Journal

This photograph, entitled ‘Reconaissance from Modder River’, shows a group of officers of the 9th Lancers resting in South Africa during the Boer War - including Captain Edward Robertson Gordon and Major Forrester Farnell Colvin, authors of Diary of… — This photograph, entitled ‘Reconaissance from Modder River’, shows a group of officers of the 9th Lancers resting in South Africa during the Boer War - including Captain Edward Robertson Gordon and Major Forrester Farnell Colvin, authors of *Diary of the Ninth Lancers in South Africa 1899-1902*, and Lieutenant Eustace Abadie, also the author of a diary (see below). It was taken between 28 November 1899, when Colvin arrived with the regiment, and 13 December 1899, when Gordon left to become Brigade-Major of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, and may have been taken on 29 November when Colvin and Gordon’s diary records the regiment reconnoitering Modder River and village (copyright 9th/12th Lancers Regimental Museum, Accession No 2090-16-49).

Major Edward Robertson Gordon, 9th Lancers: photographs from the Boer War (1899-1902)

June 12, 2019

Major Edward Robertson Gordon was my great-great-great uncle, the eldest son of Captain Thomas Edward Gordon of the 14th Light Dragoons, an Indian Mutiny veteran. He was born in New Zealand on 24 February 1864, educated at United Services College in Devon and saw extensive action with the 9th Lancers over almost two and a half years during the Boer War …

Rudyard Kipling, centre, with an unidentified group at United Services College about 1880 (source: Kipling family photographs, Bateman’s, East Sussex: National Trust Collections NT 761434.19)

Rudyard Kipling, the Gordon brothers and United Services College

June 6, 2019

In January 1892 the writer Rudyard Kipling, then aged 25, wrote an exuberant letter to his uncle following his return from a trip to New Zealand:

This famous image of the charge of the 14th Light Dragoons at the Battle of Ramnuggur in 1848 - in which the commanding officer, Colonel Havelock, and 11 of his troopers were killed - is the only contemporary depiction of the regiment in action duri… — This famous image of the charge of the 14th Light Dragoons at the Battle of Ramnuggur in 1848 - in which the commanding officer, Colonel Havelock, and 11 of his troopers were killed - is the only contemporary depiction of the regiment in action during the Punjab War or the Indian Mutiny (coloured aquatint by J. Harris after H. Martens, published by Rudolf Ackermann, 26 January 1851; this example in the National Army Museum).

Campaigning in India and New Zealand, 1848-66: Captain Thomas Edward Gordon, 14th Light Dragoons

June 29, 2015

My great-great-great grandfather, Captain Thomas Edward Gordon, 14th Light Dragoons, had the unusual distinction of fighting in the Punjab War of 1848-9, the Indian Mutiny of 1857-8 and – as a colonial volunteer - the New Zealand War in 1866, and of thus being one of a small number of men to receive the medals for all three campaigns. Skelton and Bullock’s Gordons under Arms (Aberdeen University Press, 1912) summarises his British army career as follows, based on the biographical details in Hart’s Army List of 1849-63 ...