Charles Ward and the Boer war
Charles Ward was born in January 1880 in Islington, London. His father William
Hargrave Ward was born in Scarborough and had moved to London some time before
1871 to seek employment as a cabinet maker, which was his trade. William made a brief
return to Scarborough to marry Jane Gray on the 8th July 1874 and took his new bride
back to London to live. They had 3 children, the first child William Hargrave Ward was
born in July 1875, he was either stillborn or died soon after birth because his death is
registered in July 1875 as well. Their second child was George Stanley Ward and Charles
was their third and last child. Major illness shortened their father's life and meant that the
two boys had to return to Scarborough to be looked after by their grandparents. In the
1891 census Charles was living with his Grandfather and Grandmother Gray whilst
George Stanley was living with his Grandmother Ward and Great Aunt Pecket. There
mother, who had been a widow for 4 years was working in London as a domestic servant.
Family legend has it that Charles and George used to meet up, whenever they weren't at
school, and spend hours playing around Scarborough castle.
As the 19th century was drawing to a close war was threatening in South Africa
and Charles answered the call to serve his country by enlisting with the 3rd (Prince of
Wales's) Dragoon Guards which was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. It is unclear
why he joined a cavalry unit, but it is quite possible that he could have been employed as
a stable lad in Scarborough and thereby learned how to handle a horse. His regiment was
deployed to the Boer War in 1901.
The British soldiers' thought that the Boer War would be over by Christmas, but the reality was
that nearly three years later the Boer War had been the most bitter, cruel, and most savage war
fought between white men since
the Crimean war. To the British
soldiers, South Africa was
anything but what they expected.
The land, beautiful though it was,
seemed inherently hostile. The
culture shock for the thousands
of soldiers who had come from
England must have been great.
The unending miles of plains
where horizons didn't exist, but
seemed to dissolve into each
other was so alien to them that
they must have realised that the
war was going to be great trial to
them. As the soldiers began to
march across the north-eastern
Cape and southern Free State,
walking in columns consisting of
several thousand men, and
following endless lines of hundreds of supply wagons, drawn by thousands of horses and
oxen, the dust chafed their skins, clogged their lungs and noses and burnt their eyes. As
the scorching days went by, the sun fried the skin off their faces, ears and noses, and
huge, angry sun blisters and painfully chapped lips made their lives a misery, and each
night when the men removed their boots, they pulled off their blood soaked socks to
examine their badly blistered feet, it must have made them wonder why they ever joined
up. Each day brought hunger, thirst and utter exhaustion. The river beds were dry in the
beginning, so water was scarce for drinking and unavailable for washing. The men lived
and slept in one set of clothes and after weeks of marching they were beyond the meaning
of filthy. But when the rains came they only replaced one set of miseries with another.
The British camps were quickly turned into squelching quagmires. The ammunition
wagons sank down into the mud, and were practically immovable. The rain was
torrential, probably the like of which the soldiers had never seen before, and they had
quite often no shelter for the night as the supply wagons were bogged down in the mud.
Surviving must have been a living nightmare as each season changed. In the winter
several men died from cold and exposure. But this was not the end of the British army's
miseries. The medical services of the army proved to be woefully inadequate, and by the
time the soldiers reached Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State Republic, a
massive proportion of the army was sick to the point of death. At the battle of
Modderrivier the desperate men had drunk water that was contaminated by the corpses of
dead Boers, horses and cattle. Dysentry was raging, typhus fever was running
uncontrolled and fever and other diseases were killing dozens of troops a day. The
hospitals were overflowing and thousands of troops died. It was an uphill battle for the
soldiers to stay healthy on a diet of army biscuits and bully beef. Eventually far more
soldiers died of disease than from being casualties of war. Typically the symptoms of
enteric fever, which is better known as typhoid, include a general ill-feeling and
abdominal pain, a high temperature of over 103 degrees, fever and severe diarrhea occur
as the disease progresses along with delirium and hallucinations. Charles Ward was one
of these unfortunate men, he died of enteric fever on the 3rd April 1901 having just
reached the age of 21. One has to wonder what Charles must have gone through being so
ill and so far from home, and how often he must have wished himself back in
Scarborough safe and well. He was a sad loss of a handsome and promising young son,
brother and grandson in the prime of his life.
Charles's death as it was recorded in the Times Newspaper
South African Field Force Casualties
| Officers | Men | Total |
| Killed in action | 518 | 5256 | 5774 |
| Died of wounds | 183 | 1835 | 2018 |
| Died of Disease | 339 | 12911 | 13250 |
| Prisoners died in captivity | 5 | 97 | 102 |
| Accidental deaths | 27 | 711 | 738 |
| Total deaths in South Africa October 1899 - May 1902 | 1072 | 20810 | 21882 |
| Prisoners and missing | | 105 | |
| Sent home as invalids | 3116 | 72314 | |
| Of the 72314 men sent home as invalids 508 died, 8221 wounded, 5789 discharged as unfit for service and 63644 were sick |
| Total casualties in South Africa October 1899 - May 1902 | 4188 | 93229 | 97717 |
| Information from an article entitled Long Tom's War Zone written by Herman Labushagne, was used in this document |