as Rorke’s Drift, were even more lucrative because the transport riders could engage in brisk sales of alcohol and luxury items to the troops stationed in boring isolation. Some trips netted as much as three hundred pounds for the enterprising riders.76 An example of the luxuries that an officer desired on a campaign (that had to be moved on army transport) can be seen from the orders placed by William Heaton of the 24th Regiment during the Anglo-Zulu War and paid for from funds drawn on the Standard Bank in Pietermaritzburg in the amount of £150/11/4:77 1 case Brandy 1 case Whisky 1 case Square face [gin] 1 case Stout 1 bag Rice ½ doz. Curry Powder 3 Mustard [units unspecified] 6 lb. Baccy [tobacco] 1 case Milk—4 doz. 1 case Jam In its way, transport riding was a leavening activity: it benefited Boers and British, black and white, as the military commissariat noted.78 This was echoed by the local press, with the Durban newspaper, the Natal Mercury, reporting that an African wagon owner received a wartime rate of forty to sixty pounds

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Dominy_Text.indd 155 1/22/16 3:02 PM per journey, whereas a year or two earlier, he would only have received eight to ten pounds. While rich profits were made from military contracts by transport riders, the normal internal trade of Natal and the Overberg trade were utterly disrupted. Prices rose within the colony, not only as a result of the stresses and strains on the transport system, but because farmers abandoned their crops, and normal agricultural activities and went in for the more lucrative job of transport riding for the army.79 The war also had its impact on the road network of Natal. In August 1878, the main Pietermaritzburg-Ladysmith road was described as “very fair,” but a year later it had been completely destroyed by military wagon traffic.80 The onset of the rainy season created havoc on the Durban-Pietermaritzburg road, which spread to half a mile in width as wagons with their drivers, “English, Dutch, and Kaffirs,” sought the safest ground.81 On his return to Natal in 1879, Sir Garnet Wolseley described the road as abominable and like a “deeply ploughed field.”82

The Army and African Labor Without the labor of the African men of Natal, called up under the isibhalo system of compulsory service, the British military-transport system during the Anglo- Zulu War would not have functioned at all. This system of forced labor on public projects was a method of forcing the location chiefs to provide labor when called upon by the magistrates and colonial authorities.83 In addition to the Natal Na- tive Levies, who were used as auxiliary troops during the campaign, the laborers worked on the transport routes, where many had the opportunity for accumulation of their own. Men from the locations went off to war to earn enough to satisfy their economic needs and pay their taxes, so they did not have to seek employment with settlers immediately after their return. Agricultural production in the locations did not suffer unduly, as women were the primary producers and could sustain family and communal livelihoods.84 The garrison in peace and war offered African men opportunities to develop their own economic initiatives. Among the groups who left the rural areas and their homestead economies and entered the colonial labor market were those who served in Pietermaritzburg as washermen, both to civilians and to the garrison. As early as 1850 they had organized themselves into guilds or cooperatives and washed laundry for their clients on the river banks.85 Although the cooperative structure gave the individual washermen the strength of numbers, they often had to bargain to be paid as individuals, and we have already seen how uMfenye, one of the amawasha, was assaulted by soldiers when he demanded payment for his labors.86

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Dominy_Text.indd 156 1/22/16 3:02 PM The occupation that offered the most scope to enterprising Africans was transport riding. Many men began as “voorlopers,” or herders, and then progressed to being wagon drivers and even wagon owners. During the brief Anglo-Transvaal War, hundreds of transport riders were suddenly required under conditions that were ill-organized at best. The Natal Witness reported on the case of a “crafty Kafir” who was performing “togt” (or casual) labor as part of a colonial-government road party. He managed to secure a letter from a colonist in Pietermaritzburg providing him with an excuse to absent himself from the work party and then hired himself to the army at a good wage.87 This is an example of an individual who had worked out how to secure personal advantage from an oppressive system. As a togt laborer recruited under the isibhalo system, his services would have been barely rewarded at all, but they would have given him the opportunity to establish personal connections with one or more white settlers, which he was able to use to engineer himself work at the well-paid rates of the imperial government. During the major and prolonged conflict of the Anglo-Boer War, both the commissariat and the Royal Engineers drew heavily on the labor services of Natal’s African population, to work particularly in the remount and transport sections.88 The transport section needed laborers to unload ships in Durban Harbor, load trains, and drive wagons. The remount section needed men to herd and care for horses and mules, and the engineers needed laborers for fortifications and construction work. Railways and bridges that had been destroyed had to be repaired, and damaged buildings needed to be patched, while there was an enduring demand for military camps and staging posts, hospitals, and supply depots. During the crisis months, from October 1899 to the relief of Ladysmith in March 1900, the Natal government made an all-out effort to meet military demands for labor. Isibhalo road-work parties were ordered to the front for military-labor duties at uncompetitive wages. There was an understandably high rate of desertion, and many men followed the examples of their crafty predecessor from the earlier war and used connections to get out of wielding picks and into the seats of wagons and carts. In an effort to stem the desertions and impose order, a new Native Labour Corps was established under J. S. Marwick, the much-respected former Natal Native Agent in Johannesburg who had organized and led the evacu- ation of seven thousand Natal Africans from the Witwatersrand at the outbreak of the war.89 He managed to raise and keep the services of a thousand men, many of whom had accompanied him from Johannesburg and were now in desperate need of money.90 Marwick’s influence among the Zulu men who joined as laborers was admired by the army, and he received a testimonial from Lieutenant Colonel Morgan, director of supplies for the Natal Field Force, who praised his “most invaluable service,” also stating: “His popularity with the natives is almost

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Dominy_Text.indd 157 1/22/16 3:02 PM extraordinary and without his influence we would never have got the natives to accompany the troops to the front.”91 While James Marwick’s personal charisma helped enormously in an emergency, systems and structures were dear to the military mind. The official report of the Royal Engineers on the wartime activities in Natal stressed the “great advantage” provided because the colonial Public Works Department’s organization and procedures were so similar to those of the Royal Engineers. Since the appointment of Anthony Durnford in the 1870s as head of the Public Works Department, several Royal Engineer officers and ex-officers, including Sir Albert Hime, the colonial premier during the war, ran the department.92 After the close of active military operations after the relief of Ladysmith, the colony remained a crucial link in the military lines of communications, and the demand for African labor remained high and even increased. The militarization of the Public Works Department assisted with the recruitment and management of the labor force. In late 1900, the army attempted to entice Africans into military service and to part with their horses for military use. General Hildyard, the officer commanding in Natal, attempted to acquire a large number of disease-free cattle from north of the Thukela River to tempt African men into service and to part with their horses.93 However, war had exacerbated the spread of cattle diseases, a major problem since the outbreak of the rinderpest epidemic of 1896–97, and the Natal government was therefore opposed to the military plan, which came to nought.94 A year later, there was once more a critical shortage of labor, and General Lyttelton, Hildyard’s successor, complained bitterly at the number of Africans “idle” on their locations. As a result of military pressure, the governor, as supreme chief, “impounded” a thousand men, who were pressed into service with the remount and veterinary departments. This was not enough for Lyttelton, and a further 1,700 men were demanded.95 In March 1902 the military demanded that a further thousand to fifteen hundred men be sent to Fort Napier to the “OC Army Supply Corps.” The military calculated that they already had some 4,700 men in their service, excluding those on transport duties. The Remount department was using 1,200 men; the Supplies section, 1,100; the Royal Engineers, 1,000; and 600 were at the Sick Horse Depot at Mooi River. In a note on the file, the secretary for native affairs objected to the military claims that the African male population was idle on their locations and stressed that the locations had been “taxed to the utmost of their supplying capacity.”96 While African military laborers had been paid well, as much as forty shillings a month, the colonial government fought to keep those wages as low as possible, but the army paid significantly more than the settler farmers.97 In early 1902,

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Dominy_Text.indd 158 1/22/16 3:02 PM wages were reduced to thirty shillings per month, as the war was winding down and labor was not as urgently required as in 1899 and 1900.98

Economic Reflection This discussion has focused on the economic influence of the garrison in peace and war. Because the statistics are neither comprehensive nor reliable for the whole seven decades, it has not been possible to discuss the economic impact of the garrison. While the impact was greatest during periods of war, it was also profound when the colony was in its infancy, and the garrison made up a large proportion of the settler population. As more settlers arrived and the Overberg trade developed, that became what the governor, Sir Charles Mitchell, at the advent of responsible government described as a matter of “life and death” for Natal, rather than the feeding of the garrison.99 Nevertheless, certain important and influential sectors of the colony continued to depend on the military for contracts or employment. According to the rather slender evidence, the landed settler gentry, including politicians such as Charles Smythe and Joseph Baynes, benefited most. The military provided large numbers of Africans with better-paid employment than the colonists were prepared to pay. Paradoxically, the presence of the garrison benefited both the richest and most influential and those from the poorest and most excluded sections of the colony.

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The Garrison and the State Changing Relationships of Power

his chapter examines in greater detail the evolving relationship between the Timperial, colonial, and local states in relation to the role of the garrison. A critical moment is the granting of responsible government to Natal in 1893, an act that transformed the nature of the colonial state, but which also set a time limit for the continued presence of the imperial garrison. The change in the structure of the state and the anticipated withdrawal of the garrison had practical implica- tions regarding the occupation and reservation of coveted land in urban centers by the imperial military. The contrasting consequences of the transfer of military land in Durban as opposed to Pietermaritzburg will be examined. In Durban, this occurred before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, which benefited Afri- can and Indian urban dwellers. The transfer of military land in Pietermaritzburg some twenty years later had radically different consequences. The outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 rendered the initial program for the withdrawal of the garrison void and meaningless. Despite its dependence on the carrying trade with the Transvaal, Natal jingoistically supported the imperial war effort. Ironically, though there was a huge buildup of troops in 1899 and 1900 in Natal, by the end of the war, imperial military energy was focused almost exclusively on the highveld and the two former Boer republics, and the Natal garrison was reduced to contingents of support troops. At the end of the war, the efforts of the Natal government to retain a garrison put it in the position of supplicant to the imperial government. However, even

Dominy_Text.indd 160 1/22/16 3:02 PM though imperial troops were urgently needed in 1906 during the Bambatha Ris- ing, Pietermaritzburg was prepared to defy London to the detriment of the colony and the majority of its inhabitants. The return of regular troops to Fort Napier in 1906 will be discussed, as will their continued presence under a very different political dispensation as Natal was absorbed into the Union of South Africa.

Gun Runners, Detectives, and the Garrison Between the 1840s and 1859, the 45th Regiment was the mainstay of the garrison and the colony. The regimental colonels, Boys and Cooper, both acted as lieutenant governor, and the political influence of the military peaked with the special commissionership of Sir Garnet Wolseley. Wolseley had specific political instructions, but generally the military avoided political posturing when acting in civil positions. Sir Evelyn Wood gave the clearest indication of the relationship between soldiers and ministers in 1881 when he took over the supreme military and political positions in Natal and the rebellious Transvaal after Sir George Pomeroy Colley was killed at the Battle of Majuba. In London, Gladstone had decided to allow the Transvaal virtually full independence, and Wood commented: “Sir Evelyn does not, nor did he approve of it [cession of the Transvaal]—but in his opinion the first duty of a soldier is to carry out loyally the instructions of his superiors.”1 And this Sir Evelyn did. After the retrocession of the Transvaal, the military establishment in Natal was substantially increased, as we have seen. It included a battery of mountain guns, a cavalry regiment, and three infantry battalions. This was the largest “peacetime” concentration of imperial troops in South Africa at this stage. As well as the main base at Fort Napier, troops were distributed around minor outposts, especially in Zululand such as forts Chater, Curtis, and Yolland.2 The consequences of indiscipline and misconduct in relation to the Inniskilling Fusiliers and other regiments that resulted from this disposition of forces have been discussed. However, the year before the Inniskilling mutiny, another incident marked a clear change in the relationship between the garrison and the local state. In earlier years the colonial authorities depended on the military, but in 1886 the imperial military were forced to rely on the civil power to solve a problem that arose through internal military incompetence. Its resolution was beyond the capacity of the garrison. In January 1886, the garrison was rocked by an event that struck at the roots of its power and prestige. Eighty-eight modern Martini Henry rifles were stolen from the fort’s armory, with the alleged complicity of a senior NCO in the Ordnance Services Corps, one Sergeant Lord.3 The military had to enlist the help of the

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Dominy_Text.indd 161 1/22/16 3:02 PM civilian police to track down Lord and the weapons. Superintendent Fraser and Sergeant Green followed the trail to Pondoland, where they found the weapons being sold off to the local population. Lord was arrested, and many weapons were recovered and brought back to Pietermaritzburg.4 The Mayor of Pietermaritzburg wrote to Colonel Stabb, the commandant of Natal, and requested the payment of £115/13/4 to cover the costs for the prolonged services of the two most experienced officers in the city’s police force.5 Stabb resisted the demand, claiming that the recovery of the weapons and the prosecution of the case was as much in the security interests of the colony as of the imperial authorities.6 Even while acknowledging the importance of the assistance given by the police, Stabb was forced to admit failures of military procedure at Fort Napier: the weapons had been stored in an insecure, temporary wood-and-iron hut, and the gun runners had gained access through the corruption of Sergeant Lord. Attack being the best form of defense, Stabb argued that it was well known to the police that there was a network in the city and colony of “thoroughly unscru- pulous civilians, who drive a lucrative trade in gun-running among the various adjoining native states, and especially in Pondoland.”7 Stabb had sniffed a scent of corruption that lingered for decades into the twentieth century. The popular historian T. V. Bulpin claimed that there were whispers that the foundation of the “prosperity and renown” of one of Durban’s most prominent trading houses, Harvey and Greenacre, was due to “an odd spot of gun-running.”8 Other leading merchants in Durban and Natal were also implicated in gun running, and the main figure coordinating the trade was an Irish nationalist transfrontiersman, M. H. O’Donnell. O’Donnell was arrested but acquitted for the theft of rifles sold in Pondoland. It is not entirely clear from the record that this is the same case as that involving Sergeant Lord, although the circumstances of the robbery are almost identical.9 What galled Colonel Stabb the most is that the case against Sergeant Lord and the gun runners was thrown out of court because the Ordnance section did not maintain a registry of military firearms, and therefore the weapons could not be positively identified as Crown property. The argument between the army and the colonial and local authorities spluttered on, and in the end, Stabb grudgingly authorized payment of half the police and court costs, the considerable sum of £937/9/1. This earned him a stinging rebuke from the Treasury in Whitehall.10 This incident reveals the failure of procedures and precautions at Fort Napier, for which the Ordnance officers should have been held accountable because Ser- geant Lord’s activities should have been spotted by competent and alert officers. Furthermore, it exposed an area of military weakness that had developed since 1870. The army could not track down the gun runners because they no longer

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Dominy_Text.indd 162 1/22/16 3:02 PM had a locally experienced mounted detachment such as the CMR available in Natal. There was also doubt as to the legal standing of the military when in hot pursuit of criminals; however, if there had been a unit with the capabilities of the CMR available, the legalities would probably taken second place. While the gun-running episode unexpectedly illuminated the relationship between the garrison and the local civil power, the future of the garrison was becoming a topic of heated discussions between the imperial and colonial policy makers, as Natal inched toward responsible-government status.

Political Power or Military Security? The “Jamaica” constitution, forced on Natal by Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1874, was intended as an interim measure to facilitate Natal’s inclusion in a South African confederation. Once Lord Carnarvon’s confederation schemes collapsed in the wake of the British defeats at Isandlwana and Majuba, the question of the future governance of Natal arose again, and the 1880s were punctuated by debates in settler political, trading, and farming circles over the desirability of responsible government.11 One of the key issues in the debate was the future of the imperial garrison. The first request for responsible government was made in 1879 in the aftermath of the Anglo-Zulu War, and the secretary of state for the colonies ex- plicitly linked increased colonial autonomy to the colonists looking after their own defense. This was a serious enough threat to defer the issue for at least eight years, during which the extensive deployments in Zululand took place.12 In 1882, colonial elections for the Legislative Council took place, which returned a majority opposed to responsible government. Although Natal settlers wanted control of “native policy” they were wary of taking on the burden of their own defense.13 The Natal Witness labeled the midlands settler elite who opposed responsible government the Mealie-and-Forage party.14 Two of the leading figures in this grouping were Joseph Baynes and Charles Smythe, who argued that the colony was too weak to deal with an African rebellion, but their fear of losing imperial contracts if the garrison was withdrawn was obvious to contemporary observers. The Natal Witness counterargued that the granting of responsible government would strengthen Natal’s voice in Whitehall.15 Three issues were interwoven into the defense question: the financial cost to the colony, the need to enforce unpopular militia legislation on white colonists, and the deep-seated settler fear of the large African majority of the population. Even proponents of responsible government such as John Robinson sought to obtain guarantees that the imperial garrison would remain in the colony for a number of years after receiving responsible government.16

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Dominy_Text.indd 163 1/22/16 3:02 PM The financial issue involved a number of factors. There was the direct cost of the garrison, to which the colonial government had contributed an annual subsidy since the early 1860s. This amounted to about 10 percent of overall imperial expenditure on maintaining the garrison in Natal in the 1860s and 1870s. The colonial economy also received a direct annual injection of over ten thousand pounds from imperial contracts for an outlay of less than half that amount. This does not take the indirect expenditure of the officers and men on drink, entertainment, sport, hunting, and routine living expenses into account. There was economic logic in the arguments of the Mealies-and-Forage supporters. Taking over the responsibilities of the imperial garrison would necessitate the funding of a large new militia force, as well as the Natal Mounted Police. All these burdens would fall onto the Natal taxpayer and eat into the profits of the Mealie-and-Forage party as well as others. The increased garrison in the 1880s and early 1890s meant that imperial military contracts were more significant in the decade before responsible government than in the decade before the Anglo- Zulu War.17 In 1889, total colonial defense expenditure, including police and militia, amounted to £62,101/15/3. Included in this was a mere £7,584/16/11 on the imperial garrison (made up of the annual subsidy, various rebates, and other forms of assistance).18 Imperial military expenditure during the 1880s averaged £150,000 per year, with the colony paying about 5 percent of the cost. There was a reduction to £129,000 in 1891, but this was still an enormous extra burden for the local taxpayer to carry.19 The increased profitability of the carrying trade with the Transvaal made the imperial military contracts less critical to the overall economy of the colony, although they remained a significant money spinner. It was overall imperial defense policy to concentrate military strength at “points of imperial importance,” but as a major inducement to Natal to accept responsible government, the Colonial and War Offices were prepared to retain the garrison in Natal for a further five years, which would have led to a final withdrawal in 1898.20 That this did not happen was due to events beyond Natal and, in particular, the approach of war with the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The threat of war with the Boer republics was identified by the Colonial Defence Committee in 1896, the year of the Jameson Raid, which also noted a possible threat from the French in Madagascar. There was much discussion on contributions Natal could make to its own and to imperial defense.21 These policies and decisions need to be understood within the broader context of the dramatic changes in South Africa’s politics and economic developments in the 1890s. As part of South Africa, Natal was experiencing its own major industrial development made possible by the gold-mining activities on the Witwatersrand. Coal from northern Natal was increasingly used by the railways, ships in Durban,

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Dominy_Text.indd 164 1/22/16 3:02 PM and in mines on the Rand. Pietermaritzburg was less important than it had been in the past as an economic hub, although it retained its political importance as the capital of the colony. The tensions between mining interests in Johannesburg and the rural interests of President Kruger’s government in Pretoria led to the disastrous failed coup known as the Jameson Raid in January 1896. This ratcheted up the political tensions in South Africa and made an all-out war more likely, which in turn made the British government hesitant about withdrawing the garrison from Natal. The railway infrastructure in Natal had improved dramatically, and the increasing importance of the Transvaal meant that military outposts in the north of the colony, particularly at Ladysmith, were expanded and a larger proportion of the garrison was stationed there, while Pietermaritzburg remained the headquarters. During the 1890s, the future of the Natal garrison was discussed increasingly within the framework of global strategy and imperial policy, as there was rising competition from major powers such as France, Germany, and the United States. In the mid-1890s, there was near panic over the conflict in the Sudan and the advance of the French toward the Nile River, culminating in the Fashoda incident.22 The concerns of the Natal midlands Mealies-and-Forage party dwindled into insignificance by comparison. There were also developments in the region that sent the garrison out of Natal: Cecil John Rhodes and the vainglorious efforts to conquer “Rhodesia” resulted in the despatch of troops from Natal for the expeditions into Mashonaland and Matabeleland. The 7th Queen’s Own Hussars clattered down to Durban from Fort Napier to be shipped up the coast to Beira for the Mashonaland expedition. The regimental historians recorded their movements, transport arrangements, and horse care in great detail.23 The colony’s Officer Commanding, General Cox, corresponded vigorously with the governor on the need for troops in Natal to be sent on the campaigns in both Mashonaland and Matabeleland.24 At this time, with responsible government in Natal taking place and developments in southern Africa attracting political visionaries and economic parasites deep into the hinterland, the fate of the garrison in Natal was being considered in broad-brush terms. Edward Fairfield, assistant secretary and an influential senior official at the Colonial Office, acknowledged that the retention of imperial troops in Natal did not form a part of any scheme of imperial maritime defense. They were not retained there for the benefit of the colony, but because it was a convenient depôt for troops that were “indispensable” to retain, owing to “imperial responsibilities existing in regard to Zululand and Swaziland.”25 Forty to fifty years earlier, the garrison marched into the mountainous Natal hinterland on minor punitive expeditions. In the 1890s they were shipped and railed to the heart of south-central Africa on similar missions.

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Dominy_Text.indd 165 1/22/16 3:02 PM So while Natal politicians framed their arguments for greater autonomy without the imperial garrison, or for greater security with the garrison but without autonomy, the imperial politicians were considering the purpose and utility of the Natal garrison in relation to far greater games being played in the Zambesi region, or on the reserve bench for the “Great Game” in Asia itself.

The Making of a Multicultural Durban Increasing settler control of government led to increased conflict over the land and assets reserved for the military by Lieutenant Charles Gibb nearly fifty years earlier. In the Pietermaritzburg area, the garrison continued with its routine activities. The 3rd Dragoon Guards held training camps and manuevers near the kholwa community of Edendale and on the higher grounds near Howick.26 There seem to have been good relations between the kholwa and the garrison, which only became stressed during the Anglo-Boer War and the military’s insatiable demands for labor.27 The choice of the Edendale Valley and high ground near Howick as settings for regimental exercises indicates that space was at a pre- mium closer to the city and the fort. By the 1890s, the pressure on urban land in Durban and Pietermaritzburg was intensifying, and the value of the military land was increasing. The municipal authorities in both cities began agitating for the release of the ordnance reserve to local control for development purposes. In 1889, two years after the last military unit was withdrawn from Durban, Sir Charles Mitchell, the governor of Natal, encouraged the transfer of some 324 acres of ordnance land (worth thirty thousand pounds), not required for the defense of the harbor, to the municipality. Mitchell cited the needs of the expanded trade of the port city and the election of a mayor and council of “exceptional ability” as factors encouraging a rapid transfer of the land.28 The mayor in question, B. W. Greenacre, the rumoured gun runner, stressed the importance of the ordnance land for municipal and railway expansion, adding that the municipality was under the necessity of providing “large, healthy, and convenient accommodation for Her Majesty’s subjects of the native race. People of this class who resort largely to the borough in search of labour are entitled to all we can do to promote their welfare, and, by reason of the restricted area, it will not be in our power to do what is necessary unless the Ordnance Land is placed at our disposal.”29 It took a further five years before finality was reached on the transfer of the ordnance land, and the area was redeveloped for expanded railway workshops and municipal offices as well as accommodation for the city’s burgeoning African working population.30 The superintendent of the Durban Borough Police, R. C. Alexander, a former NCO and Fort Napier veteran, was a staunch advocate of

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Dominy_Text.indd 166 1/22/16 3:02 PM building barracks to house African urban workers and “let them march into the town as they do with soldiers.”31 By 1914, when the last troops left Fort Napier, the former Durban ordnance land was the site of the central “Togt” barracks, the Baumannville “Native Village,” the Ordnance Road Beer Hall, the Umgeni Beer Hall, and the African recreation grounds. The Indian “Magazine Barracks” were also developed on ex-ordnance land, and in 1930 an impressive headquarters building for the Durban Native Affairs Department was constructed on Ordnance Road.32 It would not be an exaggeration to claim that the “Durban System” of “native administration” was brought into physical and spatial existence by the availability of the military reserve marked out by Lieutenant Gibb in the 1840s. In Pieter- maritzburg, however, the garrison remained in occupation of Fort Napier until 1914, and the fate of the ordnance land was only decided after World War I, in very different political circumstances and with very different consequences. The question of payment for the transfer of the Durban ordnance reserve to the local authorities was the subject of a lengthy argument between the Natal colonial government, the War and Colonial Offices, and the Treasury in London. The need to repair and replace dilapidated barrack structures at Fort Napier was brought into the issue; after all, it was more than sixty years since Gibb laid out the original buildings. As the commitment had been made to keep the Natal garrison in place for five years after the granting of responsible government, funds had to be found for repairs to Fort Napier. A novel solution to the intertwined problems in Durban and Pietermaritzburg was devised: the colonial government agreed to purchase the ordnance reserve in Durban, provided that the funds paid were expended on the restoration of Fort Napier and the balance of the purchase price retained to fund any additional construction work in Natal.33 After valuation, the Durban ordnance land was transferred at a price of £21,487, of which £14,388 was spent on work at Fort Napier and smaller posts in Zulu- land and northern Natal.34 The city of Durban was home to those settler interest groups who benefited most from the trade with the Transvaal, and by the mid to late 1890s, this trade was worth far more than any military contracts, but war was coming.

The Garrison as Emblem of Loyalty and Chivalry in a “White Man’s War” How did a colony with an economy that was deeply enmeshed in that of the Trans- vaal end up enthusiastically supporting a war against its neighbor? The garrison played an indirect but nevertheless important role in firming up the public view in

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Dominy_Text.indd 167 1/22/16 3:02 PM Natal in favor of the war with the Boer Republics. In the first place, the governor had enough settler politicians with military backgrounds and connections to form a ministry that would support military action against the Transvaal. Fortuitously for the pro-war party, Sir Henry Binns, a relatively enlightened Natal politician and supporter of good relations with the Transvaal, died suddenly in June 1899. This enabled the governor to appoint Colonel Albert Hime, an ex–Royal Engineer and former head of the Colonial Public Works Department, as prime minister. It has been claimed that Hime was “not really interested in politics,” which may have made him the ideal tool for imperialist politicians in 1899.35 In Hime, the governor, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, had found a “true blue imperialist” with a military background to lead the colony into war, and a contemporary colonial writer praised him as “our ‘military’ premier.”36 Hely-Hutchinson recorded in his official diary that before appointing Hime to the premiership, he obtained a full assurance that any ministry he headed would “give their moral support to any fair, just and reasonable demands which might be, or might have been, finally made by Her Majesty’s Government on the Government of the South African Republic on behalf of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal and that should hostilities unfortunately break out, the Natal Government would afford to the High Commissioner, and to Her Majesty’s Government their active and sympathetic co-operation.”37 The garrison deployed its traditional weaponry of parades, band performances, dances, and sports events, which not only provided the settlers with their fundamental reassurances but established the context in which social pressures could be exerted. Numerous chats between officers and settlers must have taken place in clubs and other untold social environments in which the military and imperial agenda would have been pushed. Beyond these interactions was the fact that, after more than a half century of military engagement with Natal, a soldier-politician ministry would command enough support from the settlers to take the colony into a war at a time when the high commissioner was “working up a crisis.”38 The pro-imperialist position was triumphantly expressed at a public meeting in Scott’s Theatre in Pietermaritzburg in early July 1899. The gathering enthusiastically endorsed the demands of the Uitlanders and backed imperial policy toward the Transvaal. The motion passed at the public gathering was ratified by a Legislative Assembly resolution, proposed by Joseph Baynes (Mealie-and- Forage party), and supported by Harry Escombe, a representative of the Durban trading interests, and Albert Hime.39 Settler Natal stood united behind the war effort, and vocally so. At the commencement of the war, Pietermaritzburg and Durban were inun- dated with Uitlander refugees, and the Natal settlers rallied to the the cause, of-

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Dominy_Text.indd 168 1/22/16 3:02 PM fering support in cash and kind. A patriotic fund-raising concert was held, and homes were thrown open to the temporarily homeless. Joseph Baynes offered his corn mill free of charge for relief purposes, having also given of his resources for comforts for the troops.40 The Scotsmen of Pietermaritzburg met to offer entertainment and support to Scottish regiments passing through the city, and Government House was packed with high-ranking military guests, including Generals Hunter, White, and Yule.41 On Sunday, October 8, the men of the new Uitlander regiment, the Imperial Light Horse, held a church parade at St. Sav- iour’s cathedral and listened to a rousing patriotic sermon from the Reverend Goodwin.42 No less a commentator than Winston Churchill, returning from his brief enforced sojourn in Pretoria, described the attitude of Natalians as “splendid,” and Albert Hime told the young journalist that Natal settlers were obstinately determined to “stand by the Queen’s Government through all the changing moods of fortune.”43 Another influential contemporary commentator, Evelyn Cecil, wrote of Natal, shortly before the outbreak of war, “the first thing that strikes an English traveller . . . is the heartfelt thoroughness of its enthusiastic loyalty.”44 The Natal Witness waded in, praising “proud, British Natal” and focusing on the army as the core for loyal conduct: “Here, at Ladysmith, at Maritzburg, at Newcastle and at Eshowe, are already concentrated the largest number of Brit- ish troops in South Africa, and here we have a Colony essentially British.”45 The message was clear: the garrison underpins Natal’s British identity. This was the newspaper’s reasoning, and its silence on the other obvious fact indicates the shakiness of the state and the thinness of the veneer of loyalty: the vast majority of Natal’s inhabitants were Zulu-speaking Africans, not British. The intense loyalism survived unshaken by the early British reverses. However, nervousness, nastiness, and loyalism were intertwined. As the Boers advanced into Natal territory, besieging Ladysmith and threatening Estcourt, the nervousness showed in Pietermaritzburg. The members of the Rifle Association erew called up, and a “splendid” muster of eight hundred men was held, as ambulance trains with the wounded from the northern Natal battlefields began arriving. Soon the Fort Napier hospital was overcrowded, and the wounded were accommodated in the new parliamentary building, St. George’s garrison chapel, and at Grey’s Hospital.46 The Natal Witness, under the large headline “Is Maritzburg Safe?” reported on the visit of a deputation from the city council to the governor. His Excellency assured the councillors that the city was safe, but the newspaper plaintively commented, “still it would have relieved anxiety had he been able to give some reason for his assurance that Maritzburg is absolutely safe.”47

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Dominy_Text.indd 169 1/22/16 3:02 PM Nervousness begat nastiness, and Natal Afrikaners whose loyalty was suspect (with or without any evidence) were imprisoned. One of the places used for their incarceration was Fort Napier. When Ladysmith was relieved, a mob broke into the Dutch Reformed church and rang the bells and strung celebratory material.48 As will be seen below, the German community suffered in similar ways during World War I. The fact that two settler populations were fighting among and around the majority black African populations in four settler-constructed political entities was justified yb the cry that this was a “white man’s war.” This message was spread by J. S. Marwick as he gathered the Natal and Zululand mine workers in Johan- nesburg to march back to Natal as the war was breaking out: “the white people are fighting between themselves and the whole country is in a state of war.”49 That the Anglo-Boer War was a “white man’s war” is a myth that has been effectively demolished by several writers.50 However, at the time it was used as a device for the control of the African population. Efforts by the imperial government to arm black South Africans were tempered by Whitehall’s acute aware- ness of the sensitivities of the Cape and Natal governments to the arming of their indigenous populations, a prejudice that also prevented Indian troops or troops from other “black” parts of the empire from being deployed in South Africa.51 Whitehall almost wistfully regretted the lost opportunity as the secretary of the Colonial Defence Committee minuted: “The Zulus from Natal and Zululand form perhaps the finest material in the Empire for military service, but it has recently been decided that political considerations do not permit of a force for Imperial service being raised from them.”52 Natal also put up strong arguments against Zulu participation in the conflict, ranging from the unrestrainable nature of native warfare to the loss of colonial and imperial prestige among Boers and black groups in South Africa from the use of Zulu troops.53 In 1900, a letter to the Natal Witness credited Premier Hime with refusing to allow the deployment of Indian troops in Natal, claiming, “it would never do for the Basutos and Zulus and Matabele to be able to say that England had to bring black troops to conquer the Boers.”54 However, toward the end of the war, when Louis Botha attempted a raid into Zululand, the stoutest resistance was put up by detachments of the Zululand Native Police, the Nongqai.55 A corollary of the myth of the “white man’s war” was that it was the last “gentlemen’s war,” and that the opponents behaved chivalrously towards each other. It was a belated echo of the interrelated codes of sport, hunting, and gentlemanly behavior. Maj. Gen. J. F. C. Fuller, who had served as a subaltern in the Anglo- Boer War, claimed that the war was “probably the most humane ever fought” and quoted a 1910 War Office publication that expressly linked warfare in South

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Dominy_Text.indd 170 1/22/16 3:02 PM Africa with the sporting and hunting ethos of the officer caste: “The British officer played at war in South Africa much in the same way that he hunted or played cricket or polo at home.”56 Even Deneys Reitz, in his influential memoirs, described the British officers and soldiers as being unfailingly “humane.”57 There was a glaring exception to British chivalry, and that was the burning of Boer farms on Kitchener’s orders, which left a legacy of bitterness that endured for nearly a century. This tactic took the horror of war from the familiar bloodshed and ghastliness of battlefields into the realm of widespread civilian suffering and economic disaster and was a precursor of the vileness of twentieth-century warfare. The politeness and gentlemanly tone of officers paled into insignificance when set against this atrocity.

The Garrison in the Aftermath of War As the Anglo-Boer War moved into its guerilla phase, military arrangements in Natal were adapted to the needs of the campaign. The headquarters for Natal were moved to Newcastle in 1901, and Pietermaritzburg was reduced to a subdistrict.58 At the conclusion of hostilities, the commanding general in Newcastle, Major General Fetherstonhaugh, recommended that the garrison be withdrawn from Pietermaritzburg and that a small mobile detachment be based at Newcastle. From here, the force could operate conveniently in the newly annexed Vryheid and Utrecht Districts on the Zululand-Swaziland border in the Phongolo River Valley or in support of British forces in the new Orange River and Transvaal colonies. This force would be controlled from Bloemfontein and not from Pietermaritzburg.59 The Natal government launched the strongest campaign of opposition they could manage. The governor, Sir Henry McCallum, and the premier, Sir Albert Hime, led the charge. Hime happened to be in London when the general’s proposals reached Pietermaritzburg and were forwarded to him. He went immediately to the War Office, where he persuaded the secretary of state to leave a garrison of about 4,500 men in Natal with their headquarters in Pietermaritzburg. When the colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, visited Natal in December 1902, he suggested that a garrison of two thousand men be retained in Pietermaritzburg, provided that the Natal government be supplied the necessary accommodation, and the annual colonial contribution toward the costs of the garrison was increased to one hundred thousand pounds, three-fifths of the actual cost of maintaining the troops at Fort Napier.60 The issue of costs gave the Natal government pause. Meanwhile, detachments of the 2nd King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment and the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment followed each other, virtually squatting in the

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Dominy_Text.indd 171 1/22/16 3:02 PM dilapidated barracks at Fort Napier. The situation was, however, no longer far off the boil in Whitehall. On February 16, 1904, the secretary of state for the colonies sent a telegram to Pietermaritzburg announcing the immediate withdrawal of the garrison in Fort Napier. This came as an unpleasant shock to the Natal cabinet, now headed by George Sutton, also a midlands farmer. On this occasion, it was the governor, Sir Henry McCallum, who happened to be in London, and Sutton consulted the administrator (or acting governor), who was none other than Sir Henry Bale, the lawyer who had so fiercely criticized the military authorities in 1887, at the time of the Inniskilling Mutiny. The Natal cabinet drafted an emotional memorandum that Bale approved, signed, and sent to McCallum, who then tackled the War Office. The memorandum was a perceptive summation of the reasons Natal had advanced since the 1840s for keeping its garrison. Bale informed the secretary of state that there was no doubt that the “retention of soldiers in Natal for sixty years or more has had a very beneficial effect upon the Natives, who have . . . a very great respect for and dread of the ‘redcoats.’” Bale feared that the withdrawal of the garrison would be “regarded by many Natives as practically implying an aban- donment of Imperial sovereignty, and would involve a decided loss of prestige.” The memorandum concluded with an emotional plea: “I submit that in a Colony where the Imperial sentiment is so strong, it would be somewhat of an anomaly if /that which is regarded as the symbol of Imperialism should be removed. The moral effect of their retention cannot be overestimated.”61 McCallum and the War Office reached a compromise: a small contingent of imperial troops would be kept in Natal for three years pending the reorganization of the colonial forces. Natal would see to the housing of the men and continue its annual contribution of four thousand pounds to the War Office.62 Shortly after this, the Royal Garrison Regiment, a second- or even third-rate unit of older veterans, moved into the old buildings of Fort Napier. So while theoretically an imperial garrison remained at Fort Napier, in practice the empire was represented by an ineffective and understrength unit. The Royal Garrison Regiment was of the most obscure military pedigree, and there is virtually no trace of it in the comprehensive records at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, let alone in the War Office records at Kew.63 Pietermaritzburg mourned the departed regulars. There were no more parades or band performances, and the mature years of the men, who were “nearly all grey-haired veterans” with families, gave them a decidedly unmartial appearance. They were quickly labeled the “Royal Dug-outs.”64 A correspondent in the Mosquito and African Sketch wrote:

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Dominy_Text.indd 172 1/22/16 3:02 PM We are beginning to face the reality of the decree that has been hanging over our heads for so long, i.e. the withdrawal of the troops. It was a starveling little detachment that has been with us the last few months, but since their recent depletion the Camp begins to look really deserted. Rows and rows of married and officers’ quarters closed, the big Mess House practically closed also, as the few remaining officers only breakfast there, and the Garrison Church almost denuded of its rightful occupants.65 The tactics of the War and Colonial Offices were clear: let the Natal garrison shrivel away without a fuss. According to James Stuart, the gradual withdrawal of imperial troops, “however unobtrusively it had occurred, did not escape the notice of sundry nervous Europeans, or of the Natives.”66 These tactics worked until the long-anticipated African rising actually took place.

The “War of the Heads” and the Garrison Marches Back The South African economy, including that of Natal, was in a sorry state in the years after the Anglo-Boer War, and the new imperial authority based in Pretoria was anxious to get the mines working profitably and establish a stable political framework that would unite the colonies and reduce the costs to the British taxpayer. Natal’s local concerns were not at the forefront of the agenda. The African population of Natal and Zululand were beginning to experience serious poverty, as their locations and reserves were deliberately underdeveloped so that they were no more than pools of cheap labor.67 Cattle herds had been decimated by East Coast Fever, nagana, and rinderpest, and social and generational tensions in Zulu society mounted. In many ways, Natal was marginalized while attention was focused on rebuilding the former Boer republics, and its problems festered, largely neglected by Milner and Whitehall and exacerbated by the pigheadedness of its own settler politicians.68 In Pietermaritzburg the Royal Dug-outs pottered around Fort Napier, while the colonial treasurer, in his office down the road, desperately attempted to balance a budget in the face of declining revenues and much general misery.69 Mr. Hyslop had to find a new tax, and when all other proposals failed, he resorted to a poll tax, or head tax (the same taxation device that would bring about the fall of Margaret Thatcher in Britain in 1990). This tax fell heavily upon young African men, was widely resented, and also opened generational cleavages in African communities. One chief, “Mafingo,” complained, “What have we done to our Government to merit this [tax]? We helped the Government to beat the Boers in Captain Smith’s time [in the 1840s]. . . . The Boers oppressed us, and that is why we helped you. But instead of helping us you oppress us.”70

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Dominy_Text.indd 173 1/22/16 3:02 PM Although Mafingo did not distinguish between the imperial and colonial governments, Jeff Guy has pointed out that the rising that followed was not a rising of Africans against Britain; it was a conflict between Africans and the settlers who ruled the colony.71 The imposition of the tax was resisted: A farmer who had taken his workers to pay the new tax was murdered near Camperdown. On January 22, 1906, the anniversary of Isandlwana, the chiefs in the Maphumulo District appeared at the magistracy, and all refused to pay. On February 8, a police patrol under Inspector Hunt engaged an angry crowd only eleven miles from Pietermaritzburg, and Hunt and a Trooper Armstrong were killed. Natal panicked again.72 In all the decades of settler panics, their own politics had at last provoked what they feared most. The first major historical study of the rising was published by Shula Marks in 1970, but more recent studies by Jeff Guy and Benedict Carton have greatly expanded historical understanding of the events.73 As the actual rising was ruthlessly suppressed by colonial, not imperial, forces, the history of the events will not be dealt with in detail. The attitude of the imperial authorities was cautious, although the military in South Africa acted quickly. On receipt of the news of the proclamation of martial law in Natal, the GOC immediately despatched a crack battalion of imperial troops to Pietermaritzburg. This was the 2nd Battalion of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, which marched into Fort Napier with kilts swinging and bagpipes skirling on February 13, 1906. Admiral Durnford, commanding the Cape Squadron, despatched the cruiser HMS Terpsichore from Simonstown to Durban with all haste, and the GOC placed more troops in the Transvaal on standby.74 Loyal Natal drew comfort from the imperial connection. However, political power resided locally, and the settlers were vengeful. The men allegedly involved in the death of Hunt and Armstrong were subjected to a travesty of a drumhead court martial and sentenced to be executed. The colonial cabinet quickly confirmed the sentence. The Colonial Office was not impressed: Lord Elgin, the secretary of state for the colonies in Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- nerman’s new Liberal government, ordered the suspension of the executions, arguing that as there were imperial troops in the colony, the Natal government was required to regularize its actions.75 The local ministry, headed by the Mealies-and-Forage party champion Charles Smythe, refused, and the governor, Sir Henry McCallum, was forced to suspend the executions, using prerogative powers. Smythe and his cabinet resigned, and a constitutional crisis blew up. Telegrams flew, not only between South Africa and London but across the empire, as other colonies with responsible government supported Natal. Elgin was forced to back down, reiterating that due to the

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Dominy_Text.indd 174 1/22/16 3:02 PM Figure 12.1. Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, son and heir of the last independent Zulu king, seen wearing adapted British military uniform, ca. 1907. (PAR)

presence of British troops in the colony, the imperial government was “entitled” and “duty bound” to “obtain full and precise information in reference to these martial law cases.”76 So Smythe returned triumphantly to office. The executions were carried out with ghoulish and gory fanfare, in public, with an audience, including colonial schoolboys and African families of the accused. It was an act intended to impress all with the power of Pietermaritzburg.77 Given the clash between the colonial and imperial governments, the Cameron Highlanders were not involved in the military and police actions that suppressed the uprising. The garrison remained in Pietermaritzburg, the band played, and the troops maneuvered in the Edendale Valley, home of the amaKholwa, close to Trewirgie, where Sub-Inspector Hunt and his party had been attacked. These

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Dominy_Text.indd 175 1/22/16 3:02 PM actions, according to Stuart, “had a most reassuring and salutory effect, and gave exactly that touch of moral support the situation required.”78 It was not a reassur- ance that the War Office wanted to leave permanently in place, and orders came for the Cameron Highlanders to return to Pretoria in August 1906. The mayor of Pietermaritzburg arranged a suitable farewell event and delivered a speech of heartfelt gratitude to the regiment, claiming that although they had “not been called upon to actively engage in military operations,” their presence had been of the “very highest value,” inspiring confidence and security in Euro- pean minds and having a “most beneficial effect upon the coloured population.” The mayor concluded with the claim that if the “military troops had not been removed from Natal there would not have been a native rebellion.”79 James Stuart, assistant secretary of native affairs and great recorder of Zulu history and traditions, also believed that the withdrawal of imperial troops had encouraged the spirit of rebellion. There had been a strong rumor circulating among the Zulu population that the British were “disgusted” with the manner in which Natal was “governing her Native population” and were turning their back on and “would no longer help her Colony.”80 Under these circumstances, it was reluctantly agreed by the secretary of state that further regular troops would have to be sent to Natal.81 In August 1906, the 3rd Royal Warwickshire Regiment entered Fort Napier in place of the departed Cameron Highlanders, and it appeared as through the traditional “fort” and “town” relationship would be resumed. However, the placid past was past, and although imperial troops did not take the field in Natal, the colonial government accepted offers of military aid from both the Cape and Transvaal Colonies, as well as the assistance of a corps of Indian stretcher bearers organized by M. K. Gandhi.82 Colonial Natal could not stand on its own, and the need for the unification of a white South Africa grew more obvious. The aftermath of the Zulu Rising was prolonged and serious, made more so by the intransigent attitude of the Natal government. Determined to prove that Dinuzulu was the head of a great conspiracy, martial law was prolonged and extended into Zululand. Dinuzulu was arrested and brought before a special court in Greytown. Disturbances spluttered on into 1907 and even 1908. Court cases dragged on for two or more years. Dinuzulu was sentenced to four years imprisonment in 1908, despite having been acquitted on all important charges. The mishandling of the whole situation by Natal was severely criticized in Britain and South Africa. When Louis Botha became prime minister of the new Union of South Africa in 1910, he quietly arranged for Dinuzulu’s release from prison and provided him with a farm, in the Middelburg District of the Transvaal, on which he lived until his death in 1913.83

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Dominy_Text.indd 176 1/22/16 3:02 PM The March to Union A unified South Africa capable of shouldering its own defense burdens had been the dearest wish of the Colonial Office since Lord Carnarvon began with his confederation scheme in the 1870s. Indeed, the fate of the garrison at Fort Napier had long been subsumed into the discussions relating to the overall defense and governance of South Africa. The Royal Warwickshire Regiment was replaced by the 2nd Norfolk Regiment in 1907, and they were succeeded by the 3rd Royal Fusiliers. At the time Natal joined the Union of South Africa, the 1st Wiltshire Regiment was in garrison. It is probable that the instability caused by the colonial government’s mishandling of the Zulu rising influenced the GOC in Pretoria to keep a battalion in Natal, perhaps reasoning that its presence may do more for the peace of the colony than the policies of the settler government. The governor of Natal, during the protracted negotiations over union, was Sir Matthew Nathan, a former Royal Engineer. Nathan had been secretary of the Colonial Defence Committee and served as governor of Natal from 1907 to 1909.84 The last governor from January 1910 until the formal declaration of Union on May 31, 1910, was General Lord Methuen, who was not only governor of Natal but general officer commanding in the whole of South Africa.85 So, for a few brief months, Fort Napier and the Natal garrison served as the military command center for the whole of South Africa, while political power ebbed rapidly away.

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Recessional The Last of the Garrison, the Fate of the Fort, and Its Place in Folk Memories

The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart.

—R udyard Kipling, “Recessional”

rom May 31, 1910, Natal was no longer a separate colony within the British FEmpire, and Pietermaritzburg was no longer a colonial capital. English-speaking white Natalians felt increasingly threatened in a largely Afrikaner-dominated South Africa. Pietermaritzburg in particular suffered a loss of political status and economic influence.1 There was suspicion of the central government, even though Charles Smythe, the former colonial premier, had been appointed as provincial administrator. One of the most important factors in providing a sense of continuity with the past and an imperial link in the present was the continued presence of a British regiment in garrison at Fort Napier, which provided a “living symbol of empire.”2 The imperial government saw things differently, and for the War and Colo- nial Offices, the creation of a unified, white-ruled South Africa meant that they could at last realize their long-cherished objective of making the whites of South Africa defend themselves. Moves to coordinate the defense of the four colonies began in 1907 and came to fruition in 1912, when the new parliament passed the Union Defence Act. The withdrawal of British troops then became a matter of time and logistics. This chapter will examine the last few years of the garrison, the fate of the last regiment on the Western Front after the outbreak of World War I, the fate of Fort Napier, and its place in folk memories.

Dominy_Text.indd 178 1/22/16 3:02 PM Garrison Routine in a Minor Provincial City Between 1909 and 1913, Fort Napier was garrisoned by the 1st Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. L. N. Warden.3 The regiment played a prominent part in the social life of the city, as its predecessors had since 1843. The regimental band performed in Alexandra Park, the drums beat the “Retreat” at public and regimental sports and “other entertainments,” and, in the words of the city’s deputy mayor, Councillor Hugh Parker, “greatly contributed towards the pleasure and amusement of the citizens.”4 In 1911, Natal celebrated the coronation of King George V, and the officers and men of the garrison attended the Service of Thanksgiving in the cathedral grounds. Once again, the garrison provided a tangible link between the sovereign and the settler/colonists, now constitutionally required to be loyal to the Crown through the Union.5 While some of these activities can be regarded as social amusements designed to enliven the dreary routines of the men of the Wiltshire Regiment and amuse bored civilians, there was a far more serious ideological purpose behind them: There was no longer a colonial government, and the new provincial authorities were still organizing themselves, so it is noteworthy that the Pietermaritzburg city council took the lead in arranging the public pageantry of the garrison. Every parade or sports event went some way toward counteracting local fears. The Pietermaritzburg city council had been warned two years earlier that the garrison’s stay was temporary: In April 1910, the town clerk received a letter from the senior Royal Engineer in South Africa objecting to the payment of a fixed charge of five hundred pounds per year for five years for sewage removal from Fort Napier because by the end of that period the barracks would be likely to contain “only a few details of caretakers.”6 Even the troops at the fort were controlled from Pretoria, and their operational priorities were decided upon by the GOC at headquarters in “Roberts Heights.” The Wiltshire Regiment was replaced by the South Staffordshire Regiment, the “Knots,” which, while based at Fort Napier, had various elements detached elsewhere and did not provide as many band performances as had the Wiltshire Regiment because their bandsmen were on detached duties.7

The Knots and the 1913 Rand General Strike In 1847, the garrison of Fort Napier marched out on a punitive expedition against Chief Fodo in southern Natal and seized thousands of head of cattle, the wealth of the day, in what the men of the 45th Regiment had called the “Milking Campaign.” In 1913 the garrison, represented by the South Staffordshire Regiment, entrained for the Witwatersrand on its last expedition, this time to suppress striking white

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Dominy_Text.indd 179 1/22/16 3:02 PM mine workers protesting against wages and working conditions on the gold mines and the nonrecognition of trade unions.8 Fodo had been a somewhat recalcitrant minor rural chief. Sixty-six years later, the troops from Fort Napier faced miners who were largely British by origin and socialist-led. The garrison was face to face with some of the major issues of the twentieth century. The strike broke out in June 1913 on the New Kleinfontein mine on the East Rand, near Benoni, and spread rapidly. By July 4, sixty-three out of sixty-seven mines were on strike, and there were calls for a general strike. That night police fired on a mob trying to burn down the offices Theof Star newspaper, and by the next day all mines were closed, and nineteen thousand men were out on strike. Mass meetings were called and prohibited, and civil unrest spread.9 The Defence Act had only passed the Union Parliament the previous year, and the new Union Defence Force, which had been given both military and police duties, was still being organized.10 Prime Minister Louis Botha and General Smuts (who held the portfolios of Interior, Mines, and Defence) were forced to call out the remaining imperial forces, and thus the South Staffordshire Regi- ment was despatched to Johannesburg to join other British troops in aid of the Afrikaner-led “civil power.” The troops fired on protesting crowds, and more than a hundred people, including women, children, and curious bystanders, were killed.11 Botha and Smuts were forced into a humiliating compromise agreement with the strikers. The one strike triggered another, and within a day or two, black mine workers were on strike for higher pay. The authorities still had the the imperial troops on standby, and on July 7 at Modder B mine, the director of native labor, Mr. Pritchard, backed by a company of infantry with fixed bayonets, got the Zulu miners back to work on threat of imprisonment. On July 8 at Village Main Reef Mine, workers repelled a charge by mounted police, and Pritchard was only able to restore order and get the men working again when a company of infantry with fixed bayonets arrived in the afternoon.12 This is perhaps the last occasion when troops from Fort Napier faced militant, organized Zulu opposition, and in a very different context from the Anglo-Zulu War! The regimental histories of the South Staffordshire Regiment give only sparse details of the regiment’s involvement in quelling the two strikes, so their exact role is not clear.13 However, a mere four or five years before Russian soldiers refused to fire on striking workers during a cataclysmic war, British soldiers (recruited from the potteries and industrial cities of Staffordshire) did fire on striking workers, white as well as black. Furthermore, they were acting on orders issued by Boer generals with whom they had been at war eleven years earlier. Sir Evelyn Wood’s concept of the duty of a soldier comes to mind again: “the first duty of a soldier is to carry out loyally the instructions of his superiors.”

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Dominy_Text.indd 180 1/22/16 3:02 PM The Sudden End War clouds were gathering over Europe as, on 17 July 17, 1914, the Knots set out from Pietermaritzburg for the annual South African military maneuvers near- Potchefstroom.14 Only administrative and auxiliary elements were left at Fort Napier, to have their movements, such as outings to the Howick Falls on the Mngeni River, affectionately recorded in the press.15 The looming European crisis necessitated the cancellation of the Potchefstroom maneuvers, and by August 6, the Knots were back in Pietermaritzburg, “infected with war fever” and ready to “fight anywhere and everywhere,” according to the local newspaper columnist “Pipeclay.”16 There was a week of frantic activity at Fort Napier and in the city, as the garrison prepared for its final departure. The troops were granted leave on Friday, August 7, and the following morning the Natal Witness carried the understatement, “men of the garrison were prominent in the city” the previous night; perhaps this was the last garrison debauch after over seven decades.17 On the following Monday, the regimental commander, Lt. Col. R. M. Ovens, stated publicly that the regiment was preparing to move, and the press reported that the officers were beginning to sell their possessions. Queues of soldiers formed at the General Post Office to withdraw their savings from the Government Savings Bank, which must have been the first ripple of the economic effect of the withdrawal of the garrison.18 A huge patriotic meeting was held at the City Hall and addressed by the administrator of Natal, Charles (Mealie-and-Forage party) Smythe, and by Councillor P. H. Taylor, the mayor of Pietermaritzburg. Before the meeting began, the band of the South Staffordshire Regiment, dressed in service khaki and not in scarlet, beat the “Retreat” in front of the City Hall.19 Patriotic fervor reached fever pitch. The following morning the Natal Witness, with a front page scarred with the black bars of military censorship, mourned the end of the “Retreat” ceremonies and the imminent departure of the garrison.20 The auction of furniture and the effects of officers and men attracted the biggest crowd ever to attend a local auction.21 On August 19, the regimental band gave a farewell performance in the City Hall to a packed and emotional crowd that stood for the national anthem and gave three rousing cheers for the band. The following day, the Natal Witness published an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Ovens on the history of the regiment and reported that the South Staffords first landed in South Africa in 1806 at the second occupation of the Cape.22 Given the secrecy surrounding troop movements, the only account of the departure of the regiment comes from the girls of Wykeham School. This school was established in 1905, near Fort Napier, with the motto of the famous Winchester College in England, “Manners Maketh Manne.” Although the school emphasized

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Dominy_Text.indd 181 1/22/16 3:02 PM the molding of girls into Victorian/Edwardian models of gentility and morality, the proximity to the fort added an extra dimension to the curriculum. A sergeant- major from the garrison taught the girls shooting, and the school swept the board against boys’ schools in interschool competitions. A second sergeant-major was provided as gym instructor, but with less success, possibly because he was not able to employ his full parade-ground vocabulary at a school for young “ladies.” As the troops were boarding the train at Pietermaritzburg station, a young officer ran down to Wykeham, where the girls were having their evening meal, and asked them to come to the station to wave good-bye to the troops.23 This was the colony’s final farewell to the troops from the last outpost. On Saturday, August 22, Horace Rose, the editor of the Natal Witness, wrote about the real fears of the Natalians, “In South Africa, in the event of the withdrawal of Imperial troops for service elsewhere, the question of the native population at once assumes an importance beyond the normal. So far it is true that from the natives and from the coloured people nothing has been heard save expressions of loyalty and devotion, but it is an axiom of South African policy that behind the amenities of a fractional civilised community must always stand the power of the rifle to enforce law and order.”24

On the Western Front at the First Battle of Ypres The South Staffordshire Regiment left Cape Town with other regiments of the South African garrison aboard the RMS Kenilworth Castle, which docked in Southampton on September 11, 1914. The battalion was encamped in the New Forest while the British army’s 7th Division was being formed from troops drawn from garrisons across the empire.25 The 7th Division was rushed across the Eng- lish Channel to Belgium, with the South Staffordshire Regiment landing at Zee- brugge, as the Germans stormed across the country, and the Allies hastily abandoned Antwerp. The 7th Division headed toward Ypres, later described as the “graveyard of the old British Army.”26 The 7th Division bore the brunt of the German assault during the later half of October and the first half of November 1914. At Kruiseecke in the Ypres salient, the Germans launched a heavy attack on October 26, 1914. Many men were buried as their trenches collapsed under the bombardment, with South Staffords suffering heavily. At 9:00 a.m., a German unit crept through a gap in the British lines between the Scots Guards and the South Staffords and were not seen until they had passed. Some of the Staffords were unable to open fire for fear of hitting British troops, and all the while the German artillery bombardment continued. Hidden behind the British lines, Germans began calling “Retire, retire,” and men

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Dominy_Text.indd 182 1/22/16 3:02 PM of the South Staffords, thinking that they were being ordered into shelter from the artillery bombardment, fell back. Desperate fighting took place before the gap in the British lines could be plugged.27 The South Staffordshire Regiment may have feared the stain on its honor under these confused circumstances, but on November 7, Capt. J. F. Vallentin was awarded the Victoria Cross. Before the end of the year, almost all the officers and the majority of the men who had marched out of Fort Napier had been killed in action.

Internment and Intimidation: Recycling the Fort On the same day that the last important item about the garrison appeared in the Natal Witness, there also appeared a snippet of news about an event in Johan- nesburg that was to have considerable repercussions for Pietermaritzburg in general and for Fort Napier in particular. Reservists in the imperial armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were being detained in Johannesburg.28 In mid-September 1914, rebellion against the participation of the Union in the imperial war effort broke out in the Afrikaner heartlands, particularly in the northern Free State and western Transvaal.29 Prime Minister Louis Botha used mainly Afrikaans-speaking troops to put down the rebellion but, it was “deemed necessary and expedient, to avoid a possible trouble,” to remove all enemy internees to Pietermaritzburg, “away from the zone of operations” and where a suitable facility, Fort Napier, stood vacant and waiting.30 On October 25, men of the Pietermaritzburg Rifle Association escorted two thousand internees from the railway station to Fort Napier. The city prison was cleared of its supply of blankets and mattresses, as the old imperial fort was prepared to house the king’s enemies.31 Approximately two thousand Germans, two hundred Austro-Hungarians, and perhaps half a dozen Turks were interned at the fort between October 1914 and the declaration of the armistice on November 11, 1918.32 On October 27, the city was swept by rumors that the internees were attempting a mass breakout, and the men of the Rifle Association were needed to prevent it. Hundreds of white civilians arrived in an agitated mob at the closed gates of the fort. Colonel Manning, the officer in charge of the internment camp, tartly informed the press that there had been no breakout and that he had merely requested extra guards as a precaution, but twenty times the number of men required had appeared.33 The somewhat hysterical reaction can be associated with the general war fever and the nervousness over the Afrikaner rebellion, but also with the bellicose tone of the editor of the Natal Witness, Horace Rose. This was repeated in 1915 when the liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, and

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Dominy_Text.indd 183 1/22/16 3:02 PM again in 1916 when Lord Kitchener was drowned in the sinking of HMS Hamp- shire. The focus of local hostility was the fort. The disturbances alarmed the Union government, which began planning to move the internment camp to Kimberley. This was a threat to the business the camp brought to Pietermaritzburg (long accustomed to business from Fort Na- pier), and a high-level delegation headed by the mayor went to Pretoria to meet the prime minister. General Botha was assured that the demonstrations would not have threatened Fort Napier and that the local authorities would ensure the safety of the camp if the government allowed it to remain in the city.34 The Union government relented, and the internment camp remained at Fort Napier for the remainder of the war. Boredom, poor housing, and poor food remained problems, and in January 1918 there was an outbreak of enteric fever that killed “two or three” internees and infected approximately thirty. According to the city’s medical officer of health, the origins of the disease and its spread were due to the conditions in the camp.35 As more and more Germans were transferred to Fort Napier, their wives and families began arriving, many near destitute, in Pietermaritzburg. They were patronized, snubbed, or ignored, according to the attitudes of their landlords and the public at large. The internees in the fort began an organized production of craft to raise funds to support themselves and their families. The internees set up a representative structure to deal with the camp commandant on matters such as food, health, and entertainment. This provided the organizational basis for the Kamp-industrie, which managed the production, marketing, and sales of handicrafts. Tools and materials were difficult to obtain, and the internees showed great initiative and ingenuity in obtaining or hand-making tools under the noses of suspicious guards. Wood was scoured from every available source, including the floorboards of the old barrack rooms, originally installed in the 1840s.36 One of the inmates who suffered excruciatingly from the boredom and tension of confinement was Dr. Hans Merensky, one of South Africa’s most eminent geologists. South African–born, a son of German Lutheran missionaries, he had been educated in Germany and done compulsory military service there as a student. Despite the value of his work for the country of his birth, he was interned at Fort Napier, and, as a scientist of solitary inclinations, he found the cramped, gregarious confinement depressing. He engaged in solitary walks around the pe- rimeter fences and devoted his thoughts to his scientific theories. He gave some lectures on geology and expounded the origins of the alluvial diamonds found off the Atlantic west coast of the country. Communicating his ideas outside the camp remained difficult, as his mail was censored, and by the end of the war his mental health was severely strained. On his release, he had but one suit of clothes

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Dominy_Text.indd 184 1/22/16 3:02 PM and fifteen pounds, loaned to him by the Johannesburg German-Jewish mining magnate Sir George Albu, who did a great deal to help the internees with moral and material support.37 The internment camp closed down gradually in early 1919, but restrictions were easing, even before the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Many of the inmates were repatriated to Germany, willingly or unwillingly, leaving an empty fort to loom over the city of which it had been an integral part for so long.

Red Tape and the Final Bureaucratic Maneuvers One of the more serious problems facing the authorities at the end of World War I was a problem common at the end of most wars: what to do with returning ex- servicemen? The Union government permitted homeless ex-soldiers and their families to rent some of the quarters at the fort, but no positive plans could be made until the imperial government disposed of their properties in South Af- rica. Negotiations began in earnest in 1921, and the Pietermaritzburg city council asked Dr. William O’Brien, one of the local Members of Parliament, to monitor the negotiations as they affected Fort Napier.38 Protracted exchanges went on between Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg, Pre- toria, and London. In November 1921, the Union’s secretary of defence, Sir Ro- land Bourne, visited Pietermaritzburg and proposed that the city council take over the whole of Fort Napier and the military reserve, excluding a small area for railway use. In return, the Union asked that the city council provide free land for the erection of a flight school and space for a military aviation training camp. Bourne also asked for free water and electricity. While there was interest in the City Hall, there were murmurings about the extent and vagueness of the commitments required, especially from the railways.39 No further progress could be made until the Union Parliament passed a bill to take over the British properties, and it was only in June 1922 that O’Brien informed the city council that the bill had been tabled in the House of Assembly and that he had requested the minister of defence to allow the city to acquire Fort Napier.40 At this point, confusion began creeping in: a mere three weeks later, Mayor Sanders reported hearing a rumor that the government intended to establish a mental hospital at the fort and complained that there had been no consultation with the council. William O’Brien was once again sent in on the city’s behalf.41 This investigation revealed a tangle of opposing interests and intrigues within the Union government. O’Brien reported that while the Department of Defence was negotiating with the city council for the whole Fort Napier military reserve,

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Dominy_Text.indd 185 1/22/16 3:02 PM the Department of the Interior (which at that stage administered mental hospitals) only wanted to negotiate over the future of the fort’s Methven Barracks, the least dilapidated of the accommodations, and the South African Railways and Harbours was staking its claim independently of all others.42 Sanders called a special council meeting on July 31, 1922, at which Sir Roland Bourne’s proposals were made public and the Union government was criticized for deciding to place a mental hospital in the fort without consulting the city council.43 There was a long silence in response to the criticism, until the chief of staff of the Union Defence Force, Brigadier A. J. Brink, arrived in Pietermaritzburg in December 1922 with new proposals. Sir Roland Bourne’s proposals were “entirely cancelled,” and the government was prepared to offer virtually the whole of the military reserve (1,114 acres) and the buildings to the council for the payment of £94,145, but this offer was hedged with qualifications, probably reflecting the interdepartmental bureaucratic war being waged in Pretoria at the time.44 Christmas intervened, and the council was still considering their response in the New Year when another letter arrived from Brigadier Brink stating that his previous offer contained regrettable errors, and the government was only offering 1,010 acres of military land for the stipulated sum, excluding the valuable polo grounds, which would have to be valued separately. This letter killed off any prospects of successful negotiations, and the council stood the whole matter down sine die.45 In 1924, the council managed to acquire the polo grounds, while the railways and the mental hospital took over the lion’s share of the military reserve. In De- cember 1925, a deputation of tenants, perhaps some of the ex-servicemen who had moved in after World War I, begged the council for alternative accommodation, as they had been ordered to make way for the hospital by February 1925.46 In 1927 the first mental patients were transferred into the fort from the longer-established Natal Government Asylum on Town Hill.47 The Natal Witness published a retrospective article by an anonymous writer, “Ubique,” who clearly had connections with the departed garrison, and he wrote lovingly of comradeship and the “innermost meanings” of esprit de corps, while dwelling on the important role the soldiers played in social life of the city through sport, band performances, mess dinners, and church parades. He concluded on a note of both shock and nostalgia: “And now Fort Napier is about to lose almost the very last vestiges of its military character. . . . As a Mental Hospital it will reach the lowest rung to which our sentimental ladder will descend in endeavouring to recall the good old days. But in many city homes there are cherished photographs of stiffly posed men, in old-fashioned uniforms, that assure us that their relations and descendants are not likely to forget the brave times when Maritzburg was a ‘Garrison Town.’”48

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Dominy_Text.indd 186 1/22/16 3:02 PM Before the lasting cultural legacy of the garrison for black Zulu and white English-speaking South Africans together with the role played by Afrikaans- speaking South Africans in challenging the imperial myths of the fort is examined, it is worth noting an almost Soviet-style incident in the history of Fort Napier as a mental hospital. In 1963, with South Africa in turmoil, Nelson Mandela recently arrested, and the African National Congress (ANC) leadership either with him awaiting trial, deep underground, or in exile, Fort Napier played another walk-on role in history. One of the young comrades in the movement was Eleanor Griggs, who worked in the family-owned bookshop in Durban. She was in love with Ronnie Kasrils, a committed member of Mkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC. Elea- nor was arrested in front of her mother in the bookshop under the Ninety Days Detention Laws, which allowed police interrogation without trial or access to lawyers. After brutal and abusive interrogations, Eleanor went on a hunger strike and was transferred to Fort Napier for observation of her mental health.49 As she was driven into Fort Napier, Eleanor reflected on the similarities between the prisons, the military camps, and the asylums of the country, “all laid out in similar fashion”—an observation that Foucault analyzed more theoretically many years later.50 Five weeks after she had been initially incarcerated in the asylum, she escaped by boldly walking out the main gates when the guards were distracted and proceeded into town down the route taken by generations of garrison troops. She was reunited with Ronnie, and they escaped into what was then still the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, where they reported to the colonial district commissioner; the architecture of his offices in Lobatse reminded Eleanor of Fort Napier.51 Eleanor and Ronnie married in Tanzania and spent years in exile before returning to the democratizing South Africa, where Ronnie was elected to Parliament in 1994, eventually becoming a cabinet minister. Eleanor died in 2009.

Legacies of the Last Outpost: The Absorption of Military Traditions into Popular Culture King Cetshwayo summed up the role of the army in the processes of conquest with his famous cri de coeur, “first comes the trader, then the missionary, then the red soldier.”52 While many members of the African population enjoyed military ceremony and music as much as the white settlers, the garrison was the ultimate force behind their oppression and dispossession. Yet the prolonged military occupation played its role in the adaptations African societies made to colonialism and to internalizing new imagery and belief systems. As John Comaroff and Jean

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Dominy_Text.indd 187 1/22/16 3:02 PM Comaroff have pointed out, most African societies have tried to recast intrusive European rituals, symbols, and tropes in their own terms.53 Among the most influential groups resulting from this process in South Africa are the African “independent” churches, the largest being the Zionist Christian church, and in the modern province of KwaZulu-Natal, the Shembe Nazarite church, or “Holy Church of Nazareth Baptists.”54 Castigated by the nervous colonial authorities in the early twentieth century as “Ethiopian,” it rejected missionary churches and sought an independent and sustainable existence for its adherents.55 The church was founded by the prophetic figure of Isaiah Shembe, whose early life is surrounded by myth. One of the stories is that, although a Zulu, Shembe spent his youth in the Orange Free State and served with a Boer commando. After the war he visited Natal frequently with his employer, as they moved their cattle to better seasonal grazing. His personality and fervor made him respected as a prophet in the economically and culturally stressed Zulu communities. Despite the Bambatha Rebellion and the increasing loss of land, Shembe did not encourage challenging the state but sought land and a separate lifestyle for his followers.56 Ritual was a critical factor for unifying the Nazarite faithful, and Shembe drew on Western and African traditions. His followers were grouped, Zulu-style, into regiments according to age and gender, but significantly, he picked Western-style military uniforms for the regiments, part of a more widespread social development at the time: King Cetshwayo’s grandson, Solomon ka Dinuzulu, heir to a politically almost powerless title, met Edward, Prince of Wales, at Eshowe in 1925 in a striking ceremonial British military-style uniform. Shembe and Solomon were appropriating and redeploying imperial symbols to increase their own status, an approach not restricted to South Africa.57 This was an early symbolic show of strength to defy those who had destroyed the Zulu Kingdom and made war in 1879 and 1906, and it foreshadows the adaptation of western military uniforms by the ANC and the Inkatha Zulu nationalist and cultural movement.58 Shembe’s most spectacular and successful uniform adaptation was the kilt for the young men of his iBandla lamaNazaretha regiment. Kilts were popular symbols across much of the empire, as part of the Victorian-invented Highland tradition.59 In the Natal context, Shembe’s choice seems to have been inspired by the uniform of the Cameron Highlanders, who were rushed to Fort Napier during the Bambatha Rebellion. Stylistically, kilts (and sporrans) were similar to the loin coverings worn by men in Zulu regiments, so the dress invoked a dual militaristic image for soldiers of a new faith.60 The garrison had an even longer-lasting impact on English-speaking Natal. Memorials were erected in cemeteries, parks, and in the City Hall. Regular com-

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Dominy_Text.indd 188 1/22/16 3:02 PM memorative ceremonies were held. The Sons of England organized St. George’s Day services in the former garrison church each year. The girls of Wykeham School cleaned all the brass in the church beforehand. The city council played its part in the ceremonies, and until long after World War II, the mayor and council attended the services at the church and the Fort Napier cemetery to honor the British soldiers buried there.61 Pietermaritzburg and Natal’s determined and persistent “Britishness” was not simply a matter of nostalgia; it was an assertion of a local identity focused against the perceived threat of the time, Afrikaner nationalism; African nationalism was not even registered as a threat. John Lambert, pursuing a remark by Lord Milner, has compared Natal with Ulster, loyal and quirky and increasingly defined as much by what they were against as by what they were.62 A key example of the awkwardness came in 1938, the centenary of the Great Trek and a moment ruthlessly exploited by Afrikaner nationalism to assert itself against black and British.63 The English were virtually excluded from the main national festival in Pretoria, and this posed something of a dilemma in Pietermaritzburg, a city founded by Voortrekkers. One way of resolving the dilemma was to emphasize the gallantry and centrality of the garrison. Centennial memories of old timers such as John Mockler (a veteran of the 82nd Regiment) praised the troops in Fort Napier, who had kept the town “alive.” A retired innkeeper, Sammy Froomberg, supported the same views, despite the fact that he had been assaulted by the Inniskilling mutineers in 1887.64 Denis Shepstone, the grandson of Sir Theophilus Shepstone and administrator of the Province of Natal, wrote a memoir of Pietermaritzburg, which he described as the “last outpost of the British Empire,” focusing on the 1880s and mentioning the Inniskilling mutiny. Shepstone wrote affectionately of the garrison and signed himself, “One who knew and loved them all.”65 To admit to failings in the face of the Great Trek Centenary propaganda onslaught would have been unthinkable for the loyalists of Natal, but the rosy images persisted, and even in the 1970s the Durban and Pietermaritzburg campuses of the University of Natal had small Empire Loyalist Societies. While they were mainly drinking clubs and delighted in irritating conservative white Rhodesian students, many of their members were liberal or left-wing and even undertook underground activities for the ANC.66 The last issue to be considered is the fate of the military reserve land around Fort Napier. The transfer of the ordnance reserve in Durban in the 1890s fostered the settlement of the burgeoning urban African and Indian populations until they were removed by increasingly segregationist local and national governments between the 1930s and the 1950s. In Pietermaritzburg, the Department of Railways and Harbours took over most of the military reserve in 1925. New housing for an

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Dominy_Text.indd 189 1/22/16 3:02 PM exclusively white, increasingly Afrikaans-speaking, community of railway workers was built on the military land and called Napierville.67 It was from among this this group of marginalized “poor whites,” who had the most reason to feel “inferior and stigmatized,” that the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging, led by Henning Klopper, a founding member of the Broederbond, was formed.68 The Broederbond was one of the most militant Afrikaner cultural organizations and was responsible for challenging English cultural dominance, first on the railways and then throughout the public service. Thus, the thirty-year gap between the transfer of military land in Durban and the transfer in Pietermaritzburg had very different ideological effects and influences on the urban environments. In Durban, space was provided for Africans to establish themselves in the urban environment, close to jobs and economic opportunities. In Pietermaritzburg, the urban environment was becoming more segregated, and the space enabled Afrikaner “poor whites” to establish themselves near their jobs on the railways. In Pietermaritzburg, the Afrikaner challenge to English cultural dominance arose, quite literally, from among the the ruins of Fort Napier; veritably the last imperial outpost in South Africa. During the years of apartheid, St. George’s garrison church withered away as Napierville, the government housing around the old fort, was allocated increasingly to Afrikaans-speaking railway workers of the Dutch Reformed faith, if any. Among the most important ploys used to keep the garrison church functioning were the commemoration of events that recalled the glory days of the garrison, St. George’s Day being the most important. Nowdays, more than twenty years after the dawn of democracy, the majority of the residents of Napierville are Africans, many of them Anglicans, and St. George’s garrison church once again boasts a full congregation.69

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Dominy_Text.indd 190 1/22/16 3:02 PM Appendix

List of Regiments in Garrison in Natal/Pietermaritzburg, 1842–1914

his list has been compiled from many diverse sources in an attempt to pro- Tvide a more comprehensive account than those previously available. The published sources are Brinton, History of the British Regiments in South Africa, 1795–1895; Swinson, A Register of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army; the Natal Almanacs; Brookes and Webb, A History of Natal (See appendix 2, pp. 306–7); Laband and Thompson, A Field Guide to the War in Zululand; and Laband and Haswell, Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City (see Dominy, “Regiments in Garrison at Fort Napier, 1843–1914,” 109). Vari- ous regimental pay lists in the War Office Papers at Kew and regimental histories referred to in the text and listed in the bibliography have also been consulted. Another important source is the list of regiments carved in marble on the memorial plaques erected in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall. The exact date of a regiment’s arrival or departure is not given, as these are often difficult to pinpoint for logistical or administrative reasons (for example, the length of time troops could wait aboard ship before landing, or the difficulty in determining the actual date of a regiment’s departure when sections left over a period of time). Support and specialist units such as the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Royal Engineers, the Ordnance Corps, and commissariat are not specifically mentioned. The half-batteries of Royal Artillery that usually accompanied the regiments to Natal until the enlargement of the garrison in the 1880s are not mentioned, as

Dominy_Text.indd 191 1/22/16 3:02 PM they fell entirely under the infantry regiment they were accompanying. However, the full mountain batteries that were deployed to Fort Napier between 1884 and the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War are specified. The numerical and territorial designations of infantry regiments are given, although the county designations were only formalized in 1881. The various reor- ganizations of the British Army, including the Cardwell Reforms, have produced many changes between the 1960s and the second decade of the twenty-first century, making it extremely difficult to directly link a modern amalgamated regiment to a numbered or county regiment of the nineteenth century. The first British troops to be deployed in Natal were a detachment of the 72nd Regiment (Seaforth Highlanders), who were stationed at Port Natal for a few months from December 1838 to early 1839. They are not considered to have been part of the permanent garrison of the colony. The major deployment of forces that took part in the Anglo-Zulu and Anglo-Boer Wars are also not mentioned.

Cavalry (including formal, regular, and designated mounted-infantry units) 1842–70 Cape Mounted Riflemen 1881–90 6th Inniskilling Dragoons 1890–92 11th Hussars 1892–95 3rd Dragoon Guards 1895–98 7th Hussars 1896–97 9th Lancers 1898–99 5h Royal Irish Lancers

Artillery 1884–93 4th Mountain Battery 1893–99 10th Mountain Battery

Infantry 1842–45 27th Regt. (Inniskilling Regt. of Foot)1 1843–59 45th Regt. (1st Nottinghamshire Regt./First Sherwood Foresters)2 1859–63 85th Regt. (2nd King’s Shropshire Light Infantry) 1861 59th Regt. (2nd East Lancashire Regt.)3 1863–64 2/5th Regt. (2nd Royal Northumberland Fusiliers) 1864–65 2/11th Regt. (2nd Devonshire Regt.) 1865–67 99th Regt. (Duke of Edinburgh’s, 2nd Wiltshire Regt.) 1867–70 2/20th Regt. (2nd Lancashire Fusiliers)

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Dominy_Text.indd 192 1/22/16 3:02 PM 1870–71 32nd Regt. (1st Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry) 1871–75 75th Regt. (1st Gordon Highlanders) 1875–77 1/13th Regt. (Prince Albert’s, 1st Somerset Light Infantry) 1877–78 80th Regt. (2nd South Staffordshire Regt.) 1877–78 2/3rd Regt. (The Buffs, 2nd East Kent Regt.) 1878 1/24th Regt. (2nd Warwickshire Regt./South Wales Borderers)4 1878 2/24th Regt. (2nd Warwickshire Regt./South Wales Borderers) 1879 Anglo-Zulu War5 1879–80 3/60th Regt. (King’s Royal Rifle Corps) 1880–84 58th Regt. (2nd Northamptonshire Regt.) 1881–86 41st Regt. (1st Welch Regt.) 1883–85 91st Regt. (Princess Louise’s, 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) 1884–87 82nd Regt. (Prince of Wales’ Volunteers, 2nd South Lancashire Regt.) 1886–88 27th Regt. (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers)6 1888–91 1st Regt. (1st Royal Scots/Lothian Regt.) 1887–90 64th Regt. (1st North Staffordshire Regt.) 1891–94 84th Regt. (2nd York and Lancaster Regt.) 1894–98 76th Regt. (Duke of Wellington’s 2nd West Riding Regt.) 1897–99 103rd Regt. (2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers) 1898–99 1/17th Regt. (1st Leicestershire Regt.) 1899–1902 Anglo-Boer War7 1902–3 2/4th Regt. (2nd King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regt.) 1902–3 2/14th Regt. (Prince of Wales’ Own, 2nd West Yorkshire Regt.) 1903–8 1st Royal Garrison Regt. 1906 2/79th Regt. (Queen’s Own, 2nd Cameron Highlanders) 1906–7 6th Regt. (3rd Royal Warwickshire Regt.) 1907–9 9th Regt. (2nd Norfolk Regt.) 1908–9 7th Regt. (3rd Royal Fusiliers) 1909–13 62nd Regt. (1st Wiltshire Regt.) 1913–14 38th Regt. (1st South Staffordshire Regt.)

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Dominy_Text.indd 193 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 194 1/22/16 3:02 PM Notes on Sources

he history of the garrison of Fort Napier can be traced in numerous sources, Tpublished and unpublished, official and unofficial. Given the seven decades of military occupation, it is to be expected that the nature of the official sources changed over time. The search for records began in the two anchor archival re- positories: the former Public Records Office at Kew in England (now the National Archives of the United Kingdom [UKNA]) and the former Natal Archives Depot in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa (now the Pietermaritzburg Archives Reposi- tory of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Archives and Records Service [PAR]). In the United Kingdom, it extended to various local regimental and corps museums, archives, and private collections from Edinburgh in the north to Canterbury in the south. After the former Public Records Office, the most important repository was the library of the National Army Museum, Chelsea (NAM), with its incom- parable regimental records. In South Africa, the major unofficial archival resources were the special collections in the former Natal Society Library, Pietermaritzburg, now housed at the Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archive at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, and at the Killie Campbell Africana Collections of the same university in Durban. The War Office archives provided the essential framework for the history of the regiments occupying the fort, as well many of the papers relating to policy and administration. However, the War Office records have also had their wars, and considerable damage and loss occurred to these papers during the German

Dominy_Text.indd 195 1/22/16 3:02 PM bombing of London in World War II. Among those lost were the court-martial records, which was a great frustration when attempting to unravel the events around the mutiny of the Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1887. Many promising series, such as the reports from the GOC at the Cape to the secretary of state for war, petered out, and reports through other channels do not seem to have survived in anything other than fragmentary form. Records dealing with the campaigns and wars against Boer and Zulu are in plentiful supply, but the type of information preserved by military authorities during times of peace posed problems. Regimental pay lists and movement orders give names, dates, and places, but it is difficult to glean information that fleshes out social history from these cryptic returns. This also illustrates an additional problem with the War Office documentation: its repetitive pettiness. Precise, pettifogging detail is given on the composition of units during deployments and on the organization of transport and equipment, and while this would have been essential for what is now called “accountability,” it answers the “what” rather than the “why.” The regiments and subordinate units, down to company level, were required to keep strict records, such as an Order Book, a Day Book, and a Defaulter’s Book.1 These have not survived in anything more than fragmentary form. The army was reluctant to preserve records once their immediate usefulness had passed, and there was a strong disinclination to transport redundant records as regiments were rotated and transshipped. This was a common experience among far-flung outposts in the Victorian era.2 An official at the Public Records Office to whom I expressed my frustrations recommended that I study the Royal Navy rather than the British Army, as the Admiralty kept its records better than the War Office. Military records at the National Army Museum are well kept, and the institution has an excellent library. Every unit of the British Army is indexed, but the regimental histories are often merely embellishments of the official records. Except for battles and campaigns, where there is often much blood, there is little research meat in the peacetime records. Mark Francis similarly expressed his frustrations at the paucity of records on colonial ceremonies and noted that, “despite the fact that they seem to have engrossed more administrative care than any other activity, the only record usually left to posterity was a solemn notation that it took place.”3 Fortunately, the library at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine contains the Royal Army Medical Corps papers and the papers of Sir John Hall and Surgeon Major William Cattell, which provided important insight into health and events at Fort Napier. Of the regimental museums and libraries visited, those in Enniskillen, Brecon, and Nottingham contained the most useful material, while those in Chester and

196 Notes on Sources

Dominy_Text.indd 196 1/22/16 3:02 PM Edinburgh were less useful. The Army Museums Ogilby Trust in Aldershot had useful material in the Tylden papers, particularly on the Cape Mounted Riflemen. Officers otewr many memoirs, and while accounts of battles and campaigns predominate, the mental attitudes of the officers and gentlemen can also be gleaned from them. When not campaigning, there are often more comments on sport and hunting than on the men they commanded or on the “internal economy” of the regiments. General Tulloch’s memoirs are a valuable and important exception to this trend.4 Accounts of life in the Victorian army by the “other ranks” are not as frequent, and many seem to have been written to enhance the respectability of the writer. Some are patriotic Kiplingesque trumpetings, and others are fervently religious. The Papers of Colour Sergeant Goodall in the National Army Museum contain a rare practical account of life in the ranks at Fort Napier by Corporal Barford, who wanted to prove that short-service soldiers were as good as long-service soldiers.5 The most useful sources in South Africa were found in the then–Natal Archives Depot in Pietermaritzburg (now the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository), where I began my career as an archivist in 1977. The most important series was the Government House records. These were exquisitely restored and rebound in the 1970s, but, in the process, the integrity and original internal arrangement of the group was destroyed, and an unhelpful and artificial system was imposed by the then State Archives Service, to the frustration of researchers. While British records suffered in the Blitz, the colonial records of Natal were damaged in an epic fire in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall in the 1890s, and the city council’s records and the city magistrate’s records were destroyed. Most of Bishop Colenso’s papers were destroyed when his home, Bishopstowe, was burned down a decade earlier. This led me to fall back on the published papers of the colony, which provided an account of the costs of the garrison but gave no indication of who made money out of supplying the fort with its essentials. The Campbell Collections of the University of Natal in Durban (now the University of KwaZulu Natal) provided some important sources, including the Stuart papers, which recorded Zulu oral testimony; the Bird papers in the Natal Museum (now the KwaZulu Natal Museum) were also important sources. The most important source for my research was the Natal Witness newspaper. This is still being published (under the name Witness) and is South Africa’s old- est newspaper. Other shorter-lived or newer newspapers were also consulted and provided useful information, but the core material came from the Natal Witness. Much material came from the writing of others on Natal and Zululand, which I was able to reinterpret and from which I drew information, for which I take full responsibility.

Notes on Sources 197

Dominy_Text.indd 197 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 198 1/22/16 3:02 PM Notes

Preface 1. The Curragh was a permanent British military post between 1855 and 1922. See Wil- liams, “The Curragh.” 2. D. Shepstone, “An Episode of the ‘Eighties’ at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg, Natal, 14 Nov. 1943,” uncat. ms., Regimental Museum, Enniskillen, N.I. 3. Qtd. in David Robbins and Wyndham Hartley, Inside the Last Outpost (Pietermaritz- burg: Shuter and Shooter, 1985), 1. See also John Lambert, “‘The Last Outpost’: The Natalians, South Africa, and the British Empire,” in Settlers and Expatriates: Britons over the Seas, ed. Robert Bickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 150–77. 4. Wilcox, Red Coat Dreaming. 5. Ross and Telkamp, Colonial Cities, 1. 6. Burton, Highlands of Kaffraria; see also Denver A. Webb, “A Survey of Fortifications in the Province of Queen Adelaide and British Kaffaria, 1835–1866,”Annals of the Cape Provincial Museums 1.6 (August 31, 1989): 211–60. Webb’s research has been brought up to date in his doctoral dissertation, “Kraals of Guns and Redouts of Authority” (University of Fort Hare, 2015). 7. Bouch, “The Colonization of Queenstown (Eastern Cape) and Its Hinterland,” 28; Bundy, Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry, 30–32; Webb, “King William’s Town during the South African War.” 8. Bird, Annals of Natal. Hattersley’s works are referred to below. 9. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal; Duminy and Guest, eds., Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910.

Dominy_Text.indd 199 1/22/16 3:02 PM 10. Crossley, “Imperial Garrison of Natal,” 183–84. 11. John Laband and Robert Haswell, eds., Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988 (see Graham Dominy and Hamish Paterson, “Fort Napier: The Imperial Base that Shaped the City,” 102–9). 12. Qtd. in Froude, Lord Beaconsfield, 213. 13. Guy, The Heretic; and Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal. 14. Martineau, Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere, 304. 15. Thompson, “Report.” 16. Parliamentary Monitoring Group, “Briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Arts and Culture.”

Chapter 1. Fort Napier 1. Comaroff and Comaroff,Of Revelation and Revolution, 10. 2. Hearn, Gender of Oppression, 116. 3. Jeater, Marriage, Perversion, and Power, 33. 4. The terms “Anglo-Zulu War,” “Anglo-Transvaal War,” and “Anglo-Boer War” will be used in this work, as the focus is regional, and the term “South African War” for the second Anglo-Boer War is therefore out of place. 5. Boahen, African Perspectives on Colonialism, 58. See also Kiernan, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse. 6. Lamar and Thompson, Frontier in History, 3–13. 7. D. M. Schreuder argues that the frontier closed in 1895, with the British annexation of Thongaland/Maputaland (Scramble for Southern Africa, 301). 8. Trustram, Women of the Regiment, 3. See also Venning, Following the Drum. 9. Muller, “Garrison Revisited.” 10. Ibid., 354. 11. Davis, “Imperial Garrison in New Zealand,” 30 (Australia) and 40–41 (New Zealand). 12. Hahn, “Slave Emancipation, Indian Peoples, and the Projects of a New American Nation-State.” I am indebted to Robert Hunt of Middle Tennessee State University for providing me with this information. 13. Ibid., 35–36. 14. Utley, Frontier Regulars, 83–84. 15. Muller, “Garrison Revisited,” 353. 16. Ibid., 354. 17. See Grant, British Battles on Land and Sea, vol. 2, 178–84. 18. Muller, “Garrison Revisited,” 358–60. 19. Ibid., 360. 20. Padiak, “‘Serious Evil of Marching Regiments.’” 21. Muller, “Garrison Revisited,” 358. 22. For an excellent overview of the Halifax garrison, see Fingard, Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax. See also Piers, Evolution of the Halifax Fortress.

200 Notes to Preface and Chapter 2

Dominy_Text.indd 200 1/22/16 3:02 PM 23. Kyte, “Influence of the British Garrison on the Development of the Montreal Police.” See also Senior, British Regulars in Montreal. 24. Stanley, Remote Garrison, 14. Stanley’s overview provides most of the background for this section on the Australian garrisons. 25. McLachlan, “Bathurst Tale of Shame and Disgrace.” 26. McLachlan and MacFie, “Historical Survey of Port Arthur Garrison and Military Barracks,” 6–7. 27. Ibid., 35–38. 28. Ibid., 7. 29. See Davis, “Imperial Garrison in New Zealand,” for background on the role of the garrison in New Zealand. 30. Qtd. in Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 7, p. 516.

Chapter 2. From Whence They Came 1. Two works of Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society, 1815–1914 and The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902, are particularly useful for this topic, and Spiers’s research underpins much of this chapter. See also Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy, chap. 2, 50–77; and Holmes, Redcoat. 2. See Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy; Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 12, for broad outlines of the duties and functions of the British Army. 3. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 60–61 and appendix 3, for the text of the Stanhope memorandum. 4. Carver, National Army Book of the Boer War, 12–13. 5. Laband and Thompson, Field Guide to the War in Zululand and the Defence of Natal, 9. 6. Holmes, Redcoat, 19. 7. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, 34–35 and 60. See also Killingray, “Idea of a Brit- ish Imperial Army,” 421–36. 8. Clayton, British Officer, 277. 9. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, 12–13. See also Killingray, “Idea of a British Imperial Army,” 277. 10. Holmes, Redcoat, 88. 11. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 6. 12. Ibid., 7. 13. Ibid., 31–33. 14. Holmes, Redcoat, 90. 15. Ibid., 101. 16. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, chap. 1, 2–28. See also Bond, “Effect of the Cardwell Reforms on Army Organisation,” 515–24; and Monick, “Army in Transition,” 221–24. 17. Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy, 180. 18. Holmes, Redcoat, 75.

Notes to Chapters 1 and 2 201

Dominy_Text.indd 201 1/22/16 3:02 PM 19. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 6–7. 20. Slater, “Problem of Purchase Abolition in the British Army.” 21. Huffer, “Infantry Officers of the Line of the British Army,” 7–8. 22. Sheffield, “Officer-Man Relations, Morale, and Discipline in the British Army,” 3. 23. UKNA, War Office Papers [hereafter WO], WO 33/3A, “Reports and Miscellaneous Papers 1856” (Nos. 10–84): 73(56), Memo by C-in-C, December 12, 1856. 24. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 96–97. 25. “Ubique” [anon.], “The Value of Fox-Hunting.” 26. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, 10. 27. Ibid., 11. 28. MacDonald, Language of Empire, 20. 29. Weir and Brown, Riding and Polo, 235. 30. Baker, Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon, xv. 31. Spiers, Army and Society, 1. 32. Ibid., 1–2. 33. Kiernan, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 21. See also Pocock, “British History”; and McCracken, Irish Pro-Boers, 115. 34. Muenger, British Dilemma in Ireland. 35. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 104. 36. Sheffield, “Officer-Man Relations,” 6. 37. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 107–8. 38. McLachlan, “Bathurst Tale of Shame and Disgrace,’ 2. 39. PAR, A 1216, Colonel Stabb Papers, 2/1/48, King to Stabb, May 18, 1887. 40. Holmes, Redcoat, 148. 41. Kiernan, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 20–21. 42. Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy, 102–3. 43. Knight, Go to Your God Like a Soldier, 16. 44. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 129. 45. Skelley, Victorian Army at Home, 284–85 and 287. 46. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 131. 47. Henderson, Highland Soldier, 24. 48. Peter Stanley, “Soldiers and Fellow-Countrymen in Colonial Australia,” in Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace, ed. M. McKernan and M. Brown (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1988), 65–91 (see esp. 69). 49. Spiers, Army and Society, 41. 50. Holmes, Redcoat, 269. 51. Spiers, Army and Society, 60. 52. Stanley, “Horn to Put Your Powder In,” 9–10. 53. Holmes, Redcoat, 270. 54. Spiers, Army and Society, 62–63. 55. The process and arrangements were clinically described in The Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army.

202 Notes to Chapter 2

Dominy_Text.indd 202 1/22/16 3:02 PM 56. Hopkins, Strange Death of Private White, 14–15. 57. “Never Flog Our Soldiers,” popular ballad, qtd. in ibid., 17. 58. Spiers, Victorian Soldier in Africa, 38. 59. The Times, June 1879, qtd. in Hopkins, Strange Death of Private White, 233. 60. Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 73–74. 61. Times of Natal, July 5, 1889. 62. Edward Spiers, Army and Society, 63–64. 63. Ibid., 66–67. 64. Belich, New Zealand Wars, 23. See also Sheffield, “Officer-Man Relations,” 9. 65. Xenophon II [anon.], “Character Training.” 66. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 135–69. 67. Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 141 and 237. See also Whitfield, “Tommy Atkins’ Family,” 65–72. 68. Trustram, Women of the Regiment, 29–30. 69. Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 353. 70. Whitfield, “Tommy Atkins’ Family,” 65. 71. Luddy, “Women of the Pave,” 16–19. 72. Trustram, Women of the Regiment, 117–18. 73. This was a universal problem. See, for example, Duffin, “Soldiers’ Work; Soldiers’ Health.” 74. Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 213. 75. Ibid., 214. 76. Henderson, Highland Soldier, 37. 77. Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 214–15.

Chapter 3. Establishing an Imperial Presence 1. The pioneering work in the new historiography was Martin Legassick’s influential dissertation, completed in 1969 and published in 2010 as The Politics of a South African Frontier: The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana, and the Missionaries, 1780–1840. Much other early research was brought together by Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore in their 1980 edited volume, Economy and Society in Pre-industrial South Africa. John Wright’s dissertation, “The Dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu Region in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: A Critical Reconstruction,” documented the population movements and political dynamics within African societies within which the garrison began to operate. 2. See Emery, Red Soldier (quotation on title page). 3. Mclennan, Proper Degree of Terror; and Mostert, Frontiers. See also Webb, “Kraals of Guns and Redoubts of Authority”; and Peires, House of Phalo. 4. Marks and Atmore, “Firearms in Southern Africa.” 5. Hamilton, “Authoring Shaka,” 214–19. 6. There is a succinct summary in Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 29–35.

Notes to Chapters 2 and 3 203

Dominy_Text.indd 203 1/22/16 3:02 PM 7. Etherington, “Great Trek in Relation to the Mfecane,” 3–21. 8. British Library [hereafter BL], ms. Add MS 49169, Papers of Sir George Napier, Lindley to Napier, Port Elizabeth, September 15, 1839, p. 68. 9. This section is largely drawn from Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 35–37. 10. Ibid., 37—38. See also William Beinart, “Production and the Material Basis of Chief- tainship: Pondoland c. 1830–1880,” in Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, ed. Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore (London: Longman, 1980), 120–47. 11. Stapleton, Faku, 57–59. 12. Cubbin, “Origins of the British Settlement at Port Natal,” 212–13. 13. Ibid., 213–14. 14. Stapleton, Faku, 60. 15. This section is based on Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 290–91; and Gibb, “Memoranda Descriptive of the Attack by the Boers on the Force under Command of Major Smith,” 230–41. 16. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 290. 17. Gibb, “Memoranda,” 232–33; Cubbin, “Origins of the British Settlement at Port Natal,” 226. 18. Laband, Transvaal Rebellion, 96 (for the delivery of a Boer ultimatum to Colonel Anstruthers at the beginning of the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit). 19. Redding, Sorcery and Sovereignty, 97. 20. A colonial view appears in Russell, The History of Old Durban and Reminiscences of an Emigrant of 1850; and modern accounts include Knight “Siege of Port Natal,” 15–17; and Cubbin, “Origins of the British Settlement at Port Natal,” 229–65. 21. King’s ride rapidly became part of Natal settler folklore and provided evidence of British pioneering sacrifices when Afrikaner nationalist histories focused on Voortrekker heroism. Russell claimed that King “performed a noble act . . . that any of our sons might be proud to emulate” (History of Old Durban, 28–29). 22. Bird, Annals of Natal, vol. 2, 6–7 (for the despatch of the women to the Mazeppa) and 17 (for Smith’s complaints at the presence of black women and in his besieged fort [Smith’s report, June 30, 1842]). 23. Cubbin, “Origins of the British Settlement at Port Natal,” 266–71. 24. Qtd. in Jean Nourse, “Lieutenant Joseph Nourse, Early Natal Pioneer and Port Captain,” Natalia 2 (1972): 24–26. 25. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 48. 26. Bird, Annals of Natal, 175–76 (Cloete to Montagu, June 5, 1843). 27. Ibid., 186–93 (Cloete to Montagu, June 19, 1843; and Cloete to Napier, June 20, 1843). 28. Ibid., 210–12 (Smith to Napier, July 8, 1843). 29. Ibid., 227–29 (Cloete to Smith, July 26, 1843). 30. Ibid., 246–47 (Pretorius to Cloete, August 1, 1843) and 249–50 (Cloete to Montagu, August 3, 1843). 31. Ibid., 256–64 (Cloete to Montagu, August 8, 1843).

204 Notes to Chapter 3

Dominy_Text.indd 204 1/22/16 3:02 PM 32. Ibid., 268–72 (Cloete to Montagu, August 12, 1843). 33. Ibid., 262 (Cloete to Montagu, August 8, 1843). 34. See Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 154; see also WO 55/891, Ordnance Engineer Pa- pers (Cape of Good Hope 1842–1845), 9/171: Gibb to Marshall, September 5, 1843 (enc. in Marshall to Fanshawe, September 30, 1843—ms. copy). For Thomas Green’s date, see Bird, “Echoes of the Past,” 74. 35. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 154–55. See also Hattersley, More Annals of Natal, 117–19; and Laband and Haswell, Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988, 102. 36. Bird, Annals of Natal, 188 (Cloete to Montagu, June 19, 1843). See also Bird, “Echoes of the Past,” 75 (Thomas Green’s reminiscences); and PAR Bird Papers, vol. 11, ms. Frans Wolhuter. 37. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 155. 38. Bird, Annals of Natal, 283 (Cloete to Montagu: September 7, 1843).

Chapter 4. Building a Fort 1. Shelagh Spencer, “Nineteenth-Century Loop Street,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 1988), 77. 2. WO55/891 (enc. 9/171): Gibb to Marshall, September 5, 1843. 3. Ibid.: Marshall to Fanshawe, September 30, 1843 (enc: No 9/171: Gibb to Marshall, September 5, 1843). 4. PAR BPP (unnum.), South Africa 1847–1848, “Correspondence Relative to the Es- tablishment of Natal” (July 1848): Natal No. 6—Maitland to Stanley, June 4, 1844 (enc. 2 Gibb to Marshall, September 5, 1844). 5. Hattersley, More Annals of Natal, 117–19. 6. WO 1/439, Cape of Good Hope 1842–1845 (letters received), 1842–1845 (military vol. 2): No. 174: Office of Ordnance to James Stephens (Colonial Office), March 17, 1845, enc. report of IGF on Fort Napier, March 10, 1845; enc. Report No. 21: CRE, Cape, to IGF, December 14, 1843, 439–40. 7. See WO 55/897, Ordnance Engineer Papers, Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon etc., 1846–47, No 263: Marginal note on CRE to IGF, “List of Plans in Charge of RE Office Eastern Cape Frontier, December 28, 1848.” This contains some Natal plans, but none of Fort Napier, nor are Gibb’s plans available in the WO 78 series in the Map Room at Kew (although there are nine references to later plans of the fort). The Gibb plans have not been traced in any South African repository either. 8. WO 1/438, Cape of Good Hope 1842–1845 Military, No. 454: Maitland to Stanley, June 4, 1844. 9. WO 55/891, Cape 273, Byham to Mulcaster, December 30, 1844. 10. WO 1/438, Military No. 30: Minute: Smith to Stephens, April 29, 1845, on Maitland to Stanley, February 26, 1845, p. 585.

Notes to Chapters 3 and 4 205

Dominy_Text.indd 205 1/22/16 3:02 PM 11. WO 55/891, No. 127: CRE Cape Town to IGF, September 26, 1845. 12. WO 55/897, No. 134: CRE Cape Town to IGF, November 24, 1845. 13. See Benyon, Proconsul and Paramountcy in South Africa, 30–77; and Galbraith, Reluctant Empire. 14. WO 1/439, Cape of Good Hope (Letters Received) 1842–1845, Military Vol. 2, No. 174 Cape (Military) Office of Ordnance to James Stephens (CO), March 17, 1845—forwards report of IGF, March 10, 1845, on Fort Napier, pp. 435–37. 15. Connolly, History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, vol. 1, 387–88. 16. WO 1/439, No. 47, CRE to IGF, July 16, 1844 (enc. Gibb to CRE, June 22, 1844), pp. 443–45. 17. WO 1/439, No. 174, Cape (Military): Gibb’s report of June 22, 1844, pp. 443–45. 18. Ibid., p. 444. 19. Letter from “M.A.,” Fort Napier, Natal Witness, November 27, 1846. 20. WO 28/270, General Orders: Cape of Good Hope 1841–1851. 21. WO 55/897, Ordnance Engineer Papers: Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, etc., 1846–1847 (also described as Ordnance Miscellanea): “Report on the Colony of Natal, etc. by Lieut. Colonel Piper,” Cape Town, April 30, 1846, 23–26. 22. Ibid., penciled comment on outside cover of Piper’s report: “E.F.,” December 9, 1846. 23. Peires, House of Phalo, 165. 24. Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 59. 25. Harington, Sir Harry Smith, 126–27. 26. No such report has been traced at the PRO, the NAM, the Sherwood Foresters regimental archives in Nottingham, or at any repository in South Africa. 27. The background is well covered in Galbraith, Reluctant Empire; and Benyon, Pro- consul and Paramountcy in South Africa, 30–77. 28. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 53. 29. Guest and Sellers, Enterprise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony; Duminy and Guest, Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910. 30. Le Cordeur, “Relations between the Cape and Natal,” 10. 31. See Sainty, Office-Holders in Modern Britain. This work is useful for identifying initials and marginal comments in the papers. 32. WO 1/449, Cape of Good Hope 1852 Military, vol. 2 Miscellaneous. Letter 10948 Natal Military: G. Butler, Office of Ordnance, to H. Merivale, November 29, 1852; Minute by P. Smith to H. Merivale, December 3, 1852, pp. 147–48. 33. WO 1/450, Cape of Good Hope 1853 Military, Letter 3948 Cape Military, Cathcart to Secretary of State, King Williams Town, February 11, 1853. 34. Ibid., Minute by P. Smith, April 4, 1853, pp. 20–21. 35. Ibid., Remark by “J.P.,” April 6, 1853, with the concurrence of Newcastle, April 7. 36. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 75–76; and Bill Guest, “Colonists, Confedera- tion, and Constitutional Change,” in Natal and Zululand, ed. Duminy and Guest, 146–47.

206 Notes to Chapter 4

Dominy_Text.indd 206 1/22/16 3:02 PM Chapter 5. Pageantry, Pioneers, Panics, and Punitive Expeditions . 1 Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 65. 2. Rob Haswell, “Pieter Mauritz Burg: The Genesis of a Voortrekker Hoofdplaats,” in Pietermaritzburg: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 1988), 27. 3. WO 1/439, No. 456 (Cape Military): Report from Cloete (enc. Ordnance to CO), August 12, 1844. 4. Ibid., and No. 579: Cloete to Montagu, September 25, 1844. 5. PAR A435, G. F. Robbins, “History of Fort Napier” [ms.], p. 11. See also Tyrell, “45th Regiment of Foot,” 100–103. 6. WO 28/270, General Orders: Cape of Good Hope 1841–1851, January 6, 1845, n.p. 7. PAR A79, “C. T. [Kit] Bird Papers,” vol. 6, “Reminiscences of Thomas Green.” 8. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 155. 9. Notules van de Natalse Volksraad, SA Archival Records, Natal No. 1: Meeting of September 6-October 11, 1844, p. 227 (my translation). 10. NAM, Permanent Regimental Order Book, 1842–1849, May 19, 1846, 76. 11. The Natalier, July 28, 1846 (advertisement: tenders for bullock wagons for period August 1, 1846, to March 31, 1847). 12. Guy, Theophilus Shepstone, 65. 13. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 64. 14. PAR EC 6, Minutes December 14, 1855-November 8, 1856, 118–19. 15. Natal Witness, March 9, 1855, 2. 16. GH 499, Letters received: December 22, 1857, to September 15, 1875 (Officer Com- manding the Forces in S.A.). See R41/1858, GOC, Sir James Jackson to Scott, December 22, 1857, 2–4. 17. MacDonald, Language of Empire, 19. 18. Eric Hobsbawm, Introduction to The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 11. 19. Comaroff and Comaroff,Of Revelation and Revolution, 12. 20. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 114. 21. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 144. 22. Guy, Theophilus Shepstone, 284–86. 23. PAR A435, Robbins, “Early Natal History.” 24. The Natalier, February 13, 1846. 25. Stapleton, Maqoma; and Peires, House of Phalo, 165–67. 26. WO 1/440, No. 760 (Cape of Good Hope Military): Maitland to Stanley, March 13, 1846 (enc.). 27. Ibid., enc. Boys to West, February 19, 1846. 28. Stapleton, Faku, 56–57.

Notes to Chapter 5 207

Dominy_Text.indd 207 1/22/16 3:02 PM 29. Natal Witness, February 5, 1847 (proclamation of Lt. Gov. West). 30. Guy, Theophilus Shepstone, 103. 31. S.A. Archival Records, Natal No. 2, Statement of “Umfingeli,” January 4, 1847, and Moodie to Shepstone, January 6, 1847, p. 114. 32. Natal Witness, February 19, 1847. See also Gordon, Shepstone, 132–35; Wright, Bush- man Raiders of the Natal Drakensberg, 65–66. 33. Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, 13. 34. Mann, Colony of Natal, 27. 35. S.A. Archival Records, Natal No. 3, “Records of the Natal Executive Council 1849– 1852,” Meeting 85, Annexure 2, Pine to Smith, July 4, 1851, 281–95. 36. Natal Witness, May 9, 1851. 37. Editorial, Natal Witness, May 16, 1851. 38. Barter, Dorp and the Veld, 183. 39. [Robinson], Life at Natal a Hundred Years Ago by a Lady, 78. 40. Rees, Colenso Letters from Natal, 179: F. Colenso to Lady Lyell, January 5, 1868. 41. [Robinson], Life at Natal a Hundred Years Ago by a Lady, 79–80. 42. PAR A 435, Robbins, “History of Fort Napier.” 43. Francis, Governors and Settlers, 32. 44. Natal Witness, March 18, 1859, 2. 45. PAR A 435, Robbins, “History of Fort Napier,” 16. 46. Natal Witness, March 27, 1857. 47. Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 229–30. 48. Bisset, Sport and War, 194–98. 49. Ibid., 206–7. 50. Barrett, 85th King’s Light Infantry, 303–4. 51. Natal Witness, September 7, 1860. 52. Bisset, Sport and War, 207–10; and Natal Witness, September 7, 1860. 53. Qtd. in Guy, Shepstone, 275. 54. Ibid., 275. 55. Norman Etherington, “Anglo-Zulu Relations, 1856–1878,” in The Anglo-Zulu War: New Perspectives, ed. Andrew Duminy and Charles Ballard (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1981), 13–52; see also Guy, The Heretic, 64. 56. Guy, The Heretic, 64. 57. SNA 1/8/7, Letters despatched: January 3, 1859-April 6, 1862: Shepstone to Scott, June 22, 1861 (confidential), pp. 386–95. Brookes and Webb also accepted the “success” of the expedition uncritically (History of Natal, 94–95). 58. Barter, Stray Memories of Natal and Zululand, 12. Rider Haggard wrote of the expedition in the Natal Witness, June 6, 1862. See also Guy, Shepstone, 280–83. 59. Nourse, “Zulu Invasion Scare of 1861,” 36–38.

208 Notes to Chapter 5

Dominy_Text.indd 208 1/22/16 3:02 PM 60. PAR EC 7, Minutes: March– Dec. 1861, Minutes of July 13, 1861, pp. 36–39. 61. Nourse, “Zulu Invasion Scare,” 40. See also Barrett, 85th King’s Light Infantry, 304–5. 62. Natal Courier, July 17, 1961. See also Robinson, Lifetime in South Africa, 111. 63. Barrett, 85th King’s Light Infantry, 304–6; Guy, Shepstone, 285. See also Nourse, “Zulu Invasion Scare,” 43. 64. GH 499, Letters Received from OC Forces SA, December 1861-September 1875; GOC SA, Grahamstown, to Lt. Gov. Scott, July 29, 1861, and GH 527, Letters Received: OC Troops Natal 1852–1882, Lt. Col. Burmester, OC 59th Regt., to Cmdt. Natal, Durban, August 5, 1861, re: withdrawal of “Invalid Depot,” 18–19. 65. Natal Courier, July 26, 1861. 66. Natal Courier, July 19, 1861. 67. Colenso with Durnford, History of the Zulu War and Its Origin, 4–5. 68. Natal Courier, July 17, 1861.

Chapter 6. Ceremonies and Crises 1. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 75–76; Bill Guest, “Colonists, Confederation, and Constitutional Change,” in Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910: A New History, ed. Andrew Duminy and Bill Guest (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1989), 146–47. 2. Thompson, Survival in Two Worlds, 263–78. 3. Guy, Shepstone, 320–21. 4. Ibid., 282–84. 5. Natal Witness, July 4 and 7, 1865. See also Guy, Shepstone, 321. 6. Benyon, Proconsul and Paramountcy in South Africa; Le Cordeur, “Relations between the Cape and Natal.” 7. Basutoland Records, vol. 3 (1862–68), Cape Town, 1883: SNA [Shepstone] to R. M. Weenen, June 29, 1865, pp. 373–74 (demands for reparations). 8. GH 499, Douglas to Scott, Cape Town, April 25, 1864, pp. 32–37. 9. GH 527, Douglas to Secretary for War, Pietermaritzburg, July 13, 1865, pp. 49–61. 10. GH 499, Letters Received, December 22, 1857-September 15, 1875: “Letters Received from Officer Commanding the Forces in South Africa, Lt. Gen. R. P. Douglas, Memoran- dum re: Despatch of Troops to Klip River County,” July 18, 1865, pp. 72–75. 11. WO 32/6234, Incursion of Basutos into Natal 1865–1866, esp. Lt. Gen. Sir Percy Douglas to Secretary of State for War, Pietermaritzburg, July 4–11, 1865, p. 6. 12. Ibid., p. 30 (see marginal note to Mr. Lugard, October 19, 1865). 13. Ibid., Douglas to de Grey (Secretary of State for War), September 8, 1865. 14. Basutoland Records, administrator of Govt. of Natal [Colonel Thomas] to High Commissioner [Wodehouse], July 27, 1865, pp. 414–19. 15. Guy, Shepstone, 321 (based on Basutoland Records, vol. 3, pp. 334–444). 16. Natal Witness, May 27, 1868; see also Guy, Shepstone, 327–28.

Notes to Chapters 5 and 6 209

Dominy_Text.indd 209 1/22/16 3:02 PM 17. Stapleton, Faku, 96–97. 18. Benyon, Proconsul and Paramountcy in South Africa, 74–75. See also Le Cordeur, “Relations between the Cape and Natal,” 94–109; and Ross, Adam Kok’s Griquas. 19. Guy, Shepstone, 321–22. 20. Times of Natal, January 3, 1866. See also Le Cordeur, “Relations between the Cape and Natal,” 104. Bisset was a senior officer in the CMR who had been sent to Natal as acting lieutenant governor because of his local knowledge and military experience at a time when the Basotho crisis threatened Natal. See De Kock and Beyers, Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 1, pp. 78–79. 21. Stapleton, Faku, 114–15. 22. There is an extensive literature on the Hlubi rebellion. The following section is based on Guest, Langalibalele; and Manson, “People in Transition.” 23. Guy, Shepstone, 381–83 and chap. 29. 24. Natal Witness, July 29, 1873. 25. Durnford, Soldier’s Life and Work in South Africa, iv. 26. BPP, C. 1025, Paper Relating to the Late Kafir Outbreak in Natal (Presented 1874), No. 11, Pine to Kimberley, November 13, 1873, pp. 9–14 (see enc. 11, list of H.M. troops in support at Meshlynn, and enc. p. 12, Memorandum—Durnford’s Report, November 30, 1873). 27. Saks, “Durnford, ‘Long Belly’ and the Farce at the Pass.” 28. Ibid., 12 29. Ibid., 3, 10. 30. Stalker, Natal Carbineers, 74. 31. Guy, Shepstone, 391–92. 32. Ibid., 394; and Natal Witness, October 28, 1873. 33. Times of Natal, May 26, 1875. 34. Preston, South African Diaries of Sir Garnet Wolseley (Natal) 1875, 163–64 (entry for April 15, 1875). 35. Man, “Colonel Anthony William Durnford in the History of Natal and Zululand,” 19–21; Ward and Maggs, “Early Copies as an Indicator of Rock Art Deterioration,” 36–37. 36. Dominy, “Thomas Baines and the Langalibalele Rebellion,” 41–55. See also Verbeek, “Paintings of the Zulu War as Historical Documents,” 49–58. 37. Robinson, Lifetime in South Africa, 37. 38. Preston, South African Diaries of Sir Garnet Wolseley (Natal) 1875, 128. 39. Ibid., 161, 166, and 170. 40. Ibid., 157 (April 1, 1875). 41. Ibid., 188 (May 27, 1875). 42. Ibid., 171 (April 29, 1875). 43. Ibid., 157 (April 1, 1875). 44. Ibid., 160, (April 4, 1875). 45. Gon, Road to Isandlwana, 193. 46. CO 879/8/5, Wolseley to Carnarvon, June 14, 1875, pp. 5–6. See also GH 1219,

210 Notes to Chapter 6

Dominy_Text.indd 210 1/22/16 3:02 PM “Copies of Despatches to Secretary of State for the Colonies,” January 5, 1875-December 2, 1876 (see No. 131, June 14, 1875, pp. 133–45). 47. Child, Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry Harford CB, 10. 48. Natal Society Library, Special Collections, “I Remember: Memoirs of Robert Ma- son” (ts.). 49. Buchanan, Pioneer Days in Natal, 113. 50. Paul Thompson, “‘The Zulus Are Coming’: The Defence of Pietermaritzburg, 1879,” in Kingdom and Colony at War: Sixteen Studies on the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, ed. John Laband and Paul Thompson (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1990), 273–94. 51. CSO 2533, Confidential Minutes Papers, 1878–79: C39/1879 Confidential: Col. Eng. Hime to Col. Sec. Mitchell, February 21, 1879. 52. Colenso, “Sermon of 1879,” 5–7. 53. GH 569, Letters Received from Major-General Commanding District II: Zulu War, February 20, 1879-January 18, 1880. See GH 432/1879: Memoranda from Clifford, “Death of the Prince Imperial Louis Napoleon, on Duty in the Field on the 1st Instant.” 54. Natal Society Library, Special Collections, “I Remember.” See also Knight, With His Face to the Foe, 233–38. 55. Times of Natal, June 9, 1879. 56. Morris, Washing of the Spears, 534. 57. Brain, Catholic Beginnings in Natal and Beyond, 156–57. 58. Qtd. in Knight, With His Face to the Foe, 236. 59. Ibid., 214–15. 60. Natal Society Library, Special Collections, “I Remember,” 6. 61. Rev. Owen Watkins, “They Fought for the Great White Queen: Edendale,” in The Zulu War and the Colony of Natal, ed. George Chadwick and E. G. Hobson (Mandini: Qualitas, 1979), 153–63. 62. Headrick, Tools of Empire, 11. 63. Natal Witness, December 2, 1880. 64. For sound overviews of the First Anglo-Boer War, see Laband, Transvaal Rebellion; and Lehmann, First Boer War. 65. MacDonald, Language of Empire, 85. 66. Belich, New Zealand Wars, 312. 67. Natal Witness, December 23, 1880. The NMP was active in the campaign as scouts. See Laband, Transvaal Rebellion, 88. 68. Natal Witness, January 4, 1881. 69. Laband, Transvaal Rebellion, 128–29. 70. Ibid., 209. 71. Cromb, Majuba Disaster. 72. Bond’s diaries for February and March 1881 have been reproduced in Ward, “Majuba 1881.” His unpublished papers are at the National Army Museum: NAM Acc. No. 7802-24 (MCR), “Diary of General William Dunn Bond CB.” 73. Ward, “Majuba 1881” (entry for April 13, 1881).

Notes to Chapter 6 211

Dominy_Text.indd 211 1/22/16 3:02 PM 74. Laband, Transvaal Rebellion, 223–25. 75. Ibid., 226–27. 76. NAM Acc. No. 7802-24, “Bond Diary,” entries for May 24 and 27 and June 6, 1881. 77. Ibid., entry for October 6, 1881. 78. Natal Witness, October 20, 1893. 79. NAM, Acc. No. 7008-18-1, “Records of the 84th York and Lancaster Regiment,” vol. 1, 1793–1896 (ts). See also NAM Acc. No. 6408-1-2, “Regimental Records 3 D.G.s 1854–1894” [Third Dragoon Guards; ms], pp. 170–71. 80. Natal Witness, October 20, 1893.

Chapter 7. Soldiers in Garrison 1. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 148. The phrase was popular among contemporaries, with Bishop Schreuder claiming that Wolseley himself used it of the settlement. See Hale, Norwegian Missionaries in Natal and Zululand; and Cain, Empire and Its Critics, 114. 2. Van Onselen, Masked Raiders, 2. 3. See the appendix for the full list of regiments in garrison at Fort Napier. 4. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 205. 5. Natal Witness, May 20, 1859. 6. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 205–6. 7. De Villiers, “Imperial Cape Mounted Riflemen in Natal.” 8. Lucas, Camp Life and Sport in South Africa, 49. Accounts of regimental life in the CMR are rare, and only Lucas’s account from an officer’s perspective has been of much value. See also Lucas, Zulus and the British Frontiers. 9. Lucas, Zulus and the British Frontiers, 88. 10. Freeman, Tour in South Africa with Notices of Natal, Mauritius, Madagascar, Ceylon, Egypt, and Palestine, 80. The regimental pay lists record where a soldier was recruited. 11. Stanley, Remote Garrison, 50. 12. Army Museums Ogilby Trust, Aldershot, Tylden Papers, Notebook 3, p 59: ts. copies of reports of James Howell, August 20 and 23, 1849. 13. Ross, “Kat River Rebellion and Khoikhoi Nationalism.” See also Elbourne, “Race, Warfare, and Religion in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa.” 14. Monica Wilson, “Co-operation and Conflict: The Eastern Cape Frontier,” inThe Oxford History of South Africa, vol. 1, ed. Monica Wilson and Leonard L. Thompson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 248. 15. Elbourne, “Race, Warfare, and Religion,” 20. 16. Freeman, Tour in South Africa with Notices of Natal, Mauritius, Madagascar, Ceylon, Egypt, and Palestine, 139–44 and 184–86. See also Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 12, 525–26. 17. Ross, “Kat River Rebellion,” 103. 18. Elbourne, “Race, Warfare, and Religion,” 21.

212 Notes to Chapters 6 and 7

Dominy_Text.indd 212 1/22/16 3:02 PM 19. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 189–93. See also Le Cordeur, “Records of the Natal Executive Council 1849–1852,” SA Archival Records: Natal No. 3, Meeting 79, Annexure 2, Pine to Commandant of Natal, August 2, 1851, pp. 271–72; Guy, Shepstone, 183. 20. Natal Witness, May 28, 1852. See also Guy, Shepstone, 183. 21. Natal Witness, January 23, 1852. 22. Natal Witness, May 21, 1852. 23. WO 12/5763, Regimental Pay Lists, October–December 1852: (1303) Hendrick Geis- man—deserted Bushman’s River, January 17, 1852; tried August 30, 1852; executed No- vember 15, 1852. 24. Now the Musem of the Mercian Regiment; Reserve Collection, ref. 1998–2613. 25. Twentieth Century Impressions of Natal, 249 (see also illustration 1). 26. Natal Museum, Cultural History Dept., cat. no. 227/1910 (also referred to as “Fort N. 1854”). Information from display caption. 27. WO 1/450, Cape of Good Hope 1853, Military, letter 11845: Gov. Cathcart to Duke of Newcastle, Grahamstown, October 15, 1853, pp. 317–34—“Recruitment of British Troops to Replace Coloureds in CMR.” See also Lucas, Zulus and the British Frontiers, 88. 28. Army Museums Ogilby Trust, Tylden Papers, Notebook 9, p. 42 (article by G. Ty- lden, “The Imperial CMR,” The Springbok, June 1931, 15–18). 29. WO 12/5761, Regimental Pay Lists, 45th Foot, 1850–51; and WO 12/5762, Regimental Pay Lists, 45th Foot, 1851–52, April–June 1851. The CMR at Fort Napier was attached to the 45th for pay and administrative purposes. 30. WO 12/5772, Regimental Pay Lists 1858–59, 45th Foot, April–June 1858. 31. WO 12/10588, Pay Lists CMR, 1869–70. 32. Smyth, History of the XX Regiment, 311. 33. McLachlan and MacFie, “Historical Survey of Port Arthur Garrison and Military Barracks” (writing in the context of Port Arthur in Van Dieman’s Land). 34. NAM, Acc. No. 7801-36 MFN (microfilm): “Memoirs of Bandsman F. Davies, 2nd Battalion, 20th Foot 1863–70” (n.p.) [hereafter Davies Memoirs]; and Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, RAMC 391, “Memoirs of William Cattell Assistant Surgeon, 5th Dragoon Guards” (ts.), chap. 9 [hereafter Cattell Memoirs]. 35. Davies Memoirs. 36. Cattell Memoirs, chap. 9, p. 36; and Davies Memoirs. 37. For an excellent description of the topography and climate around Pietermaritzburg, see Alcock, “Hills above Pietermaritzburg: An Appreciation.” 38. Davies Memoirs. 39. Ibid. 40. Cattell Memoirs, pp. 35–36. 41. Natal Witness, October 19, 1869. 42. Davies Memoirs. 43. NAM, Acc. 7901-78 (MFN), “Journal of Gen. Sir H. R. Browne,” May 1895. 44. Cattell, Memoirs, pp. 35 and 37. 45. Smyth, History of the XX Regiment, 313.

Notes to Chapter 7 213

Dominy_Text.indd 213 1/22/16 3:02 PM 46. Cunynghame, My Command in South Africa, 159. 47. PAR, A187, The Celer et Audax Gazette: A Record of Regimental, Depot, and Local News 6.1 (November 1, 1880). 48. The situation in Zululand at this time is best described by Guy, Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom. See also Binns, Last Zulu King (for the second battle of Ulundi, see 208). 49. Natal Witness, June 26, 1884. 50. BPP, C. 4214, “Further Correspondence re the Affairs of Zululand,” February 1885, No, 10, Lt. Gen. Smyth to Sec. State for War, September 19, 1884. 51. John Laband and Paul Thompson give May 1884 as the date for the movement of British troops into the Reserve Territory in Zululand. See “African Levies in Natal and Zululand, 1836–1906,” in Miller, Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850–1918, 49–84 (esp. 62–63). 52. NAM, Acc. 7403-70, “Papers Relating to Colour-Sergeant Edward J Goodall.” Cor- poral Barford’s account is filed together with Goodall’s account under the same reference number. 53. NAM, Acc. 7403-70-5 and 6, pp. 5–6. 54. NAM, Acc. 7403-70-7, pp. 16–17 and 24. The lightning strike on the tents at Eshowe was accepted as part of the hazards of campaigning. 55. Hamilton, “Authoring Shaka,” 308. 56. Goodall Papers: NAM, Acc. 7403-70-7, pp. 21–22. 57. Ibid., pp. 21–22. 58. Ibid., pp. 28–30. 59. Ibid., 7403-70-6, pp. 8–11 and 17. 60. Tulloch, Recollections of Forty Years’ Service. 61. Ibid., 329. 62. Tulloch, Recollections of Forty Years’ Service, 329–31. 63. Ibid., 331. 64. Skelley, Victorian Army at Home, 127 and 143. 65. Cook, North Staffordshire Regiment, 67. 66. Natal Witness, March 3, 1887. 67. Cook, North Staffordshire Regiment, 67. 68. Natal Witness, March 30, 1887. 69. Natal Witness, May 4, 1887. 70. Natal Witness, May 23, 1887 (see also May 25 and June 1).

Chapter 8. The Inniskilling Fusiliers 1. Stanley, Remote Garrison, 50. 2. See chapter 6. 3. Gordon, Place of the Elephant, 116. 4. WO 16/1608, Regt. Pay Lists: 1 Bn. Inniskilling Fusiliers, April 1, 1886-March 31, 1888. 5. Preston, South African Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1879–1880, January 18, 1880, 210.

214 Notes to Chapters 7 and 8

Dominy_Text.indd 214 1/22/16 3:02 PM 6. Ibid., 211. 7. Jenkins, Gladstone, 314. 8. Kee, Ireland, 120–24. 9. Beckett, Making of Modern Ireland, 401. 10. Kee, Laurel and the Ivy, 525–26. 11. Ensor, England 1870–1914, 179. 12. Natal Witness, July 1, 1887. 13. Natal Witness, July 26, 1887. 14. Kiernan, European Empires, 21. 15. Skelley, Victorian Army at Home, 137–38. 16. Van Onselen, Masked Raiders, chap. 1, 11–25. 17. Ibid., 15. 18. Preston, South African Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1879–1880, January 18, 1880, 211. 19. Van Onselen, Masked Raiders, 21. 20. Ibid., 20–22. 21. Haddick-Flynn, Orangeism, 52. 22. Natal Witness, June 2, 1887. 23. Natal Witness, June 8, 1887. 24. Francis, Governors and Settlers, 69. 25. Natal Witness, June 22, 1887. 26. Natal Witness, June 25, 1887. 27. Gordon, Place of the Elephant, 116. 28. Regimental Museum, Enniskillen: Denis Shepstone, “An Episode of the ‘Eighties’ at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg, Natal,” (ms., November 14, 1843). 29. Natal Advertiser, August 8, 1887; Times of Natal, August 8, 1887; and Natal Witness, August 9, 1887. The following section is based on these reports. 30. Regimental Museum, Enniskillen: Shepstone, “An Episode of the ‘Eighties.’” 31. Natal Witness, August 9, 1887. 32. Natal Witness, August 10, 1887. 33. Natal Witness, August 11, 1887. 34. Times of Natal, August 9, 1887. 35. The Times (London), August 12, 1887. 36. Natal Witness, August 11, 1887. There were Orange Lodges across Ireland during the nineteenth century, and even in 1990 a lodge remained in Dublin, with a few more close to the border of Northern Ireland. See Haddick-Flynn, Orangeism, 411–12. 37. Natal Witness, August 11, 1887. 38. Natal Witness, August 12, 1887. 39. Natal Witness, August 13, 1887. 40. PAR, A 1216, Stabb Papers, vol. 4: 2/1/65, Harman to Stabb, August 31, 1887. 41. Natal Witness, August 16 and 17, 1887. 42. Natal Witness, August 24, 1887. 43. Natal Witness, August 16 and 17, 1887.

Notes to Chapter 8 215

Dominy_Text.indd 215 1/22/16 3:02 PM 44. WO 16/1608, Regt. Pay Lists: R. Innisk. Fusiliers, April 1, 1886-March 31, 1888. 45. PAR, A 1216, Stabb Papers, vol. 5, 2/2/62: Stabb to Torrens, October 15, 1887. 46. WO 90/4, Court Martials, 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 1887: entries for John Martin, James Wilson, Charles Orr, and John Campbell. 47. PAR: Registrar of the Supreme Court (RSC) 1/1/41: Criminal Cases, October–Decem- ber 1887; Case No. 40/1887. The same witnesses who testified at the preliminary hearing (which was reported on in the press) were called to give evidence at the High Court, so there is a great deal of repetition in the 216 pages of court evidence. 48. Ibid., October 10, 1887. 49. RSC 1/1/41, Case No. 40/1887. See also CSO 1160, “Letters Received 1887,” C 4605/1887, Turnbull to Col. Sec., Petition re: McKeown. 50. See CSO 1165, Nos. 5122/1887; 5126/1887; 5141/1887, and 5161/1887. See also CSO 1167, No. 5330/1887. 51. PAR, A 1216, Stabb Papers, vol. 5, 2/2/66, Stabb to Torrens, November 6, 1887. 52. Natal Witness, November 12, 1887. 53. Society Special Collection, “I Remember: Memoirs of Robert James Mason,” 20 (Mason incorrectly claims that Catholic nuns prepared the grave). 54. Times of Natal, November 15, 1887. 55. Natal Advertiser, November 21, 1887. 56. Society Special Collection, “I Remember,” 19–20. 57. Natal Witness, November 9, 1887. 58. Major. George Stephens, Curator, Enniskillen Regimental Museum, personal correspondence with the author, May 14, 1991. 59. Regimental Museum, Enniskillen: Torrens to Adjutant-General, London (for info Duke of Cambridge), Pietermaritzburg, August 28, 1887. 60. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 8.

Chapter 9. The Garrison and the Wider Society 1. See chapter 1; and Spiers, Army and Society, 66–67. 2. Fingard, Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax, 16. 3. John Lambert, “‘The Last Outpost’: The Natalians, South Africa, and the British Empire,” in Settlers and Expatriates: Britons over the Seas, ed. Robert Bickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 150–77 (see esp. 151–53). 4. See Hattersley, More Annals of Natal, Portrait of a Colony, and British Settlement of Natal. 5. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal; Spencer, British Settlers in Natal, vols. 1–6. 6. Hattersley, Illustrated Social History of South Africa, 152. 7. Hattersley, Portrait of a Colony, 76–78. 8. Ibid., 79. 9. Hopkins, Strange Death of Private White, 41. 10. [Robinson,] Life at Natal a Hundred Years Ago by a Lady, 67. See also Sharpe, Riot- ous Assembly, 8–9.

216 Notes to Chapters 8 and 9

Dominy_Text.indd 216 1/22/16 3:02 PM 11. “Hints to Officers Going to Natal,” 245. 12. Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 218. 13. Dominy, “Methleys of the Natal Midlands,” 174. 14. De Kock, Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 1, 292–94 and 340–41; see also Fitzpatrick, Jock of the Bushveld. 15. MacDonald, Language of Empire, 176. 16. Dominy, “Methleys of the Natal Midlands,” 170–71; Henry Slater, “The Changing Pat- tern of Economic Relationships in Rural Natal,” in Economy and Society in Pre-industrial South Africa, ed. Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore (London: Longman, 1980), 148–70 (see esp. 162–63). 17. Barter, Dorp and the Veld, 25. 18. Trevor Wills, “The Segregated City,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: KwaZulu-Natal University Press, 1988), 33. 19. NAM, Henry Curtis (comp.), “A First List of the Regiments Stationed in Natal, South Africa, 1838–1914” (London, 1930 ts.), p. x. 20. Schauffer, “Establishment of a Theatrical Tradition in Pitermaritzburg,” 9–12. 21. Buchanan, Natal Memories, 97. 22. “An Old Inhabitant” [John Bird], Natal: 1846–1851, 4–5. 23. The Natalier, January 23, 1846. 24. “Queen’s Birthday at Fort Napier,” Natal Witness, June 4, 1847. 25. F. Hamilton-Knight, “Stage Soldiers and Soldiers on the Stage,” Navy and Army Illustrated 2 (June–December 1896), 191–92. 26. Michael Lambert, “The Performing Arts,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: Kwa- Zulu-Natal University Press,1988), 224–30. 27. Allen, “‘Bats and Bayonets,’” 18. 28. Clayton, “Sport and African Soldiers.” 29. Andre Odendaal, “South Africa’s Black Victorians: Sport and Society in South Africa in the Nineteenth Century,” in Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1700–1914, ed. J. A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass, 1988), 193–214. 30. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 51. 31. De Natalier carried regular advertisements for race meetings, naming military officers as the stewards. 32. Dominy and Paterson, “Fort Napier: The imperial base that shaped the city’ Laband and Haswell, Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988, 108. See also Hattersley, Illustrated Social His- tory of South Africa, 91. 33. Merrett, “Sport and Race in Colonial Natal,” 23–24. 34. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, 78 and 89. 35. Natal Witness, September 7, 1860; see also Moodie, Moodie’s Zulu War, viii. 36. Natal Witness, September 7, 1860.

Notes to Chapter 9 217

Dominy_Text.indd 217 1/22/16 3:02 PM 37. Merrett, “Sport and Race in Colonial Natal,” 23. 38. Lambert, “Last Outpost,” 151. See also Spencer, British Settlers in Natal 1824–1857, xvii. 39. Bosma, “European Colonial Soldiers in the Nineteenth Century,” 317–36. 40. Natal Witness, September 7, 1849. 41. Natal Witness, August 23, 1850. See also WO 1/445, Cape of Good Hope 1850 Mili- tary, Letter 2664, Smith to Grey, January 21, 1850: Memorial of Thomas Horn, discharged private 45th Regiment—praying for grant of land in Natal. 42. Dominy, “Reminiscences of Thomas Green.” 43. Robinson, Lifetime in South Africa, 101. 44. Bosma, “European Colonial Soldiers in the Nineteenth Century,” 318. 45. MacKenzie and Dalziel, Scots in South Africa, 142–43. 46. Scott, “Approach to the Urban History of Victorian Grahamstown 1852–53.” 47. KCAL, uncat. ms., Shelagh O’Byrne Spencer, “‘Natal’s Early Irish’: Table Showing Military Settlers.” 48. Foster, Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, 199–200. 49. Howick Museum, Methley Family Papers (MFP) 5/2/1, “Speech re: temperance” (n.d.). See also Dominy, “Methleys of the Natal Midlands.” 50. De Natalier, June 21, 1844, qtd. in Nourse, “Lieutenant Joseph Nourse,” 26. 51. Emery, “Revd. John David Jenkins (1828–1876).” 52. WO 55/900, Ordnance—Engineer Papers—Miscellaneous, 1854–1859, No. 630 CRE CGH to IGF re: military chapel Fort Napier, Cape Town, November 27, 1854, enc. 1552, Lt. Col. Cooper, 45th Regt. to Lt. J. H. Smith RE, November 1, 1854, sub-enc. Jenkins to Cooper, October 26, 1854. 53. Emery, “Revd. John David Jenkins,” 24. 54. PAR, A 435, G. F. Robbins, ts., p. 2. 55. Spencer, “Early Irish in Natal,” entry for William O’Hara. 56. Parle, “Fools on the Hill,” 10. 57. Ibid., 22. See also Oschadleus, “Lutherans, Germans”; and Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, 85. 58. Natal Who’s Who, 13. 59. Kenworthy, “From Soldier to Chief Constable,” 5–8. 60. Spencer, British Settlers in Natal, vol. 6 210–11. See also Hattersley, Portrait of a City, 10. 61. Robinson, Gallagher, and Denny, Africa and the Victorians, 1. 62. Hattersley, Natal Society 1851–1951, 2–7. See also Laband and Haswell, Pietermaritz- burg 1838–1988, 122–23. 63. Meintjes, “Edendale 1850–1906,” 29. See also Comaroff and Comaroff,Of Revela- tion and Revolution, 5–6. 64. Times of Natal, May 26, 1866. 65. Lucas, Camp Life and Sport in South Africa, 99. 66. Natal Witness, June 5, 1857.

218 Notes to Chapter 9

Dominy_Text.indd 218 1/22/16 3:02 PM 67. Sydney Galwayne, War Horses, Present and Future, 85. 68. Atkins, “‘Kafir Time.’” 69. Mitford, Through the Zulu Country, 148. 70. Comaroff and Comaroff,Of Revelation and Revolution, 4. 71. Fortescue-Brickdale, Major-General Sir Henry Hallam Parr, 92–93. 72. CSO 507, Letters 401–500, 1875, R 461/1875, Adjutant to Colonial Secretary, Febru- ary 5, 1874. See also NAD, Archives of the Postmaster General (PMG), PMG 14, Minute Papers August–December 1887, GPO 343/1887, PMG to Col. Sec. and DAAG, October 19, 1887. 73. Gordon, Place of the Elephant, 25. 74. Hall, “Historic 12-pr Muzzle-Loading Naval Gun,” 183–84. 75. Green, Reminiscences, 22. 76. Le Cordeur, “Records of the Natal Executive Council, 1849–1852,” 297–99: Meeting 86, Annexure 4—Stanton to Fleming, January 20, 1853; and Annexure 6, Symons to Sec. Govt., February 20, 1852. See also GH 527, Letters Received from the OC Troops Natal, January 21, 1852-November 15, 1882: No. 1100, Col. Boys to Acting Sec. to Govt., January 21, 1852, p. 2. 77. “An Irish Subaltern in South Africa, 1846–1849,” Regimental Annual 1921 [45th Regiment], 91. 78. RAMC 397, Papers of Sir John Hall, “Return of Crimes and Punishment in the Army at the Cape of Good Hope,” year ending March 31, 1850, p. 264; and March 31, 1851, p. 332. 79. Natal Witness, February 19, 1847, Letter of Geo. Winder, “Desertions from Fort Napier.” 80. NGG (unnumber col.), No. 323, January 20, 1855, Notice; and NGG 8, No. 413, November 4, 1856, Proclamation by the High Commissioner offering pardon to deserters returning to duty within three months. 81. WO 86/7 Court Martial Registers 1852–1855 (1852), p. 77. Each year is separately paginated. 82. Ibid., (1852), p. 107. 83. Ibid., (1853), p. 110; (1854), p. 105. 84. Ibid., (1852), p. 77; (1853), p. 76. 85. Natal Witness, January 2, 1866; Thompson, Survival in Two Worlds, 279. See also Atmore and Sanders, “Sotho Arms and Ammunition in the Nineteenth Century,” 535–45. 86. NAD, Archives of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) 1846–1929, AGO 1/8/3, Cor- respondence 1854–56, No. 121A/1856; Adjt. 45th Regt. to Crown Prosecutor, November 24, 1856. 87. NMP 5, Enlistment Register NMPolice, Nos. 902–1480, p. 71: discharge of Frederick Wallace McAvoy (No. 1202), April 23, 1892. 88. King, Sunrise to Evening Star, 76–78. 89. Rees, Colenso Letters from Natal, 219 (Frances Colenso to Lady Lyell, May 16, 1870). 90. RAMC 391, Memoirs and Papers of William Cattell, chap. 9, pp. 41–42.

Notes to Chapter 9 219

Dominy_Text.indd 219 1/22/16 3:02 PM 91. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 12, 561. 92. Dalbiac, History of the 45th, 157. 93. Natal Witness, July 20, 1849. 94. Beverley Ellis, “The Impact of White Settlers on the Natural Environment of Natal, 1845–1870” in Enterprise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony, ed. Bill Guest and John Sellers (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1985), 71–97; see also Wright, Bush- men Raiders of the Drakensberg. 95. KCAL uncat. ms., “Captain Garden’s Diary 1851–53, Vol. 1.” The original Garden Papers are housed in the PAR (A 1157). 96. Ibid., pp. 307 and 367. 97. Ibid., p. 329. 98. Fleming, “Military Nimrod in Mid-19th Century Natal,” 233–44. 99. MacDonald, Language of Empire, 21. 100. Emery, Red Soldier, 232–33; and Child, Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry Harford CB, 16–31. 101. Knight, “By Orders of the Great White Queen,” 52; and MacDonald, Language of Empire, chap. 6, 175–91. 102. Rhodes House Library, North Manuscripts, MSS Brit. Emp. s. 1. ff 231–32, Coghill to [North?], December 28, 1878. 103. Morris, Washing of the Spears, 496. 104. Webb and Wright, Zulu King Speaks, 25.

Chapter 10. “For the Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady Are Sisters under Their Skins” 1. Rudyard Kipling, “The Ladies,” in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (Lon- don: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940), 442–43. 2. Beall, “Class, Race, and Gender,” 4–5. 3. Walker, Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, 11. 4. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, 8–9. 5. WO 92/2, Judge Advocate General’s Office: General Courts Martial Register 1838– 1898, p. 48. 6. Pakenham, Boer War, 315. 7. Rhodes House Library, MSS Afr. r. 196—R. Smith, “Zulu War Diary.” 8. Skelley, Victorian Army at Home; see also Trustram, Women of the Regiment. 9. Fingard, Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax, 16. 10. Stanley, Remote Garrison, 26. 11. Gilding, “Men, Masculinity, and Australian History,” 163. 12. KCAL, MS SPE 5.09, Shelagh O’ Byrne [Spencer], “The 45th Regiment and Natal, 1843–1859” (unpub. ts., ca. 1968). 13. RAMC 391, Memoirs and Papers of William Cattell, chap. 9, p. 1. 14. Packe, An Empire-Building Battalion, 169. 15. Markham, South Africa, Past and Present, 416.

220 Notes to Chapters 9 and 10

Dominy_Text.indd 220 1/22/16 3:02 PM 16. NAM, Memoirs of Bandsman F. Davies. 17. NAM, Acc. No. 7403-70, Papers Relating to Colour Sergeant Goodall, pp. 18–19. 18. “A Sketch from Garrison Society,” Times of Natal, September 1, 1866. 19. Preston, South African Diaries of Sir Garnet Wolseley (Natal) 1875, June 17, 1875, p. 197. 20. Lehmann, All Sir Garnet, 221–24. 21. See Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 141 and 237. 22. WO 1/449, Natal 10382, Cloete to Pakington, Secretary of State for the Colonies, June 15, 1852. 23. Ibid.; see also Natal Witness, March 26, 1852; and Natal Independent, March 25, 1852. 24. WO 1/449, Natal 10382, enc. Boys to Gordon, Acting Sec. to Govt., May 29, 1852. 25. Natal Witness, March 26, 1852. 26. Regimental Records Centre and Museum,) Nottingham, ACC A233 (63), Regimental Order Book, 1842–1849, pp. 203 and 264. 27. Dominy, “Reminiscences of Thomas Green,” 16. 28. Meer, South African Gandhi, 35, 255–59. 29. See KCAL, MS SPE 5.09, Shelagh O’Byrne [Spencer], “The 45th Regiment and Natal, 1843–1859” (unpub. ts., ca. 1968), pp. 9–11; and KCAL, Shelagh O’Byrne Spencer, “Natal’s Early Irish.” 30. Gilding, “Men, Masculinity, and Australian History,” 164. 31. PAR, Lists for Archives of the Magistrate of Pietermaritzburg, 1/PMB. It appears that the earlier records were destroyed when the City Hall burned down in 1898. 32. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London: Royal Army Medical Corps Papers (RAMC): RAMC 397, Papers of Sir John Hall. For the epic clash with Florence Nightingale, see Gabriel and Metz, History of Military Medicine, 173. See alsoSummers, Angels and Citizens, 47. 33. Gabriel and Metz, History of Military Medicine, 171 and 173. 34. RAMC 397, Papers of Sir John Hall: “Annual Report of the Sick,” March 31, 1846, and March 31, 1847. 35. Ibid., “Observations on Sickness,” March 31, 1848, p. 95. 36. Ibid., “Annual Report of the Sick,” March 31, 1848, p. 172. 37. Mrinalini Sinha, “Gender and Imperialism: Colonial Policy and the Ideology of Moral Imperialism in Late Nineteenth-Century Bengal,” in Changing Men: New Direc- tions in Research on Men and Masculinity, ed. Michael Kimmel (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Productions, 1987), 217–31. 38. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, 67. 39. Stone, “Victorian Army,” 215. 40. Ibid., 16. 41. PAR, 1/BLR, 8, P 64/87: Pietermaritzburg Corporation, “Crimes of Rape and In- decent Assault Committed by Natives—Cause and Means of Suppression,” W. Fraser, December 11, 1886. 42. Ibid., pp. 2–3.

Notes to Chapter 10 221

Dominy_Text.indd 221 1/22/16 3:02 PM 43. Natal Witness, May 11, 1894. Tommy Atkins was a popular slang name for a British soldier. 44. Natal Witness, June 11, 1885. 45. Natal Witness, June 13, 1885. 46. GH 502, Letters Received from GOC Forces in S.A., January 14, 1880, to September 24, 1901: G 191/1885, Col. J. W. Bond to Governor, June 28, 1885. 47. Ibid., enc. “Comments of Attorney General,” July 2, 1885. 48. CSO 1025, Letters 1885: C 2794/1885, Commandant, Fort Napier, to CSO, June 19, 1885, enc., Barter’s comments, July 8, 1885. 49. Society Special Collection, “I Remember: Memoirs of Robert James Mason,” p. 21. See also Barbara Buchanan, “Fort Napier the Gay Regimental Centre of Natal’s Early Days,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1938: Natal Mercury Centennial Supplement, October 17, 1938, 41. Buchanan claims that Watson was the victim, but Mason states that the offending article appeared in “Topic of the Town,” a Natal Witness feature. The references are too elliptical to identify at this distance in time, given the lack of publicity for the events that followed. 50. Society Special Collection, “I Remember.” 51. NPP 318: LC Sessional Papers, unnumbered, 1890: Report on the Contagious Dis- eases Prevention Bill (No. 19, 1890) (see p. 23 for Fraser’s evidence). 52. Jenkins, Gladstone, 43–44. 53. Natal Witness, August 18, 1887. 54. Markham, South Africa, Past and Present, 416. 55. KCAL, MS 1058, Stuart Papers, file 6. 56. Stone, “Victorian Army,” 222. 57. Webb and Wright, James Stuart Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples, vol. 4, 341. 58. Ibid. 59. KCAL, MS 1058, Stuart Papers, file 6, p. 70: Interview of August 13, 1900. 60. Ibid., p. 71. 61. Ibid., p. 75. 62. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, 14–15. 63. Summers, Angels and Citizens, 175 and 198. 64. KCAL, Report of the Stafford House South African Aid Committee: Zulu War 1879, pp. 2 and 8. 65. Ibid., pp. 7–9. 66. Ibid. See also Gordon, Gericke, and Clark, Macrorie. 67. Gon, Road to Isandlwana, 196. See also NAM 7602-48, “Col. J. B. Backhouse’s Diaries,” vol. 1, January–March 1879, various; and Paton et al., Historical Records of the 24th Regiment, 219. 68. NAM, Acc. No. 7208-73, Epitome of the Regimental History of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, p. 114. See also Lehmann,First Boer War, 117; and Laband, Transvaal Rebel- lion, 98.

222 Notes to Chapter 10

Dominy_Text.indd 222 1/22/16 3:02 PM 69. Royal Engineers Library, S. Waller, “History of RE Operations in South Africa 1899–1902” (unpub. ts. ca.1934), p. 55. 70. Churchill, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria, 211–12. 71. Hattersley, Hospital Century, 89–90. See also Stone, “Victorian Army,” 278–79. 72. PAR, A 1537, Archives of the Pietermaritzburg Relief Committee and the Pieter- maritzburg Uitlander Committee, A1/1, Minute Book, cutting, October 20, 1899. 73. South African Pioneer, January 1900, p. 10. 74. Stone, “Victorian Army,” 300. 75. Duckworth, Grey’s Hospital Pietermaritzburg, 7. 76. PAR, A 348, Grey’s Hospital Board Papers, vol. 1, Minutes of the Board of Trustees, January 1, 1902-August 2, 1905, Minutes of Meeting of April 2, 1902.

Chapter 11. Spending the Queen’s Shilling 1. See Konczacki, Public Finance and Economic Development of Natal; and Guest and Sellers, Enterprise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony. 2. Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and Its Economic Consequences for the Colony of Natal.” 3. John Lambert, ‘The Impoverishment of the Natal Peasantry, 1893–1910,” in Enter- prise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony: Aspects of the Economic and Social History of Colonial Natal, ed. Bill Guest and John Sellers (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press: 1985), 300. 4. Senior, British Regulars in Montreal, 185. 5. McCracken, “Alfred Aylward.” 6. Natal Witness, January 1, 1881. 7. NBB 1861, pp. 84–85; see also Natal Almanac 1863, pp. 138–39. 8. NBB 1865, G 4-G 5. 9. NBB 1868, G 4-G 5. 10. See, for example, NBB 1873, G 2-G 3, and NBB 1875, G 4-G 5. 11. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” 137. 12. NGG 1864. The amount of four thousand pounds appears in the estimates for the first time inGazette No. 901, May 24, 1864, p. 163, but the enabling legislation was only promulgated on October 4, 1864, in NGG 1864, No. 921, p. 407. 13. This was authorized by Law No. 20, 1864, promulgated on October 4, 1864, NBB 1864, p. 411. See also GH 534, Letters Received, OC Troops, Natal, April 3, 1901-October 26, 1901, G 778/1901, GOC Natal, July 5, 1901, Re: Customs rebates for military stores. 14. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” 297–98. 15. NBB 1875, G 5-G 6; NBB 1877, I 9-I 11. 16. NBB 1879, I 9. 17. Basil Leverton, “Political and Economic Aspects of the Zulu War,” in The Zulu War and the Colony of Natal, ed. G. A. Chadwick and E. G. Hobson (Mandini: Qualitas, 1979), 11–26. Leverton reflects the costs of the war in SA Rand terms.

Notes to Chapters 10 and 11 223

Dominy_Text.indd 223 1/22/16 3:02 PM 18. NBB 1881, I 8. 19. NBB 1882, I 8. 20. NBB (2nd series) 1892–93, I 7. 21. Natal Statistical Yearbook 1898, L 3 (hereafter NSYB). 22. NSYB 1901, p. 109. 23. Ibid. 24. NBB 1879, I 9; and NBB 1881, I 8. 25. Natal Witness, January 5, 1849. See also GH 1634, “Military Allowances,” March 12, 1875, pp. 2–43 26. Dominy, “Reminiscences of Thomas Green.” 27. Natal Almanac 1895, p. 608. 28. Natal Witness, March 22, 1850. 29. Hattersley, Portrait of a Colony, 78. 30. CO 179/13, T. C. Anstey to Earl Grey, April 22, 1850. 31. GH 527, Letters Received: OC Troops Natal: January 21, 1852-November 15, 1882; No. 1116, Boys to Acting Sec. Govt., February 18, 1852, pp. 3–6. 32. Meineke and Summers, Municipal Engineering in Pietermaritzburg, 48–49. 33. Ibid., 50. 34. PAR, 3/PMB 7/5/1, Sanitary Committee Minutes, April 8, 1879; and CSO 1630, Papers 1899, 1915/1899: Mayor of PMB to Col. Sec., February 22, 1899. 35. See Natal Witness, January 28, 1859, and February 25, 1859. 36. Merrett, “Piet Hogg’s Reminiscences.” 37. Pearse, Joseph Baynes, 57. 38. PAR, AGO 1/8/20, Correspondence 1878; AGO 109A/1878 Asst. Commissary Gen- eral, Croker Pennel, to AGO, April 10, 1878. 39. Pearse, Joseph Baynes, 70—1. 40. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” chap. 4; see also Julie Parle, “The Economic Depression of the 1860s,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal Press, 1988), 124. 41. John M. Sellers, “The Origin and Development of the Woolled Sheep Industry in the Natal Midlands in the 1850s and 1860s,” in Enterprise and Exploitation in a Victorian Colony: Aspects of the Economic and Social History of Colonial Natal, ed. Bill Guest and John M. Sellers (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1985), 171–72. 42. Hattersley, Illustrated Social History of South Africa, 91 and 174. 43. Standard Bank Archives [hereafter SBA], INSP 1/1/126/1, Inspection Reports, Piet- ermaritzburg Branch, June 12, 1867. 44. Editorial, Times of Natal, June 9, 1866. 45. Report of OC Fort Napier, Major Ely, Times of Natal, January 16, 1867. 46. UKNA, Treasury Board Papers, T24/11, No. 13267/76, p. 2: R. R. W. Lingen to Fin. Sec. WO, August 16, 1876.

224 Notes to Chapter 11

Dominy_Text.indd 224 1/22/16 3:02 PM 47. NAM, Acc. No. 6312-37-4, Records of the 2nd Batt. South Staffordshire Regt. Late 80th Foot (Stafford Volunteers) from the Period of Its Formation in 1793 (ms. notebook), p. 91; see also McToy, Brief History of the 13th Regiment, 3; Kinsey, “Fort Amiel,” 55–56 and 64. 48. Everett, History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s), 274. 49. Child, Charles Smythe, 75. 50. GH 527, G1/76: Commandant Natal, Lt. Col. Grey, to Lt. Gov. H. Bulwer, February 12, 1876, pp. 76–86. 51. GH 500, Despatches Received from the GOC SA, November 12, 1875-September 3, 1879; R1565A/1876, Cunyngham to Lt. Gov. May 18, 1876, pp. 30–35. 52. GH 527, G351A/77: Pearson to Bulwer, October 2, 1877, pp. 150–62. See also Knight, Historical Records of the Buffs, 530. 53. SBA, INSP/1/1/128, Inspection Reports: PMB 1891–95, p. 187. See also Carlo To- rino, “Industrialization 1838–1947,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838–1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Haswell (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 1988), 144–47. 54. SBA, INSP 1/1/129, Inspection Reports PMB Branch 1896–1901, p. 36: Report for 1896. 55. SBA, General Manager’s Office, 2/1/6/2, Letters Received from Branches P, Manager, PMB, August 8, 1888. 56. SBA, General Manager’s Office, 3/2/1/3, Half yearly letters 1902–8, p. 21. 57. RE Library, Chatham, “A History of RE Operations in SA,” p. 344. 58. Natal Witness, November 16, 1899. 59. Natal Witness, December 23, 1899. 60. Natal Witness, January 5, 1900. 61. WO 28/270, General Orders: Cape of Good Hope 1841–1851, March 25, 1850 (n.p.). 62. SD, No. 30, “Report of SNA Respecting the Commando against the Native Chief Usidoi,” May 27, 1857, p. 5. See also Guy, Shepstone, 254–56. 63. Natal Witness, May 8, 1857, and May 22, 1857. 64. NBB 1861, p. 290. 65. BPP C. 2000, No. 78, December 31, 1878, Frere to Hicks Beach. 66. PAR, A 96, Sir Theophilus Shepstone Papers, 31: Thesiger to Shepstone, July 21, 1878. 67. PAR, MIC 2/1/9/1, Chelmsford Papers (microfilm of original in NAM): section 5: Commissariat and Transport issues. See also Mathews, “Lord Chelmsford and the Prob- lems of Transport and Supply during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.” 68. Meintjes, “Edendale 1850–1906,” 377–78. 69. WO 33/33, Papers 0723-0756, 1879 (see Paper 0732, No. 7: GOC Cape to Surveyor General of Ordnance, Cape Town, July 1878, p. 5). 70. Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War and Its Economic Consequences,” 64–67. 71. Narrative of the Field Operations Connected with the Zulu War of 1879, 87. See also

Notes to Chapter 11 225

Dominy_Text.indd 225 1/22/16 3:02 PM Mathews, “Lord Chelmsford and the Problems of Transport and Supply in the Anglo- Zulu War of 1879,” 114. 72. Meintjes, “Edendale 1850–1906,” 376–78; Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War and Its Eco- nomic Consequences,” 75–76. See also B. J. T. Leverton, “Political and Economic Aspects of the War,” in The Zulu War and the Colony of Natal, ed. G. A. Chadwick and E. G. Hob- son (Mandini: Qualitas, 1979), 19. 73. Gordon, Dear Louisa, 229. 74. Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War and Its Economic Consequences,” 70. 75. Ibid., 77–78. 76. Child, Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry Harford CB, 56–57. 77. SWB Regt. Museum, Brecon: Acc. No. D 69.66, “Diary of Wilfred Heaton.” 78. WO 33/33, Paper 0732, 1879, Military Natal and Transvaal, No. 10, GOC Cape to S.G. Ordnance, Pietermaritzburg, August 14, 1878, pp. 11–12. 79. Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War and Its Economic Consequences,” 82. 80. Tomassen, With the Irregulars in the Transvaal and Zululand, 13. 81. Emery, Red Soldier, 57–58 (Letter of Lt. Commeline RE, January 21, 1879). 82. Preston, South African Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley 1879–1880, 220 (entry of January 26, 1880). 83. Guy, Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 269. 84. Van Zyl, “Anglo-Zulu War and Its Economic Consequences,” 105–9. 85. Atkins, “Origins of the Amawasha.” 86. See chapter 6. 87. Natal Witness, January 8, 1881. 88. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 132. 89. Ibid., 132–33. 90. Brink, 1899, 92–93. 91. Ibid., 93. 92. RE Library, Chatham, “A History of RE Operations in S. Africa 1899–1902” [ts., n.d.], p. 20. 93. GH 533, Letters Received from OC Troops Natal, November 14, 1900, to March 28, 1901, G 1762/1900, GOC Natal to Gov., December 27, 1900. 94. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 125. 95. GH 535, Letters Received from OC Troops Natal, October 1901-February 1902, GOC Natal, February 18, 1902. 96. GH 536, Letters Received from OC Troops Natal, March 15, 1902-February 23, 1903, G290/1902, OC Natal Dist. to Chief of Staff, March 15, 1902; SNA’s note dated March 12, 1902. 97. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 132. 98. GH 550, Letters Received from OC Troops, PMB Sub-Dist., August 15, 1901-Sep- tember 14, 1902, G 175/1902, Lt. Col. Kennedy, PMB Sub-Dist., February 19, 1902. 99. GH 1300, unnum., Mitchell to Ripon, July 11, 1893.

226 Notes to Chapter 11

Dominy_Text.indd 226 1/22/16 3:02 PM Chapter 12. The Garrison and the State 1. PAR, A 598, Sir Evelyn Wood Collection, box 2, III/1/7, memorandum showing state of affairs at and about Newcastle in the first week March 1881, p. 2. 2. Crossley, “Imperial Garrison of Natal,” 183; Paterson, “Military Organisation of the Colony of Natal,” 48–49. See also Dunn-Pattison, History of the 91st Argyllshire Highland- ers, 235. 3. PAR, AGO 1/8/31, Correspondence 1886, AGO 224A/1886, Major Gordon to AG, January 23, 1886. See also CSO 1062, Letters 1886, 211/1886 DAAG to CSO, January 17, 1886. 4. PAR, AGO 1/8/38, Correspondence 1889 (Gun Robbery): 103A1/1889, OC Troops to AG, Enc. E, Fraser’s report. 5. PAR, CSO 1083, Letters 1886,’ 2367/1886, Mayor of PMB to CSO, June 2, 1886. 6. PAR, AGO 1/8/38, 103A2/1890, Enc. F, Col. Stabb’s report, May 4, 1887, pp. 7–8. 7. Ibid., p. 3. 8. Bulpin, To the Shores of Natal, 192. 9. Beinart, “Traders and the Mpondo Paramountcy.” Beinart, using sources at the Cape Archives, places the gun robbery as occurring in 1883. 10. UKNA, T 24/21, 17580/87, Treasury to Fin. Sec. WO, December 9, 1887. 11. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, chap. 18, 168–80. See also Benyon, “Isandl- wana and the Passing of a Proconsul”; and Lambert, “Sir John Robinson and Responsible Government.” 12. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 170–71. 13. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” 288. 14. Natal Witness, June 23, 1885. 15. Child, Charles Smythe, 140–42; see also Natal Witness, June 22 and 23, 1875. 16. Robinson, Lifetime in South Africa, 165–66. 17. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” 288. 18. NBB 1889 (Departmental Reports), DD 102–105. 19. Leverton, “Government Finance and Political Development in Natal,” 288. 20. BPP C. 6487, 1890-1, Correspondence Re: Responsible Government in Natal, No. 2: Knutsford to Havelock, March 5, 1889. See also PAR, PM 84, Governor’s Minutes 1894–1903, Secret 23/1896, Hely-Hutchinson to PM, April 7, 1896, enc. Chamberlain to Hely-Hutchinson, March 10, 1896. 21. UKNA, CAB 11/34 (Secret No. 170 R), “Natal: Report on Volunteers, Dec. 1896” and CAB 8/1, “CDC Memoranda 1883–1897,” 74M Secret, Memo, October 12, 1896. 22. Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 335. 23. Barrett, 7th Queen’s Own Hussars, 114–72. 24. See GH 528, Minutes, G 160/1896: Gen. Cox to Gov., April 16, 1896, 122–23; G 167/1896: Cox to Gov., “Further Depletion of Garrison of Natal,” April 18, 1896, 124–28; and G 183/1896: Chief Staff Officer, Cape Town, April 20, 1896, 129–35.

Notes to Chapter 12 227

Dominy_Text.indd 227 1/22/16 3:02 PM 25. WO 33/53, Correspondence Relating to Military Lands and Buildings in Natal [printed], No. 23, Colonial Office to War Office, February 3, 1893, p. 24. 26. NAM 608-1-2, Regimental Records 3 D.G.s, pp. 171–72. 27. Meintjes, “Edendale 1850–1906,” 383. 28. WO 33/53, Correspondence Related to Military Lands and Buildings in Natal [printed], No. 3, enc. Mitchell to Knutsford, October 10, 1899, pp. 3–4. 29. Ibid., sub-enc. 1, Mayor to Mitchell, September 20, 1889, pp. 4–5. 30. M.Swanson, “Urban Factor in Natal Native Policy”; Swanson, “Fate of the Natives.” See also Swanson, “Rise of Multiracial Durban.” 31. Qtd. in P. Maylam, “The Evolution of Urban Apartheid: Influx Control and Seg- regation in Durban, ca. 1900–1951,” in Receded Tides of Empire: Aspects of the Social and Economic History of Natal since 1910, ed. Bill Guest and John M. Sellers (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Presss, 1994), 262–81. 32. The location of these facilities has been determined from the following works: La Hausse, “Struggle for the City,” 374 (map 1); and Maasdorp and Humphreys, From Shan- tytown to Township, 12 (map 2). The headquarters of the Native Affairs Department now houses a museum on African life in Durban, the KwaMhule Museum (the place of “Mhule,” the “good” or “nice,” the Zulu nickname for J. S. Marwick). 33. WO 33/93, Correspondence Re: Military Lands, No. 33, enc. Ripon to Governor of Natal [Hely-Hutchinson], March 30, 1894, pp. 41–43. 34. Ibid., No. 35, enc. 1, Hely-Hutchinson to Colonial Office, June 30, 1894, p. 44; see also No. 37, War Office to Treasury, October 17, 1894, p. 49. 35. De Kock, Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 2, 301–2. 36. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 199; and Stott, Boer Invasion of Natal, 26. 37. GH 1679, Governor’s Anglo-Boer War Diary of Events (June 5, 1899-July 1, 1899), p. 1a, entry for June 8, 1899. 38. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 199. 39. Natal Witness, January 4, 1900. 40. Natal Witness, January 4, 1900. See also PAR, A 1537, Refugee Committee Minutes and Correspondence: Letter to Joseph Baynes, October 24, 1899, and Letter to Secretary, Central Committee, Mansion House Fund, February 20, 1900. 41. Natal Witness, October 2 and 7, 1899. 42. Natal Witness, October 9, 1899. 43. Churchill, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria, 44 and 210. 44. Cecil, On the Eve of the War, 77. 45. “The Military Position,” Natal Witness, October 3, 1899. 46. Natal Witness, October 24 and 30, 1899. 47. Natal Witness, November 4, 1899. 48. Wassermann, “Natal Afrikaner and the Anglo-Boer War,” 123–26. 49. Brink, 1899, 97. 50. See, for example, Warwick, Black People and the South African War; and Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War. 51. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 16.

228 Notes to Chapter 12

Dominy_Text.indd 228 1/22/16 3:02 PM 52. UKNA, CAB 8/2, Colonial Defence Committee: Memoranda 1898–1900, Secret No. 173M, “Colonial Garrisons: Utilization of Native Troops,” memo drafted by M. Nathan [later Governor of Natal], March 17, 1899. 53. Warwick, Black Poeple and the South African War, 16–17. 54. Natal Witness, February 26, 1900. 55. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 80–90. See also Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 208–9. 56. Fuller, Last of the Gentlemen’s Wars, 6–8. 57. Reitz, Commando. 58. The subdistricts had critical intelligence-gathering functions. See Spiers, “Intel- ligence and Command in Britain’s Small Colonial Wars of the 1890s.” 59. PAR, PM 97, PMC 28/1904 [previously G 814/1902], Fetherstonhaugh to Gov., July 6, 1902. 60. PAR, PM 96, “Minute Papers (Confidential),” PMC 19/1904, Secretary of State, Telegram No. 1, February 16, 1904; Submission to Administrator by George Sutton, Prime Minister, February 22, 1904. 61. Ibid., Telegram from Administrator to Secretary of State for the Colonies, February 22, 1904. 62. Ibid. 63. Its existence and presence at Fort Napier was confirmed by consulting the Monthly Army Lists, 1903–1908. No further details could be traced. There is an unreferenced, very brief entry on the “Royal Garrison Regiment” on Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Royal_Garrison_Regiment; March 16, 2013, accessed July 6, 2015), which describes the formation of a regiment of reservists to serve as garrison troops while regular troops were engaged in the Anglo-Boer War. One battalion also garrisoned at Halifax in Nova Scotia. 64. KCAL, KCM 56949 (1455), No. 9 (Malherbe File 242), Natal Witness, cutting, ca. 1926, “The Last of Fort Napier: A Retrospect.” 65. Mosquito and African Sketch, December 23, 1905, 27. 66. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion 1906, 63. 67. Lambert, “Undermining of the Homestead Economy in Colonial Natal.” 68. Harrison, “Reconstruction and Planning in the Aftermath of the Anglo-Boer South African War.” 69. Guy, Maphumulo Uprising. 70. SNA 1/1/328, file 2678/1905: Minutes of Meeting at Isipingo, October 26, 1905, qtd. Redding, Sorcery and Sovereignty, 101. 71. Guy, Remembering the Rebellion, 19. 72. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 220–23. 73. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion; Carton, Blood from Your Children; and Guy, Maphumulo Uprising. 74. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion, 63–64; Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 190–191. 75. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion, 151–52. 76. Ibid., 153. 77. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 190–92; Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 224

Notes to Chapter 12 229

Dominy_Text.indd 229 1/22/16 3:02 PM 78. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion, 64. 79. “The Mayor’s Speech,” 79th News 88 (November 1906), 11. 80. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion, 63. 81. PAR PM 59, Minute Papers, 1906, PM 443/1906, Sec. of State, telegram, April 27, 1906. 82. Stuart, History of the Zulu Rebellion, 64–65. 83. Brookes and Webb, History of Natal, 229–30. 84. Nathan was of Jewish extraction. In 1914 he was appointed as undersecretary for Ireland, a position he held until after the Easter Rising in 1916. His religious background may have fostered an illusion of impartiality in the religiously divided Ireland. 85. De Kock, Dictionary of South African Biography, vol. 2, 616–17.

Chapter 13. Recessional 1. John Lambert, ‘‘The Last Outpost’: The Natalians, South Africa, and the British Empire,” in Settlers and Expatriates: Britons over the Seas, ed. Robert Bickers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 164–65. 2. Thompson, British Civic Culture of Natal, 6–7. 3. See Gibson, Wiltshire Regiment; and Kenrick, Story of the Wiltshire Regiment. 4. Corporation Year Book 1912–13 [hereafter CYB], “Regiments Stationed at Fort Napier,” pp. 30–31. 5. Thompson, British Civic Culture of Natal, 13. 6. PAR, Town Clerk of Pietermaritzburg, 3/PMB 1/1/17, Council Minutes, April 21, 1910, p. 908. 7. CYB 1912–13, p. 21. 8. Walker, History of Southern Africa, 554. 9. This account is based on Moodie, “Profitability, Respectability, and Challenge,” 2. 10. Bouch, Infantry in South Africa, 50. 11. Ibid., 2. 12. Ibid., 5. 13. Jones, History of the South Staffordshire Regiment. 14. Natal Witness, July 25, 1914. 15. Natal Witness, July 19, 1914. 16. Natal Witness, August 5, 1914. 17. Natal Witness, August 8, 1914. 18. Natal Witness, August 11, 1914. 19. Thompson, “Natal Home Front in the Great War.” 20. Natal Witness, August 13, 1914. 21. Natal Witness, August 14, 1914. 22. “Staffs Bands arewell”F and “Interview with Colonel Ovens,” Natal Witness, August 20, 1914. There is also some debate about the date of the final “Retreat” ceremony. 23. “The School Girls and the Soldiers,” Maritzburg Views 1 (September 1989; cutting

230 Notes to Chapters 12 and 13

Dominy_Text.indd 230 1/22/16 3:02 PM from Natal Museum collection). This article was based on the author’s interviews with “Wykeham Old Girls” Olive Harris, Memory Otto, and Ruth Pennington in August 1989. 24. Natal Witness, August 22, 1914. 25. This section is largely drawn from Hastings, Catastrophe. 26. Ibid., 455. 27. Swinton, Twenty Years After, 97. 28. Natal Witness, August 21, 1914. 29. For a succinct summary of the rebellion, see Walker, History of Southern Africa, 560–61; and for a more modern view, see Giliomee and Mbenga, New History of South Africa, 238–40. 30. NAR, Commissioner for Enemy Subjects (CES), CES 52, ES/70/938/14 T “Report on Treatment of Enemy Subjects,” January 14, 1915, pp. 7–8; See also CYB 1915–1916, p. 28, report on deputation to meet the prime minister. 31. Natal Witness, October 24, 1914. 32. These are averaged figures, as numbers fluctuated through paroles, new arrivals, and natural attrition. See NAR, Governor General (GG), GG 509 (file 9/64/455): Report of Swiss Consul on Visit to Fort Napier, June 30, 1917. On this occasion, 2,531 internees were held at the fort. 33. Natal Witness, October 2, 1914. 34. CYB 1915–1916, pp. 27–29. 35. CYB 1917–1918, p. 50. 36. NAR, CES 53, ES/70/938/14, “Report of the American Consul, enc. ‘Camp Rules and Regulations,’” p. 7. 37. PAR, Von Fintel, “Fort Napier: Internment Camp for Germans during World War I,” p. 123. See also PAR 1/PMB 3/1/1/2/7, No. 146, “Prisoner of War: Hans Merensky’’; and NAR, CES 138, ES 70/2897/14, “Merensky, Hans or Johannes.” 38. PAR, 3/PMB 7/11/23, “Minutes of the Finance and General Purposes Committee” [hereafter FGPC Minutes], June 9, 1921, p. 6. 39. Ibid., FGPC Minutes, November 24, 1921, pp. 153–54. 40. PAR, 3/PMB/7/11/24, FGPC Minutes, June 6, 1922, p. 62. 41. Ibid., FGPC Minutes, June 27, 1922, p. 70. 42. Ibid., FGPC Minutes, July 6, 1922, p. 75. 43. PAR, 3/PMB/1/1/9, Minutes of the City Council, July 31, 1922, pp. 115–17. 44. PAR, 3/PMB/7/11/24, FGPC Minutes, December 5, 1922, pp. 150–51. 45. Ibid., FGPC Minutes, January 11, 1923, pp. 159–60. 46. PAR, 3/PMB/1/1/9, Minutes of the City Council, December 9, 1924, p. 59. 47. Parle, “Fools on the Hill,” 1. 48. KCAL, KCM 56949 (1455), “The Last of Fort Napier: A Retrospect,” Natal Witness, ca. 1926. 49. This story is told by her husband, Ronnie Kasrils, in The Unlikely Secret Agent. 50. Ibid., 71; and Foucault, Discipline and Punish. 51. Kasrils, Unlikely Secret Agent, 139.

Notes to Chapter 13 231

Dominy_Text.indd 231 1/22/16 3:02 PM 52. Emery, Red Soldier, title page. 53. Comaroff and Comaroff,Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, 235. 54. Mnyandu, “Comparative Study of the Zionist Faith Healers and Diviners and Their Contribution to Christian Communities in the Valley of a Thousand Hills.” 55. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 93. 56. Papini, Rise Up and Dance and Praise God, 24–26 (“The Early Life of the Prophet” as related by Evangelist Ndelu). 57. Comaroff and Comaroff,Ethnology and the Historical Imagination, 5; see also Cope, To Bind the Nation, 134. 58. Sandra Klopper, “Mobilising Cultural Symbols in Twentieth Century Zululand,” in African Studies Forum I, ed. Romaine Hill, Marie Muller, and Martin Trump (Pretoria: HSRC Press, 1991), 210–11. 59. Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scot- land,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 15–42. 60. Klopper, “Mobilising Cultural Symbols,” 211. 61. See, for example, PAR, 3/PMB, 4/3//173, Minute Papers, No. 471/1935, F. J. Rowell to Town Clerk, April 18, 1935. 62. Lambert, “Last Outpost,” 170. 63. Grundlingh and Sapire, “From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual.” 64. John Mockler, “I Remember: Pietermaritzburg 1838–1938,” Natal Mercury Centen- nial Supplement, October 17, 1938, 36. 65. Regimental Museum, Enniskillen, “An Episode of the ‘Eighties’ at Fort Napier.” 66. Professor Tim Dunne, former SRC President, UNP, personal communication with the author. 67. Trevor Wills, “The Segregated City,” in Pietermaritzburg 1838—1988: A New Portrait of an African City, ed. John Laband and Robert Thompson (Pietermaritzburg: KwaZulu- Natal University Press, 1988), 33–45. 68. Grundlingh and Sapire, “From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual,” 22. 69. Rev. John Aitchison, personal communication with the author, May 2014.

Appendix. List of Regiments in Garrison in Natal/Pietermaritzburg, 1842–1914 1. This regiment amalgamated with the 108th Regiment to form the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1881 and served later in Natal under this title. A detachment of the 25th Regi- ment was involved in the relief of Port Natal in 1842, but was immediately withdrawn and did not form part of the Natal garrison. 2. The regiment was renamed the 1st Sherwood Foresters in 1881, after it had left Natal. 3. The 59th Regiment was sent to Natal at the time of the Zulu Invasion scare in 1861. It remained in the colony for a few weeks only. 4. The regimental designation was formally changed in 1881; the 1/24th Regiment was

232 Notes to Chapter 13 and Appendix

Dominy_Text.indd 232 1/22/16 3:02 PM sent to Natal as part of the pre-Invasion of Zululand buildup in 1878 and did not form part of the permanent garrison of Natal for long. 5. Between January and July 1879, Fort Napier was garrisoned from time to time by small detachments of the 88th Regiment; the 2/21st Regiment, and the 99th Regiment (Laband and Thompson, Field Guide to the War in Zululand, 115). 6. Most of the regiment was withdrawn after the mutiny, and only a small detachment remained until 1888. 7. During the Anglo-Boer War, Fort Napier was utilized rather than fully garrisoned by support and line-of-communications units.

Notes on Sources 1. Queen’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 304. 2. Mclachlan and MacFie, “Historical Survey of Port Arthur Garrison,” 3–4. 3. Francis, Governors and Settlers, 33. 4. Tulloch, Recollections of Forty Years’ Service. 5. NAM, ARC 7403-70.

Notes to Appendix and Notes on Sources 233

Dominy_Text.indd 233 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 234 1/22/16 3:02 PM Bibliography

o distinction has been drawn in the published material between contem- Nporary and modern works. Given the seven decades of occupation by the garrison at Fort Napier (1843–1914), a regimental history referring to the 1840s but published in 1914 can be regarded as a secondary rather than a contemporary source. A work published in the early 1900s, or even in 1914, referring to the Anglo-Boer War, can be regarded as a contemporary source.

Unpublished Sources

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Treasury Board Papers [T] T 24/11 Letters 1876 T 24/21 Letters 1887

War Office [WO] WO1/438–450 Sec. State: Letters recd.: Cape of Good Hope (inc. military), 1842–53

Dominy_Text.indd 235 1/22/16 3:02 PM WO 12/5761–5772 Regimental Pay Lists: 45th Foot (1850–59) WO 12/10588 Regimental Pay List: CMR (1869–70) WO 16/1608 Regimental Pay Lists, 1888 WO 27/447 Inspection Returns and Confidential Reports, 1857 WO 28/270 General Orders: Cape of Good Hope, 1841–51 WO 32/6234 Papers: “Incursion of Basutos into Natal” WO 33/3A/53 and /93 Miscellaneous Papers: Works, Lands 1856; 1894 WO 55/890–900 Ordnance Engineer Papers (inc. misc. 1854–59) WO 78/2261; -/2283 -/2346; -/2467 Fort Napier Maps WO 86/7 Court Martial Registers, 1852–55 WO 90/4 Court Martial Registers, First Inniskilling Fusilliers, 1887 WO 92/2 Judge Advocate-General’s Office: General Court Martial Register, 1838–98

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Colonial Secretary’s Office [CSO]: CSO 38 (Pts. 1 and 2) Letters Received 1846 CSO 507–585 Letters 1875–77 CSO 1025 Letters 1885 CSO 1160–1167 Letters 1887 CSO 1630 Minute Papers 1899 CSO 2533 Minute Papers (Confidential) 1878–79

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Dominy_Text.indd 264 1/22/16 3:02 PM Oral Interviews and Personal Communications

O ral Interviews Olive Harris, August 1989 Memory Otto, August 1989 Ruth Pennington, August 1989 Jean Rennie, June 1990 Agnes Simpson-March, 1990 (Canterbury, Kent)

These persons were selected for their memories of the British garrison in Natal in the first decade of the twentieth century, or because they knew Fort Napier intimately from the second decade of the century.

Pr e sonal Communications Rev. J. Aitchison, St. George’s Church, Pietermaritzburg, May 2014 Prof. T.T. Dunne, University of Cape Town, June 2013 B. Conradie, Standard Bank Archives, Johannesburg, November 1993 L. Meltzer, William Fehr Collection, Cape Town, February 1995 R. Omar and G. Berning, Local History Museum (KwaMhule Museum), Durban, Sep- tember 1994 R. Papini, Local History Museum (KwaMhule Museum), Durban, March 1995 G. Stephens, Regimental Museum, Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, May 1991

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Dominy_Text.indd 265 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 266 1/22/16 3:02 PM Index

Able, Private Able, 85 American Civil War, 4 Africa, xi, xiv, 2, 9, 24, 46, 89, 104, 129, 145 Amiel, Lieutenant Colonel, 151 African/s: labor/laborers, 35, 120, 121, 143, Anglicans, 73, 190 144, 151, 153, 156, 158; peasants/peasantry, Anglo-Boer War (2nd), xiii, xvi, 2, 10, 11, 120, 144, 148, 154. See also blacks; “kaffirs”; 129, 135, 138, 140, 141, 144, 146, 147, 152, natives 157, 160, 166, 170, 171, 173, 192 African National Congress (ANC), xvii, 187 Anglo-Transvaal War, xvi, 2, 157 Afrikaans, 97, 183, 187, 190 Anglo-Zulu War, xv, xvi, xxii, 2, 19, 66, 68, Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging 69, 73, 74, 76, 80, 87, 93, 114, 121, 126, 140, (ATKV), 190 144, 146, 147, 152, 155, 156, 163, 164, 180 Afrikaner/s, 144, 170. See also Boers; Trek- Antrim, County, 96 kers; Voortrekkers Armstrong, Lieutenant, 50, Agricola, 152 Armstrong, Trooper George, 174 agriculture, 152 Army Nursing Service Reserve, 141 Albu, Sir George, 185 Army Temperance Association, 19 alcohol, 79, 91, 105, 109, 123, 155 Atmore, Anthony, 24 Alexander, Mrs. Jane, 133 Auckland, New Zealand, xxii Alexander, Richard, 118, 133, 134, 166 Australia, xii, xxiii, 4, 5, 7, 8, 17, 18, 82, 93, Alexandra Park, 179 108, 120, 130 Alfred, Prince, 53, 54, 55, 115 Austria-Hungary, 183 Alfred County, 62 Austro-Hungarians, 183 Aliwal, Battle of, 122 Aylward, Alfred, 144, 145 Aliwal canteen, 121 Allison, Reverend James, 119 Baines, Thomas, 66 amaKholwa, 65, 69, 73, 115, 119, 120, 139, Baker, Sir Samuel, 14 148, 154, 166, 175. See Kholwa Bale, Sir Henry, 104, 107, 172 amaWasha, 91, 156 Balfour, Arthur, 95

Dominy_Text.indd 267 1/22/16 3:02 PM Bambatha Rebellion, 2, 149, 161, 188. See also Bronkhorstspruit, Battle of, 74, 140 Rising Brookes, Edgar, xiii, 29, 42, 110 Barford, Corporal, 88, 89, 94, 197 Brooks, Corporal, 92 Barter, Charles, 55, 64, 92, 101, 136, 137 Brown, J. Moray, 14 Basotho, 53, 56, 59, 61, 83, 123, 150 Browne, Colonel H. R., 85, 86, 87 Bathurst, New South Wales, xii, 8, 15 Browne, General T. H., 86 Baynes, Sir Joseph, 149, 150, 159, 163, 168, Bulpin, T. V., 162 169 Bulwer, Sir Henry, 68, 70, 73, 137, 154 Baynesfield, 150 Burdett-Coutts, Baroness Angela, 140 Bay of Natal, 24, 27, 29. See also Port Natal Burmester, Lieutenant Colonel, 56 Bechuanaland (Botswana), 187 Bushmans Rand, 36 Bedford, Tommy, xii Bushman’s River Post, 79, 82, 83, 94, 125 Beira, 165 Butler, Major William, 73 Belfast, 96, 98, 101, 104 Byrne, Eileen, 21 Belgium, 182 Belich, James, 51, 74 cadet training, 118 Benoni, 180 Calcutta, 11 Bhaca chiefdom, 26, 51, 61 Calverley, Private Daniel, 151 Binns, Sir Henry, 168 Cambridge, Duke of, 11, 13, 107 Bird, John, xiii, 113, 121 Camp, The, 89, 99, 100, 101, 103, 138, 173, Bishopstowe, 197, 55, 56 184. See also Fort Napier Bisset, Colonel John, 62, 119 Campbell, Private John, 101, 102, 103 blacks, 84. See also Africans Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 174 Bloemfontein, 171 Camperdown, 174 Blood River (Ncome), Battle of, 25 Camp’s Drift, 45, 120 Bloukrans, 63 Canada, 5, 6, 7, 17, 67, 108, 144 Bluff, The, 29 canteens, military, 15, 91, 99, 104, 122 Board of Ordnance, 12 Cape Colony, 9, 34, 62, 82, 114 Boers, 4, 53, 59, 62, 74, 75, 76, 88, 123, 139, Cape Town, 26, 30, 33, 37, 38, 50, 52, 56, 59, 146, 147, 155, 169, 170, 173. See also Afri- 61, 62, 110, 117, 147, 182, 185 kaners; Dutch Cardwell, Edward, 12, 13, 17, 97, 192 bombast, 50 Carnarvon, Lord Henry, 67, 68, 163, 177 Bombay, 11 Castle of Good Hope, xi Bonaparte, Eugene Louis Napoleon, xvi, 71. Cathcart, General George, 42, 43 See also Prince Imperial Cattell, Surgeon William, 85, 86, 87, 124, 131, Bond, Colonel William, 76, 77 134, 196 Botha, General Louis, xvi, xvii, 118, 170, 176, cattle, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 41, 45, 50, 51, 59, 180, 183, 184 63, 64, 82, 83, 125, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, Botha, State President P. W., xvii 173, 179, 188. See also livestock Bourne, Sir Roland, 185, 186 Cecil, Evelyn, 169 Boys, Colonel Edmund, 36, 41, 46, 47, 51, Central Column, Anglo-Zulu War, 69, 154 113, 122, 126, 132, 133, 148, 161 Cetshwayo kaMpande, King, 24, 25, 50, 55, Brink, Brigadier A. J., 186 56, 63, 80, 87, 88, 89, 126, 187, 188 British army, 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, Ceylon, 64 23, 71, 83, 96, 118, 123, 182 Chamberlain, Joseph, 171 British Museum, 126 Chamberlain, Major, 72 Britishness, 132, 189 Charter, Major, 25 Broederbond, 190. See also ATKV Charter of Natal, 43, 53, 58, 67 Bronkhorstspruit, 74, 140 Cheddie (Chetty), Mr., 105

268 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 268 1/22/16 3:02 PM Chelmsford, Lord, xvi, 69, 71, 73, 140. See Danster, Private Jonker, 85 also Thesiger, Frederick Davies, Bandsman Frederick, 85, 86, 131 Chelsea, 16, 101, 172 Davis, Adam, 4 Childers, Hugh, 12, 97 Department of Railways and Harbours, 189 Churchill, Winston, xvi, xvii, 141, 152, 169 Derry (County Londonderry), 94, 98 Church of England, xv, 19, 132 deserters, 7, 123, 124 Clarke, Lieutenant, 65, 66 desertion, 7, 17, 18, 82, 83, 84, 91, 93, 97, 109, Clarke, Sergeant, 65 121, 122, 123, 124, 127, 157 Clifford, Major General H. H., 70, 71, 73 diamond fields, 63, 124 Cloete, Colonel Josias, 28, 30 Dingane ka Senzangakhona, King, 25 Cloete, Henry, 30, 31, 33, 45, 131, 132 Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, King, 88, 175, 176, Coastal Column, Anglo-Zulu War, 154 188 Coghill, Lieutenant Nevill, 126 discipline, xviii, 3, 8, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 29, coinage, 147. See also currency 36, 41, 79, 80, 82, 85, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, Colenso, Bishop John William, 55, 63, 65, 96, 97, 100, 102, 105, 106, 114, 115, 121, 122, 66, 70, 85, 117, 197 123, 129, 130, 133, 134, 136 Colenso, Fanny, 64 diseases, animal, 154, 158; East Coast Fever, Colenso, Frances, 52, 56, 68, 124 173; horse sickness, 27, 154; lung-sickness, Colley, Sir George Pomeroy, 74, 75, 161 154, 155; nagana, 173; rinderpest, 158, 173 Colonial Defence Committee, 164, 170, 177 diseases, venereal, 21, 134 135, 138 colonial hierarchy, 110 Disputed Territory, 125 colonialism, 129, 187 Disraeli, Benjamin, xiv, xv, xvi, 9 colonization, xii Doneley, Private Charles, 123 Comaroff, John & Jean, 187, 188 Douglas, Sir Percy, 59, 60, 61, 81 Commander-in-Chief, 6, 11, 12, 18, 119 Downie, Sergeant, 136, 137 Commanding Royal Engineer, 37, 38, 40, 42, Drakensberg mountains, xiv, 31, 62, 82, 83, 64, 149. See also CRE 110 commissariat, 1, 12, 36, 40, 45, 144, 145, 147, drunkenness, 3, 18, 19, 79, 81, 91, 109, 121, 148, 149, 150, 154, 155, 157, 191 122, 123, 130 communications, lines of, 151, 158 Dublin, 16, 93, 95, 96, 98, 101 confederation, 67, 68, 163, 177 Durban, xii, 23, 32, 40, 44, 46, 51, 52, 56, 59, Congella, 28, 29 61, 67, 70, 71, 73, 81, 94, 104, 118, 120, 121, conquest state, 2 122, 132, 133, 147, 148, 149, 151, 155, 156, Conservative, 95. See alsoTory 157, 160, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 174, Contagious Diseases Prevention Bill, 138 187, 189, 190. See also Port Natal Cooper, Colonel Henry, 36, 47, 53, 161 Durban Borough Police, 118, 133, 166 Couling, Private Thomas, 85 Durban Native Affairs Department, 167 courts martial, 65, 66, 84, 90, 103, 118, 124, Durnford, Colonel Anthony, 64, 65, 66, 70, 129, 174, 196 158 Cox, Major General George, 165 Dushani, Bhaca chief, 51 Coxon, Lieutenant George, 36 Dutch, xiv, 28, 46, 97, 156. See also Boers Crimean War, 12, 81 Dutch Reformed Church, 170, 190 Crown, The (British), 29, 31, 58, 76, 88, 105, 119, 124, 162, 179 Edendale, 65, 73, 115, 119, 120, 148, 166, 175 Cubbins, Anthony, 27 Edward, Prince of Wales, 188 Cunynghame, Lieutenant General Sir Ar- Edwardian era, 19, 112, 182 thur, 87 Edwards, Private Robert, 85 Curragh, The, xi Elgin, Lord Victor, 174 currency, 144 Empire Loyalist Society, 189

Index 269

Dominy_Text.indd 269 1/22/16 3:02 PM England, 8, 72, 94, 104, 110, 138, 155, 170, 181 routine, 18, 73, 87, 135, 166, 179; strategic English-speaking South Africans, 76, 114, value, 5, 7, 38, 152, 161, 177; symbolism, 187 xvi, 3, 5, 9, 10, 40, 49, 178, 186, 188, 189, Enniskillen, 98 190; temporary structures, 120, 151, 162; Escombe, Harry, 104, 168 transfer of property, 185, 189; water sup- Eshowe, 19, 71, 88, 89, 97, 98, 154, 169, 188 ply, 43, 45, 46, 47, 148, 149. See also gar- esprit de corps, 130 rison Estcourt, 82, 169 Fort Nottingham, 64, 149 Etherington, Norman, 25 Fort Scott, 149 eTshaneni, Battle of, 88 Fort Stokes, xiii expenditure, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 143, 145, 146, Fort Tenedos, 89, 97 147, 150, 164 Fort Yolland, 161 Foucault, Michel, 20, 107 Fairfield, Edward, 165 Fox, James, 125 Faku kaNgqungqushe, 26, 61, 62 France, xi, 6, 71, 73, 165 Fanshawe, Lieutenant Colonel, 37 Francis, Mark, 53, 196 Far East, 85 Fraser, Superintendent William, 135, 136, Fashoda incident, 165 138, 162 Fenian, 95, 96, 104, 144 Frere, Sir Bartle, xv, 69, 126 Fermanagh, County, 94, 98 frontiers, 26, 44, 50, 63, 74, 80, 112, 123, 124, Fetherstonhaugh, Major General, 171 125 Fingard, Judith, 109, 130 Frontier Wars (eastern Cape), 26; Eighth, First Fleet, 7 52, 79, 83; Seventh, 83 Fitzpatrick, Percy, 111, 112 frontier zone, 2 Fleming, Lieutenant William, 122, 125, 126 Froomberg, Miss, 99 flogging, 18, 19, 120 Froomberg, Samuel, 189 Fodo kaNombewu, 51, 61, 153, 179, 180 Frost, Mrs, 133 Follis, Reverend, 104 Fuller, Major General J. F. C., 170 Fort Amiel, 151 Fort Beaufort, 83 Gallwey, Sir Michael, 137 Fort Buckingham, 56 Gandhi, Mohandas (M. K.), xvi, xvii, 118, Fort Chater, 161 133, 134, 176 Fort Curtis, 161 Garden, Captain Robert, 125, 126 Fortescue, Sir John, 9 garrison/s: administrative impact, xv, 47, Fort George, 6 49; campaigns, 2; comparative perspec- Fort Napier, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xvii, 1, 2, 4, 6, tives, 4–9; construction, 44; costs, 34, 57, 56, 58, 75, 79, 80, 101, 147; armory, 161; 145, 164, 171; cultural impact, xiv, 6, 22, barracks, 36, 40, 172, 179; cemetery, 86, 44, 187; definition of, 1; detachments, 8, 189; College of Banditry, 80, 96, 97; con- 83, 93, 97; economic impact, xiv, 3, 23, struction, xv, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 47, 145, 44, 46, 143, 144, 150, 152, 156, 159, 181; 149, 167; executions, 84; Garrison church enlistments, 150, 151; establishment, 42; (see also St. George’s), 173; hospital, 140, historiography, xiii, xvii, 49; ideology, 141, 152, 169; internment camp, 170, 183, xii, 169, 172; imperial, xi, 4, 130; interior 184; location, 33, 36, 45, 148; magazine, life, 80, 85; longevity, 10; masculinity, 1, 52; mental hospital, xvii, xviii, 39, 185, 13, 65, 139; mentality, 5; morale, 87, 123; 186, 187; Methven barracks, 186; naming, Natal, xi, 3, 8, 82, 167; permanence, 41, 34; officers mess, 111, 148, 173; parade 42, 43; political perceptions, xvii, xviii, (ground]) 40, 45, 52, 86, 87, 97, 134; 161; psychological impact, 3, 78, 176; rein-

270 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 270 1/22/16 3:02 PM forcements, 59, 68; religious worship, 88, Government Savings Bank, 181 179; role, xvi; routine, 17, 18; security, 46; Grantham, Lieutenant, 125 social discrimination, 110, 112; sport, xii, Great Trek centenary, 189 13, 114; urban influence, xii, 34, 35; with- Green, Reverend Dean James, 73 drawal of, xix, 136, 146, 149, 160, 163, 165, Green, Sergeant (police), 162 171, 172, 181, 186. See also Fort Napier Green, Thomas, 32, 116, 121, 133 Geisman, Private Hendrick, 84 Greenacre, Benjamin, 162, 166 Genadendal, 82 Grey, Lieutenant Colonel J. W., 56 gender relationships, xviii, 3, 142 Grey, Lord Henry, 42 General Post Office, 181 Grey, Sir George, 9, 53, 55, 56, 59, 62 gentlemen’s war, 170, 171. See also Anglo- Grey’s Hospital, 118, 133, 141, 169 Boer War Greytown, 176 gentry, 12, 13, 14, 85, 117, 148, 159 Griggs, Eleanor, 187 George V, King, 179 Griqua, 62 Georghan, Private, 115 Griqualand West, 62, 63 German internees, 6 Guy, Jeff, xv, xvi, xxv, 41, 44, 47, 49, 51, 55, Germany, 11, 165, 183, 184, 185 68, 174 Gibb, Charles James, 15, 27, 28, 32–40, 45, 48, 58, 141, 148, 166, 167 Halifax, Nova Scotia, xi, 4, 6, 7, 109, 130 Gibraltar, xi, 4, 5, 6 Hall, Sir John, 122, 134, 135 Gifford, Lord Edric, 132 Hamilton-Browne, George “Maori,” 112, 126 Gilbert (W. S.) and Sullivan (Arthur), xvi, Harman, General, 102 66, 114 Hartley, Mr., 67 Gladstone, William Ewart, 12, 19, 77, 95, Harvey and Greenacre, 162 138, 161 Hattersley, Alan, xiii, 37, 110 gold, discovery of, 77 Havelock, Sir Arthur, 105 gold fields/mines, 74, 91, 97, 106, 112, 141, Helpmekaar, 97 152, 164, 180 Hely-Hutchinson, Lady Mary, 141 Goodall, Colour-Sergeant Edward J., 88, Hely-Hutchinson, Sir Walter, 77, 168 89, 94, 197 Hermannsburg, 118 Goodricke, Miss, 131 Hildyard, General Sir Henry, 158 Goodwin, Reverend W., 169 Hill, Private Robert, 86 Gordon, Captain Robert, 52 Hime, Colonel Sir Albert, 158, 168, 169, 170, Gordon, Colonel Charles, 74 171 Gordon, Ruth, 98, 100 Hlubi chiefdom, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 92 government, 3, 4, 29, 49, 118, 122; colonial Hobsbawm, Eric, 49, 53 (Natal), xii, xiv, 9, 30, 36, 39, 40, 44, 52, Hodgson, Private William, 85 56, 58, 59, 61, 63, 70, 71, 145, 146, 150, 157, Hogg, Piet, 149 158, 164, 167, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179; Home Rule movement, Ireland, 79 imperial (British), 12, 41, 50, 51, 57, 84, homosexuality, 129, 134, 142 126, 138, 143, 146, 154, 157, 160, 165, 168, Hong Kong, 85 169, 170, 174, 175, 178, 185; municipal, 148, Hopkins, Harry, 110 189; responsible (Natal), 52, 57, 77, 136, Horse Guards, 11, 37, 42. See also War Office 146, 147, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 164, 165, horses, 11, 13, 18, 27, 83, 97, 99, 106, 124, 144, 166, 167, 168, 171, 174; Union, xiv, 178, 184, 145, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158 185, 186, 189 Hounslow Barracks, 18 Government House, 47, 67, 77, 99, 109, 119, House of Commons, 11, 95 120, 169 Howell, Lieutenant James, 820

Index 271

Dominy_Text.indd 271 1/22/16 3:02 PM Howick, 139, 166, 181 Kasrils, Ronnie, 184 Huffer, Donald, 13, 174, 175 Kat River Settlement, 83 Hunt, Sub-Inspector Sidney Kavanagh, Mrs, 133 Hunter, Major General Archibald, 169 Khambule, Elijah, 65 hunting, 3, 13, 15, 46, 53, 56, 88, 89, 100, 109, Khartoum, 74 110, 111, 124, 125, 126, 147, 164, 170, 171, 197 Khoikhoi, 82, 83, 84 Kholwa, 139, 148, 154, 166. See also amaK- iBandla lamaNazaretha regiment, 188 holwa Imperial Hotel, 138 Kiernan, Victor, 14 imperialism, xiii, 2, 14, 24, 49, 73, 74, 119, Kilkenny Cats, 80 172, 138 kilts, 174, 188 India, 4, 10, 12, 29, 41, 58, 66, 74 Kimberley, 63, 184 Indian Army, 11, 122 King, Marina, 124 Indian Empire, 10 King, Private R., 91 Indian Mutiny, 81, 84, 105 King, Richard (Dick), 28 Indian Ocean, xiv, 5, 25 King William’s Town, xiii, 140 Indians (American First Nations-western), Kipling, Rudyard, 128 4, 7 Kitchener, General Lord Herbert, 129, 171, Indians (South African), xvii, 77, 115, 148, 184 160, 167, 170, 176, 189 Klip River District (County), 48, 59, 60, Ingogo, Battle of, 75 64, 83 Inkatha Zulu Nationalist Movement, 188 Klopper, Henning, 190 Inspector General Fortifications (IGF), 37, Knight, Ian, 126 38, 39 Kok, Adam, 62 invasion scare (1861), 50, 57 Kruger, President Paul, 165 Ireland, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 68, 79, 94, Kruiseecke, 182. See alsoYpres 95, 96, 98, 105, 117 Kumalo, John, 139 Isandlwana, Battle of, 17, 64, 69, 70, 73, 126, KwaZulu-Natal, Province of, xviii, 188 140, 154, 163, 174 Kyle, Captain (later Major), 32, 51 isibhalo, 156, 157. See also labor service isigodlo (women’s quarters), 55 Laband, John, xxii Itafa amalinde, 28 Ladysmith, 104, 140, 141, 156, 157, 158, 165, Ivuna River, 97 169, 170 La Fleur, Farrier Sergeant Gert, 85 Jager, Private Conrad, 85 Laing’s Nek, Battle of, 75 Jamaica constitution, 163 Lambert, John, 144, 189 Jameson Raid, 164, 165 Lamont, Corporal, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 Japan, 85 Lancashire, 97 Jenkins, Reverend John, 117, 122 Land Leagues, 95 Jervis, Captain, 25 Langalibalele ka Mtihimkulu, xv, 48, 62, 63, Johannesburg, 141, 157, 165, 170, 180, 183, 185 64, 65, 66, 67, 92 Joubert, General Piet, 75 Last Outpost, xii, 9, 10, 182, 187, 189 Jubilee, Queen’s (1887), 95, 96, 98, 105, 106 Le Cordeur, Basil, 42 Legislative Council, 46, 58, 61, 64, 68, 77, Kaffirs/Kafirs, 53, 74, 84, 91, 92, 120, 123, 136, 138, 163 156, 157. See also Africans Lesaoana, Basotho chief, 59, 60 Kamp-industrie, 184 lightning, 85, 86, 87, 89, 134 Karkloof, 86, 117, 124 Lindley, Reverend Daniel, 25

272 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 272 1/22/16 3:02 PM liquor trade, 100, 109 Marwick, James, 158 livestock, 45, 51, 143, 153, 155 masculinity, 1, 3, 13, 97, 109, 118, 124, 129, 130 Lobatse, 187 Mashona, xiv Location Commission, 58, 63 Mashonaland, 165 locations, 48, 52, 63, 115, 135, 156, 158, 173 Mason, Robert, 69, 72 London, xvi, 12, 18, 24, 26, 34, 37, 38, 42, 44, Matabele, 170 56, 60, 66, 68, 71, 101, 119, 123, 129, 133, Matabeleleland, 165 161, 167, 171, 172, 174, 185 Matross, Private Hendrick, 85 Lord, Sergeant, 161, 162 Mawa, Princess, 50 Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial, xvi, 71 McAvoy, Frederick, 124 Loyalty, 14, 20, 49, 83, 101, 110, 167, 169, 170, McCallum, Sir Henry, 171, 172, 174 182 McCrea, Private Joseph, 101, 103, 104, 105, Lubombo Mountains, 25, 126 106, 107 Lucas, Captain Gould, 48, 64 McKeown, Private Patrick, 101, 102, 103, 104, Lydenburg, 74 106, 107 Lyttelton, General Sir Neville, 158 McLeod, Ellen, 155 Mealies-and-Forage Party, 163, 164, 165, 168, MacDonald, Mrs. Elizabeth, 141 174, 181 MacDonald, Robert, 49, 73, 141 Mediterranean, xi, 5 Macfarlane, John, 63, 64 Merensky, Dr. Hans, 184 Maclean, John, 60, 61 Meshlynn farm, 64 Macrorie, Bishop Kenneth, xv, 68, 73 messengers, 50, 63, 118, 133 Macrorie, Mrs Agnes, 140 Methley, James, 117 Madagascar, 164 Methodists, 99, 116. See also Wesleyans Madras, 11 Methuen, General Lord Paul, 177 Mafingo, 173, 174 Mevana, 103 Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 37, 38, 50 Mfengu, 83 Majuba, Battle of, 74, 75, 76, 147, 161, 163 Midlands, 17, 35, 151, 163, 165, 172 male bonding, 3, 130, 135 military reserve, xviii, 167, 185, 186, 189 mamba, snake, 89, 131 Milking Campaign, 51, 52, 153 Manchester, 21, 96 Milles, Colonel, 64 Mandela, President Nelson, 66, 187 Milner, Lord Alfred, 173, 189 Mandlakazi, 87 miners strike, xiv Manning, Colonel, 183 Mitchell, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles, Maori, 4, 8, 9, 51, 52 70, 159, 166 Maphumulo district, 174 Mkhomazi River, 27, 52, 153 Maqoma, Xhosa chief, 83 Mkhonto weSizwe, 187 Maritzburg, xv, 1, 23, 31, 45, 70, 81, 90, 100, Mkhungo kaMpande, 55, 56 110, 118, 131, 169, 186. See also Pieter- Mngazi River, 26, 27 maritzburg Mngeni River, 181 Maritzburg Borough Police, 92, 118 Mnini, Chief, 29 Maritzburg College, 141 Mockler, John, 189 Markham, Violet, 138 Modder B Mine, 180 Marks, Professor Shula, 24, 174 Monase, Princess, 55 marriage alliances, 3, 130, 142 Montgomery, Lieutenant Colonel, 89, 90, Marshall, Lieutenant Colonel, 36, 37 131, 151 Marshall, Trooper, 92 Montreal, Quebec, 7, 144 Martin, Corporal, 92 Moodie, Duncan, 115

Index 273

Dominy_Text.indd 273 1/22/16 3:02 PM Moravian mission stations, 82 National Army Museum, 101, 172 Morgan, Lieutenant Colonel H. G., 157 National Assembly, xviii, Morrell, Robert, 129 National Monuments Council, xviii Moshweshwe, King, 59 Native Labour Corps, 157 mounted infantry, 82, 88, 97 natives, 12, 62, 64, 77, 119, 135. See also Af- Mpande kaSenzangakhona, King, xv, xvi, 24, ricans 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 50, 52, 55, 56, 63 Ncaphayi, 26, 51 Mpondo, kingdom, 26, 27, 51, 61, 62 Ndebele, xiv, 2. See also Matabele Mpumalanga Province, 77 Ndongeni, 28 Msinduze River, 78, 99, 148 Ndukwana, 139 Msuluzi River, 63 Nesbitt, Reverend, 68 Mswati I, King, 50 Newcastle, 151, 169, 171 Mtamvuna River, 26, 62 Newcastle, Duke of, 43 Mthonga kaMpande, 55, 56 New Kleinfontein Mine, 180 Mtshezi River, 63 New Republic, 88 Muirhead, Andrew, 118 New South Africa, xxi Muller, Hannah Weiss, 4, 5 New South Wales, xii, 7, 15, 130 mutiny, 18, 74, 79, 80, 83, 84, 92, 94, 96, 97, newspapers, 46, 73, 99, 100, 101, 105, 144; 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 136, 161, Mosquito and African Sketch, 172; Natal 172, 189, 196 Courier, 54, 57; Natalier De [The], 50; Mzimkhulu River, 26, 61, 62 Natal Mercury, 52, 67, 155; Natal Witness, Mzimvubu River, 26 51, 52, 55, 61, 79, 86, 91, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104, 107, 115, 125, 136, 144, 152, 157, 163, Napier, Sir George, 25, 26, 30, 31, 34, 37, 43 169, 170, 181, 182, 183, 186; The Star, 180; Napierville, 190 The Times, 12, 19, 101; Times of Natal, 73, Napoleon I, Emperor, 41, 144 100, 137 Napoleon III, Emperor, 71 New Zealand, xii, 4, 8, 9, 51, 57, 74 Natal: British identity, 169, 174, 189; bound- Ngoza kaLudada Qamu, 54, 55, 56 aries, 61, 62; Colony of, xv, xvi, 4, 34, 42, Ngwe, 65. See also Putili 58, 63, 64, 67, 77, 143, 150; historiography, Nomansland, 61, 62 13; insecurity, 50, 57, 176, 182; isolation, Nonconformist, 19, 53, 116, 117, 130 44, 81; military occupation, xi, 1, 2, 27, 41, Nongqai, 170. See also Zululand Native Po- 42, 43, 146, 172; military works, 38, 40, lice 167; political transition, 29, 31; Province North America, xi, 6, 96 of, xii, xviii, 178, 189; public ceremonies, North Atlantic, xi 49, 98; social relations (class), 22, 24, 110, North Coast, 149 112, 116, 128 Nottingham, George, 121 Natal Brewery, 152 Nottingham Castle, 84 Natal Field Force, 74, 157 Nourse, Joseph, 29 Natal Government Asylum, 118, 186 Nova Scotia, xi, 6, 109 Natal Government Railways, 116 Nyawo chiefdom, 26 Natalia, Republiek, 26 Natalians, 24, 57, 110, 169, 178, 182 O’Brien, Dr. William, 185 Natal Mounted Police, 124, 151, 164 O’Donnell, M. H., 162 Natal Museum, 84, 119, 125 O’Hara, William, 118 Natal Provincial Administration, 39 O’Hara, Mrs., 133 Natal Society, 119, Oliviershoek Pass, 59 Nathan, Sir Matthew, 177 Orange Free State, 53, 59, 62, 112, 164, 188

274 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 274 1/22/16 3:02 PM Orangemen, 98, 104, 106 Preston, Adrian, 68 Orange River Sovereignty, 42, 83, 94 Pretoria, xiv, 74, 151, 165, 169, 173, 176, 177, Ordnance reserve (land), 166; Durban, 167, 179, 184, 186, 189 189; Pietermaritzburg Pretorius, Andries, 2, 28, 30, 31 Ordnance Services Corps, 161 Price, Susanna, 20 Orr, Private Charles, 101, 103 Prince Imperial, xvi, 71, 72, 73 Ovens, Lieutenant Colonel R. M., 181 Prince of Wales, 188 Overberg, 31, 53, 59, 61, 123, 135, 145, 150, prostitution, 3, 20, 21, 134, 135, 136, 138, 142 152, 154, 156, 159 Protestant, 94, 98, 117 Protestant Ascendancy, 14, 95 Paardekraal, 74 public schools, 13, 14, 20 pageantry, 3, 44, 45, 49, 50, 53, 58, 66, 69, Public Works Department, 158, 168 70, 77, 119, 179 Pulleine, Colonel, 70 Palmerston, Lord Henry, 13, punishments, 18, 90, 129; branding, 18, 84; panics, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, capital, 18; execution, 18, 84, 104, 105, 107; 59, 60, 61, 65, 69, 71, 122, 145, 174 flogging, 18, 19, 120; hanging, 104; puni- Paris, xvi tive expeditions, 45; transportation, 18, Parker, Councillor Hugh, 179 84, 103, 129 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 95 Putili, 65, 66. See also Ngwe Parr, Major Henry, 120, 121 Pearse, Reverend Horatio, 132 Qalizwe kaDlozi, 138, 139 Pearson, Colonel C. K., 151, 154 Queen’s Regulations, 20, 133 Pentagon, The, 11 Queenstown, xiii Petrie, Private Archibald, 85 Queen Victoria, xvi, 10, 11, 53, 62, 71, 95, Phongolo River, 125, 171 114, 119 Pietermaritzburg, xv, xviii, 19; Anglo-Zulu War, 69–73; buildings, 35, 45; Colonial railway, 11, 68, 73, 74, 77, 91, 99, 112, 116, 131, capital, 44, 69; defence, 51, 52, 56, 70; gar- 151, 152, 157, 164, 165, 166, 183, 185, 186, rison town, xiii, xiv, 1, 2, 6, 32, 34, 36, 41, 190 45, 46; railway, arrival of, 73–74; spatial Ranger, Terence, 53 layout, 45; Voortrekker capital, 23, 29, 30, rape, 135, 138, 139 31, 44; urbanization, Africans, 46 Regiments, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 56, Pietermaritzburg Borough Police, 118 65, 69, 72, 79, 80, 82, 85, 90, 93, 94, 97, Pietermaritzburg Rifle Association, 183 100, 115, 116, 126, 129, 130, 131, 134, 161, Pietermaritzburg Society, xvii, xxii, xxiii 169, 182, 188; 2/79th [2nd Cameron Pine, Sir Benjamin, 47, 63, 66 Highlanders], 174, 175, 176, 188; 3rd Piper, Lieutenant Colonel, 40, 41, 47 [Dragoon Guards], 77, 166; 7th [Hussars Point, The, 25 (Queen’s Own)], 18, 152, 165; 20th [2nd poll tax, 173 Lancashire Fusiliers], 85; 24th [Warwick- Pondoland, 162. See also Mpondo Kingdom shire (South Wales Borderers)], 17, 68, poor whites, 190 72, 140; 27th [Inniskilling Fusiliers], 79, Port Arthur, Van Diemens Land, xii, 8, 85 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 106, 136, Port Durnford, 88, 89 161; 38th [1st South Staffordshire], 3, 179, Port Elizabeth, 81, 138 180, 181, 182, 183; 41st [1st Welsh Regt], Port Natal, xv, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 88; 45th [Sherwood Foresters], 80, 84; 32, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 147, 192. See 75th [1st Gordon Highlanders], 75, 118; also Durban 85th [King’s Shropshire Light Infantry], Potchefstroom, 74, 181 136; 88th [Connaught Rangers], 70; 97th

Index 275

Dominy_Text.indd 275 1/22/16 3:02 PM [Royal West Kent], 151; Cape Mounted Scheepers, Mr., 125 Riflemen [Cape Corps], 27, 40, 47, 51, 56, Scotland, 16 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 94, 117, 123, 125, 134, Scott, John, 47, 55, 56, 59 145, 153, 163; Imperial Light Horse, 169; Scottish, 16, 17, 169 Natal Carbineers, 65, 66, 70, 81, 92; Natal Scott’s Theatre, 168 Native Contingent, 69, 126; Natal Volun- scuttlers, 96, 97 teers, 73; New South Wales Corps [“Rum Senior, Elinor, 144 Corps”], 7; Royal Garrison Regiment (see servants, 111, 115, 125 also “Royal Dugouts”) 172; Scots Guards, settlers, xii, 4, 6, 9, 11, 24, 43, 44, 49, 50, 52, 182 ; Scottish, 16, 17 53, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 67, 70, 77, 83, regimental: bands, 41, 52, 53, 54, 63, 67, 69, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 116, 119, 121, 122, 74, 76, 77, 113, 114; family, 13, 20, 21, 130, 129, 131, 139, 147, 149, 151, 154, 156, 157, 140; libraries, 15, 19; musicals, 113, 114; 159, 163, 168, 169, 174 savings banks, 19, 181; schools, 16, 21, 117, Seymour, Lieutenant William, 8, 15 118; wives, 27, 28 Shaka kaSenzangakhona, King, 24, 25, 89 Reitz, Deneys, 171 Sharpe, Tom, vii, 110 remounts, 157, 158 Shaw, William, 26 Reserve Territory, 88, 89, 94 Sheffield, Gary, 13 respectability, 109, 115, 116, 119, 120, 127, 136, Shembe, Isaiah, 188 137, 138, 197 Shembe Nazarite Church, 188 responsible government, 52, 57, 77, 136, 146, Shepstone, Denis, xii, 98, 100, 189 147, 159, 160, 163, 164, 165, 167, 174 Shepstone, George, 70 Retief, Piet, 25 Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, xii, xv, xxv, 36, Rhodesia, xiv 41, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55, 59, 60, 68, 70, 82, Roberts, Private William, 85 146, 151, 153, 189 Roberts Heights, 179 sherry and champagne policy, 67, 68 Robertson, Reverend Robert, 56 ships: Fawn, HMS, 29, 117, 121; Hampshire Robinson, Sir John, 52, 67, 110, 116, 163 HMS, 184; Himalaya, 81; Lusitania, 183; Rock Art, 66 Mazeppa, 28; Narcissus, HMS, 56; South- Roman Catholic, 73, 105, 116 ampton, HMS,28; Terpsichore, HMS, 174; Rorke’s Drift, Battle of, 17, 69, 73, 97, 155 Thunderbolt, 30 Rose, Horace, 182, 183 short-service, 12, 197 Royal Artillery, 27, 32, 65, 77, 145, 153, 191 Sidoyi ka Baleni, 153 Royal Engineers, 27, 36, 48, 56, 122, 141, 157, Sihayo aXongo, Chief, 126 158, 191 Simon’s Town, 38, 56 Royal Natal Agricultural Society, 119 Small, Gordon, xvii Royal Navy, 4, 6, 7, 11, 29, 73, 196 Smethwick, John, 118, 133 Russell, Lord John, 26 Smit, Mrs. Susanna, 31, 131 Russell, William, 12 Smith, Captain Thomas Charlton (later Ma- jor), 2, 3, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 40 Sabbath, 53, 99, 104 Smith, Mrs. Marion, 140 Salisbury, Lord, 95 Smith, Peter, 42 Sambane, Chief, 26 Smith, Sir Harry, xiii, 41, 42, 43, 50, 122, 148 San, 63, 66, 82, 83, 125 Smuts, General Jan, 180 Sanders, Councillor P., 185, 186 Smythe, Sir Charles, 149, 151, 153, 159, 163, Sand River Convention, 42 174, 175 Scarlett, Private Matthew, 99, 101, 102, 103, soldier-settlers, 109, 115, 116, 127, 134 105, 106 Solomon ka Dinuzulu, King, 188

276 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 276 1/22/16 3:02 PM Somerset, Colonel Henry, 82 Sutton, Sir George, 172 Somtsewu, 64. See also Shepstone, Sir Swartkop (see Zwartkop), 39, 40 Theophilus Swaziland, 126, 165, 171 South Africa, xi, xii, xiii, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, Symons, J. P., 122 xxi, 2, 4, 10, 11, 17, 25, 28, 41, 42, 43, 53, 59, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 74, 76, 77, 87, 91, 97, Tambo, Dali, xvii 101, 102, 109, 122, 124, 134, 135, 136, 138, Tambo, Oliver, xviii 144, 150, 152, 163, 164, 165, 169, 170, 171, Tanzania, 187 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184, 185, Tatham, E., 120 187, 188, 190 Tatham, Robert Bristow, 84 South African General Mission, 141 taverns, 91, 99, 109, 122; Black Horse Star South African Republic, 168. See alsoTrans- and Garter, 99, 103; Waterloo, 99 vaal Taylor, Colonel Domville Mascie, 106, 107 Spencer, Shelagh, 110, 116 Taylor, Councillor P. H., 181 Spioenkop, Battle of, xvi Taylor, Zachary, 4 sport, 3, 13, 14, 15, 19, 76, 87, 109, 111, 114, Telemachus, Private Dolly, 85 115, 124, 164, 168, 179, 186; cricket, 111, 114, temperance movement, 19, 109, 116, 117, 121, 115, 171; croquet, 114; football (soccer), 127, 130, 141 111; gymkhanas, 114; horse racing, 15, 113; Templars, Knights, 141 polo, 14, 87, 111, 114, 171, 186; rugby, xii, Teteleku ka Nobanda, 151 115; steeple-chasing, 114 Thaba Bosigo, 123 sporting metaphors, 125, 126 theatre, musical, 113, 114 sports boycotts, xii Thesiger, Frederick, 69, 154. See also Springbok (national rugby team), xii Chelmsford Stabb, Colonel Henry (H. S.), 15, 98, 102, Thomas, Annie, 136, 137 104, 107, 162 Thomas, Colonel John W., 60, 61 Stafford House South African Aid Commit- Thukela River, xiv, 26, 32, 55, 56, 57, 64, 69, tee, 140, 141 89, 97, 131, 158 Standard Bank, 150, 152, 155 time gun, 70, 120, 121. See also ‘Ubainbai’ Stanger, William, 47, 48 togt labor, 157, 167 Stanhope, Lord Edward, 10 Tommy Atkins, 136 Stanley, Lord Edward, 42 Torrens, General Sir Henry, 102, 106, 107 Stanley, Peter, 17, 18, 82, 130 Town Hill, 35, 186 Stanton, Lieutenant Edward, 122 transport-riding, 111, 112, 155, 156, 157 Star and Garter canteen, 99, 103 Transvaal, xvi, 2, 42, 74, 76, 77, 88, 95, 97, Statham, Francis, 96, 100, 104, 107 106, 112, 140, 145, 146, 151, 157, 160, 161, Stephens, James, 38 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 174, 176, 183 St. George’s Day, 189, 190 Treaty of Utrecht, 5 St. George’s garrison church, xvii, 190 Trekkers, xv, xvi, 2, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, St. Helena, 137 32, 33, 46, 51, 109, 110, 113, 114, 134, 135 St. Lawrence River, 6, 7 Trewirgie, 175 St. Lucia Bay, 56 Tri-cameral constitution, xvii St. Mary’s, Roman Catholic Church, 73, 104 Tshotshosi, valley, 71 Stone, Mitchell, 138 Tulloch, Colonel Alexander, 80, 89, 90, 97, Strickland, Commissary-General Edward, 197 154 Turf Club, 114 Struben, J. H. M., 83 Turks, 183 St. Saviour’s cathedral, 169 Tyrone, County, 94, 98

Index 277

Dominy_Text.indd 277 1/22/16 3:02 PM Wellington, Duke of, 16, 18 Ubainbai, 120, 121. See also time gun Wesleyan, 26, 65, 88, 115, 116, 117, 119, 132, Ubique, 186 133, 138, 148. See also Methodists Ugwapana, 103 West, Martin, 42, 47, 50, 58 uitlanders, 141, 168, 169 West Africa, 67 Ulundi (Battle of), 73, 88 Western Front (World War I), 178, 182 Ulster, 94, 189 West Indies, 91 Umfenye, 91, 156 Westminster, 37, 94, 95 Umjeba, 92 Wheeler, Mr., 138 Union Defence Act, 178 White, Lieutenant General Sir George, 169 Union of South Africa, 118, 161 White, Private Frederick J., 18 United Kingdom, xviii, xxi, 10, 16, 22, 94, Whitehall, 11, 23, 37, 42, 43, 62, 162, 163, 169, 108, 130, 195 170, 172, 173 unnatural vices, 129, 134 Wilcox, Craig, xii, xiii Usuthu, 87 Williamson, Major, 54 Utrecht, 171 Wilson, Private, 101 Winchester College, 181 Vaal River, 31 Witwatersrand, xiv, 7, 74, 77, 152, 157, 164, 179 Vallentin, Captain J. F., 183 Wodehouse, Sir Philip, 59, 62 Van Diemens Land, xii, 8 Wolseley, Sir Garnet, xvi, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, venereal diseases, 21, 135 73, 74, 80, 87, 94, 95, 97, 120, 132, 156, Victoria, Queen, xvi, 10, 11, 53, 62, 71, 95, 161, 163 114, 119 Wolseley Settlement, 87 Victoria Club, 69 women, xvi, 3, 13, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, Victoria Cross, 126, 183 29, 30, 31, 55, 64. 65, 73, 90, 111, 113, 115, Victorian, xiv, xv, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 16, 18, 21, 22, 34, 36, 44, 65, 67, 71, 72, 74, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 149, 156, 180 79, 85, 107, 110, 112, 113, 114, 119, 120, 128, Wood, Sir Evelyn, 74, 75, 76, 77, 161, 180 129, 133, 139, 140, 182, 188, 196, 197 World War I, xiv, 6, 11, 20, 43, 98, 112, 167, Viervoet, Battle of, 83 170, 178, 185, 186, 189, 196 Village Main Reef Mine, 180 World War II, xi, 6, 98, 103, 189, 196 Volksraad, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 46 Wragg, Justice Walter, 103 Volunteers, Natal, 53, 56, 61, 63, 64, 65, 70, Wykeham School, 181, 182, 189 73, 74, 146 Voortrekkers, xvi, 23, 24, 25, 34, 189. See also Xhosa, xiii, 24, 50, 52, 53, 83 Trekkers Vryheid, 171 Yardley, Captain, 137 Young, Sergeant, 39 Wales, 17 Ypres, Battle of, 182 war-as-sport, 14, 87 Yule, Brigadier General James, 169 War Office, 11, 12, 16, 19, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 79, 81, 82, 87, 101, 102, 123, 133, 145, Zambesi River, 66, 166 164, 170, 171, 172, 176 Zeebrugge, 182 Watson, William, 137 Ziame, Private, 123 Webb, Colin, 29, 42, 110 Zibhebhu kaMapitha, 87, 88 Webb, Denver, xiii, xxiii, 24 Zietsman, Jan Philip, 31, 45, 148 Weenen County, 63, 64 Zimbabwe, xiv, 2 Weir, Captain Robert, 14 Zionist Christian Church, 188

278 Index

Dominy_Text.indd 278 1/22/16 3:02 PM Zulu, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, 9, 24, 25, 28, 29, 50, 56, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 73, 80, 82, 43, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 63, 64, 68, 69, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 109, 70, 71, 80, 84, 85, 88, 89, 94, 97, 114, 120, 125, 140, 149, 153, 154, 155, 161, 163, 165, 122, 126, 126, 138, 157, 169, 170, 173, 175, 167, 170, 171, 173, 176 176, 177, 180, 187, 188 Zululand Native Police, 170. See also Zulu Kingdom, xiv, 11, 25, 26, 43, 44, 50, 68, Nongqai 74, 118, 126, 188 Zwartkop Location, 86, 151. See also Zululand, xiii, xiv, xvi, xviii, 2, 8, 19, 30, 32, Swartkop

Index 279

Dominy_Text.indd 279 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 280 1/22/16 3:02 PM Graham Dominy is a Research Fellow of the University of South Africa, former National Archivist of South Africa, and former editor of Natalia: Journal of the Natal Society.

Dominy_Text.indd 281 1/22/16 3:02 PM Dominy_Text.indd 282 1/22/16 3:02 PM T he History of Military Occupation

An Imperfect Occupation: Enduring the South African War John Boje Mussolini’s Army in the French Riviera: Italy’s Occupation of France Emanuele Sica Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontiers: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison Graham Dominy

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