THE CROYDON CHRONICLES: There is history all around the Minster, not only in the archive, as shown this week as DAVID MORGAN provides the story behind one of the church’s plaques, which dates from more than 120 years ago, and remembers a young man who died after serving in the Second Boer War
Back in the early part of the 20th Century, Croydon Parish Church, now Croydon Minster, held a regular Sunday afternoon service for men. During the one held on October 2, 1904, the vicar, Rev RL Burrows had a poignant task to perform.
A large congregation gathered to remember a young man who had been a regular attendee at the church and for whom a memorial was to be unveiled. The 20-year-old James Laver had died from typhoid fever in South Africa.
Lasting memorial: the plaque for Pte James Laver, which is still in place in the Minster
The Laver family home was at 33 Canterbury Road. His father, Henry, worked in the rates office at the Town Hall and was a popular local figure.
Rev Burrows spoke eloquently about patriotism, selflessness and devotion. After giving the address, he came down from the pulpit to unveil the bronze plaque which until then had been cloaked with a Union flag. With family, friends and representatives from the 12th Royal Lancers all looking on, Burrows gave thanks for the life of James Laver and dedicated his memorial. That plaque remains on the north wall of the church, near the Lady Chapel, to this day.
Young Laver had joined the 12th Lancers five years earlier. Almost straight away, he sailed with his regiment for South Africa, arriving in Cape Town midway through November 1899.
Queen’s South Africa Medal: every bar across the ribbon represented a campaign or battle
Laver was taken ill on the voyage but recovered enough to join his unit as it formed part of the British forces in the Boer Wars.
Laver’s Queen’s South Africa medal, which he was awarded for his service in the Second Boer War, had three clasps with it, meaning that he was involved in three engagements with the enemy. Some soldiers serving in the campaign had up to 26 clasps, or bars, reflecting their involvement in different campaigns and actions.
Having travelled more than 6,000 miles from his home in Croydon, Laver’s skirmishes with the Boers took place near settlements called Wimbledon and Merton. Maybe the irony of colonial place naming wasn’t lost on him (although it was unlikely he ever went through the settlement of Croydon in South Africa).
For the award of the first of his clasps, Laver had been part of the Battle of Modder River on November 28, 1899, just a couple of weeks after his arrival.
The British force, consisting of around 8,000 men, was marching towards the town of Kimberley to relieve the siege there. Kimberley, a settlement developed by Cecil Rhodes around a diamond mine, was a valuable asset for the British, but the Boers were not going to give up their hold on the area lightly.
Battle map: the British march to relieve Kimberley in November 1899 took James Laver through Wimbledon and Merton
Lord Methuen, commanding the British forces, was neglectful in many ways. His intelligence gathering was poor and when he ventured forward to look at the River Modder, he saw no Boer troops, only a destroyed bridge. He told his cook to defer from cooking a meal until the forces reached the river.
What he didn’t realise was that the Boers had constructed a series of trenches on the opposite bank and were lying in wait for the British to show themselves.
Laver and his fellow Lancers helped to form the right flank of the attack, as Methuen thought he could bludgeon his way through any resistance. Unfortunately, the British troops, who were short of water and hoping to replenish their supplies at the river, were sent into a Boer trap.
Lord Roberts: was appointed to command British troops in South Africa in late 1899
Many of the British troops were forced to lie out in the blazing sun for most of the day while the battle raged on. When the Boers eventually withdrew from their trenches, the British were in no position to follow them and drive home their retreat. Some of the British soldiers were so weak after being in the hot sun all day they didn’t even realise that the Boers had withdrawn from their battlefield positions.
The British lost 97 men killed and had 382 wounded. The Boer losses were estimated at 60 killed and 300 wounded.
The next battle for Laver took place a fortnight later, on December 10, at nearby Magersfontein. Methuen, having recovered from a bullet wound in the leg which he received at Modder River, resumed his command. So wary was he of Boer spies within his own ranks of guides and translators, that he only shared his battle plan with a few of his senior commanders.
Consequently, when the Highland Brigade were called upon for a frontal attack in the dark, a lack of understanding about the battle plan proved disastrous. Simple Boer traps were blundered into. Trip wires with tin cans attached to them were frequently set off, alerting the Boers to British troop movements.
A medical volunteer working with the British wounded and sick in South Africa was Dr Arthur Conan-Doyle, already hugely famous for his detective stories based around the character of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle worked at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein, where he treated wounded soldiers and those suffering from a severe typhoid epidemic.
Death certificate: James Laver survived the war, but was died of typhoid – known then as enteric fever – in a Natal hospital
According to Conan-Doyle, at Magersfontein, the Highland Brigade suffered 700 casualties in the first seven minutes of intensive firing. By the end of the battle, the British had suffered more than 900 casualties, with the Highland Brigade losing 53 officers and 650 men. Boer casualties were estimated at 230.
It was after this latest British military disaster that Methuen was relieved of his command. Lord Roberts and General Kitchener took over command of the Imperial troops.
It would be Roberts who eventually relieved Kimberley, but not until February 1900, thanks to a cavalry division led by Lieutenant General John French.
Laver’s third clasp would have been gained at the Battle of Diamond Hill on June 11-12 1900. Roberts’ forces had been on the brink of ending the war, with a succession of advances and victories, but were let down by poorly organised supply lines.
At Diamond Hill, the 12th Lancers, at very short notice, were ordered to charge into the fight to disperse a group of Boers who were threatening British gun positions. Scattered as they were in the battle, 60 lancers were gathered together and led by the Earl of Airlie. The charge was a military triumph but one which came at a cost, as the Earl was shot and killed.
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The British eventually ground out a victory after the outnumbered Boers withdrew during the second night of action.
Laver’s subsequent service with the Lancers was less dangerous. Yet 18 months later, Laver was dead, from infection. Enteric fever, now known as typhoid, was the cause of his death, which was registered on July 14, 1901.
The British army’s poor supply lines, the troops going into battle without water, all will have been symptomatic of a poorly organised force, and which will have contributed to the heavy death toll suffered.
Laver was one of 14,200 British soldiers who died during the Second Boer War from disease, mainly typhoid and dysentery. The total number of deaths was 22,000. Laver died in hospital in Newcastle, Natal.
Laver was buried in Hardwick Street Cemetery in Newcastle. His final resting place was with many other soldiers from the Empire who died in the Second Boer War, including Australian.
After Laver’s death, his regiment’s adjutant, an officer in charge of administration, wrote to his father paying tribute to his conduct and explained that he had been on his way to Newcastle to pick up remounts when he was taken ill. Despite the care he received in hospital, his disease proved fatal.
It was his fellow officers and men of the 12th Lancers who arranged and paid for the bronze plaque to be erected. The red pigment used for the first letters of each of the words on the plaque is now badly faded, making it now more difficult to read.
Nevertheless, the expression of grief and anguish, coloured with a glow of pride, expressed by the Croydon congregation more than 120 years ago can feel almost tangible when you stand quietly in front of the memorial today and imagine the scene.
Laver never got the opportunity to share the myriad of memories of his time in South Africa with his family and friends. What a lot he would have had to tell them.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- The heretic bishop who recanted to avoid burning at the stake
- Wandle Park postcard begins trace of a Pitlake family’s history
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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