A Short History of the Railway Volunteers

by Noel K Hannan

The Second Boer War was fought in the South African states of Natal, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony during the period 1899 - 1902. It was not the most distinguished military campaign that Imperial Britain had fought, and is notable chiefly because of the factors for which it is unfortunately best remembered - the 'Scorched Earth' policy of Lord Kitchener in the latter, guerrilla stages of the war, and the introduction of the concept and term of 'concentration camps', something that the Nazis were to bring to its nadir some forty years later. The British Army in South Africa found the Boers a tough adversary, and both sides suffered heavy losses during the early, set-piece battles of the conflict, and during the famous sieges of the towns of Mafeking (where Robert Baden-Powell, the father of the scouting movement, was in command), Kimberley (where arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, was among those trapped), and Ladysmith. Liverpool FC's 'Kop' is named after Spion Kop, where hundreds of men of the Lancashire Fusiliers lost their lives during General Redvers Buller's attempt to relieve the besieged garrison at Ladysmith. For the military historian, the Second Boer War is a fascinating conflict, as it reveals much about an army in transition between the rigid formulas of the Napoleonic era and the harsh realities of twentieth century warfare with its emphasis on trench systems, mobility and automatic weapons. Perhaps inspired by Kitchener's use of statistics to map the progress of the war, in particular the infamous 'body count, the war has been described in the past as 'Britain's Vietnam'.

(10th Company of the 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers on their arrival in Cape Town in October 1899. Note the child in the straw hat!)

The locomotive works in Crewe, Cheshire, has been the mainstay of the town since the early part of the nineteenth century. It remains today a major employer. Militias or military reserves have been enshrined in British culture since the time of the civil war, and as early as 1859, in response to military threats by the French, reservists were actively recruited from the ranks of boilermen, steelmen, engineers and clerks employed by the London & North Western Railway. In 1887, largely due to the efforts of the Locomotive Superintendent Frank Webb, an entire Corps of Royal Engineers was raised, called the 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers (Railway) Volunteer Corps, comprising six companies each totalling one hundred soldiers (or sappers, as RE private soldiers are called). Each company was comprised of men from specific departments, for example No 1 (A) Coy, commanded by George Whale, was recruited from the running department; No 3 (C) Coy, commanded by chief draughtsman W. Norman, was mainly office staff; and No 5 (E) Coy, commanded by works assistant H. D. Earl, was made up of works men. The full command structure at time of inception is as follows :

Coy	Commander
A	Capt G Whale
B	Capt A M Thompson
C	Capt W Norman
D	Capt A G Hill
E	Capt H D Earl
F	Capt J O'B Tandy
	Chaplain
	Rev A H Webb
	Commanding Officer
	Lt Colonel L V Lloyd (1887 - 1892) (Director of London & North Western Railway, formerly Grenadier Guards and 2nd Bn Royal Warwickshire Regt (V))
	Colonel E T D Cotton-Jodrell (1892 - ?) (later Sir Edward Cotton-Jodrell, KCB)
	Medical Officer
	Surgeon Major J Atkinson (First Mayor of Crewe)
	Adjutant
	Capt Gossett RE (Royal Engineers)
	Regimental Sergeant Major/Training Sergeant
	Sgt Goss RE
	Training Corporal
	Cpl Staig RE

(Volunteer engineers practice track-laying at Rhyl, North Wales, in 1889. Skills such as this and bridge-building were in demand in the South African campaign due to the vast distances involved and the reliance on locomotive transport)

It is a telling sign of the times that initially there were too many volunteers for the Corps, allowing the recruiters to select only the very best. The Corps was up and running in time for Queen Victoria's Jubilee, and on Monday, 20th June 1897, took part in a review in her honour in York. According to reports of the time, the mens' appearance and smart soldierly bearing won them the admiration of the spectators, and Colonel Lloyd was commended by General Daniell on the impressive turnout considering the Corps had only just been raised.

When the magnificent Queen's Park was opened in July 1888 (where the monument to the Volunteers now stands), the Commander in Chief of the British Army, the Duke of Cambridge, inspected the entire Corps on parade. The Corps provided a Guard of Honour, commanded by Sergeant A Billington of 'A' Coy (later CSM of 'E' Coy), whose son would later join the Corps, rise to the rank of Staff Sergeant, and later write the short document which is the only known history of the unit. In its early years the Volunteers were expected to attend their week's annual training in their holiday time. The Corps had the use of a rifle range under Holmes Chapel viaduct (maintaining a civilian Rifle Club affiliated to the Corps, whose members shot regularly at Bisley and Altcar), and conducted track and bridge laying exercises in the dunes along the seafront at Rhyl, where they spent several camp training weeks. At the time, they were the only reserve military unit in the British Army, perhaps even in the world, who were drawn exclusively from a single employer at a single location, despite claims to the contrary by an American corps in the 1920s.

(The 2nd Cheshire Royal Engineers march off to war down High Street, Crewe, on October 16th, 1899)

In October 1899, in response to sabre-rattling from Britain largely orchestrated by South African High Commissioner Alfred Milner and Cecil Rhodes, the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State launched pre-emptive invasions in the British-controlled states of Natal and Cape Colony. Britain was at war with the Boers. In response to rising tension, there were already large numbers of British and colonial troops in South Africa, but further reinforcements were mobilized at home. As the key to fighting a successful campaign across the vast and empty veldts of South Africa would be transport, mobility and logistics, the Railway Volunteers of Crewe received their call. Their special skills would be badly needed by the huge numbers of soldiers already in theatre, and by those preparing to go. As the war progressed, the railways became major arteries serving the outlying towns and garrisons, and many major battles took place within a few miles of the main lines. All three of the main sieges took place in towns with railway stations.

Of the 760 men in the Corps, 245 were classed as regular reservists (Special Railway Reservists) and mobilized immediately, along with forty men (two detachments) of the Volunteers. It is worth noting that the 245 had previously enlisted in the regular army for a single day, an administrative fix in order for them to become members of the Royal Engineers Railway Reserve, where they would remain for 6 years, liable to active service at any time. Arriving in Cape Town late in the autumn of 1899, their specialist skills were called upon to provide drivers for the armoured trains (an example of which containing a young Winston Churchill was ambushed by the Boers and caused him to briefly become their prisoner in Pretoria), build many bridges (ironically, given the large Irish community in Crewe, the Boers 'employed' an Irish Brigade whose speciality was blowing bridges up!), wire fencing and, as the war dragged into the guerrilla stages in late 1900 and early 1901, building the blockhouses that would be the mainstay of Kitchener's policy of dealing with the renegade Boer commando who refused to surrender.

The Railway Volunteers lost ten men in the conflict, from a total of 26 men from various regiments who originated in the Crewe area. Nineteen of these men died of disease, three by accidents, and just four were killed by the Boers. Among those who died were Lt C. M. F. Trotter , who was killed at Chatham after being thrown from his horse on April 11^th 1901, and Sapper Septimus Robinson, who perished from enteric (typhoid) fever in the Orange Free State capital of Bloemfontein on 27^th May 1900, falling victim to the epidemic that swept through the British troops there shortly after it was captured by Lord Roberts’ column. Sapper Robinson, originally from Nannerch in North Wales, is buried at the President Brand Garden of Remembrance, Bloemfontein, Republic of South Africa. The names of those who died, along with those of their surviving comrades and other local men who served in South Africa with different units, appear on the magnificent memorial that was erected in Crewe's Queens Park in 1903. There is also a stunning bronze plaque, originally mounted in St Paul’s Church on West Street, now resident in the Municipal Buildings, which lists ten of the war dead and also features the Engineer’s crest of shield, crossed tools and scroll, surmounted by a locomotive (detail of which featured on the uniform collar dogs).

(Veterans Reunion in front of the Queens Park memorial, 1935. Can you see 'Sapper Poppie' in the centre, second row from front?)

After the demobilisation of the unit in 1902, they continued to train and soldier until the 17th March 1912, when they held their final parades in the company of the veterans of the Boer War (some of them still serving in the unit), in the town square and, appropriately, inside Crewe Works itself. The unit was then amalgamated into the newly formed Territorial Army. In 1935, the veterans of the South African campaign were photographed at their reunion in front of the memorial to their service in the Queen's Park. The photograph contains evidence of the mysterious 'Sapper Poppie', a lady who appears in full military dress on a previous photograph from 1897, but who cannot be found on any documentation dating from the period. Her identity, and how she came to be the sole lady in an all-male unit, remains unknown.

The Boer War was one of the first 'media campaigns' where photography and telephony allowed war correspondents (of which Winston Churchill was one) to deliver battlefield reports in a relatively short space of time to the newspapers back in England. A great deal of material has survived but the Boer War remains Britain's 'forgotten war', a dirty little campaign carried out with dubious, if not outright morally unjustifiable, intent, and historically overshadowed by the mass slaughter and horrors of the First World War some years later. It is generally held to be true that lessons were learnt regarding 20th century warfare in the Boer War that provided the British Army with a strategic 'headstart' on the Germans in World War One. Given the enormous losses suffered in the event, one wonders what might have been the outcome if this had not been the case.

The Railway Volunteers deserve recognition and remembrance for their service. Their memorial in Queens Park had a single poppy taped to it last year in the week after Remembrance Sunday. It is heartening to know that someone, at least, has not forgotten.

Noel K Hannan Crewe, Cheshire, June 2001

References :

THE BOER WAR - Thomas Pakenham

THE BOER WAR – Fred R. Van Hartesveldt

THE GREAT BOER WAR – Byron Farwell

CREWE - The Old Photograph Series, compiled by Brian Edge

CREWE - THE SECOND SELECTION - Images of England Series, compiled by Brian Edge.

A PICTORIAL TRIBUTE TO CREWE WORKS IN THE AGE OF STEAM by Edward Talbot

CHANGE AT CREWE by Curran, Gilsenan, Owen and Owen

CREWE AND NANTWICH - A PICTORIAL HISTORY

ENGINEER VOLUNTEERS - THE CREWE RAILWAY BATTALION by A H Billington - Staff Sergeant to the Battalion. Document supplied courtesy of Chester Military Museum.

SAPPER SEPTIMUS ROBINSON - document prepared by Harry Jones for the Crewe Historical Society

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