Interesting Reads

Who was Sir William Penn Symons (1843 – 1899)?  I thought it might be fitting to look at who the man was in charge of the British forces. William Penn Symons, was the eldest son of William Symons and Caroline…

Research by Pat Rundgen and Kevin Burge Article by Pam McFadden Before the end of the “Great War” of 1914-1918, Dundee High School had lost twenty of its old scholars and three of its staff members. One scholar, Garnet George Green,…

“Impi, wo nansimpi yeza, Wobani bengathinta ma bubhesi?” “Who is going (to be stupid enough) to touch the lions? Contemporary South African fold song. Johnny Clegg and Savuka. One of the enduring stories of the battle of Isandlwana is that…

“An ancient song, as old as the ashes Echoed as Mageba’s warriors marched away”. South African Contemporary Folk Song. Johhny Clegg and Savuka. Colonel Anthony Durnford is probably the most enigmatic, controversial and colourful character associated with the British defeat…

We Wander the Battlefields is the fruit of Midge Carter’s life-long passion for the history of the Anglo-Boer and Zulu wars at the turn of the 19th century. The stories of heroism and tragedy are retold from the graveyards and…

GUNNER FREDERICK HENRY BRADLEY V.C. Although suffering from the worst drought in decades, one hopes that the rainy season is going to hit Zululand with a vengeance this year. From mid October onwards the heavens open up and the countryside…

THE CAPTURE OF WINSTON CHURCHILL – THE ARMOURED TRAIN INCIDENT. 15 NOVEMBER 1899. “I have had, in the last four years, the advantage, if it be an advantage, of many strange and varied experiences. But nothing was so thrilling as…

Twice in less than 23 years, Natal was saved from invasion by the gallant stands made by two small, vastly outnumbered detachments of British soldiers. The first was at Rorke’s Drift in 1879 and the second at Itala in 1901….

The story of Rorke’s Drift has often been told and perhaps nowhere so graphically as by Donald R. Morris in his study of the Zulu War, ‘The Washing of the Spears.’ The author was able to reconstruct the events of…

This article is the text of a talk to the S.A. Military History Society by Mr Alf Wade, of Vryheid, Natal, in March, 1974.Situated on the common at Chislehunt in Kent is a 20-foot Maltese cross which appears to be…

One of the most poignant aspects of the Zulu War is the relatively small number of lonely graves scattered about Zululand which have lain undisturbed these last hundred years, and as one stands at these graves one feels an abiding…

In ‘The Red Soldier’ my main purpose was to illustrate the first-hand evidence that lies in a specific course of information, namely the private letters written by soldiers who fought in the Anglo-Zulu War.(1) In this paper I wish to…