Bravest of the brave recalled
The Zulu War of 1879 lasted only six months yet so ferocious was the fighting, 23 men were awarded the Victoria Cross. A new book tells their stories, including two with local connections.
ANTHONY Clarke Booth, a tailor from Carrington, must have been some soldier. In the tradition of great Victorian heroes who wore the red jacket of the British army, he faced all the perils service for his queen could throw at him to become a member of a very exclusive club. A Victoria Cross holder.
Clarke was born in a typical threestorey framework knitters’ house in what is now Hucknall Road in April, 1846, into a family of lace workers in the small village of Carrington.
He worked as a tailor, but listening to a cousin’s stories about serving in the army fired his ambition to enlist.
The Royal Marines turned him down on medical grounds, so he travelled to Sheffield and enlisted in the 80th (South Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot. He was 18.
Less than two years later he married Lucy, the 19-year-old daughter of an Irish shoemaker, who would follow him to the ends of the earth.
His overseas service began in 1872 in Singapore and by 1878, when the regiment landed in South Africa, he had been made a colour sergeant.
A year later, British forces led by Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand and soon after, suffered a desperate defeat at Isandhlwana. More than 1,000 soldiers and native bearers died.
A few weeks later, 100 men of the 80th Regiment were camped on both banks of the Intombe River guarding a convoy of supply wagons. As dawn broke on the morning of March 12, 1879, a shot rang out. Sgt Booth peered across the river and through the mist saw Zulus attacking ... thousands of them.
Among the first soldiers to fall was the officer in charge; then the Zulus began stabbing Redcoats with their short-bladed assegais as they emerged from their tents.
On Sgt Booth’s side of the river, about 35 men began laying down a volley of fire. Their senior officer Lieutenant H.H. Howard told his men to retire to a nearby farmhouse and rode off, apparently to find help – an action that would bring him shame and ruin his career.
Command fell to Sgt Booth who organised a small group to cover survivors fleeing across the river.
“We fought the Zulus for three miles in retreat,” he reported after the battle. “We kept close together, firing volleys at our pursuers as they prepared to rush us.”
By now Lt Howard had found reinforcements and when the large force of Redcoats was spotted by the Zulus, they fled, carrying their booty with them. A few days later, Sgt Booth wrote to his wife Lucy about the battle, telling her only 41 men out of 154 had survived the battle.
“I know you and our children will be proud of your husband and father.”
He was awarded the Victoria Cross, which was presented by Queen Victoria in 1880.
Lt Howard was court-martialled for having ‘misbehaved before the enemy’ when he left the field of battle. Although he was acquitted, it ended his military career.
Colour Sergeant Booth retired from the Army in 1898 and died a year later of cirrhosis of the liver. He was buried, with full military honours, at St Michael’s Church, Brierley Hill, and his medal is now held in the South Staffs Regimental museum.
The story of 33-year-old Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead is much better known – thanks to the film Zulu, in which he was portrayed by a young Michael Caine. Bromhead’s family were steeped in military tradition. His great-grandfather Boardman Bromhead fought under Major General James Wolfe at Quebec; his grandfather Sir Gonville Bromhead was a lieutenant general who fought in the American Revolutionary War; his father was a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo; and his three older brothers were officers in the British Army.
Bromhead was a pupil at Newark Magnus School from 1860-64 and then enlisted with the 24th Regiment of Foot.
In January 1879, he was officer commanding a tiny outpost at Rorke’s Drift, in the South African province of Natal, when news arrived that around 1,500 men of Lord Chelmsford’s invading army had been wiped out by a huge force of Zulu warriors at Isandhlwana... and they were now coming their way. Together with an officer of engineers named John Chard, Bromhead organised the defence of Rorke’s Drift with only 138 officers and men, many of them hospital cases, and from behind barricades of mealie bags and biscuit boxes, they repelled repeated attacks which left near 400 Zulus dead on the battlefield.
The defenders were awarded 11 VCS. Among them was Bromhead, who was also presented with a jewelled sword and an illuminated address by the City of Lincoln.
He later served in Gibraltar and the East Indies before being posted to India where, in 1891, he died at the age of 46 from typhoid and was buried in the military cemetery in Allahabad. A house at Magnus Academy is named in his honour.
■ Historian and author James Bancroft reveals more about Booth and Bromhead, and the other 21 VC winners of the conflict, in his new book Zulu War VCS, published by frontline-books, priced £25.