Searching for answers
Acadia archivist piecing together info on local Boer War veterans
The Korean conflict in the 1950s is often hailed as Canada's forgotten war. The same can be said of the South African (Boer) War (1899-1902), for which over 1,000 Canadians initially volunteered.
Aside from memorials in Halifax and Canning and the odd record of Boer War veterans on Legion cenotaphs, this truly is a forgotten conflict.
However, the stories of Boer War veterans, some of the young men who attended university in Wolfville, are being told.
Acadia University archivist Wendy Robicheau is on a mission to collect the stories of those Acadia students, and to use a cliché, save them for posterity.
“I want to know their stories,” Robicheau said. “Who are they? What happened to them?”
To find their stories, Robicheau began by searching war records, which she found to be sketchy at best.
“It is mostly by chance that I've been able to find these men, although sometimes they find me,” Robicheau said, giving as an example a visit to the war memorial in Port Williams where she found Private Congdon and Private Lockwood.
At a presentation in January, the members of the Kentville Historical Society were told about Robicheau's ongoing efforts to collect those stories.
As part of her presentation, Robicheau had society members read aloud the profiles of several Acadia students she had successfully tracked down. Among them were the stories of Kings County natives Arthur M. Lockwood and Horace Garfield Jones.
Lockwood was born in Port Williams and in the 1890s Hutchinson's Directory is listed as a carriagemaker. When he was 22, Lockwood enlisted in an infantry battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment and served in the Boer War.
Lockwood was typical of Acadia University students volunteering to serve in the military when war broke out in South Africa.
As Robicheau noted, before enlisting, Lockwood had served as a private in a militia unit, the 68th Kings County Regiment. Within a year, on Aug. 31, 1899, Lockwood was “invalided home.” Two years later Lockwood was on the rolls at Acadia, showing up in the “student newspaper as a special student at the Horton Academy in 1902-1903.”
Among other Acadia students, who like Lockwood became “soldiers of the Queen,” was Wolfville native Horace Garfield Jones. He enlisted in 1899, previously serving in the 68th Kings County Regiment, and was discharged in 1901. His medical records indicated he had typhoid.
Jones served along with another Wolfville native, Stanley Livingston Jones, who may have been a brother. Jones also served in the Kings County Regiment and was highly decorated for his service in the Boer War. After a brief career in law, Jones volunteered for service again at the outbreak of the First World War. Wounded in June 1916 in Belgium, he died
later.
36 hours
Lockwood and Jones weren't alone as Acadia students in the war. There's Adelbert A. Durkee and Bradford K. Daniels, for example. The details of their service were difficult to find, and Robicheau mined various militia and defence reports.
Although he hadn't studied at Acadia University, the Harold L. Borden story is included in Robicheau's collection. Borden was the most famous Canadian casualty of the Boer War. A monument in his memory was erected in Canning.
Robicheau's presentation on Boer War veterans and the Acadia connection is one of a series of ongoing bimonthly talks hosted by the Kentville Historical Society. The upcoming speaker in March, Fred Huntley, will talk on the history of the Kentville railway station.