Vere Stent

Last updated

Vere Palgrave Stent (1872-1941) Journalist and war correspondent, theatre critic, playwright and author

Contents

Early life

Born in Queenstown, Cape Colony in 1872, Vere was the son of the architect Sydney Stent, [1] and the brother of the actor Lionel B. Stent.[ citation needed ] He attended St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown from January 1883 to December 1884. [2]

War correspondent

He initially worked for the De Beers mine, and later became a news correspondent with various newspapers: Stent served in Raaff's Rangers, [3] the Chartered Company's Irregular Forces 1893 as Sub-Lieutenant promoted Lieutenant and then Captain, November 1893; served with Colonel Gould-Adam's column entering Matabeleland from south, representing the Transvaal Advertiser; he resigned his commission on conclusion of the war, In December 1893 he was correspondent to the Press, Pretoria, and on General Joubert's staff through the Malaboch War in 1894, also correspondent with General Schalk Burgher through the Low Country Campaign of 1894.[ clarification needed ] Stent the accompanied West Coast fleet under Admiral Rawson to Cape Coast Castle in 1895. He represented the South African Telegraph in Ashanti from 1895 to 1896. He was in Matabeleland during Native Rebellion of 1896 representing the Cape Times and Daily Mail. Stent was present at battle of Thaba Amamba and Matoppo Campaign under Gen. Plumer; he accompanied Cecil Rhodes to the Great Indaba with Rebels, [4] [5] and was mentioned in despatches by Gen. Carrington. In 1897 he represented the Diamond Fields Advertiser at the Langberg Rebellion, Bechuanaland and was present at the storming of the kopje and the death of Luka Jantje, the leader of the rebellion. [6] [7] Stent represented the Reuters News Agency during the Siege of Mafeking from 1899 to 1900; [8] In 1900 he accompanied the 11th Division under Gen. Pole-Carew to Komati Poort. He was later appointed to the writing staff of the Leader newspaper. In 1903 he acquired and became editor of the Pretoria News . [2] He remained editor until 1920.

Theatre critic

Stent was also known as an art, theatre and literature critic.

Publications

As a playwright he wrote one play, entitled War and a Woman, which was produced in Pretoria in 1912. Besides many articles and reviews, his best known publications include Short South African Stories (1909, compiled with his sister, Joan) and A Personal Record of Some Incidents in the Life of Cecil Rhodes. Books of Rhodesia. 1925.. His own life is the subject of a biography by his daughters. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Geddes Bain</span>

Andrew Geddes Bain, was a South African geologist, road engineer, palaeontologist and explorer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Lawley, 6th Baron Wenlock</span> British soldier, peer, colonial governor (1860–1932)

Arthur Lawley, 6th Baron Wenlock, was a British colonial administrator who served variously as Administrator of Matabeleland, Governor of Western Australia, Lieutenant-Governor of the Transvaal, and Governor of Madras. The fourth and youngest son of the 2nd Baron Wenlock, he attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining the military. Serving in the Mahdist War, he reached the rank of captain before resigning his commission to pursue other interests. Lawley was then private secretary to his uncle, the 1st Duke of Westminster, and subsequently to the 4th Earl Grey, who he followed to Rhodesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer</span> British Army general

Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, was a senior British Army officer of the First World War. After commanding V Corps at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, he took command of the Second Army in May 1915 and in June 1917 won an overwhelming victory over the German Army at the Battle of Messines, which started with the simultaneous explosion of a series of mines placed by the Royal Engineers' tunnelling companies beneath German lines, which created 19 large craters and was described as the loudest explosion in human history. He later served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and then as Governor of Malta before becoming High Commissioner of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1925 and retiring in 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown</span> College in South Africa

St. Andrew's College is an Anglican high school for boys located in Makhanda (Grahamstown), Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It was founded in 1855 by the Right Reverend John Armstrong, the first Bishop of Grahamstown. It is a semi boarding school, with a number of day boys. St. Andrew's College caters to 480 pupils from around the globe. The school is also a member of the G30 Schools group and closely associated with its brother school, St. Andrew's Preparatory School, and its sister school the Diocesan School for Girls.

Henry Melville Taberer was a South African cricketer who played in one Test match in 1902. He was the son of the Revd C. Taberer and was born at a mission station in Keiskammahoek, Cape Province.

Sir Raleigh Grey was a British coloniser of Southern Rhodesia who played an important part in the early government of the colony.

The Cape Colonial Forces (CCF) were the official defence organisation of the Cape Colony in South Africa. Established in 1855, they were taken over by the Union of South Africa in 1910, and disbanded when the Union Defence Forces were formed in 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Edward Galpin</span> South African botanist and banker (1858–1941)

Ernest Edward Galpin (1858–1941), was a South African botanist and banker. He left some 16,000 sheets to the National Herbarium in Pretoria and was dubbed "the Prince of Collectors" by General Smuts. Galpin discovered half a dozen genera and many hundreds of new species. Numerous species are named after him such as Acacia galpinii, Bauhinia galpinii, Cyrtanthus galpinii, Kleinia galpinii, Kniphofia galpinii, Streptocarpus galpinii and Watsonia galpinii. He is commemorated in the genus Galpinia N.E.Br. as is his farm in the genus Mosdenia Stent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Matabele War</span> British–Matebele conflict, 1896–1897

The Second Matabele War, also known as the Matabeleland Rebellion or part of what is now known in Zimbabwe as the First Chimurenga, was fought between 1896 and 1897 in the region later known as Southern Rhodesia, now modern-day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Matabele people, which led to conflict with the Shona people in the rest of Southern Rhodesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudd Concession</span> 1888 written concession for mining rights in what is now Zimbabwe

The Rudd Concession, a written concession for exclusive mining rights in Matabeleland, Mashonaland and other adjoining territories in what is today Zimbabwe, was granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to Charles Rudd, James Rochfort Maguire and Francis Thompson, three agents acting on behalf of the South African-based politician and businessman Cecil Rhodes, on 30 October 1888. Despite Lobengula's retrospective attempts to disavow it, it proved the foundation for the royal charter granted by the United Kingdom to Rhodes's British South Africa Company in October 1889, and thereafter for the Pioneer Column's occupation of Mashonaland in 1890, which marked the beginning of white settlement, administration and development in the country that eventually became Rhodesia, named after Rhodes, in 1895.

This is a list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in South Africa.

Alfred James "'Bulala" Taylor was an Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army during the Scramble for Africa and the Second Boer War. He is best known as a defendant in one of the first war crimes prosecutions in British military history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Carrington</span>

Major General Sir Frederick Carrington,, was a British soldier and friend of Cecil Rhodes. He acquired fame by suppressing the 1896 Matabele rebellion.

The Rt Rev William Walmsley Sedgwick (1858–1948) was the 5th Anglican Bishop of Waiapu, New Zealand, whose Episcopate spanned a 15-year period during the first half of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Coryndon</span>

Sir Robert Thorne Coryndon, was a British colonial administrator, a former secretary of Cecil Rhodes who became Governor of the colonies of Uganda (1918–1922) and Kenya (1922–1925). He was one of the most powerful of colonial administrators of his day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Company rule in Rhodesia</span>

The British South Africa Company's administration of what became Rhodesia was chartered in 1889 by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and began with the Pioneer Column's march north-east to Mashonaland in 1890. Empowered by its charter to acquire, govern and develop the area north of the Transvaal in southern Africa, the Company, headed by Cecil Rhodes, raised its own armed forces and carved out a huge bloc of territory through treaties, concessions and occasional military action, most prominently overcoming the Matabele army in the First and Second Matabele Wars of the 1890s. By the turn of the century, Rhodes's Company held a vast, land-locked country, bisected by the Zambezi river. It officially named this land Rhodesia in 1895, and ran it until the early 1920s.

Brigadier General Edward Allan Wood, was a British Army officer. He saw service in Rhodesia, the Second Boer War and the First World War, and was briefly Commandant of the Auxiliary Division during the Irish War of Independence.

John Dowie Borthwick (1867–1936) was a veterinary surgeon in the Cape Colony, South Africa

Sir Edward Charles Frederick Garraway, KCMG was an Irish-born doctor and British colonial administrator who served as British Resident Commissioner in Bechuanaland and Basutoland.

References

  1. "STENT, Sydney". artefacts.co.za. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 Laurie 1914, pp. 180–181.
  3. MacDonald 1994, p. 125.
  4. Morrison 2012, p. 201.
  5. Sykes & Löwinger 1897, p. 217.
  6. Muffin, Dusty (1 July 2007). "Luka Jantje : Pieces of the Puzzle". Dusty Muffin Blog. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  7. "BECHUANALAND. - REBELLION SUPPRESSED". The Advertiser, Adelaide. 3 August 1897. p. 5 col A. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  8. Perrett 2012, p. 104.
  9. Stent & Stent 1972.