A soldier who would one day retire in Hermanus surprised himself by earning the highest British military award. He is William Henry Hewitt who was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1917 and who lived in Natal, South Africa between 1905 and 1915 and in Hermanus in the 1950s. He returned to the UK only when he was terminally ill early in the 1960s, but left instructions that his body should be cremated and the ashes cast into the sea at his favourite resting place along the Hermanus Cliff Path.
William Henry Hewitt (Wikipedia)
The son of a butcher and farmer, William Hewitt was born at West Hill, Elm Lane, Copdock, in Suffolk in June 1884. He attended Framlingham College between 1894 and 1900. In the spring of 1905 he immigrated to South Africa and as early as 1907 he applied for naturalisation as a South African and became a citizen as soon as the Union of South Africa was established in 1910.
Framlingham College
From 1906, Hewitt worked in the Colony of Natal where he joined the South African Constabulary, which was an extra-military peace-keeping force that had been established by Lord Baden-Powell during the South African...
