Naval History of Natal - 1

[Brett Hendey]

I am interested in the military history of Natal and my collection of relevant material includes a small number of medals that were awarded to navy personnel for service in conflicts in Natal or were awarded to navy men who lived in Natal at some time in their lives.

I plan to illustrate the naval history of Natal from 1885 to 1945 by posting short accounts of the naval units involved, with examples of the men who served in them and the medals that they were awarded. But first, some background information.

The Colony of Natal was part of the British Empire in Victorian and Edwardian times and from the 1850's the colonists took care of their military defence needs with a system of volunteer regiments of mounted infantry (e.g. Natal Carbineers), infantry (e.g. Durban Light Infantry) and artillery (Natal Field Artillery). These part-time soldiers were only called out for full-time service in times of need (e.g. the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879). Otherwise, the defence of the Colony was in the hands of the paramilitary Natal Mounted Police (1874 - 1894) and Natal Police (1894 - 1913), together with a British Army regiment garrisoned at Fort Napier in the capital, Pietermaritzburg.

Owing to a real or imagined threat from the Russians in 1885, a volunteer coastal artillery unit was raised to defend the port of Durban. The South African Navy traces its history back to this unit, the Natal Naval Volunteers, which will be the subject of the second contribution to this series.

I hope that readers will find something of interest in this series and will add to it with corrections and additional information from their own experience.

Regards
Brett

[Brett Hendey]

Natal Naval Volunteers (1885 - 1904)

The Natal Naval Volunteers (NNV) was established in 1885 as a coastal artillery unit tasked with defending the port of Durban. This unit was too small and poorly equipped to serve its intended purpose, but it nevertheless remained in existence and in 1899 it was called out on active service for the first time. War with the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had been threatening for some time and it finally broke out in October 1899.

All the Natal volunteer regiments, including the NNV, were called up for active service. The confused situation in the early stages of the war led to the NNV being split into two parts, with both attached to elements of the hastily assembled Naval Brigade, which was made up of men and guns from Royal Navy ships in South African waters. One part of the Naval Brigade, including 73 men from the NNV, ended up in Ladysmith and it was besieged there from early November 1899 to the end of February 1900. The second part of the Naval Brigade, including 52 men from the NNV, took part in the operations to relieve the Siege of Ladysmith.

The Naval Brigade distinguished itself during the Siege and Relief of Ladysmith and the NNV received a share of the credit. Notable is the following entry in the London Gazette of 8 February 1901:
"Lieutenant N. W. Chiazzari, Natal Naval Volunteers, was in charge of a detachment who were associated with the Naval Brigade, and took their full share of the good work done by the Naval Brigade."
Chiazzari was awarded the DSO, the first ever to a non-regular officer in any branch of the service.

After the Siege of Ladysmith was lifted, most of the NNV men returned to civilian life, but a few stayed on with the Naval Brigade until its service in Natal also came to an end.

The medals shown below were awarded to Frederick Mayfield Sivil and include the Queen's South Africa Medal with 'Defence of Ladysmith' clasp, which was awarded for his service with the NNV. (The second medal is a S A War Services Medal, which was awarded to Sivil for "at least three years of voluntary service that aided the war effort" during World War II.)

Fred Sivil was born in Lincolnshire in about 1873. His family lived in Burgh Le Marsh, as did the family of his wife, May Charlton. Sivil was a school teacher who settled in Natal in the late 1890's. His first recorded position was as a "1st Class Assistant" at a school in Durban and it was here that he joined the NNV (No. 169). He emerged unscathed from the Siege of Ladysmith and went back to teaching in August 1900.

Sivil evidently continued teaching but nothing is known of his postings after 1909 as the records after Natal became a Province of South Africa have not been traced. He retired to Scottburgh on the Natal South Coast.

Sivil attended the "50th Anniversary of the Siege and Relief of Ladysmith", which was held in Ladysmith in 1950. He died in June 1957, aged 84 years.

[berry]

G'day Brett,good stuff,keep it coming,
regards
Sid

[Brett Hendey]

Natal Naval Corps (1904 - 1913)

The Natal Naval Volunteers (NNV) was renamed the Natal Naval Corps (NNC) in 1904. It retained its function as a coastal artillery battery defending the port of Durban, so was still a land-based unit. It had grown in size after the Anglo-Boer War (1899 - 1902) to about 200 men and, like the NNV, it had only one opportunity for active service, this time during the Natal Rebellion of 1906.

Although the military might of the Zulu nation had been destroyed in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, the Zulus remained a large and militant tribe and a cause for concern to the Europeans who had settled in the Colony of Natal. Like the Americans in earlier times, the Zulus resented "taxation without representation", particularly in the hard economic times that beset Natal after the Anglo-Boer War. A Poll Tax on all Zulu males over the age of 18 and the collection of this tax was the spark that set off the Rebellion of 1906.

A Natal Police patrol near Richmond was attacked by resentful Zulus and two policemen were killed. This resulted in the declaration of Martial Law on 9 February 1906. The Natal volunteer regiments were mobilised as the month wore on, with the NNC called to arms on 23 February. Initially military patrols were used to locate and arrest the men responsible for the deaths of the two policemen and to keep order in the Richmond district and elsewhere in southern Natal. The arrested men were executed by firing squad on 2 April, thus setting off trouble that had been simmering further north in Zululand. A Natal Police detachment escorting European settlers to safety was ambushed near the Zululand border on 4 April and four men were killed. The operations against the rebellious Zulus now shifted to Zululand and involved all Natal volunteer units, including the NNC, as well as detachments of men sent from the Cape Colony and Transvaal. No Imperal troops took part in the Rebellion.

The Rebellion in Zululand took the form of skirmishes spread over a wide area, with the Zulus invariably being defeated by the better armed and organised Colonial military. It gradually petered out during July and in early August the Natal regiments were demobilised. The Rebellion had been a one-sided affair with as many as 4 000 Zulus killed as against only 25 Colonial soldiers.

In a postscript to the Rebellion, some Natal regiments, including the NNC, were remobilised in 1907 to take part in the arrest of the Zulu king, Dinizulu. A hundred men of the NNC formed part of Dinizulu's escort from the Zulu capital, Nongoma, to the Natal capital, Pietermaritzburg.

A medal was awarded to all the Colonial troops who took part in the Rebellion, those that served between 20 and 50 days getting the medal without clasp, while those with more thn 50 days service received the medal with the clasp, 1906. Men of the NNC received a total of 203 medals, 136 with clasps and 67 without.

Shown below are the medals of three men of the NNC who took part in the 1906 Natal Rebellion.

The first is a single no clasp medal awarded to Seaman Herbert Fisher. Almost nothing is known of this man, except that he died in 1939.

The second pair of medals are those of Seaman John Richards, who was awarded the Rebellion Medal with clasp. Richards was a Londoner who had settled in Natal after the Anglo-Boer War, during which he had served as a Private in the Imperial Yeomanry. Nothing more is known of his life in Natal.

The group of four medals are those of Seaman William George Mitchell, who also received the Rebellion Medal with clasp. Mitchell served with the 11th Infantry in the German South West Africa campaign of 1915 and later with the South African Heavy Artillery in France. During World War I, his next-of-kin was given as his mother, Mrs C M Mitchell, 49m Tranbridge Road, Bradford-on-Avon. His life in Natal is also unresearched.

[Brett Hendey]

Hi Sid
Thanks for your reply. I hope you like the later posts as well.
Regards
Brett

[Brett Hendey]

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (South African Division) (1913 - 1940)

The South African Division of the RNVR was established on 1 July 1913 through the amalgamation of the Natal Naval Corps (established in 1885) and the Cape Naval Volunteers (established in 1905). Three companies were constituted, "A" and "B" Companies based in Cape Town and "C" Company based in Durban. This development allowed the South African sailors access to the sea-going ships of the Royal Naval for the first time, thus initiating a change from coastal artillery units to in time becoming a true naval force.

At the start of World War I, 98 men of "C" Company were mobilised in Durban, while another 28 joined during the war. Pictured below are the World War trios of medals awarded to 76 OS A Young and 49 AB E C Hunter, both of "C" Company.

The third picture below shows a group of men from "C" Company, including both Young and Hunter, who in September 1914 were selected to join the ship's company of HMS Pegasus on station off German East Africa. On arrival in Mombasa they discovered that HMS Pegasus had been sunk in Zanzibar harbour by the German ship, Konigsberg. The men returned to Durban without seeing any action (picture 4).

Some men of "C" Company later volunteered for service in RN ships overseas (picture 5), while others reverted to their former role as shore artillerymen by joining the 10th Heavy Battery, which was formed in 1916 for service in German East Africa.

The fortunes of the RNVR (SAD) waxed and waned after World War I according mainly to the economic circumstances of the time, but it was still in existence at the outbreak of World War II, when it would provide an invaluable nucleus for the development of the South African Naval Forces of that conflict.