A family in the Colonial Service
Captain Thomas Hamilton and his two sons in Zululand 1879
Captain Thomas R. Hamilton, Raaff’s Transvaal Rangers, killed in action at Hlobane Mountain on 28th March 1879. A correspondent was to write, ‘One poor old gentleman, Capt.----, was standing with his revolver pointed but could or would not shoot the brutes.’ (London Illustrated News)
Through the many histories and records of the Anglo-Zulu War, the name of Captain Thomas R. Hamilton, who fell at Hlobane Mountain on 28th March 1879, has been somewhat overlooked, most probably as he was killed serving with a colonial regiment and partially because the battle at iSandlwana on 22nd January 1879 has slightly overshadowed that of Hlobane. I have found Thomas a fascinating character, not only because of his previous military service but also because he was the brother of Lieutenant General Henry Meade Hamilton CB, whose daughter Edith married Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley KCSI CB CMG, who was killed at Majuba Mountain on 27th February 1881. Moreover, Thomas’s two sons served with the Natal Mounted Police and were in the field near iSandlwana on that fateful day—indeed, a family worthy of an article.
Thomas Rice Hamilton was born in Ireland on 3rd December 1827, the son of John Hamilton of Grove, County Meath. Having resided at Crewkerne, Somerset, he was educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Cambridge, when at the age of eighteen, he was commissioned by purchase as an ensign in the 1/9th (The East Norfolk) Regiment on 12th November 1847—his military career was afoot. While posted to Ireland, he became a Freemason in 1850, and the following year, in April 1851, he purchased his lieutenancy. In October 1851, he was exchanged into the 86th (Royal County Down) Regiment, and by 1853 he was serving in Bombay, India, where he married Anne Baumback. During the Crimean War, he was seconded to the Ottoman Army, and on 1st May 1855, he was appointed a captain in the 86th Regiment and a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Ottoman Contingent. He then served as the Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General on the staff of the 1st Division, Ottoman Contingent, and having concluded his service with the Ottoman Army, he rejoined his regiment in India.
In February 1858, he exchanged as a captain into the 3rd (East Kent. The Buffs) Regiment, and then six months later, he was exchanged into the Military Train. About this time, his son Harry Rice Hamilton was born in Ireland in May 1859. Two months later, in July, he exchanged into the 61st (The South Gloucestershire) Regiment, and then in February 1860, he exchanged once more into the 98th (Prince of Wales’) Regiment. His second son, Cyril, was born in Dorset in 1860, and then in April 1867, he was placed on temporary half-pay before being transferred to the 4th Dragoon Guards – he retired soon after.
In 1870 he was appointed a resident magistrate in New Zealand, and following a brief period back home, he turned his attention to a new life and sailed to South Africa in 1878. Parallel to this, his two sons, Cyril and Harry, had in April 1878 enlisted as troopers in the Natal Mounted Police—they both presented testimonials from their cousin's husband, Colonel Colley, to assist in expediting their enlistment. Both the Hamilton boys had been educated in Germany and at the United Services College, Westward House. At the same time, Harry had been a sub-lieutenant in the 3rd Middlesex Militia since June 1876.
Not long after arriving in South Africa, on 8th October 1878, Thomas was appointed an acting commissariat officer in Pretoria, and soon after, he was posted to Fort Burger in Sekhukhune’s country at the time of the aborted First Anglo-Pedi War in 1878. Interestingly, the same day that he joined the colonial commissariat, he applied for an appointment with the Cape Colonial Forces, which at the time were highly sought after and competitive military appointments. The Zulu War had begun in earnest in January 1879, and not long after, he was appointed a captain in Raaff’s Transvaal Rangers and joined General Evelyn Woods, No. 4 Column.
Officers of Commandant Raaff’s Transvaal Rangers during the Anglo-Zulu War 1879 (South African Archives)
A few months later, on 28th March 1879, he was killed in action during the disastrous battle at Hlobane Mountain where the Zulus and abaQulusi won the day. Although the circumstances of his death are not fully clear, he was most certainly killed while descending an almost impassable precipice that became known as the Devil’s Pass. Here in what was a most desperate and violent scene, men were being killed left and right as they forced their way down the pass. Interestingly, the correspondent of The Diamond News who was present at the Devil’s Pass wrote a disturbing account about how a captain was killed there. Two captains died on this side of the mountain; they were the twenty-four-year-old colonial-born Captain Charles Potter of Wood’s Irregulars and the other being Thomas Hamilton. Potter was believed to have been killed lower down the mountain while mustering some of the captured cattle, so it’s almost certain that the correspondent is referring to Captain Thomas Hamilton while his age and description also fits that of Thomas. His account reads in part as follows:
‘One poor old gentleman, Capt.----, was standing with his revolver pointed but could or would not shoot the brutes. A murderous looking villain walked up to him and commenced playing with his whiskers and jeering him. The others grew impatient and cried out, “Stab him, kill him,” and in less than two minutes there were at least twenty assegias shivering in his body.’
The author at Hlobane Mountain with the Devil’s Pass immediately behind (Author’s Collection)
His sons, Lance Corporal Cyril Hamilton and Trooper Harry Hamilton, were on active service with the Natal Mounted Police that formed part of No. 3 (Central) Column that was partially destroyed at iSandlwana. Both of the boys had applied for commissions in the Cape Mounted Rifles several months before the war broke out; however, they were not accepted, as direct commissions in the CMR were rare, while the conventional method was to join the ranks and be commissioned after becoming at least a sergeant. Harry wrote on his application that ‘I beg to offer my services for the Cape Mounted Rifles—and trust you will be pleased to accept the same. For my education & training, I submit that I am eligible for a commission. My father was a captain in the army; he sent me to school at Neuwild, Germany while I acquired knowledge of that language’. Interestingly, Harry did not resign his militia commission until July 1880.
Men of the Natal Mounted Police as they appeared just prior to the Zulu War. A tough group of men, many were the sons of clergymen, military officers and professional men.
At the time that the camp at iSandlwana was overrun and destroyed by the Zulus on 22nd January 1879, both Cyril and Harry were out on patrol with Major J.G. Dartnell and thus escaped the fate of almost certain death had they remained back at the camp—their family was spared. As No. 3 Column retired from Zululand on 23rd January, Cyril found himself at Rorke’s Drift assisting in burying the dead Trooper Sydney Hunter of the NMP, who had been killed during the defence of the mission station hours earlier. He found two gold sovereigns in Hunter’s pocket that was handed into Major Dartnell. On 3rd March, Cyril, along with Trooper, later Colonel William J. Clarke, was part of Major Wilsone Black’s patrol to iSandlwana in search of the missing Colours of the 24th Regiment. As Black’s party departed iSandlwana and was following the line of dead corpses down what became known as the fugitives trail, Black left Cyril and Clarke on the saddle to watch out for any Zulus that may be following them up, but they were not to retire until they heard a single rifle shot as the signal to move. Black, having moved off, then noticed Zulus close by and was not able to fire the signal shot without drawing attention to his party. Cyril and Hamilton, both smart men, realised what was going on and quickly left their now isolated position and rejoined Black.
The two brothers survived the Zulu War, of which Cyril also served on the Natal–East Griqualand border during the Basuto Gun War (1880–81), and having held the rank of sergeant in the NMP for several years, he was commissioned a sub-inspector in January 1883, only to retire four years later. He settled in Rhodesia and, during the Boer War, travelled back to Natal, where he was commissioned a lieutenant in Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry in December 1899. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in April 1901 before joining the newly formed South African Constabulary under Colonel Robert Baden-Powell as a captain. In January 1902, he was appointed a travelling inspector of the refugee camps, and on 29th June 1904, while back home in London, he died at the Charing Cross Hospital during a routine operation.
As for Harry, his service in the NMP, despite holding a militia commission, was somewhat troubled, which the NMP enrolment register recorded something of his character at the time:
‘Very smart looking youngster but a little [unreadable] joining & inclined to be led astray – had not been able to promote him on account of getting into several scrapes.’
Harry was discharged from the NMP in December 1880 to a commission in ‘C’ Troop, Willoughby’s Horse, which was a specially raised irregular regiment being formed in Pietermaritzburg for urgent service in Basutoland. He then served in both East Griqualand and Basutoland, and in May 1881, he was appointed as the captain and adjutant of Leach’s Rifles. Not giving up on the pursuit of a coveted CMR commission, he applied once more in April 1881, and again not being successful, he enlisted as a private in the CMR in November 1881—he was now following the conventional route of which, at this point, the CMR was teeming with Zulu War veterans. Five months later, he was recommended for a commission in the newly formed Cape Infantry Regiment, but again he was unsuccessful in securing it, and eventually, he was discharged with ignominy in October 1882.
He then travelled to Zululand, and in 1884 he was observed by Resident Magistrate H.F. Fynn Junior as having spent time with inKosi Zibhebhu kaMapitha, who was then at war with the uSuthu Royal House. Fynn could not ascertain what he was doing with him; however, Zibhebhu was known to have used European mercenaries. In December 1884 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 1st (Methuen’s) Mounted Rifles and took part in Warren’s Bechuanaland Expedition 1884/85, although he did not see a shot fired in anger. He then threw in his lot with Cecil Rhodes and served as a corporal with the Pioneer Column to Mashonaland in 1890.
He served during both the 1893 Matabele War and the 1896 Matabele Rebellion, and soon after he rejoined the 4th Battalion, Middlesex Militia, as a captain. When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out, he initially served as a lieutenant in the Rhodesia Regiment, then the South African Constabulary, until he was wounded at Erasmus Hoop on 29th June 1901 and died the following day.
So, Thomas and his son Harry died while holding colonial commissions. The 1879 correspondents' description of what is almost certainly Thomas’s death leaves me pondering more about what happened to him that day on the Devil’s Pass. The suggestion is that he completely froze to the extent that he was unable to defend himself, while others that day are known to have killed themselves rather than be killed by an assegai. Then Harry, the surviving son and a former officer with a DSO to his name, died soon after the Boer War on a surgeon's operating table. Both Cyril and Harry were no doubt drawn to a soldier's life having grown up in the Barracks with their father, Captain Thomas Hamilton, while they were also influenced by their uncle General Hamilton and cousin by marriage Colonel Colley. How lucky those two boys were not to have been killed during the Zulu War in what would have been a completely devastating time for the Hamilton family.
References:
Cape Archives Repository., CO 4199 H78
Cary, Robert. The Pioneer Corps
Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository., AGO 1/8/28
Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository., NMP 2 Enlistment Register
Pretoria Archives Repository., SS 317 R4338/78
Simpson, Cameron. Blue-Blood Troopers in Zululand. Blue-Blood Troopers in Zululand: A Biographical Record of the Natal Mounted Police in the Anglo-Zulu War 1879: Amazon.co.uk: Simpson, Cameron: 9798399263748: Books
The Diamond News., 24 April 1879