For those interested in the Anglo-Zulu War, the year 1879 conjures up dramatic or glorious events in South Africa and little else. Through this interest, much has been learned about the everyday life of British soldiers on campaign and the social structure of the military. Less well known are the conditions and events back home that led so many young men to enlist.
Britain in the 1870s saw widespread unemployment, poverty and endemic malnutrition. Diseases were rife, with tuberculosis, cholera, influenza, whooping cough, scarlet fever, measles, syphilis and a host of less significant infectious diseases among the major health problems of the time. By 1879 British civilian mortality rates were high, with 2.6 per cent of the population dying each year; London suffered 189 deaths from smallpox alone in January. The infant (under twelve months old) mortality rate was steady at 15.3 per cent, compared with 0.6 per cent today. Life expectancy for the working classes in Rutland and Manchester (where detailed figures were maintained) were a mere thirty-eight years and twenty-six years respectively; only the professional classes could hope to reach their mid-fifties. With surgery in its infancy, the death rate in all recorded surgical cases was nearly 50 per cent. During this age of pox and plagues, humanity remained largely powerless to prevent disease until Louis Pasteur in France and Robert Koch in Germany developed conclusive proof of the germ theory.
At home, environmental sanitation, safe water supplies, improved sewage disposal systems, pasteurisation of milk, and sanitary control of food supplies gradually resulted in the virtual disappearance of cholera and typhoid fever together with a marked reduction in diarrhoea and infant mortality. The subsequent discovery of effective vaccines would soon cause the rapid decline of such common diseases as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, poliomyelitis and measles. In the meantime, much of life immediately prior to 1879 was dominated by the spectre of disease.
Civilisation and syphilisation had gone hand-in-hand for five centuries, the sexually transmitted form of the disease having been imported into Spain by Columbus's sailors following their discovery of the New World and the questionable pleasures offered them by local women. The returning sailors carried the newly acquired syphilitic bacterium Treponema pallidum and were feted and entertained as heroes by a grateful Spanish nation. The bacteria immediately began boring into the bodies of the population, and syphilis rapidly spread across Europe to Britain. (1)
It had no regard for rank or title; royal houses infected the aristocracy while the military rapidly spread it both at home and abroad. Soldiers were, indeed, syphilis's best friends. A soldier far from home, particularly one facing possible death from an assegai or typhus, rarely bothered about sexual convention and accepted syphilis as the ‘merry disease’. There was an almost total acceptance of the effects of the disease, its raging headaches, swollen joints, wart-like lesions and mouthfuls of sores and ulcers. The disease then entered a latent stage in which no outward signs or symptoms occurred, but inflammatory changes took place in the internal organs. The latent stage could last twenty to thirty years. In 75 per cent of the cases, no further symptoms appeared. When the final stage of tertiary syphilis developed, it produced hard nodules in the tissues under the skin, the mucous membranes and the internal organs. The brain and skeletal structure were frequently affected as well as the liver, kidneys and other visceral organs. Infection of the heart and major blood vessels accounted for most deaths. The widespread incidence of syphilis among the military was invariably recorded under the heading of ‘other diseases’.
At the time of the Anglo-Zulu War campaign, the most ruthless killer of mankind, one in six of all deaths, was tuberculosis, more commonly referred to as ‘consumption’, with about 60 per cent of the population suffering its long-term effects. Tuberculosis, or mycobacteriosis, is as old as mankind and even today afflicts Third World countries. The germ thrives when hosts, both humans and cattle, live in squalid and overcrowded conditions and is spread by coughing and spitting, drinking contaminated milk and from contact with polluted water, grass, animal feed and soil. During the 1870s many soldiers joined the army to escape squalor and poverty at home, only to contract and then spread tuberculosis wherever they lived in the army's cramped and filthy camps; these were abundant throughout the Anglo-Zulu War.
One particular form of TB, Scrofula, was endemic both in the civil and military populations and was caused by sufferers spitting contaminated phlegm. In the UK scrofula was common amongst children, who frequently went barefoot and in consequence contracted the disease through the skin of their feet. This condition eventually gave rise to the familiar ‘no spitting’ notices that remained in public places until recent times. The only treatments at the time included surgical bloodletting, applications of phosphoric acid, ether inhalation and digitalis drinks. Most physicians viewed the disease with professional nihilism until Robert Koch discovered the bacillus in 1882.
Influenza was generally known at the time as ‘a jolly rant’, ‘the new delight’, ‘a gentle correction’ or ‘the blue plague’. Because it did not disfigure the features, rot the genitals or cripple limbs, it was not generally considered to be a serious condition, especially as influenza rarely killed its victims except in the case of children or the elderly, neither of whom warranted social concern at the time. Doctors were not unduly perturbed as the condition created the status quo of medical perfection, of everybody ill but almost no one dying. Doctors did, however, notice that a lung from a healthy body would float in water while that of a ‘flu victim would promptly sink; otherwise little medical intervention took place or was considered necessary. The several symptoms of a simple attack would have included a dry cough, sore throat, nasal obstruction and discharge from the eyes; more complex cases were characterised by chills, sudden onset of fevers, headaches, aching of muscles and joints, and occasional gastrointestinal symptoms.
Recruiting processes
All through the 1870s agriculture had been in depression, and the catastrophic harvest of 1879 caused so much damage to cereal growers that the industry never really recovered. As the Victorian essayist G.M. Young wrote, ‘Never again was the landed proprietor to dominate the social fabric…The agricultural depression completed the evolution from a rural to an industrial state’. To meet the shortfall, demand for American wheat, not only in Britain but from the rest of Europe, brought prosperity to those prairie farmers who had survived years of Indian attacks, locusts, drought, fire and tornadoes. British agriculture had been in decline for some decades, and by the late 1870s only fifteen per cent of the working population were still engaged in farming. Many a growing country lad had left home to seek employment in the rapidly expanding urban areas or emigrated to the United States, Canada or Australia. There was a surge of emigration during the late 1870s, not only from Britain but also Ireland, following the worst potato harvest since the famine of 1846.
It was not only agricultural workers who were finding work hard to find. Those men employed in factories that had hitherto enjoyed a virtual monopoly in supplying products and materials to the rest of the world now found that they faced increasing competition from the United States and Germany. With the threat of sackings and lockouts, the average worker felt highly insecure. With unemployment reaching terrifying proportions, many of the unemployed and unemployable were forced, as a last resort, to enlist in the army, which offered refuge of a sort. The vast majority of recruits came from backgrounds of real squalor and wretchedness where marriage was casual and illegitimacy prevalent. Those that had survived common childhood diseases might still be suffering from bad teeth and skin disorders and have generally poor physiques. The average height of an army recruit in 1870 was 5 foot 8 inches, yet by 1879 it had dropped to an under-nourished 5 foot 4 inches. Unlike his civilian equivalent, the ordinary soldier was guaranteed to eat regularly, if not well. The meat served in the army was infamous for its poor quality. Throughout the British army in the late 1870s, boiled meat was called ‘Harriet Lane’ after a woman hacked to death by Henry Wainwright, a notorious murderer. Compressed biscuit, known as ‘hard tack’ because it was difficult to bite, was another staple food. On the march, soldiers frequently placed the biscuit in their armpits to soften it. There was a lack of vegetables, while fruit was generally regarded with suspicion.
In 1870 Parliament passed an Education Act that enabled the poor to have an elementary education, and the rise in literacy during the 1870s resulted in a small number of soldiers writing home about life on campaign. Army life closely reflected civilian society, with the officers drawn from the upper classes and having little or no contact with the working-class, non-commissioned ranks. Soldiers' letters are unique sources as they are the only indicators of what the average soldier was experiencing or thinking. A working-class civilian was less likely to put his thoughts on paper whereas a soldier, far away on campaign and able to write, would do just that.
Recruiting processes – the Queen's shilling
During the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain's army never needed conscription to fill the ranks. Civilian life was sufficiently unattractive to ensure a steady flow of recruits, and most were both hungry and jobless by the time they took the shilling – acceptance of which was considered to be a legally binding contract. Recruiting sergeants knew only too well where to look for an easy source of recruits – public houses and taverns where unemployed young men drowned their sorrows or sought camaraderie. The Cardwell reforms of the early 1870s had attempted to remove the worst excesses of the recruiting sergeants, and any recruit who could prove he had been deceived into enlisting could, theoretically, be released from duty. The recruiters, though, were skilled in the art of regaling such men with accounts of the delights of foreign service and frequently ignored the rules, especially those relating to plying potential recruits with drink.
Recruits were normally ‘sworn in’ before a magistrate within twenty-four hours. Those who had signed on while under the influence of alcohol could escape their responsibility by paying £1 – failing which, the recruits were medically examined before being led off to join an understrength regiment or to drafts being sent overseas. They would not necessarily join their local regiment, although by the late 1870s an increasing proportion was recruited specifically for local brigades. Such recruits came from a cross section of the working class; the one common factor was their poverty. They could not immediately expect their quality of life to improve; they would invariably get the worst of everything, the least comfortable bed, the smallest amount of food, and they would have to defer to their veteran colleagues, something which often entailed ‘lending’ them new kit and having to perform mundane and dirty jobs.
Many joined the army to escape unsatisfactory marriages or relationships, often enlisting under a false name. It is known that one Anglo-Zulu War Victoria Cross winner joined the army for this reason: Private 1395 John FieldingVC of the 2/24th won his medal at Rorke's Drift under the alias of Williams. Within a few months of his sudden enlistment, a certain Miss Murphy gave birth to a daughter, Annie. On the soldier's return to the UK, now with the Victoria Cross, he sought out the young lady and promptly married her. Sadly, their daughter died in her early twenties; later, a few lines appeared in the South Wales Argus: ‘Death of Miss Fielding. Great sympathy is felt on all hands with Private John Williams (Fielding) of Rorke's Drift fame, who has just lost his eldest daughter after a long and painful illness’.
A soldier's pay was poor; from the single daily shilling various deductions were made which ensured continued poverty. Any money left over was usually spent on drink (beer was 3d a quart), or on the prostitutes who frequented garrison taverns. A soldier could have an element of his pay deducted and paid to his wife or family, although a soldier's widow could expect no help other than charity. It was not until 1881 that any form of widow's pension became payable, even for soldiers killed on active service. By the outbreak of the Anglo-Zulu War, many of the soldiers were short-service recruits with a liability for just six years’ active service.
Those who were to serve in the war would have little or no idea of the overall plan or why they were fighting. They would live on rumour and hearsay, and no official attempt would be made to keep the men informed. Their ambition would be to survive, to stay dry and as comfortable as conditions would permit, to establish a supply of alcohol and generally endeavour to keep out of trouble. They would soon learn that their wellbeing depended on keeping a low profile, as flogging was still widespread throughout the British army even for minor infringements of discipline. The practice had been outlawed in peacetime but remained lawful on active service; indeed, no fewer than 545 soldiers would be flogged during the Anglo-Zulu War.
The British officer class
Officers were drawn from the wealthy landowning class and were generally taller and enjoyed better health. Physical defects counted for little as long as the officer was a gentleman. Sir Garnet Wolseley and General Frederick Roberts had but two eyes between them. The latter was only 5 foot 3 inches tall and would have been rejected if he had tried to enlist as a private. Gonville Bromhead (Rorke's Drift) and Walter Kitchener (Lord Kitchener's brother) were almost completely deaf. Other eminent officers of the period were missing various limbs, something that spelled the end of service for other ranks.
The Cardwell reforms had recently abolished the practice of officers purchasing commissions, yet most of the officers who fought and died in the Anglo-Zulu War had purchased their commissions prior to the reforms. Even so, British army officers of the period invariably came from the upper class, simply because they needed independent means to meet their mess expenses and social liabilities. Even Lord Chelmsford, the British military commander in South Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War, had originally applied to serve in India; he had found the cost of social entertaining in the UK a great strain on his personal resources. Whereas soldiers were generally despised by society, officers were highly regarded, and this was reflected in their daily pay: one shilling for a soldier but 5s 3d for a newly-appointed second lieutenant.
Commissions from the ranks were virtually unknown due to this wide social divide, but, as a result of his endeavours at Rorke's Drift, Colour Sergeant Bourne was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and offered a commission, a rare honour in Queen Victoria's army. (2) Aware of the financial implications to someone without private means, Bourne initially declined the commission. He was, however, eventually granted a Quartermaster's commission in 1890 with the rank of Honorary Lieutenant. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.
During peacetime, officers could expect up to six months' leave each year; only the Battalion Adjutant and his Instructor of Musketry had any contact with other ranks on a regular basis. Emphasis was placed on officers' fitness, loyalty, team spirit and physical bravery. Most enjoyed sport, particularly hunting, and many relished the prospect of going to Africa for the opportunity of hunting big game as well as the native foe. For many officers, especially those from the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery, promotion could be very slow in peacetime; they therefore welcomed the opportunity of conflict, where brevet or field promotions could be gained. Such promotions were invariably confirmed by the War Office and thus became permanent.
Colonial officers and NCOs
The total number of colonial units who took part in the Anglo-Zulu War was less than fifty, and most were made up of only a dozen or so men. The NNC (Natal Native Contingent) was the largest, numbering several thousand, although it was something of an afterthought as far as the British were concerned. Both Lord Chelmsford and his political superior, the High Commissioner to South Africa, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, had entered the war in the belief that the Zulus would pose no real military threat. They had expected to defeat the Zulu army quickly and easily, and then march on to intimidate republican elements in the Transvaal. Indeed, Frere had gambled that he could out-manoeuvre the opposition of the Colonial Office in London to the war by provoking and bringing hostilities to a successful conclusion before the home government had time to object. Such an approach made it difficult for Chelmsford to accumulate the resources necessary for the campaign; indeed, he received minimal regular reinforcements before the war began. Faced with the difficulties of operating across a huge tract of rough unexplored country, and needing to drive the Zulus into a corner and make them fight, Chelmsford admitted the inevitable and authorised the raising of a black levy from Natal's African population.
General Orders authorising the raising of the Natal Native Contingent were published on 23 November 1878. The war began on 11 January 1879, allowing six weeks to raise, organise, officer, equip and train the contingent. Moreover, while the rank and file seemed generally to have responded enthusiastically to the call, there was a shortage of white officers. While a number were appointed from regular officers who had volunteered for special service, most were appointed from colonial volunteers. Where possible, senior ranks were filled with men who had both experience in the British army – a number of battalion commandants had once been officers in British regiments – and had served under Lord Chelmsford in the recent Cape Frontier War. There were not enough of such men to go round, neither was it possible to fill all the posts from white volunteers in Natal. Many captains and lieutenants of the NNC were recruited from the settler gentry and adventurers on the Eastern Cape Frontier. While a few spoke some African language – usually Xhosa or the Mpondo dialect – few spoke any Zulu. Moreover, because the Contingent was such a last-minute affair, most of the better-quality volunteers in Natal had already found posts, and the white NCOs of the NNC were recruited largely from the ranks of the recently-disbanded irregular units on the Frontier, many of whom drank away their pay in frontier canteens, or from unemployed labourers. The NCOs were, by all accounts, a rough lot.
The effects of this on the NNC were disastrous. Given the mixed origins of the other ranks, it had always been considered important that the commanders took pains to treat them well and instil a sense of esprit de corps. Yet the Contingent would be pitched into the war before the men had come to know, or learned to trust, their officers. Many, indeed, complained of being bullied by their officers and NCOs, who issued incomprehensible orders, then used their fists to enforce them. The Africans found European drill confusing, and only the most imaginative commanders made any attempt to harness their traditional military outlook. So far from using African terms of respect when addressing their headmen – as they were urged to do – many officers referred to them with utter contempt. Furthermore, early good intentions to stimulate the morale of the corps by issuing uniforms and firearms were abandoned for reasons of economy. Only one in ten – usually the designated black NCOs – were issued with firearms; the rest of the men carried their traditional weapons. Although some commandants attempted to procure old military uniforms from the government stores, most native troops were distinguished by nothing more than red rags worn around their heads.
Colonial officers had no authority over troops commanded by a British officer. A classic example of this inverted hierarchy occurred at Rorke's Drift, where Captain Stephenson of the NNC worked under both Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead. This was fortunate, since Stephenson deserted the mission station as the Zulus attacked.
The attitude of the British officer towards his colonial colleague can be summed up in a remark by Captain Edward Essex, 75th Regiment, who said simply of the NNC at Isandlwana: ‘I did not notice the latter much, save that they blazed away at an absurd rate’. (3)
Joining the 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot
Unusually, both battalions of this famous regiment were destined to serve together in the Anglo-Zulu War. The battle-experienced 1st Battalion and one company of the 2nd Battalion would jointly bear the brunt of the massive Zulu attack at Isandlwana and, with the exception of five regimental officers, all would be killed there.
The origins of the 24th Regiment date back to 8 March 1689, when Colonel Sir Edward Dering of Pluckley, known as the ‘Black Devil of Kent’, was instructed by a proclamation of King William to raise one of ten ‘Regiments of Foot’ to fight in Ireland against the Jacobites. The occasion is recorded on a memorial stone in Pluckley church that commemorates the event. In 1703 the regiment began its collection of battle honours under the colonelcy of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, with deeds at Ramillies, Blenheim, Malplaquet and Oudenarde being recorded on the regiment's colour. In 1751 it became known as the 24th Regiment of Foot. In those days, there were few permanent training depots, and most regiments recruited soldiers from their immediate locality. The Jacobite rebellion in Scotland in the 1740s and the disturbances in Ireland in the 1790s and 1830s created a need for more soldiers, and the growth of large cities provided the majority of recruits for the British army.
After their return from the American War of Independence, the 24th Regiment of Foot was based in Warwickshire. On 31 August 1782 a Royal Warrant conferred county titles on all regiments not already possessed of special designations such as ‘The Queen's’ or ‘The King's Own’. The 24th Regiment was accordingly given the title ‘2nd Warwickshire’ and ordered to send a recruiting party to Tamworth, as it was intended that regiments should cultivate a recruiting connection with the counties whose names they took. No special link with the County Militia was established, nor were any depots or permanent recruiting centres set up. At the same time, the 6th Regiment of Foot, a separate regiment, was given the title ‘1st Warwickshire’. They subsequently became the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (1891), the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers (1963) and the Regiment of Fusiliers (1968). The 24th Regiment was never part of the 6th Regiment of Foot.
In 1873, as a direct result of the Cardwell reforms, Brecon in Wales became the regimental depot of the 24th; thereafter, recruits were still enlisted from across English and Irish counties, with those from counties bordering Wales going to the local 2nd Battalion. The 1st Battalion, though, had seen continuous service in various Mediterranean garrisons for the eight years prior to arriving in South Africa on 4 February 1875. At that time, the 1st Battalion's link with Brecon was virtually non-existent. The 24th had no special depots for recruiting; had it tried recruiting in Wales, or specifically in Brecon, it would have encountered a logistical problem since Wales was sparsely populated until the expansion of the coal, iron and steel industries in the late nineteenth century. For example, until 1880 Brecon had a static population of just 5,000 people over a wide rural area, with only 2,551 males of all ages, so the number of fit men of recruiting age was therefore very small.
In view of the subsequent change in designation of the 24th to the South Wales Borderers in 1881, it is worth considering the actual representation of Welshmen then serving in the two battalions at Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. With regard to the 1/24th lost at Isandlwana, there was virtually no connection with Wales, as the battalion had neither served in the UK since 1867 nor ever recruited from Wales. Indeed, when the news of the loss of the 1/24th reached Britain, the Daily News commented, ‘Death had prematurely visited hundreds of peaceful and happy homes in England’, a comment which sadly ignored the high proportion of Irishmen serving in both battalions.
The 2/24th certainly had a small proportion of Welshmen (born in, or living in Wales when recruited) serving in its ranks. The composition of B Company 2/24th when they defended Rorke's Drift gives an indication of the spread:
1st Battalion
| England: | 1 from Staffordshire |
| Scotland: | 1 from Midlothian |
| Ireland: | 1 from Dublin |
| Other: | 1 from Peshawar, India (of British parents) |
2nd Battalion
England (47)
1 each from: Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire,
Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex, Worcestershire, Yorkshire
2 each from: Kent, Middlesex
3 each from: Herefordshire, Warwickshire
4 from Somerset
9 from Lancashire
11 from London
5 from Monmouthshire (Monmouthshire was English in 1879. This county became Welsh in 1976 following boundary changes.)
Ireland (13)
1 each from: Antrim and Limerick
2 each from: Clare, Cork, Kilkenny, Tipperary
3 from Dublin
Wales (5)
1 each from: Breconshire and Pembrokeshire
3 from Glamorgan
Other (1)
(France – of British parents). See Appendix A for an examination of this subject.
On 1 February 1878, the 2nd Battalion (2/24th), with 24 officers and 849 other ranks, sailed from Chatham in Kent for South Africa in HM troopship Himalaya. They were scheduled reinforcements for the British force being assembled in South Africa.
By the outbreak of the Anglo-Zulu War, the total strength of the British army was still only 186,000, compared with the Prussian army of 2.2