The Boer War

Relief of Mafeking

Relief of Mafeking celebration in 1900. The bikes are wrapped with brightly coloured tape.

In this century William and Norman Gliddon, Thomas Robins, John Brooks, Samuel Row and Thomas Popham were in the Boer War.

William Gliddon was involved in the North West Frontier skirmishes in India in the 1890's, and served throughout the Boer War and the First World War.

In the Second World War, by now in his seventies, William Gliddon was an air raid warden during the bombing of Exeter.

Relief of Mafeking

Relief of Mafeking celebration in 1900, including 'pearly king'

Thomas Robins and Thomas Popham were among those who swam the Modder River in an engagement against the Boers in 1899. Seventeen years later Robins, who was a Royal Marine, was in battle at Gallipoli and was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal.

It was ironic that a man who faced and survived so many dangers died as the result of being knocked down by a car in the black-out when he was working at the Admiralty in Plymouth during the Second World War.



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