Piece of the past up for sale
Uitenhage’s Moth Hall also resting place of SA’s first Victoria Cross recipient Joseph Crowe
APROPERTY auction in Uitenhage due to take place today has thrown the spotlight on the remains of the first South African-born soldier to receive the Victoria Cross (VC) for bravery. Born on an Eastern Cape farm, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Petrus Hendrick Crowe was awarded the VC after a battle in India 160 years ago.
Little known to the average resident of Nelson Mandela Bay, his grave on the grounds of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (Moths) property in Rich Street, Uitenhage, alongside the Crown and Anchor Dinkie Di Shellhole hall, cuts to the heart of the Eastern Cape’s early settler history.
With the property due to come under the hammer at 11am today, representatives of the Moths, historians and other role players are discussing what should be done about Crowe’s remains, and the life and death of the long-ago hero has come to life again.
According to Port Elizabeth-based military history researcher Tim Bodill, Crowe was born on January 12 1826 on the farm Essen Bosch near Sidbury.
When he was still young, his parents – Irishman Lieutenant Joseph Crowe snr of the 60th regiment and Classina (nee Vermaak) Crowe – moved the family to Uitenhage.
There, Joseph went to the James RoseInnes Free School in Cuyler Street, the first co-educational free government school, which later became Muir College, the oldest English high school in South Africa.
Crowe then followed his father’s footsteps into the British army, enlisting in the 78th Highland Regiment of Foot and, on August 12 1857, he was caught up in the Siege of Cawpore involving Indian rebel forces and the British army acting in support of the East India Company.
According to the South African Military History Society, quoting a regimental narrator of the time, the British took the decision to storm the enemy “there being no guns at hand to attack it with, and night was coming.
“Every minute men were falling killed or wounded. The gallant Highlanders dashed forward, each man trying to be ‘first in’. The race was won by Lt Crowe, who outstripped all and, being followed by his men, in less than a minute the place was captured and the enemy scattered or slain.”
On January 15 1858, Crowe was awarded the Victoria Cross for this extreme courage, becoming the first South African-born recipient of the VC, according to the society.
While he was campaigning overseas, his sisters were busy growing two of the Eastern Cape’s early pioneer families.
Alleta married Robert Henry Lovemore and Dorothy married Henry Robert Lovemore – both sons of 1820 settler giant Henry Lovemore.
Crowe’s eldest sister Maria was the mother of Joseph Storr Lister, the forester honoured in a memorial at Summerstrand Village for his work stabilising Port Elizabeth’s dunes with alien brush – today strongly criticised for sparking the uncontrolled spread of alien invasive vegetation in the area.
Crowe went on to command the 10th Foot regiment in Port Elizabeth and then returned to the East to campaign in China and Japan.
In 1876, promoted by then to lieutenant-colonel, he was on leave when “congestion of the lungs, following on a chill contracted while snipe shooting in the cold bogs of Ireland, carried him off on April 12 of that year”, the society said.
According to Bodill, Crowe was initially buried in West Norwich Cemetery in London and then after pressure from the South African military history fraternity and family, his remains were disinterred and reburied on February 5 1977 in Uitenhage, where he had spent his youth.
The 1 200m² Moths property where he is buried lies today at the heart of Uitenhage’s business district.
Neil McLaggan, of McLaggan’s, the company coordinating the auction of the property, said on Monday it had a municipal valuation of R1.8-million.
He said his understanding was that Crowe’s remains as well as a historic canon would both be moved.
“It’s being handled very sensitively and consultations are under way between all the role players.”
Moths general-secretary Brian Porter said the dwindling membership of the Crown and Anchor Dinkie Di Shellhole had led to the decision to sell the property.
Exhumation and reinterrment of Crowe’s remains were likely and details were being discussed.
Bodill said his view was that the remains of Crowe and Nelson Mandela Bay’s two other VCs – James Craig, presently buried in St Mary’s Cemetery, and James Langley Dalton, in Russell Road Cemetery – should all be exhumed and reinterred at Fort Frederick.