Lady Maud To The Rescue...

In today's "Tale From Watnall Hall" we look into the pages of 40-year-old Lady Maud Rolleston's Boer War diary. She'd left Watnall to follow her husband Colonel Lancelot Rolleston to the war in South Africa....

On the evening of June 5th 1900, an urgent telegram arrives at Lady Maud's newly-founded convalescent home for soldiers, in Kimberley, South Africa. The telegram contains ominous news from the frontline about her husband.

Lady Maud Rolleston (centre) and nurse Nan Beaver
with soldiers at their convalescent home
Kimberley, South Africa June 1900

She'd arrived in Cape Town in February, by Royal Mail steam ship from England, and has followed the advance of the 2nd Boer War northwards supporting the injured troops and visiting hospitals with her young companion, nurse Nan Beaver¹. Her husband, "Lance" as she calls him in her diary, and her brother Captain Arthur Dalzell "Artie" have both been in the thick of the fighting and she has, as yet, heard no news of them. But that is soon about to change for the worse.

Lady Maud in her prime

The two ladies have not been not afraid to "rough it", travelling north from Cape Town through the sweltering, fly-ridden country in guard's vans and on horse carts, quite different from their normal lives back in the gentrified country society of Nottinghamshire. It is dangerous work they are doing. This is a time before antibiotics or vaccination programs and a typhoid fever (or "enteric") epidemic is killing more soldiers than the fighting is². The nursing staff are also starting to die of typhoid in ever increasing numbers. Bad water is the cause and there are rumours of the Boers deliberately contaminating the water supplies². 

By late March, Lady Maud and Nan arrive in Kimberley, 600 miles north of Cape Town. They impress Major Peard, the Principal Medical Officer (PMO) at Kimberley with their work ethic and organisational abilities so he asks them to start a convalescent home to relieve his hospitals which are full of typhoid cases. Lady Maud quickly telegrams for some of the £1500 she'd raised in England for Yeomanry hospitals and finds a suitable building to convert. The Kimberley "School of Mines", usually run by the diamond-mining company DeBeers to train mining engineers, proves ideal and also comes with an annexed house for them to stay in. Lady Maud has one condition, that the convalescent home is open to both officers and men of the Yeomanry Cavalry which goes against usual military protocol. Typically forthright and convincing with her argument, she gets her wish. The convalescent home has barely been open for a month when the fateful 5th June telegram arrives. Her diary recalls..

Lady Maud later met Piet de Wet
the leader of the convoy
attacked by her husband

"We had a very cheery dinner, and afterwards we were all talking in the drawing-room when Marion came into the room and gave me a telegram. I read it and walked quietly out of the room, which I think was behaving very well, as it was to tell me that Lance was wounded. It was signed " Lance Lindley," and at first I thought it must have been sent by a man called Lindley in the regiment, as I did not know that such a place was in existence, but since then it has become more or less famous from the amount of fighting that has gone on there"

The telegram glosses over the true extent of Lance's injuries, sustained while attacking a Boer convoy outside of Lindley, 200 miles to the east of Kimberley. On June 1st, he'd been shot in the back and arm, the bullet barely missing his spine so that he was unable to move his legs for several days. His daring rescue was carried out by his comrades Lieutenant Knowles and Sergeant Birkin while Trooper Joe Haywood, risking certain capture by the Boers, stayed behind to look after his commanding officer during the night. For this selfless act Colonel Rolleston rewarded him with life tenancy of the Queens Head back in Watnall. The full details are covered in another of my "Tales From Watnall Hall" called Tales from the Boer War - Colonel Rolleston is seriously wounded....  

Despite him being on the frontline, Lady Maud quickly decides she must go to her husband and bring him back. She first has to cut through the military red tape which she does by going to the very top of the chain of command, the legendary Lord Kitchener himself...

Lord Kitchener

"I had a note from the Provost-Marshal saying that he was afraid there was no chance of my getting up to Kroonstad, as all passes north were stopped on account of the condition of the line, shortness of supplies, &c. My only course, he said, would be to apply to the Chief of the Staff, namely, Lord Kitchener. I cogitated this advice well; it was rather a case of "bearding the lion," but I felt it could do no harm, and it might do good, to ask his leave, as I felt sure that if it was possible he would let me go; so I composed the following telegram, of which I was, I think, justly proud, though it did cost me 7s. 6d. :

"Lady Maud Rolleston to Lord Kitchener, Kroonstad.—My husband, Captain Rolleston, Imperial Yeomanry is severely wounded at Lindley. I shall be very grateful if you will allow me and the surgical nurse with me to proceed to Kroonstad, and if possible to Lindley. I have sufficient food and drink for us both for a considerable time, and have secured accommodation at Kroonstad, and shall therefore be no strain on your resources. My husband has wired asking me to join him." "

Incredibly, he gives his permission. So, Lady Maud and Nan head north to Kroonstad on a Red Cross hospital train overcoming considerable danger from the enemy, the disease and the brutal South African climate. Then she tries to get to the frontline at Lindley despite the town being surrounded by Boers. At least Nan is to stay behind this time. The road to Lindley is frequently attacked and it's a very dangerous journey but using her considerable powers of persuasion, she gets verbal permission from General Knox to follow a supply convoy leaving the very next morning. Her brother and everyone else tell her it is madness to even try. The General, thinking better of it, then promptly withdraws his permission. The convoy is ambushed and many men are killed. A lucky escape for Lady Maud. 

Kroonstad during the Boer War

However out of the blue one evening there is a loud knock on the door of their borrowed accommodation...

"We were sitting almost in the dark over the fire, for lamp-oil was a luxury and we had to carefully economise it, and I had just been thinking over my disappointment at not being able to get to Lance at Lindley, when Coles suddenly came into the room and said, as if he was announcing dinner, "Colonel Rolleston is at the door in an ambulance." The surprise was so great it made me feel quite ill. I flew to the door, and the Commissioner declares I tried to knock him down because he was in my way. It was very dark, and we brought out some candles which we put on the gate-posts, and we could then make out the great hood of the ambulance cart with its Red Cross flag flying above. Lance's voice came from the other side of the cart, and I thought it sounded very strange somehow. He could not get down, so the Commissioner simply lifted him out and carried him into the house and put him on to my bed. I shall never forget the shock I received when I saw him; he looked so far more ill than I expected, that I just thought to myself he has come back to me to die. I could see from his breathing that something was wrong with his lungs, but he was most aggressively cheerful, so much so that, as I have told him since, it was perfectly ghastly."

The full tale of Lance's escape from Lindley is then revealed but not before he's given a surprising pick-me-up which could be straight off the bar of an English pub!

Ambulance cart

"He begged for something to eat, and said he could eat anything, as it was only food he wanted to pick him up. Dinner was on the table, and we gave him some soup and champagne, and they brought some mutton with the accompaniment of one of our luxuries - pickled onions; and I have shuddered many a time since at the thought of giving a man in his condition pickled onions to eat; but it did not make much difference. I wanted to send at once for the doctor, but he begged me not to, and I thought it best not to worry him. 

Mr. Villiers Stuart, of the Irish Yeomanry, had also come in with him, and they had had a terrible drive. The way they had managed to get away from Lindley was this. Lance got leave from General Paget to leave if he could manage it on his own responsibility, and he made friends with a very kind Boer doctor at Lindley, Dr. Kickover (I do not know how to spell it), who treated the English soldiers with the utmost humanity and kindness, far greater than they received from the English doctor. Dr. Kickover lent Lance a Boer ambulance, and said that if he came in on Sunday, as the Boers are generally quiet on that day, he might get through all right; and so they would have done had not the two Boer drivers managed when crossing a deep drift to turn the cart upside down."

"Mr. Villiers Stuart managed very cleverly to save himself from falling on the top of Lance, but everything else in the cart did so, and his servant, Priestman, who also came in with him, told me that when they picked him up and found his face covered with blood, that he thought to himself, " Well, the Colonel is done for this time." However, he was not, and as they were close to some water he washed his face, and when they had righted the cart they proceeded on their way. The six horses had jibbed or something of the kind, and it never seemed to occur to these stupid men to jump down and attempt to right them. We never knew how much injury this upset caused Lance, but a drive of forty - five miles over very rough ground to a man with three broken ribs, a shot right through his body, including his spine and right lung, and an arm broken by a bullet, was not conducive to a restoration to health."

She also says the Colonel was lucky as... "the Mauser bullet is comparatively merciful, so that many, like Lance, have been shot in absolutely vital places with comparative impunity, who must have been killed had they been struck by an explosive bullet."

It still took the 53-year-old Colonel months to convalesce and recover his health enough to travel. In the end, it was decided that he was too severely injured to take further part in the war, so in spite of his protests, he was to be invalided home as soon as his wounds had sufficiently recovered to make the voyage back to England safe. His devoted wife and her equally devoted nurse had given him and their many other patients exemplary care and support. The approach to convalescent care for Boer War soldiers was later studied and lessons learned for the future. 

Lady Maud published her wartime diaries in 1901 under the title "Yeoman Service". The book gives a graphic and very personal view of the war from a lady of her time. Lady Maud comes across as a very capable and fair-minded woman always willing to listen and help out when needed and not afraid to put herself in harm's way. Certainly not a superior, interfering busy-body that some society ladies were accused of being. The Lancet medical journal called that particular phenomenon of the Boer War "lady hindrance". Her book is still quoted in scholarly texts on the development of nursing today. She also has a handy knack for Victorian "social networking". En route to Kroonstad, arriving late at a remote railway station on the De Wet river a voice calls out of the dark... 

"Is that Lady Maud?" I replied, asking who it was, and it was Mr. Frank Fitzherbert, whom I had last seen at Cape Town. He rode along as far as he could close to the carriage and told me he had had a most exciting week. He is in a Militia regiment, and they had been in the thick of the fighting about there. The others were much amused at the way I found friends everywhere, and Colonel Ryerson declared that when I died "Yeoman" would be found written on my heart. I thought it extremely probable."

Lady Maud, Nan and "Lance" left South Africa on August 9th. 1900 for repatriation to England.

Back at Watnall Hall c.1940. Colonel Rolleston always used a stick to walk after his injuries...

Sources and picture credits: The Boer War by Thomas Packenham 1933; Colonel Rolleston's "Reminiscences"; 
Lady Maud Rolleston's diaries "Yeoman Service"
https://archive.org/details/yeomanservicebei00rollrich/page/n17/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater ; 
RA Horton Watnall Hall and the Rollestons 2000; 

Notes

1 - From Yeoman Service - "Nurse S. A. Beaver, [known as "Nan"] whom I was fortunately able to persuade to come with me as a companion. Bright, pretty, and good-tempered, she was the very greatest comfort to me all the time I was in South Africa, and her care and skill as a fully qualified surgical nurse were invaluable at the Kimberley Convalescent Home, and later at Kroonstadt. For her services there to my wounded husband I owe her a debt of affection and gratitude which I can never sufficiently express."

2 -The enteric fever (now known as typhoid) at Bloemfontein cost the British Army more lives then the two severest battles of the war. Bloemfontein was occupied by Lord Roberts without opposition, but disease germs were deadlier than bullets. As many as fifty men died in one day. One hospital with 500 beds had 1,700 sick; another had 370. Some 6,000 soldiers came down with this severe and protracted fever. Sixty orderlies serving as nurses contracted the disease from the patients. in another hospital half the attendants came down with the fever. More than 1,000 soldiers' graves were added to the cemetery at Bloemfontein. It was all due to polluted water. The Boers had seized the water works supplying Bloemfontein. The troops were supplied from wayside pools or any other source. The precaution of boiling was omitted and the greatest army England ever put in the field had to halt till the bacilli were conquered.  http://www.boer-war.com/Details2nd/Hospitals.html

From Yeoman Service - "There used to be a watering-place here to which the Kimberley people came for holidays and outings, but all the good houses have been pulled down except one little inn and store. We have a large garrison there, although it is so frightfully unhealthy and very, very hot. The place is a hotbed of enteric, and there is a very large hospital. All the men one saw there looked so weary and exhausted, but it is an important place, and it was necessary to keep a large force there to guard the great iron bridge over the river. The river was still, they said, in an awful state. The Boers threw bodies of men, horses, and bullocks into it both there and higher up, and their remains still constantly floated down. The water looked innocent enough, and no wonder the men were tempted to drink it in this land of thirst, with the fatal result of fever."

Another diary entry tells the tragic story of a party of nuns she'd met that were caring for the soldiers... "That evening I heard that Sister Bell, one of the sisters who had been nursing at Modder River, had just died of enteric. There were four sisters nursing there and ten orderlies. Two of the sisters died; one was frightfully ill but had not died when I left, and out of the ten orderlies, I believe I am right in saying that seven died. The water there was frightfully bad, and one of the sisters told me herself, "We were so frightfully thirsty, and we simply had not time to boil it." Of course the water was poisoned by the Boers throwing both men and horses into the river."