Boer War

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BOER WAR ERA ENGRAVED COPPER PLATE W 2 SOLDIERS $146.25 Time Remaining: 1d 8h 29m Buy It Now for only: $146.25

1896 HUGE Rare CHROMO Print JAMESON RAID South Africa BOER WAR British Empire $450.00 Time Remaining: 23h 29m

1896 RARE Chromo Print BOER WAR South Africa TRANSVAAL British Empire POSTER $325.00 Time Remaining: 23h 43m

Boer War QSA WW1 War Medal Pair to Dental Surgeon $227.50 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 16h 16m

MEDAL ROLL LOOK UP BOER WAR QSA KSA ALL UNITS $9.48 Time Remaining: 10d 15h 17m Buy It Now for only: $9.48

Shaving Kit and Personal Care Holder Boer War $0.99 Time Remaining: 10h 31m

South Africa UK Anglo Boer war bar to QSA medal $11.99 (3 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 14m

2nd BOER WAR Mounted Infantry BANDOLIER Mark 1 LEATHER 50 Round Introduced 1882 $399.99 Time Remaining: 7d 19m Buy It Now for only: $399.99

ANTIQUE 1900 CELEBRITIES OF THE ARMY LARGE PORTRAITS OF BOER WAR LEADERS $74.95 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 8h 47m

Boer War Queens South Africa QSA Medal with WEPENER Clasp SCARCE $404.09 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 16h 17m

BOER WAR KINGS COLONIAL SLOUCH HAT BADGE $39.00 Time Remaining: 5d 13h 59m Buy It Now for only: $39.00

BOER WAR MEDAL PAIR QSA KSA SOMERSET LIGHT INFANTRY CAPE POLICE $316.04 Time Remaining: 2d 17h 36m

BOER WAR QUEENS SOUTH AFRICA MINIATURE MEDAL 5 CLASPS $31.61 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 15h 49m

REPLICA BRITISH ARMY VICTORIAN BOER WAR HELMET ZULU $31.59 Time Remaining: 8d 14h 49m Buy It Now for only: $31.59

BOER WAR QUEENS SOUTH AFRICA MEDAL TO ALBANY DISTRICT MOUNTED TROOPS $237.03 Time Remaining: 2d 17h 41m

Boer War Queens South Africa QSA Medal to Trouper in the SAC $79.00 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 4d 15h 50m

The BOER WAR ARMS ARMOR UNIFORMS ILLUSTRATED BOOK 19 $19.95 Time Remaining: 14d 11h 32m Buy It Now for only: $19.95

WILEMAN BOER WAR SAUCER KITCHENER ROBERTS BADEN POWELL etc $7.89 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 11h 52m

BOER WAR BRITISH SURGEON RAMC FIELD KIT WITH INSTRUMENTS $26.43 (3 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 52m

1899 Newspaper BATTLE OF BELMONT Second Boer War Orange Free State South Africa $23.00 Time Remaining: 29d 9h 49m Buy It Now for only: $23.00

BOER WAR BRITISH OXFORDSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY OFFICER SABRETAGE BELT $67.53 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 42m

BOER WAR BRITISH DENTIST FIELD POUCH WITH INSTRUMENTS $14.67 Time Remaining: 4d 20h 50m

1901 Boer War Methuens Infantry at Gras Pan South Africa UU Stereoview $14.99 Time Remaining: 18d 5h 17m Buy It Now for only: $14.99

BOER WAR BRITISH SANDERSON BAYONET WITH FROG SCABBARD $47.95 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 48m

BOER WAR BRITISH VICTORIAN CROWN COMBAT BELT $20.06 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 44m

OLD PRINT AUSTRALIAN BUSHMEN RIDING HORSES BOER WAR 1901 $7.90 Time Remaining: 22d 18h 22m Buy It Now for only: $7.90

BOER WAR BRITISH WHITE LEATHER AMMO POUCH CROSS BELT $14.67 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 46m

Vintage World War 1 WWI Silver Sweetheart THE BORDER REGIMENT Badge Boer 1910 $15.79 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 11h 49m

BOER WAR UNKNOWN LOT OF 5 LEATHER BELT STRAPS $9.78 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 32m

MEDAL ROLL BOER WAR UK INFANTRY UNITS CHOICE OF REGIMENTS $15.72 Time Remaining: 7d 17h 54m Buy It Now for only: $15.72

Rare Orig Pair Of Boer War Era Autochromes Lumiere RE Engineer Officer c 1905 $34.99 Time Remaining: 1d 18h 13m

BRITISH BOER WAR 5th DRAGOON GUARDS CAVALRY VICTORIAN nice old metal CAP BADGE $79.00 Time Remaining: 4d 11h 41m

OLD PRINT 9th 16th LANCERS HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITE CAVALRY REGIMENTS BOER WAR 1900 $7.90 Time Remaining: 8d 13h 23m Buy It Now for only: $7.90

Colorful Signed Print Boer War Soldier $4.00 Time Remaining: 16h 57m

1310113WQ 06 1902 BOER WAR ENDS JUNE 2 1902 LORD KITCHENER DISPATCH NEWSPAPER $29.99 Time Remaining: 1d 4h 2m Buy It Now for only: $49.00

CD OF ORIGINAL BOER WAR PHOTO ALBUM 46 HIGH RES SCANS $6.32 Time Remaining: 1d 19h 47m Buy It Now for only: $6.32

1310114WQ 06 1902 BOER WAR ENDS JUNE 2 1902 LORD KITCHENER DISPATCH NEWSPAPER $29.99 Time Remaining: 1d 4h 2m Buy It Now for only: $49.00

031238W SECOND BOER WAR ENDS JUNE 3 1902 ORIGINAL OLD WAR NEWSPAPER $29.99 Time Remaining: 1d 4h 2m Buy It Now for only: $49.00

BOER WAR HONOUR IS PURCHASED BY DEEDS WE DO $15.79 Time Remaining: 15d 14h 14m Buy It Now for only: $15.79

Macintyre Boer War MugThe Absent Minded BeggerRudyard Kipling $82.18 (6 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 17h 23m

BOER WAR POW CARVED SOAPSTONE BOOK GOAT BUFFALO ABBOTTABAD KAKUL INDIA 1902 $176.99 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 15h 58m

Boer guerrilla commandos during the Second Boer War $6.88 Time Remaining: 23d 15h 18m Buy It Now for only: $6.88

WW1 BOER WAR ERA PRISONER POW TRENCH ART MARTINI RIFLE CIGGY BOX $15.79 Time Remaining: 3d 13h 45m

BOER WAR HAND CARVED POW CANE WITH PRESIDENT KRUGER SMUTS CARVED FIGURES $14.67 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 24m

OLD PRINT HEAVY ODDS by JOHN H BACON COLONIAL MOUNTED INFANTRY BOER WAR 1900 $11.06 Time Remaining: 15d 19h 24m Buy It Now for only: $11.06

Queens South Africa Medal Boer War Manchester Regiment $210.00 Time Remaining: 1d 13h 39m

NICE UNCLEANED 3 BAR SOUTH AFRICA MEDAL BOER WAR $90.09 (3 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 15h 33m

1896 Kruger Money Two shillings 1894 Shilling Boer War money $29.08 Time Remaining: 22d 12h 7m Buy It Now for only: $29.08

Australian Boer War Commemorative Medallion $2.22 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 3m

Scarce 1901 dated Hudsons Patent Boer War Escargot Trench Whistle $15.79 (2 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 16h 39m

Antique Boer War Silver Vesta Case Fob Honorable Artillery Co Bayonet Team $284.45 Time Remaining: 10d 19h 19m Buy It Now for only: $284.45

BOER WAR MAFEKING BADEN POWELL ZULULAND CATALOGUE WITH PRICES REALISED $15.72 Time Remaining: 3d 14h 51m

BOER WAR QUEENS SOUTH AFRICA MEDAL 3 BARS 23rd COY 8th IMPERIAL YEOMANTRY $145.37 (11 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 16h 1m

Vtg Boer War Faux Ivory Bone Pick Tooth RA Harrison 1880s Victoria Australia $40.00 Time Remaining: 22h 47m

OLD PRINT FORGOTTEN by CHARLES SIMPSON DYING BOER WAR GUERILLA 1900 $7.90 Time Remaining: 15d 19h 22m Buy It Now for only: $7.90

BOER WAR THE FIFTH ROYAL IRISH LANCERS IN SOUTH AFRICA $7.89 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 2d 13h 45m

OVER 2500 BOER WAR IMAGES ON CD ROM $8.99 Time Remaining: 11h 34m Buy It Now for only: $9.99

BOER WAR THE QUESTION OF TRANSVAAL $15.79 Time Remaining: 15d 14h 14m Buy It Now for only: $15.79

QSA BOER WAR MEDAL 3 BARSF1902OFSCC 7435 pte HMORRODMANC REGT E164 $229.14 Time Remaining: 14h 38m

Boer War 6 Howitzer battery Mounted print 10x8 from original publication $6.13 Time Remaining: 7h 21m

MEDAL ROLL BOER WAR CANADIAN UNITS $15.72 Time Remaining: 25d 6h 29m Buy It Now for only: $15.72

Boer War leaders setE 3 mounted prints size 10x8 Myburgh Ladybrand Steyn $12.45 Time Remaining: 7h 21m

Boer War LOUIS BOTHA set mntd prints 1 size 14x11 2 size 12x10 2siz 10x8 $21.93 Time Remaining: 7h 21m

Rare Antique 1899 British Yeomanry cavalry copper bugle Second Boer WarExc $350.00 Time Remaining: 25d 2h 9m Buy It Now for only: $350.00

QSA BOER WAR MEDAL 2 BAR 4957 pte WHARRISONLINCOLN REGT E178 $244.95 Time Remaining: 14h 38m

ULTRA RARE BOER WAR BULAWAYO SEIGE + 10 SHILLING + MARSHALL HOLE CURRENCY NOTE $145.39 (14 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 18h 3m

RARE 1901 BRITISH BOER WAR QSA QUEENS SOUTH AFRICA PAIR MEDAL ORDER 5 BARS $635.78 Time Remaining: 1d 23h Buy It Now for only: $635.78

QSA BOER WAR MEDAL 2 BARTUGELA LADYSMITH 3432 pte JTARONIRWELSH FUSE208 $355.57 Time Remaining: 14h 41m

LOVELY VINTAGE VICTORIAN BOER WAR ERA WW1 BELGIUM MEDAL ORDERS + MINIATURES $158.01 Time Remaining: 4d 17h 59m

BOER WAR PORTRAIT OF PAUL KRUGER 7 12 1900 $15.79 Time Remaining: 15d 14h 14m Buy It Now for only: $15.79

Boer War Queens South Africa Medal Oxfordshire Imperial Yeomanry $271.07 Time Remaining: 5d 3h 46m

WAR MEDAL RIBBON WW1 WW2 BOER PEACE ARMY FREEMASON AIF USA GERMAN FRENCH $19.70 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 3d 37m

RARE 1902 BRITISH BOER WAR PICTORIAL BOOK The SOUTH AFRICAN WAR by AT MAHAN $195.00 Time Remaining: 1d 17h 28m Buy It Now for only: $195.00

BOER WAR PHOTO CARD 87TH PRINCESS VICTORIAS ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS $15.79 Time Remaining: 3d 14h 17m

BOER WAR UNKNOWN LOT OF 2 LEATHER BELTS $9.78 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 4d 20h 36m

Return to Ballymoyer

Swift and faithful

· Hart family armorial motto,

Celer atque fidelis, granted 1883 ·When Captain Arthur Hart-Synnot came back to Ireland on a bright summer morning in July 1906, and walked down the gangplank of the overnight boat from Holyhead, he had not seen his father for two and a half years. The major general had received his telegram and was there to meet his eldest son and accompany him on the train for the last stage of his five-thousand-mile journey back from the Far East. A family of soldiers who had spent years in India and the farthest outposts of the British Empire, the Hart-Synnots were accustomed to the long sea journeys, extended personal separations, and occasional periods of great loneliness that military service required of them. As the train steamed close to the shore, passing the oyster beds along the ten-mile fjord that cut deep into the coast and divided County Down from Louth, and the sun caught the wooded slopes of the Mourne Mountains on the other side of the water, they began to catch up on family news.At Newry Station the coachman was waiting with the old black landau. Once the luggage was transferred, the captain and the general were driven up the narrow country road, past the low stone walls and scrubby hedges that divided the small fields of South Armagh, gradually gaining height on the two-hour journey to Ballymoyer. When they reached the lodge and turned into the gates, a crowd of estate workers and staff from the house were waiting for them, with a banner strung across the drive welcoming Captain Hart-Synnot home.

Arthur knew many of the faces from his childhood, and some had served under his father in the Irish Brigade in South Africa. They cheered and waved, grabbed the shafts beside the two horses, pushed the carriage from behind, and helped turn the wheels up the long gravel avenue that ran through the parkland towards the house. This was not a family used to displays of affection in public, but Arthur stepped down and embraced his mother and his sisters on the porch. A brass band played, and a little later the family and guests sat down to a noisy lunch with many toasts. The captain made a speech in which he said how happy he was to be back home with friends and family.

Only four years before, his father had been given a similar hero's return when he came back to Ballymoyer from the Boer War. Since then he had retired from the army and devoted his energies to the estate that his wife, Mary, had inherited, and which he had known since their marriage. With seven thousand acres of low hills, moorland, and small tenant farms, seventy miles north of Dublin, the property was one of the largest in the county of Armagh. The Synnots had made their money in the linen trade and mining and, unlike many other Irish landowners, had always been resident landlords. General Hart added his wife's surname to his own to become General Hart-Synnot, confirming his place among the Anglo-Irish gentry. The general was eager to show Arthur the improvements he had begun to make on the estate demesne, the home farm that was not rented out to tenants, knowing his son shared the same love for the place he would one day inherit.

The original stone manor had been built in the eighteenth century in a gentle valley at a point where three brooks, after racing down from their own glens, reached flatter land and joined together to continue as one fast-running trout stream. In the early nineteenth century a more imposing house in the classical style, with a stucco façade of three stories and a colonnaded porch, had been added onto the earlier, rougher building, and the two were linked with creaking corridors and staircases. The library, the smaller bedrooms, and the servants' hall were in the old section at the back, but the principal bedrooms, drawing room, and dining room were in the grander addition, looking across the lawns and parkland to stands of beech on the hillside. Over the years the gardens had been landscaped and replanted, and the streams channeled and directed over weirs, but the sound of rushing water could still be heard all round the house, and gave a calming, almost drowsy background noise. For Arthur's return, both parts of the house were full, with relatives who had come to greet him and would stay until the following day. The celebrations did not end till after dinner, when the general directed a fireworks display on the lawn. That night Arthur must have wondered how he was going to tell his family what had happened to his personal and emotional life on the other side of the world, and how he wanted nothing more than to put Ireland behind him as fast as possible and get back to Tokyo.Two and a half years earlier, before he left for the East, Arthur had known almost nothing about Japan, and his ambitions were centered on the army. The military connection was hard to ignore at Ballymoyer. Portraits of mustachioed ancestors in full uniform were hung all over the house, along with their swords and honors. Military biographies and campaign histories filled the library shelves. Arthur's grandfather General Henry Hart had edited Hart's Army List, the annual compendium setting out names, rankings, and organization that was indispensable to army messes and clubs around the British Empire. His father was a major general who had fought Ashanti tribesmen in West Africa, the Zulus in Natal, the Egyptians at Tel el Kebir, and a whole range of recalcitrant natives in India and Afghanistan. His father's brother Reginald was another major general, the better known because while still a young officer he had won the Victoria Cross, for crawling up a dry ravine in Afghanistan to rescue a wounded soldier, under withering fire from Afridi tribesmen shooting at him from behind rocks. Uncle Reginald's book, Reflections on the Art of War, laying out his forthright approach to "push-on" soldiering, was an inspiration to young officers. His father's other brother, Uncle Horatio, was a colonel with the Royal Engineers. In 1883, the three Hart brothers had jointly revived a coat of arms once used in the family, with a stag's head and rampant antlers over the motto "Celer atque fidelis," meaning "Swift and faithful."

The soldiering tradition conditioned Arthur's outlook and made him the sort of man he was. No one ever thought he would do anything else but become an officer. Family custom put him into the army, and family connections assisted his career through it. When Arthur left Sandhurst in 1890, he went out to India as a subaltern. He joined the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment at DumDum, near Calcutta, where his father was the colonel, and saw his first fighting in the mountains along the India-Afghanistan border, on a march to relieve a British force besieged by Pathan tribesmen in Chitral. When his Uncle Reginald, also serving in India, was sent to quell yet another rising by the Afridis around the Khyber Pass, he asked to have his nephew attached to the expedition.

After eight years in India, Arthur returned to England to go to Staff College, coached for the examination by his father. By this time his younger brother Ronald had, in his turn, just joined the East Surrey Regiment, and his father had come home to be a general. The British Empire was at its apogee. When Queen Victoria came to review her troops on the Aldershot parade ground in the summer of 1899, General Fitzroy Hart was able to ride past his sovereign at the head of his brigade, in plumed helmet, immaculate uniform, and highly polished boots, on a magnificent seventeen-hand Waler horse that belonged to Arthur, with his two sons jogging along beside him as members of his staff. At moments like this, when the pomp was at its most splendid and the military bands at their most stirring, it was not surprising that British rule over much of the world seemed so natural, or that families like the Harts could derive so much of their identity from it. A few months later, when that mastery came under challenge in southern Africa, and the Boer War broke out, professional soldiers like the Harts welcomed the chance for some sustained action against a more challenging enemy than the primitive tribesmen they usually found themselves up against. The war could bring honors and promotion. Arthur, his brother Ronald, his father, Fitzroy, and the seventeen-hand Waler all sailed for Cape Town in 1899 as part of the first Expeditionary Force, impatient to get there lest the fighting end too quickly. The only regret in the family was that Uncle Reginald, now in India, could not be released to come along, too.

Copyright © 2007 Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams from the book Sword and Blossom by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams. Published by the Penguin Group; May 2007;$16.00US; 978-0-14-311214-3

Peter Pagnamenta is a writer and television documentary maker, with a special interest in Japan. He conceived and wrote the eight-part BBC series Nippon, an archival and testimonial history of Japan's recovery after 1945, as well as Bubble Trouble, about Japan in the 1990's. Other series for the BBC include the twentieth-century industrial history All Our Working Lives, for which he wrote the book with Richard Overy, and the twenty-six-part People's Century. He is a former editor of the weekly current-affairs television program Panorama. Momoko Williams was born and brought up in Japan and went to Britain in 1966 after graduating from Meiji University, Tokyo. She has coordinated and produced programs for Japanese broadcasters in Britain and Japan. She worked on the major NHK series The Twentieth Century and Pacific War. Interested in Anglo-Japanese cultural connections, she initiated and produced the photographic exhibition Japanese in Britain, 1863-2001. She is married to an Englishman and lives in London.

About the Author

Peter Pagnamenta is a writer and television documentary maker, with a special interest in Japan. He conceived and wrote the eight-part BBC series Nippon, an archival and testimonial history of Japan's recovery after 1945, as well as Bubble Trouble, about Japan in the 1990's. Other series for the BBC include the twentieth-century industrial history All Our Working Lives, for which he wrote the book with Richard Overy, and the twenty-six-part People's Century. He is a former editor of the weekly current-affairs television program Panorama.
Momoko Williams was born and brought up in Japan and went to Britain in 1966 after graduating from Meiji University, Tokyo. She has coordinated and produced programs for Japanese broadcasters in Britain and Japan. She worked on the major NHK series The Twentieth Century and Pacific War. Interested in Anglo-Japanese cultural connections, she initiated and produced the photographic exhibition Japanese in Britain, 1863-2001. She is married to an Englishman and lives in London.

BBC: The Boer War - Part 1