Times Archive Blog: Pigeon post at the siege of Ladysmith

The seige of Ladysmith started on November 2, 1899, with no fewer than three Times correspondents trapped by the Boers' swift advance, along with the British military and the town's civilian population.

The Second Boer War had began a month earlier, when the Boers attacked Natal and the Cape Province. The British army fought two battles, at Dundee and Elandslaagte with some success, before withdrawing hurriedly to Ladysmith, the main British base in Natal.

A disastrous effort to take on the approaching Boer forces on October 30 sent the British running for refuge in the town, where they were then beseiged for four months. British relief attempts were stopped at Magersfontein and Colenso, and conditions in the town for civilians and the military deteriorated rapidly, with food and water scarce and many deaths from typhoid.

The Times correspondent with the Natal Field Force was Colonel Lionel James. Born in 1871, the fourth son of an old Bengal Gunner, he had worked in India as an indigo planter before turning his hand to writing and journalism. He joined the Times staff in 1899 as a war correspondent, having previously worked for Reuters.

With Colonel Frank Rhodes, brother of Cecil, and William Moneypenny, James was incarcerated for the duration of the seige. Monypenny was a Lieutenant in the Imperial Light Horse but had recently been the Times correspondent in South Africa and was still doing some work for the paper.

Communication with the outside world was rudimentary. Runners or pigeon were the main means of getting information out, though heliograph was also used by day and searchlights by night.

The Times archive contains messages sent by James using both runners and pigeon. The last he sent before the siege was a request for some pigeons to be supplied for news transmission. Unfortunately the runner bringing them in was captured by Boer pickets, and a humorous Boer signaller heliographed into Ladysmith “Thank The Times Correspondent for a basket of nice fat pigeons.”

This telegram was passed by Major David Henderson, the garrison’s field censor on January 7, 1900, the day after the main Boer attack on the town. It was carried by an African runner who was captured by the Boer pickets, and ended up in Middelburg, Transvaal, about 190 miles away, having been carried there by the retreating Boer forces, after the relief of the garrison on February 28, 1900.

The message was eventually recovered by Lord Kitchener’s army when it captured Middelburg in July 1900. Both items were stamped “Recovered from the enemy at Middelburg, Transvaal” before being sent on to The Times.