Description
Queen’s South Africa, 3 bars, Rhodesia, Relief of Mafeking, Transvaal, 350 Trooper Alfred Harris Wilson, C Squadron, Rhodesia Regiment.
Officially impressed: “350 Tpr A.H. Wilson. Rhodesia Regt”
Confirmed on the medal roll.
Alfred Harris Wilson was born on 23rd November 1869 in England.
The son of Thomas Wilson and Elizabeth (Eliza) Sarah nee Dobinson.
The Wilsons had spent generations in Yorkshire, particularly the village of Hovingham where his father, grandfather and great grandfather were born.
It looks like, as with many young men of the day, that he departed for South Africa about 1890.
A ship schedule for the SS Ionic dated 15th May 1890, which was bound for New Zealand, records a Third Class Passenger being a 22 year old Labourer “Alfred Wilson” who was due to be dropped off at the “Cape” in South Africa on the way.
Following on from the war he made the country his home, he hwas working as a a Farmer in Vryburg, when he married Jessie Wardlaw Morgenrood at Middelburg on 3rd January 1905.
Later died in South Africa, at Koppieskraal District in Potchefstroom aged 67 on 1st March 1937.
MILITARY SERVICE
Mr Alfred Harris Wilson, first enlisted before the war, as a Trooper in the Rhodesia Regiment on 21st August 1899, joining C Squadron.
He was later discharged on 30th June 1900, following his participation in rescuing their founder, Baden-Powell earlier that year.
The story of Plumer’s Column in the Relief of Mafeking, can be read below in the South African Military History Society’s Journal, there was an article published by Graham Winton during 2021:
http://samilitaryhistory.org/jnl2/vol193gw.html
Before the outbreak of war, in July 1899, Colonel Baden-Powell, before he became a National Hero, was sent out to Rhodesia to raise two regiments, in order to protect the borders of the newly founded state of Rhodesia and the Bechuanaland Protectorate in case of war.
He began recruiting on 10th August 1899, and it took only 11 days for Alfred to sign on to serve on 21st August.
The next month Baden-Powell set off with some of his recruits for Mafeking, however as soon as the war began, these men came under siege and were held up in the town for months from 13th October 1899 until 17th May 1900.
Naturally the Rhodesian Regiment were sent off on the warpath to Mafeking to save their comrades, amongst them was Trooper Wilson, fighting under the Commanding Officer Colonel Plumer.
