Victoria Cross

For those that want to find out more about this story, there is a special 'Relief of Ladysmith' anniversary tour happening on 25-27 February 2022. Click here for full details.

A notice appeared in the London Gazette of 5 February 1856 announcing the creation by Queen Victoria of Britain’s premier award for gallantry, for all ranks since the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. Its description and criteria for the award were:

• “The distinction shall be styled and designated the “Victoria Cross” and shall consist of a Maltese cross of bronze with our Royal Crest in the centre, and underneath which a scroll bearing the inscription “For Valour”; On the reverse of the cross is engraved the date of the act of bravery and the name of the recipient is engraved on the back of the suspender.
• The Cross shall only be awarded to those officers or men who have served Us in the presence of the enemy, and shall have then performed some signal act of valour, or devotion to their country”.

Victoria Cross (Wikipedia)

The award was open to all ranks and services. Where the act of bravery was performed by a group of men, officers and other ranks had the privilege of selecting, one of more of their number to receive the honour. This was the case for some of the VCs awarded for...

It lies in the darkness where it has been entombed for over 140 years, barely inches under the hard, stony soil of Zululand surrounding a curiously sphinx-shaped hill known to the locals as Isandlwana.

It is just a little piece of metal. Bronze, to be exact. Less than an inch and a half across. Shaped as a “cross pattee”, so the experts call it. The front displays a rather jaunty looking lion, bright eyed and particularly bushy tailed, trampling on a flattish-looking crown with pointed ears. Slightly dented from where its original owner’s chest was slashed to ribbons by a huge Zulu stabbing spear, the blood long since washed away, one can just make out the inscription “For Valour” written in a scroll beneath the crown.

The back is not so impressive. Merely a date, “7 May 1867” and along the top suspender bar “Pte. W. Griffiths 24th. Rgt.” The bar is bent and the piece is encrusted with the debris of a century, but the metal is still in surprisingly good condition.

Years of wind and rain have eroded the ground around it, dragging it reluctantly closer to the surface. Another couple of rainy seasons from now and it may well work its way out in a muddy torrent into the donga in front of Mahlabamkhosi, its face once again to be warmed by the harsh African sunlight.

Maybe, with a bit of luck, the right kind of human will be fortunate enough to find it. Someone who appreciates the...

Sotondose’s Drift on the Buffalo River is not really a drift at all. Situated at the bottom end of an upside-down triangle with Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift comprising the other angles, access is down very steep rocky hillsides on either flank. At low water it consists of a difficult boulder-hopping crossing for foot traffic only. It is marked by a curiously shaped so-called “coffin rock’.

Coffin Rock (Talana Museum)

A couple of hundred yards upstream there is a large flat deep-water pool which is easily swimmable. That is, if one can swim in the first place, and is not dragged down by heavy clothing or equipment. I have always crossed the river here with my tour groups after a hot-and-sticky hike over the eight miles of the Fugitive’s Trail. Of course, we also took the precaution of rigging a lifeline across the river and had a Zodiac with an outboard motor and life jackets in case any person either got into difficulties or preferred a ride.

Curiously enough, there is also another large rock in the middle of this pool which, at full water level, also protrudes like a coffin. Readers who have watched “Zulu Dawn” will recognize the spot as where Lieutenant Vereker, lying pinned under his horse, makes a miraculous shot at a Zulu, triumphantly carrying off the Queen’s Colour, on the opposite bluff...

Although suffering from the worst drought in decades, one hopes that the rainy season is going to hit Zululand with a vengeance this year. From mid October onwards the heavens open up and the countryside transforms itself from harsh, barren, rock strewn tawny hillsides into rolling slopes covered with emerald green grass, rushing rivers and sparkling air. Looming massively on the skyline, and lit most afternoons by truly spectacular forked lightning streaking across the pitch black sky, Itala Mountain has a particularly eerie feel to it. Just like its cousin 30 miles to the west: Isandlwana.

Situated next to the Mhlatuze River, which, in 1901, formed the boundary between Natal and the Boer Republic of the Transvaal, it commands the road leading from Nqutu to Babanango, and the winding track heading off southwards toward Nkandla. On a clear day, one can see almost a hundred miles in most directions from the summit.

It has always been a strategic spot in the various altercations that have taken place across the centuries here. My interest in the site was originally sparked by a visit with Fred Duke and Neville Worthington many years ago. Then a few months later I came across an old group photograph entitled “The Officers and NCO’s of “G” Squadron, Natal Carbineers, Mooi River Camp. 31 August 1924”. 

The soldiers in the photograph still stare self importantly back at you, even after 80 years. What sparked my interest was that a local farmer from Vant’s Drift, Major Harry Walker...

Major William Knox-Leet was born in Dalkey, County Dublin on 3 November 1833. The youngest son of a Episcopalian rector, he graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and became an ensign in the 13th Prince Albert's Light Infantry in July 1855. In 1858 he was sent to British India where he saw action in several engagements during the Indian Mutiny. From 1867 until 1872 he served as an arms instructor in England. In July 1872 he became Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General in County Cork, Ireland. In 1879 he was sent to South Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War where he won the Victoria Cross for gallantry. In May 1883 he returned to British India as a battalion commander and took it to Burma (now Myanmar) during the Third Anglo-Burmese War. He was later promoted to the rank of Major General and retired from the British Army in November 1888 with 33 years of active military service. He died in Great Chart, Kent, England at the age of 64.

Major William Knox-Leet

Knox-Leet saved the lives of four wounded soldiers and was told by his comrades that he deserved the Victoria Cross - the highest decoration awarded for bravery by the British Military. The drawback was that his superiors in the War office had not recommended that he should receive this award and so he...

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...