William Hoy and his own Zulu dawn
HUBERT MURPHY TELLS THE STORY OF A BALBRIGGAN MAN WHO FOUGHT THE ZULU NATION AND HIS SON, WHO WOULD LATER HELP SAVE A YOUNG WINSTON CHURCHILL..
WILLIAM Hoy stood like a lion amidst his pride. They were eight strong, men who had seen it all, Royal Engineers.
Fusiliers and
It was June 1st 1879 at a Kraal in Zululand, east of the Kahlamba mountains in South Africa.
Six short months earlier the British had taken part in an historic engagement against the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift, made famous by the film ‘Zulu’. Subsequently, they were massacred at Isandlwana, later to be come the classic movie ‘Zulu Dawn’.
But would they be making a film about William Hoy, a man from Drogheda Street in Balbriggan, and now facing down a band of 40 Zulu warriors, inflamed with a desire to kill the enemy?
The silver buttons on his prized red tunic caught the light of a bright South African morning as the decision was taken to retreat.
But one man didn’t make it. In a flash the Zulus were upon him. And his death would send shockwaves around the world.
The Prince Imperial of France, Napoleon Eugene, the last of the Bonaparte dynasty, rode out with the party that morning. In the mayhem that followed the Zulu advance, he’d been lost and it was some time before the small party, that also lost two further soldiers, returned.
Hoy and his comrades, led by Lt Carey, brought his body back to base camp but an investigation was launched immediately.
The 23-year-old prince had fled France in the 1870s after being proclaimed Napoleon IV. He ended up in England, the Bonapartes intent that he would eventually return to France to claim the crown.
In the meantime the prince went to the Royal Military
Academy at Woolwich and after much pressure, was allowed to go to war in Africa, but with commanders ordered to protect him at all costs.
Queen Victoria ordered sanctions against the company leader that morning, Lt Carey, and his career was virtually ended.
A veteran Scottish Fusilier, William Hoy would continue to serve, spending another four years in the army.
Tight corners were something Hoy had become used to. He had 21 years service in the army, fighting in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1864 and then the Abyssinian War in 1878.
He decided to end his career in 1883 and left for home again and the streets of Balbriggan. Indeed, he continued to serve in many ways, becoming the rural district postman for the area.
But the Hoy family and the army story did not end there. It got better!
William had four sons, Herbert, George, Edward and William
and all four entered the ranks of the British military.
However, it’s William junior’s story that continued the heroic tales. He married Christina Hoy and worked for a period in the hosiery trade in Balbriggan.
The lure of action took him off to war and ironically, to South Africa again.
He served five years there, including the Boer War and figured in one of the most dramatic incidents of that campaign.
He was on the armoured train conveying troops to Ladysmith when it was held up by the Boers and all on board were taken prisoner. William Hoy protected many of those on the train that day, including a man who would become a world leader 40 years later, Winston Churchill.
It’s said that when Churchill was beginning the campaign against the Germans in WWII, Hoy was encouraged to write to him in London, asking did he recall the incident. Church
ill wrote back, saying he did, thanking Hoy and enclosing a 10 pound note!
Earlier, Hoy had served as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery in France for four years in WW1 and on September 12th, 1917, was awarded the military medal for gallantry and devotion to duty in action.
He would see out the war and returned to Balbriggan where he died n 1958.
The chief mourners at his funeral were his four daughters, Mrs Atkins, Mrs Fagan,
Mrs Bossonett and Mrs Caron and sisters, Mrs Conway and Miss A Hoy. Also sons-in-law, D Atkins, L Fagan, G Bossonett and W Caron..
He is buried in Holmpatrick