William Alfred Williamson (1878-1982)

William Alfred Williamson was born on 19 October 1878 in Radcliffe on Trent the son of Walter Williamson, a butcher, and Mary Ann Stokes, Walter’s third wife.  The first son to survive, he had a half-sister Annie (by his father’s first wife Hannah Gilbert) who was aged 20 when he was born and was swiftly followed by Walter, Grace Emily and Fred.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walter Williamson

Sadly his mother died shortly after Fred’s birth in 1883 and Fred was sent to a Mrs Parr, a relative, to be nursed as his father could not look after him.  Apparently Mrs Parr was partly paid in meat.  His father engaged a housekeeper and never re-married.

William (or Billy as he was known to his brother Fred) got a job as groom to a local doctor when he left school.  His reminscences show that he wanted to join the Navy but wasn’t tall enough – he never grew above 5ft 6ins - and his brother recounted how he had a disagreement with the doctor one day and lost his job.  This may have influenced his decision to join the Army and he signed up on 31^st December 1896 with his Army career officially starting at Leicester on 1^st January 1897 as Private W A Williamson regimental number 4877 of the Leicestershire Regiment.

Grandad Williamson concludes his story

Fresh ideas had to be tried out and we set about building the Blockhouse lines.  We, the infantry, put up the wire, dug the trenches and screened the engineers while they built the blockhouses.  These were constructed with tubular corrugated iron, the outer casing being eight inches wider all round than the inner casing and the cavity was filled with stone chippings.  This made them rifle bullet proof, which was the heaviest weapon the Boers now possessed.  A trench and parapet went round the outside, then some distance away, perhaps 20 or 30 yards, the blockhouse was ringed with barbed wire.  The walls of the blockhouse were loopholed and each blockhouse would hold ten men.  At the night the sentry would patrol round the trench.  In the daytime most of us would be out digging a trench five feet wide and three feet deep on each side of the wire, (18 strands of it) connecting blockhouse to blockhouse and these blockhouse lines were connected up to cover the country.

For we infantrymen this was quite nice, we had a corrugated iron roof over our head at night and when these trenches were dug nothing much to do by day – only watch the cavalry and mounted infantry round up the Boers.  This is what they did:

They would start at a point in the sector and fan out like beaters and any of the enemy in the sector who could not get through the connecting barbed wire and the trenches alongside had to surrender or die.  Some did get through, but very few.  We put loaded rifles sighted down the line of wire which, if the wire was cut pulled the trigger.  The blockhouses were on the average 600 yards apart and when the rifle went off the garrison of each blockhouse would pour a murderous fire down the line at very short range.

I was in a blockhouse between Standerton and Ermilo about 20 to 30 miles from the farmer place and I have seen our mounted men, when the sweep was in our sector, chasing Boers Wild West style, but a good deal more grim.  This process did the job and along came the surrender.

I had been lent from my own company to “D” company to man an open trench at night which was sited midway between two blockhouses to cover a dip in the connecting wire which was dead ground to the blockhouses on either side, but when the Armistice was made I went back to my own company which was in a small fortress of two companies and battalion headquarters.  Here I saw the last remnants of the Boer forces in our sector come in and surrender.  There were about 35 of them, poor old chaps and they did look downcast.  They need not have done, they had fought and stuck it to the end, what more can men do?  The war had grim periods but to these old fellows all the last 12 months must have been hellish, some of the older men of the Commando were old enough to be our fathers.

Personally, all the animosity died within me when I saw them.  In fact one of the old friends I had in the 1914-18 war was the son of a man who had fought against us in 1899-1902.

Now to conclude; this account of my first service in the Army has had to depend on my memory, much has been forgotten, but all stated in these recollections are true, sufficient it is to say whenever the battalion I belonged to was in action I was with it in the capacity of a fighting infantryman.

 W. A. Williamson, D. C. M.  1st Leics. No. 4877 

Grandad Williamson meets General Allenby

The wet season on the veldt hampered us greatly in this chase after the enemy.  We had to have some transport to carry food, ammunition and blankets, one blanket a man.  The rain would make dried up watercourses raging torrents in no time and even when the rain let up the steep banks of the watercourses were extremely difficult for transport.  When it got stuck the party of infantry with the main body used to heave and tug, collect stones ie rocks and brushwood to get the wagons up the slope.  I was in charge of a party doing this one day and a colonel rode up to me.  Did I know where Colonel Campbell was? (that was our camp commander).  I said “No sir” and saluted.  He looked at me and then he said, “If you see Colonel Campbell tell him I am looking for him.”  I replied “Who are you sir?”  “Colonel Allenby”, he said.  He too was in command of a similar column, that is one battalion of infantry, a regiment of cavalry and a battery of artillery, which was of a similar composition to the one I was in.  I thought what a fine looking officer he was – he proved that later on.

These many small columns never looked like bringing the war to an end.  We advanced at foot marching pace, (the wagon infantry idea had been abandoned), and the enemy retreated at a canter.

Grandad Williamson and train wrecking

Whilst the phase of the small columns was being operated we usually returned to Middelburg to rest and refit and during these rest periods we had some exciting times.  The Boers kept blowing up our supplies on the trains that brought them from Pretoria.  The idea was to put explosive under the rails and let the weight of the engine touch off the explosion and derail the engine.  Then the destructive party would take what they could of the supplies and make tracks.

The most successful train wrecker on our part of the line was an Irishman we called Jack Hinton.  He and his party could and did wreck trains, rob the contents and get away with it.  Our regimental postman was another Irishman, Paddy Boyle by name, and he was bringing our mail on one of the trains Jack wrecked.  Paddy would have had some registered letters for which he had signed.  He had to hand his mailbags over and in doing so he asked Jack to give him a receipt for them.  Jack had a Mauser pistol in his hand, “Yes” he said and aimed the pistol at Paddy

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Eventually we got the answer to this trouble.  The first truck, filled with iron rails, was No. 1 vehicle with the locomotive behind it, and armoured trucks were improvised carrying a number of infantrymen, but it did seem a long time before the answer was forthcoming.  Jack did a lot of damage and kept the Boers in his area supplied; I never heard what happened to him.

Sir Walter Scott endangers Grandad Williamson's life

A few more days march and we reached Middleburg on the railway 50 or 60 miles north east of Pretoria.  Here we rested a week or two and as the Boers continued their resistance in the form of guerrilla warfare, we formed a small column to hunt them down.  We infantrymen were mounted in mule drawn wagons, and with a regiment of cavalry, the 18th Hussars, we set out along with other similar small columns to sweep the north eastern Transvaal.  When the cavalry came up against stronger opposition than they could overcome we dismounted and generally that did the trick.  While we threatened a frontal attack the cavalry would be working round to their rear.  The enemy, mounted on wiry ponies were a very mobile force, and living on the country, whereas the scope of our operations was limited by the supplies we could carry.  Much transport would limit our speed.

On one of our sweeps it was up to our column to destroy the small town of Ermilo.  It did seem a shame, but we did the job by fire.  Most of the houses had a lot of wood in their construction and of course burnt furiously.  The destructive party I was with had the jail and some bungalows to burn.  One of the bungalows had a false roof so I went up to it and found a number of books.  I picked out “Ivanhoe” and “The White Company”,  sat down and became immersed in reading “The White Company” until the smoke coming up through the hatchway reminded me of my job.  My mates, not knowing I was up there had fired the room below.  I yelled and dropping through the hatch they soon had me safe.  I kept those two books until I came home in 1904.  I said it seemed a shame to destroy Ermilo – it turned out to be just that.  Twelve months later the Blockhouse Line from Standerton north-westwards ran through the place.

Grandad Williamson and the Scoundrel

During this march, information was brought in that the Boers were using some farms a few miles off the line of march so a party of us and some Royal Engineers led by an old Major (who was afterwards killed leading a battalion of Lancashire Fusiliers landing at Gallipoli) did a night attack.  Getting near the farms we broke up into three small parties, the Major coming with the party I was in.  Firing broke out on our left as we reached the door of the house we were attacking.  We bashed in the door and stumbling over a saddle and a Mauser rifle we rushed into the living room.  There in bed lay two women with a lump between them.  I flung the bedclothes off and there he was.  He surrendered and got up, then the old Major said to him “Is one of these women your wife?”  “No sir,” replied the man.  “You scoundrel!” said the officer.  We lads grinned.  The Boer, he was a schoolmaster.

I had taken part in several night attacks with that old Major in command and always he was the front man going in and the last man coming out.  He was a stickler for what was right.  The ex-schoolmaster was put under guard and the women packed a few things in their Trek Wagon, got in themselves and we started back to camp.  Their destination – the schoolmaster to a prisoner of war camp, the women to one of the special camps.  We had made about two miles of our return journey when, hearing a bang, we looked back and saw the corrugated iron roofing of their home flying in the air like huge Aasvogels.  I overheard  one of the women say to the other Skellum our engineers had blown up their house -  a penalty for giving comfort to the enemy.