THE REMARKABLE RHODESIA 1896, BOER WAR AND FIRST WORLD WAR CAMPAIGN GROUP TO EDWARD HERBERT LITTLE, WHO SAW SERVICE SUCCESSIVELY DURING THE PERIOD 1885-1919 AS A PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS, ROYAL NAVY, SEAMAN, MERCHANT MARINE (ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE)

THE REMARKABLE RHODESIA 1896, BOER WAR AND FIRST WORLD WAR CAMPAIGN GROUP TO EDWARD HERBERT LITTLE, WHO SAW SERVICE SUCCESSIVELY DURING THE PERIOD 1885-1919 AS A PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS, ROYAL NAVY, SEAMAN, MERCHANT MARINE (ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE), DURING THE 1896 RHODESIA CAMPAIGN AS TROOPER, BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA POLICE, SUBSEQUENTLY AS STATION MASTER, CAPE TO CAIRO RAILWAY, DURING THE BOER WAR AS TROOPER, BUSHVELDT CARBINIERS, SERGEANT, PIETERSBERG LIGHT HORSE, TROOPER, ROBERT’S HORSE, AND DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR AS CHIEF PETTY OFFICER, ROYAL CANADIAN NAVAL VOLUNTEER RESERVE, MASTER AT ARMS, ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY, COMPANY QUARTERMASTER SERGEANT, 62ND BATTALION CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, AND CANADIAN ARMY SERVICE CORPS.

IN THE COURSE OF HIS LENGTHY MILITARY CAREER, DURING THE BOER WAR LITTLE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALERTING BADEN-POWELL IN MAFEKING BY TELEGRAM THAT THE BOER WAR HAD BROKEN OUT AND HAD THE DISTINCTION OF BEING THE FIRST PERSON TO BE TAKEN PRISONER BY BOER FORCES.

WHILST SERVING IN THE BUSHVELDT CARBINIERS LITTLE SAW SERVIC ALONGSIDE HARRY “BREAKER” MORANT, WHO WAS EXECUTED FOR MURDERING BOER PRISONERS OF WAR.

DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR LITTLE SAW SERVICE WITH BOTH THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVAL RESERVE AND THE CANADIAN NAVY, SEEING SERVICE WITH THE CANADIAN NAVY AS A SUBMARINER ABOARD THE SUBMARINES CC1 AND CC2.

Six: British South Africa Company’s Medal 1890-97, Rhodesia 1896 reverse (officially named, engraved in sloping plain capital letters: E.H. LITTLE B.S.A.P.); Queen’s South Africa Medal, 4 clasps, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Dreifontein, Transvaal (officially named, impressed in plain block capitals: 2383 TPR: E.H. LITTLE, ROBERTS HORSE.); King’s South Africa Medal, 2 clasps (renamed, contemporary re-engraved naming in upper and lower case plain block capital letters and numbers: 408 SERGt. E.H. LITTLE. PIETERSBURG L. HORSE.); 1914-15 Star (officially named, impressed in the correct style and as seen on other medals issued to officers and men who saw service aboard HMS Shearwater, in a combination of upper and lower case plain letters: E.H. LITTLE. M.A.A. H.M.C.S. Shearwater); British War Medal (renamed, contemporary re-engraved naming in upper and lower case plain letters and numbers: 463116 C.Q.M.S. E.H. LITTLE. 62nd. Bn. C.E.F.); Victory Medal (officially named, impressed in plain capital letters and numbers: E.H. LITTLE. M.A.A. 40089. R.C.N.).

British South Africa Company’s Medal with an old silver solder repair to one arm of the suspender and surface contact marks, edge nicks and rim bruises, obscuring the lower limb of the initial E in naming details, attempted erasure of the naming details to Queen’s South Africa Medal, but all letters and numbers still legible, otherwise generally Good Very Fine, mounted loose style for display and undoubtedly a unique combination of medals, clasps and units.

Another 1914-15 Star to a Canadian Able Seaman who saw service aboard Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Shearwater during WW1 named in identical style to Little’s medal was sold by Noonans on 13/10/2021 (lot 165)

Group accompanied by extract 1871 census return, copied Royal Navy service record, 1885-94, Royal Naval Reserve service record, 1895-96, copied extracts British South Africa Company’s Medal roll, confirming medal, extracts Q.S.A. Medal and K.S.A. Medal rolls, confirming medals and clasps and that Little saw service during the Boer War consecutively with the Bushveldt Carbiniers, Pietersburg Light Horse and Robert’s Horse, 34 pages from Little’s WW1 Royal Canadian Navy service record and WW1 Canadian Army service record, along with an extensive file of copied documents and correspondence regarding Little’s service and the units he served in, including a copy of an article about Little’s Boer War experiences from the 9th April 1938 edition of the Montreal Standard newspaper, the newspaper article describing Little as “one of the most colourful figures this country has ever seen”, along with a six page copied manuscript letter from Little on South African Veterans’ Association headed notepaper, dated 25th June 1938, giving wide ranging details of his extensive service during his lengthy military career, the letter written when Little was 69 years of age and had just sought, but been refused, surgical treatment in a Canadian Veteran’s Hospital, on the grounds that he was “not eligible for this privilege as I had not served in a theatre of war.” with Canadian forces. Understandably Little was “much upset” by that decision, since he had served both on land and at sea in no less than seven different military units, and had fought in four wars. By way of appeal against the refusal to treat him, Little gave a detailed description of his military and civil service during the period 1885-1919.

Edward Herbert Little was born in St Pancras, London, on 25th April 1870, He is recorded in the 1871 census as an 11 month old child resident in St Pancras with his 26 year old father Edward Little and 27 year old mother, Esther. Little saw service initially with the Royal Navy from 1885 to 1894, in the Red Sea during operations against slave traders, in the Mediterranean, North Sea, China, Japan and Australia, aboard a wide variety of ships. Discharged from the Royal Navy in 1894, he next saw service in the Merchant Navy (Royal Naval Reserve) from 1894 to 1895 with the P & O Company. Little then joined the British South Africa Company’s Mounted Police in 1895, and saw service with that unit 1895-1897, including the Matabeleland Rebellion of 1896, during which campaign he was “In charge Nordenfeld Gun”. Little, after being discharged from the British South Africa Police took up a post with the Cape to Cairo Railway as Station Master in charge of Maritzanz, 24 miles south of Mafeking. Subsequently he played a leading role in the opening phase of the Boer War, Little’s 1938 letter noting that he was responsible for getting the first telegram through alerting the military authorities, in the person of Baden-Powell at Mafeking, to the fact that the war had commenced as a result of Boer incursions across the Transvaal-Cape Colony border. Little’s letter notes that he was ” in charge of the next station and P.O. to Mafeking, and informing British Government by wire hostilities had actually broken out by Boers coming across border. Got message through to Colonel (now Lord) Baden-Powell since acknowledged by him (have several letters from him and his photograph). He states he ‘still has my telegram’ the last received by him for seven months as telegraph wires were cut north and south of me just as I got wire through.” (Little and Baden-Powell knew each other well, having previously served alongside each other during the 1896 Matabeleland Campaign). Little goes on to give details of subsequent events, “The armoured train was held up and destroyed and Cronje told me he would not let me go into Mafeking. Afterwards he sent me to Pretoria”, Little thus becoming the first prisoner taken by the Boers during the Boer War. Little was subsequently released, presumably because he was a civilian “President Kruger put me on parole under sentence of Death if I was captured again and had carried arms or gave British any information. Sent under escort to Koomatiepoort, then across Portuguese East Africa border to Delagoa Bay. Ross the British Consul sent me to Cape Town. After was employed by Majors Bainbridge & Taylor Intelligence Officers Cape Town thus automatically sentencing myself to death.” (the Major Bainbridge referred to here would be Major Edmond Guy Tulloch Bainbridge, and the Major Taylor would be Major William Henry Forbes Taylor, both of whom were Deputy Assistant Adjutant-Generals in South Africa during the opening phases of the Boer War). Little appears to have provided the Intelligence Department with much useful information, claiming that “The Head of the Intelligence Department states I ‘gave the British Government some of the most valuable information they received during the early stages of the war and had in every way shown myself a loyal subject of the king, under most difficult and dangerous circumstances’ (I had been about a quarter round Africa in a very few weeks from Cronje’s Mafeking laager)”. Needless to say, Little’s extensive travels in the Boer republics prior to his deportation would have afforded him ample opportunity for gathering intelligence. Subsequently Little saw service with Robert’s Horse and the Pietersburg Light Horse, taking part in the Relief of Kimberley, including the actions at Paardeberg and Dreifontein.

By the summer of 1914 Little, by then 43 years of age, was at Calgary in Canada. On 1st August 1914 he took part in a recruitment campaign “in anticipation of war breaking out at any time”, and the following day enlisted into the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, being posted for service with HMCS Shearwater, with the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Subsequently, on 4th August, Little was tasked with identifying, from the various recruits at Calgary, Naval and Naval Reserve men. Among the recruits he located 28 Naval and Naval Reserve men, and under his charge they proceeded to Esquimault dockyard, Vancouver, leaving Calgary at 9.30pm on the evening of 4th August “thinking we were to join some unknown Cruiser and proceed to fight the Germans.” Little states that his party was seen off by three bands, travelled by special coach, and that he eventually “handed these men over to Commanders Maude and Corbet on morning of 6th August 1914”. Subsequently Little “did various duties till HMCS Shearwater was put in commission, when Commander Adrian Keyes took me to Rear Admiral Story who asked me to take over (as) M.A.A.”. Little, who saw service with the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve and HMCS Shearwater from 2nd August to 30th September 1914, transferring to the Royal Canadian Navy on 1st October 1914, again with the rank of Master-at-Arms, and was posted to the Canadian Pacific Coast Submarine Depot. Afterwards, Little saw service with the Canadian submarines CC1 and CC2, and notes that “We were repeatedly at sea with C.C.1 and C.C.2 submarines, on one occasion proceeding down the American coast to intercept a German freighter, cleared for action, and had orders to sink her if she came outside the three mile limit at Tacoma as she had provisions for the Dresden, Nurembourg and other vessels of the German squadron then at large in the Pacific”. This fruitless expedition to the Straits of Tacoma, Washington State, U.S.A., must have been the high point of Little’s time as a submariner, nothing else of note being reported by him during this period of service afloat. Presumably tiring of the inactivity on the Pacific coast of Canada, Little was next discharged to shore at his own request on 14th July 1915, and on 23rd July 1915 volunteered for service with the 62nd Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force at Vernon, British Columbia. Some 44 years and 1 month old at the time of his attestation, he was noted as being 5 feet 8 inches in height, with a 41 inch chest, and with Japanese tattoos on his chest and both arms. Little was rated as being fit for overseas service, and in August 1915 proceeded from Vancouver to England. Arriving in England on 11th April 1916, he proceeded to Shorncliffe in Kent. In England the 62nd Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force was broken up into drafts for service in France with other battalions. However, when the time came for Little to be posted overseas he was rejected as too old for active service. Promoted Acting Company Quartermaster Sergeant 9th May 1916, he was seconded for service with the Canadian Army Pay Office, London, 5th July 1916, and transferred to the Canadian Army Service Corps on 23rd March 1918. In his letter, in addition to detailing his wide ranging military service referred to above, Little also mentions that he was in possession of a letter from the late Rudyard Kipling “who wrote me a few weeks before he died”, presumably in response to a letter from Little bemoaning the way in which he was being treated by the Canadian authorities. Little quotes Kipling as stating “‘Governments have very short memories.” Little also goes on to note that he and Kipling spent some considerable time in each others company “I travelled with him in 1897. He was then 33 years of age on his first visit to Africa.” Little’s 1938 letter was forwarded to the Canadian Naval Secretary by the Secretary of The Navy League of Canada, who described Little as being “an old man of 69 and is of quite a superior type, and he is most anxious to have the point cleared as to whether he served in a theater of war”. Other documents and correspondence in Little’s Service Papers file shed additional light on his service career. His “Medical History of an Invalid” form, dated Buxton, 11th September 1919, notes that he had suffered from several medical conditions and that he had an old gunshot wound to the left side of his chest, which he acquired “while in Egypt twenty years ago” (presumably whilst serving with the Royal Navy), the gunshot wound being treated by means of a “wheelhouse operation” (the report also recommends that he be discharged to Canada “medically unfit for general service, suffering as a result of a stricture of the urethra”, the result of gonorrhoea contracted 26 years previously). Following the end of the First World War, 1st February 1923, Little applied for an appointment at the Headquarters Staff of the Royal Navy Canadian Volunteer Reserve, as Master at Arms or Senior Ship’s Corporal. In submitting his application, Little apologised for the poor state of paperwork enclosed with and in support of his application, which was due to “the fact that my house was destroyed by the Boer forces (Kronje’s) on the day the Boer War started, October 11 1899, when I was living a few miles outside Mafeking”. Little had by now obviously fallen on hard times since, in this application, he ends by noting that if the positions mentioned were no longer available “I should like any helpful suggestion, as I have spent nearly twenty years in uniform, took part in four wars, have no pension on account of broken service, and desire immediate employment.” He gave as references Colonel Peck V.C., Officer Commanding 16th Canadian Scottish, Admiral the Honorable A.C. Littleton, Royal Navy, and Commander Keyes, Royal Navy.

The Montreal Standard newspaper article of 9th April 1938 notes that Little “experienced adventure in every part of the world during four wars, has been sentenced to death, has chased slavers in the Red Sea, served with the late King George, and knew Queen Marie of Rumania as a young princess; but the moment he cherishes most was when he telegraphed to Baden-Powell at Mafeking in 1899 that the Boers had crossed the border. This message conveyed the first information to the British that hostilities had actually begun and the Boer War was launched! Little was Station Master of the Cape-to-Cairo railway at Maritzanl, 24 miles south of Mafeking, where the then Colonel Baden-Powell was situated, and had been in the habit of riding to and from the Transvaal border, which was only 5 miles away. He was able to obtain some first-hand impressions of how fast the trouble was brewing in this manner and proved of considerable assistance to Baden-Powell. Jan Cronje, a nephew of the famous General Cronje, advised Little to flee before it was too late. Little’s assistant took the advice: but the former stayed. This decision caused him to become the first prisoner to be taken in the Boer War. It also resulted in him being sentenced to death. Then came the eventful day when Little saw the Boers marching towards his station from a distance of over 2 miles. He rushed to the telegraph key and sent the history-making message to the effect that the Boers were coming”.

The photograph of Little that was published in the Montreal Standard article shows him to be fit looking for his age, well built and alert. There is no record in his service papers as to whether he ever received the treatment he needed from the Canadian Military Authorities. Certainly the award of a 1914-15 Star Trio named to him as a Canadian sailor would indicate that he had been recognised as seeing active service in a theatre of war with Canadian forces, probably off the Pacific coast of Canada against German raiders.

The Colonel Peck V.C. that Little gave as a reference in February 1923 would be Lieutenant-Colonel Cyrus Wesley Peck, the pre-1914 representative of Skeena in the Canadian parliament, who won his VC whilst in command of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion at Vimy Ridge in 1917. The Admiral Littleton that Little gave as a reference would be Admiral the Honorable Algernon Charles Littleton, second son of Richard, 2nd Baron Hatherton, Staffordshire, and the Commander Keyes would be Adrian St. Vincent Keyes.

EDWARD LITTLE TOOK PART IN A RADIO PROGRAMME BROADCAST BY THE MONTREAL RADIO STATION CFCF 0N 12TH APRIL 1938 in which he discussed at length his military career and travels, during the broadcast confirming that he had numerous contacts with both Baden-Powell and Rudyard Kipling during and after the Boer War.

H.M.C.S. Shearwater, launched 1900, saw service with the Royal Canadian Navy from 1915 as a submarine depot ship. HMCS CC1 and CC2 were the first submarines to see service with teh Canadian Navy.

Rudyard Kipling was the author of “Barrack Room Ballads”, a volume of military themed poetry, originally published in 1892. For the next 40 years it was the most popular book of verse in the English language, and was particularly popular in North America. The poems in that volume include a verse titled “Tommy”, which would have had particular resonance for Little, given how he was treated by the military authorities after being discharged by the Canadian armed forces.

The Bushveldt Carbiniers were renamed the Pietersburg Light Horse on 1/12/1901. The unit saw service in the estreme north of the Transvaal, in terrain that was among the most difficult encountered by any unit during the Boer War

Little served alongside Harry Harbord “Breaker” Morant, the English born Australian horseman and bush balladist, who was court-martialed and executed for murdering Boer Prisoners. Morant, who Little served alongside during the Boer War, enlisted into the 2nd Contingent South Australia Mounted Rifles when the unit was raised in late 1899.

Group accompanied by extract medal roll for Morant’s QSA, which notes that the medal and clasps to which he would have been entitled were never awarded because Morant, as a result of his crimes and execution, had been placed on a “Black List”. Had Morant been awarded a QSA he would have been entitled to the clasps Orange Free State, Cape Colony, Diamond Hill and Wittebergen, indicating that he spent a considerable period of time serving alongside Little in the 2nd South Australian Mounted Rifles.