Lindley | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 27°52′S27°55′E / 27.867°S 27.917°E | |
Country | South Africa |
Province | Free State |
District | Thabo Mofutsanyane |
Municipality | Nketoana |
Established | 1875 [1] |
Area | |
• Total | 23.0 km2 (8.9 sq mi) |
Population (2011) [2] | |
• Total | 12,000 |
• Density | 520/km2 (1,400/sq mi) |
Racial makeup (2011) | |
• Black African | 54% |
• Coloured | 0.3% |
• Indian/Asian | 0.3% |
• White | 42% |
• Other | 0.2% |
First languages (2011) | |
• Sotho | 83.6% |
• Zulu | 6.1% |
• Afrikaans | 5.1% |
• Sign language | 2.2% |
• Other | 3.1% |
Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
Postal code (street) | 9630 |
PO box | 9630 |
Area code | 058 |
Lindley is a small town situated on the banks of the Vals River in the eastern region of the Free State province of South Africa. It was named after an American missionary, Daniel Lindley, who was the first ordained minister to the Voortrekkers in Natal. [3] Basotho call it Ntha, after the river.
The settlement of Lindley was laid out in 1875 on the farm Brandhoek and was proclaimed a town in 1878. The main route to the town is the R707. Lindley, together with its neighbouring towns of Reitz, Petrus Steyn and Arlington form the Nketoana Local Municipality. Early inhabitants were Dihoja, a group of Basotho people who lived in prehistoric stone huts or sedan Beehive stone huts found in the area.
Lindley has reestablished their proud rugby union in 2016, after having little success since being ranked first in the Free State in 1994.
Doornkloof Farm is located in the Lindley District and was inhabited by Voortrekker leader, Sarel Cilliers during the Great Trek. Various attractions can be found on the farm, including the farmhouse which was built by Sarel Cilliers himself. There is also a tram track that offers a unique walk through history of the farm. [4]
Leghoya huts or Sedan Beehive stone huts belonged to the first primitive mining people who came to the Rand but they are also found in several towns in the Lindley District including Heilbron and Arlington. [5] Because of the materials used to build these huts, great skill was required, especially when dealing with the roof. The architecture used to create these huts was unique and could be compared to that of the Inuit. [6] They set the scene for the passing of the Stone Age in the Free State. [7]
The Lindley affair was a controversial and embarrassing event (for the British) of the Boer War. The 13th battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry led by Col Basil Spragge departed by rail to join Gen Henry Edward Colvile's column. Owing to the delays in supplying the Spragge's battalion with forage, it was not possible for Spragge to join Colvile. Instead his battalion proceeded to Kroonstad where it arrived on 25 May. The route taken caused a division in the battalion: The 47th Company forded the Sand River since the railway bridge was destroyed and marched to Kroonstad, while the 45th, 46th and 54th Companies, departing a day later, crossed the river via the deviation bridge and proceeded directly by rail to Kroonstad. [8]
Spragge, was handed a telegram, the origins of which are still a mystery. Spragge told the Court of Inquiry which investigated the Lindley affair: "I was shown a telegram to the Commandant Kroonstad from General Colvile directing me to join him with my regiment at Lindley”. Colvile denied ever having sent the telegram. It is possible that the Boers had tapped the telegraph lines and sent a bogus message to lure the Imperial Yeomanry into an ambush. It is more likely that bad staff work by British headquarters who issued the order to Spragge but did not tell Colvile. Spragg's battalion marched at dawn on the 26th and that afternoon met a party of armed Boers. The Boers claimed to be going to Kroonstad to surrender and Spragge naively disarmed them, invited them to lunch and then allowed them to proceed. The Boers promptly returned to Lindley with useful intelligence. Private Maurice Fitzgibbon of the Dublin company, son of one of Ireland's most senior judges, recalled: "The scouts of the Boer commandos at Lindley had been permitted to enter our lines to find out our numbers, our armaments and the amount of our supplies, had even had lunch with us and all this information and hospitality at the expense of a few out-of-date rifles and a few perjured oaths." [9]
The 13th battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry marched into Lindley and came under rifle fire from the Boers. [10] Spragg's men moved from the town to positions on koppies outside the town. After two days the Boers brought concentrated artillery fire to bear on both the koppies.
Between the two koppies was a small post of a few men, one of whom decided to wave a white flag in surrender. This man was shot by his comrades. With the southern koppie already in Boer hands, the officer in charge, under the mistaken notion that he was bound by the white flag of his subordinate, ordered a ceasefire. The remainder of the British position became untenable. Seeing the futility of further effort, Spragge also surrendered. Lord Longford, with the 45th Company to the north, and Capt Maude, with the 46th Company in the west, held out for a little longer but they too finally surrendered to Boer commander Piet de Wet, the brother of Christiaan de Wet. All firing ceased at about 2.00pm. [10] The British casualties during the five days' fighting amounted to 80, of whom 23 were fatal. Piet de Wet bagged 530 men, including Spragge, Lord Longford, Lords Ennismore, Leitrim and Donoughmore (and the future Lord Craigavon) who were marched off to the eastern Transvaal northwards. [11]
Following British Major-General, Paget's, success in the Free State, Boer General, Christiaan de Wet retired to Leeuwkop, a rocky hill about ten kilometres to the south-east of Lindley where he established a new defensive position along a ridge line running north-east, which had Bakenkop [lower-alpha 1] as its most prominent feature. [12]
On 3 July Paget moved his infantry and two guns into the intervening valley towards Leeuwkop, while sending 800 of his mounted troops with six guns against Bakenkop on the left. The commander of the latter detachment, Colonel A.M. Brookfield, took his men onto a ridge 4 000 metres from his objective and returned fire on the five Boer guns which had begun to engage him.
During the ensuing conflict, an artillery officer managed to mount a horse and gallop to the rear. He came upon a detachment of South Australians, under captain A.E.M. Norton, who had been ordered to retire. These he led back to the ridge line just in time to prevent the Boers from carrying away the captured guns. When confronted with the Australians' fire, the burghers promptly retreated taking some of the captured gunners with them as prisoners. The enemy party attacking the left gun section also broke contact and withdrew. In the meantime Paget had seized Leeuwkop and was now able to direct flanking fire from his guns against the Boer artillery. De Wet soon abandoned Bakenkop and made off towards Bethlehem.
During the short but sharp battle, Major Rose and about a dozen South Australians were wounded. The Tasmanian squadron, having been kept on other duty near Lindley, did not join in the fighting until the action was in its final stages with the Boers already driven off.
On 13 March 2017, an Anglo-Boer War memorial honouring the dead, on both sides, was unveiled outside Lindley on a farm between Leeuwkop and Bakenkop. The monument was unveiled by historian/researcher, Dr Stimson, in honour of his grandfather, Captain A.E.M Norton, who was involved in the skirmish.
Tourist attractions in Lindley include:
The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa.
Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey, better known as Koos de la Rey, was a South African military officer who served as a Boer general during the Second Boer War. De la Rey also had a political career and was one of the leading advocates of Boer independence.
The 1st Division is an infantry division of the British Army that has been formed and disestablished numerous times since 1809 and is still currently active as the 1st Division. Lieutenant-General Arthur Wellesley raised the division for service in the Peninsular War, which was part of the Coalition Wars of the Napoleonic Wars. The division was disestablished in 1814 but reformed the following year for service in the War of the Seventh Coalition. It then fought at the Battle of Waterloo, where it repulsed numerous attacks, including the final attack of the day that was launched by the French Imperial Guard. Following the battle, the division marched into France and became part of the Army of Occupation before being disbanded a few years later.
Kroonstad, which consist of suburbs as follows: Brentpark, Constantia, Constantia Park, Dawid Malanville, Elandia, Gelukwaarts, Goedgedacht, Heuningspruit, Industria, Jordania, KoeKoeVillage, Kroonheuwel, Maokeng, Morewag, Noordhoek, Ou Dorp, Panorama, Phomalong, Presidensia, PrisonArea, Seisoville, Suidrand, Tuinhof, Uitsig, Vooruitsig, WestPark and Wilgenhof. Kroonstad is the fourth largest town in the Free State and lies two hours' drive on the N1 from Gauteng. It is the second-largest commercial and urban centre in the Northern Free State, and an important railway junction on the main line from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
Petrus Steyn is a small farming town between Tweeling and Kroonstad, 35 km north-east of Lindley in the Free State province of South Africa. It is at the centre of an agricultural area known for wheat, maize, sunflower, potato, cattle, hunting, sheep production and forms part of the breadbasket in the Free State. It is the highest town above sea level in the Free State. Farming industries in Petrus Steyn provide potatoes worldwide.
Koppies is a small town situated near the Renoster River in the Free State province of South Africa.
The Imperial Yeomanry was a volunteer mounted force of the British Army that mainly saw action during the Second Boer War. Created on 2 January 1900, the force was initially recruited from the middle classes and traditional yeomanry sources, but subsequent contingents were more significantly working class in their composition. The existing yeomanry regiments contributed only a small proportion of the total Imperial Yeomanry establishment. In Ireland 120 men were recruited in February 1900. It was officially disbanded in 1908, with individual Yeomanry regiments incorporated into the new Territorial Force.
The Berkshire Yeomanry was a part time regiment of the British Army formed in 1794 to counter the threat of invasion during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was the Royal County of Berkshire's senior volunteer unit with over 200 years of voluntary military service. After taking part in the Second Boer War, it saw action as mounted troops in the First World War and as artillery in the Second World War. Its lineage is maintained by 94 Signal Squadron, part of 39 (Skinners) Signal Regiment. The Headquarters of the Squadron is based in Windsor, Berkshire. The Berkshire Yeomanry had a number of battle honours won from Europe to the Far East and Private Frederick Potts was awarded a Victoria Cross for service during the Gallipoli Campaign.
Ernest Alfred Roberts was an Australian politician and soldier who was a Labor member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1896 to 1902 and 1905 to 1908 and then the Australian House of Representatives from 1908 to 1913. Roberts also served as an officer in South Africa during the Second Boer War, with South Australian colonial forces in 1900 and Commonwealth forces in 1902. From 1904 to 1908 he was the editor of The Herald, a left-wing newspaper published by the United Labor Party (ULP).
The Yorkshire Hussars was an auxiliary unit of the British Army formed in 1794. The regiment was formed as volunteer cavalry (Yeomanry) in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars and served in the Second Boer War and the First World War. It was converted to an armoured role during the Second World War. In 1956, it merged with two other Yorkshire yeomanry regiments to form the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry. Its lineage is continued today by the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1794 to 1956. It was formed as a volunteer cavalry force in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Its volunteer companies played an active role with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boer War, but opportunities for mounted action were much more restricted during the First World War and it was temporarily converted into a cycle unit. It remained a cavalry regiment throughout the interwar years, and was the last horsed unit of the British Army to see action, in the Syria–Lebanon Campaign of 1941, finally mechanising the following year. It served as motorised infantry in the North African and Italian campaigns of the Second World War. In 1956, it merged with the Yorkshire Hussars and the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry to form the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry. Its lineage is continued today by A Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry was a Yeomanry Cavalry regiment of the British Army with its origins in 1798. The regiment provided troops for the Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Boer War and served on the Western Front in the First World War, latterly as infantry. The regiment converted to artillery in 1920 and served as such in the early years of the Second World War, before becoming part of the Chindits in Burma. Postwar it served as a gunner regiment until 1971 when the title disappeared.
The 19th Battalion was a unit of the Imperial Yeomanry raised by George Paget as auxiliaries to the British Army during the Second Boer War. The men were mainly upper middle class and recruited from the gentlemen's clubs of London. The unit saw action at Faber's Put, Elands River, Lichtenburg, and numerous engagements on the lines of communication. The battalion was disbanded after the war.
In the Battle of Groenkop on 25 December 1901, Head Commandant Christiaan de Wet's Boer commando surprised and defeated a force of Imperial Yeomanry under the command of Major Williams.
Major-General Sir Henry Edward Colvile, was an English soldier.
20th Brigade was an infantry formation of the British Army first organised in the Second Boer War. In the First World War, the brigade fought on the Western Front and on the Italian Front as part of 7th Division. The brigade was re-raised under during the Second World War and briefly served in France until being converted to an armoured formation.
21st Brigade was an infantry formation of the British Army first organised in the Second Boer War, when it took part in Ian Hamilton's March from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. Reformed in World War I it served under the command of first 7th Division and then 30th Division, fighting in most of the major battles on the Western Front from the First Battle of Ypres to the Armistice. It was briefly re-raised in the Sudan early in World War II before being transferred to the Indian Army.
The Battle of Boshof was fought during the Second Boer War on 5 April 1900 between British forces and mostly French volunteers of the Boer army.
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