When the Victoria Cross was presented at Cape Town on Coronation Day
Jack Friedman
This article was originally published in the South African Numismatic Journal (no.6) in January 1971. The pictures and some comments were added by the WCNS.
Picture left: Collectable Cigarette Card entitled V.C. Heroes – Boer War N: 87 depicting Sergeant Major A. Young of the Cape Police. (Source: Angloboerwar.com).
Picture right: The Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest and most prestigious military decoration. (Source: Downies.com).
There have been many important military parades in Cape Town, but there cannot have been many at which a Victoria Cross has been presented. Perhaps even today, there may be some aged Capetonian whose memory may go back almost 70 years, to a bleak morning in August 1902, when Cape Town, in common with the rest of the Empire, was celebrating the coronation of King Edward VII, the great-grandfather of the present Queen.
Picture left: Decorated Cape Town station for festivities during the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. (Source: Transnet Heritage Library).
Picture right: Old picture postcard of the statue erected for King Edward VII on the Grand Parade in Cape Town. (Source: EBay).
The coronation festivities in Cape Town were on a subdued scale, as the illness of the King some weeks previously had resulted in the cancellation and amendment of elaborate preparations made for the previously fixed date of the coronation. In the short space of time at their disposal, the authorities had been unable to plan anything on the scale of the previously intended celebrations.
However, arrangements had been made for a military parade on the Green Point Common in which 2,000 troops were to participate, and it was to this venue that some of the hardier citizens of Cape Town hied themselves on the morning of August 9th, 1902. Huddled in coats, their backs to a biting wind, a small group of local residents watched the parade under leaden skies, while gusts of wind tore across the open common. Beyond, in the absence of the present-day homes and hotels, they could watch the sullen sea and great white-capped waves smashing down on the ragged coastline.
Green Point Common in 1901 during the Anglo-Boer War (Source: Facebook).
To the one side of the common stood the military cantonments, recently vacated as a prisoner-of-war camp by Boer prisoners and at the time serving as a camp for British and Colonial troops. The South African war had ended barely three months before, an inglorious campaign faceted by the shade and light of gross ineptitudes of command, with resultant staggering losses of life, and brilliant deeds of chivalry, hardihood and daring on both sides. It was one of these deeds of daring which was to be commemorated in an incident at the parade.
Among the units taking part in the review of troops that morning was the Cape Police. Although the strength of this unit had never risen much above 800 men throughout the War, its members had served in a variety of capacities and with a large number of other units, and their contribution to the war effort was reflected in the considerable number of decorations and awards members of this force had received. Heading a section of this police unit on the parade was Sergeant-Major A. Young, who just a year previously had distinguished himself in the field.
Picture taken of a detachment of the Cape Mounted Police in 1899. Alec (Alexander) Young is lying at the bottom on the right. (Source: Nongqai edition of September 1946).
At that stage in the South African War, efforts were being made to force back across the Orange River, isolated raiding forces of the Boers. These smaller forces, commanded by men of ingenuity and bravery, were constantly breaking through gaps in the lines of the British forces, conducting effective raids into the Cape Colony in the rear of their enemies. Among the commandants, who, individually and jointly, led fast-moving units in what was almost a guerrilla campaign, was Commandant Erasmus, who, in historical accounts of the time, figures in several skirmishes and raids. At Ruiter’s Kraal, near Norval’s Pont, however, the daring and tenacity which Commandant Erasmus had shown were to be matched.
Heading a small group of mounted troops, Sergeant-Major Young set out on the morning of August 13th, 1901, to attack a kopje held by Commandant Erasmus and some 20 men. As the attack developed, the Boers mounted and galloped to kopjes further back, where a supporting force, apparently as part of a pre-arranged plan, was ensconced to trap incautious pursuers.
British infantry (left) and mounted Boers (right) at Norvalspont during the Anglo-Boer War (Source: https://www.karoo-southafrica.com)
Sergeant-Major Young, however, flung caution aside and galloped forward furiously, considerably outstripping his supporting comrades and overtaking the retiring enemy, one of whom he shot before closing with Commandant Erasmus himself. The Commandant fired three times at point-blank range at Young, who, undeterred, finally drew level and compelled Erasmus to surrender.
Now, almost a year later, Young was to receive the award his action had won for him.
In the bitter wind which stirred loose pebbles and tore at the tufted grass, the troops formed up in lines right across the Common. Spectators who could recall more spectacular ceremonial parades of bygone decades sighed reflectively as they thought of red, blue and gilt and turned their attention to a parade almost entirely khaki-clad.
The governor, His Excellency Sir W. F. Hely-Hutchinson, rode on to the parade ground at 9 o’clock to inspect the troops. As he rode down the long line of men, he remarked on the excellent appearance of the troops, some sun-tanned and strapping, others bearing signs of the campaigning they had been through. When he reached the Police unit, the governor reined in his horse and dismounted. Smartly, Sergeant-Major Young stepped forward and saluted. There before all the assembled company, the governor pinned on Young’s breast the purple ribbon and the Victoria Cross, with its simple inscription, “For Valour”.
Picture left: Sir W. F. Hely-Hutchinson, last governor of the Cape Colony. Both he and Young were Irish-born (Source: Wikipedia).
Picture right: Muster of the Cape Town Guard on the Parade Ground in Cape Town during the Anglo-Boer War. (Source: meisterdrucke.ie)
A “feu de joie” was ordered by the officer commanding the parade, Col. W. Codrington, and rifle-fire rippled down the line of troops as each man fired in split-second sequence. A march past of troops, the National Anthem, and cheers from the men marked the end of the parade. Seventy-eight Victoria Crosses were awarded for the South African Campaign, but Sergeant-Major Young appears to have been the only recipient to receive his award at a Coronation Day parade in South Africa—it was certainly the only V.C. in living memory to be awarded in Cape Town on a Coronation Day.
Further Comments
According to AngloBoerWar.com, after the war ended in 1902, Sergeant Major Young returned to his position with the Cape Mounted Police and left them once more in 1906, for service in the native rebellion in Natal. He was wounded for the second time and received the Natal Native Rebellion Medal. When the Herero Rebellion broke out in neighbouring German Southwest Africa, Young was serving in the Cape Police on the border, and although the Germans quelled the rebellion, they could not capture its leader. But Young did so, and was specially decorated by the Kaiser. This decoration he publicly burned at Cape Town during the war with Germany, in which he tragically died a decade later.
Alexander Young’s Victoria Cross, with some of his other medals, is displayed on rotation at the Lord Ashcroft Gallery: Extraordinary Heroes exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London. It was purchased at a Sotheby's Billingshurst auction in 1995.
During the First World War, he served as a lieutenant in the South African Scottish Regiment.
In the middle of July 1916, he was wounded during the Battle of the Somme and was sent to England to recuperate, returning in September. During a German counter-attack at the Butte de Warlencourt, he lost his life at the age of 43. His body was not recovered, so he has no known grave. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.
Picture left: Lieutenant Alexander Young V.C. (Source: National Army Museum).
Picture right: His South African medal group in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery (Source: Lordashcroftmedals.com)
Postscript: -
According to Wikipedia, in the skirmish at Ruiterskraal near Norvalspont, where Young captured Commandant J.L.P. Erasmus and gained the Victoria Cross, another Boer Commandant was killed. He was Calman Efraim Lion Cachet. He did not die immediately after being shot. The English commander, Sergeant Major A. Young, at Erasmus' request, sent him to a homestead to be nursed while a few burghers piled up stones on the spot where he lay. He died a few days later.
When Erasmus returned from India, where he served as a prisoner of war, he requested Sgt. Maj. Young to return Cmdt. Lion Cachet's personal belongings and revolver to the family as a memento. During the symbolic Ox Wagon Trek of 1938, the pile of stones that the burghers had packed was renewed. On 15 August 1967, a stone memorial and a plaque were erected at the same location.
