Boer War
Mitchell and Kenyon 424: Lord Roberts M/C Cycle Parade 1-7, UK 1901
This catalogue lists all those films and television programmes relating to the war held the National Film and Television Archive, including events before and after the war and fictional representations. The actuality films are catalogued chronologically by date of event (so far as is known). Lengths are given in 16mm or 35mm, with timings (rounded to minutes), and where copies are available to view, this is noted. A large number of the films are accessible in three NFTVA compilations.
About the Boer War
The Boer War (also known as the Anglo-Boer War or the South African War, and sometimes referred to as the Second Boer War to distinguish it from a short conflict in 1881) was fought between the forces of the British Empire and the combined forces of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the two independent Boer republics. The direct cause of the war was the refusal of the Boers (Afrikaners) to offer political rights to the mainly British `Uitlander' immigrant workforce. The larger cause was British imperial ambitions in South Africa, rich in gold and diamonds. The Boers issued an ultimatum, then invaded Natal on 11 October 1899. The existing British forces were beaten back, and an invasion force under Sir Redvers Buller made a two-pronged attack, to the west along the border between Cape Colony and Orange Free State, and to the east in Natal attempting to relieve Ladysmith. Major reverses were suffered at Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop, and the overall command was taken over by Lord Roberts, who advanced from the south-west to take first Bloemfontein and then Pretoria (5 June 1900). The fighting then developed into a guerilla war which continued to May 1902, when the Boer forces were eventually subdued by Lord Kitchener.
Eight British commercial cameramen are known to have filmed in South Africa during the Boer War. William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson for the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, Walter Calverley Beevor and Sydney Melsom (there are doubts over his identity) for Robert Paul, John Benett-Stanford, Edgar Hyman and Joe Rosenthal for the Warwick Trading Company, all filmed in the period up to the fall of Pretoria in June 1900. Sydney Goldman, Rosenthal's replacement, and C. Rider Noble (reportedly one of three filming for Walter Gibbons) remained to film the later stages of the war, but no film from this period is known to survive. Other film companies filmed only troops departing or returning to Britain, or resorted to 'fake' recreations of battlefield scenes.
(There is evidence of at least one amateur taking a cine camera to the war. Although film companies in other countries filmed local news stories relating to the war or produced fake war scenes, only British cameramen were present at the war itself. The claims by Albert E. Smith of the Vitagraph Company of America to have filmed during the Boer War, in his autobiography Two Reels and a Crank (1952), are quite false).
Glossary and Who's Who
- Beevor, Walter Calverley (1858-1927)
- British military doctor, serving with the Scots Guards. Pioneer in the use of Röntgen rays (X-rays) on the battlefield. Took a motion picture camera to the war to film for Robert Paul, filming (from October 1899) such scenes as the entry of the Scots Guards into Bloemfontein and the capture of Cronje in February 1900.
- Benett-Stanford, John (1870-1947)
- British adventurer and part-time cameraman, filming for the Warwick Trading Company November-December 1899 before being replaced by Joe Rosenthal. In 1898 he was the first person to take a successful film during an actual war, at Omdurman.
- Biograph
- See British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
- Bloemfontein
- Capital of Orange Free State. Surrendered to Lord Roberts on 13 March 1900.
- Boers
- Traditionally the poor farmer class of Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa) who made the Great Trek north in 1835-37 to escape British rule in the Cape, especially after the law emancipating slaves in 1834. They settled beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers, forming two independent republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
- Botha, Louis (1862-1919)
- Boer commander, defeating the British at Spion Kop. Commandant General of the Transvaal forces from March 1900, subsequently organising the guerrilla campaign. He became Prime Minister of the Transvaal in 1907 and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
- British Mutoscope and Biograph Company
- British film company, an offshoot of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which employed the unique 70mm Mutograph camera (often referred to as the Biograph) and Biograph projector, and sent W.K-L. Dickson to film the war.
- Buller, Sir Redvers (1839-1908)
- Commander-in-chief of the British forces in South Africa, under whom they suffered severe defeats at Colenso and Spion Kop in his attempt to relieve Ladysmith, which he eventually achieved on 28 February. By that time, however, command of the British forces had been passed on to Lord Roberts, though Buller was to stay on in South Africa until October 1900.
- Cape Colony
- Self-governing Afrikaner state within the British Empire, not directly involved in the war.
- Cape Town
- Port and capital of Cape Colony.
- Chamberlain, Joseph (1936-1914)
- British politician and imperialist. The Conservative government's Secretary of State for the Colonies 1895-1903 and the major architect of British imperial policy for that period.
- City Imperial Volunteers
- A volunteer force paid for and manned by members of the City of London, which fought with distinction under Lord Roberts.
- Colenso
- Village in Natal, scene of battle between the Boers and General Buller's force trying to relieve Ladysmith to the north, 15 December 1899. A notable British loss.
- Cronje, Piet (c.1835-1911)
- Boer general who besieged Mafeking and tried to prevent Lord Roberts relieving Kimberley. Surrended at Paardeberg on 27 February 1900 and was imprisoned on St Helena until 1902.
- De la Rey, Jacobus (`Koos') (1847-1914)
- Boer general, a leading figure in the guerrilla campaign of 1900-02.
- De Wet, Christiaan (1854-1922)
- Boer general, prominent in the guerrilla war of 1900-02. Wrote a history of the war, Three Years' War, in 1902.
- Dickson, William Kennedy-Laurie (1860-1935)
- Pioneer motion picture inventor and engineer, of Anglo-Scottish parentage but working in USA for Thomas Edison 1883-95 where he was instrumental in developing the Kinetoscope film viewer, before joining the Mutoscope and Biograph company and moving to Britain as technical manager and cameraman of its British arm. Filmed for Biograph during the war from October 1899 to May 1900, with assistants William Cox and Jonathan Seward. Wrote a book based on his experiences, The Biograph in Battle (1901).
- Durban
- Port and capital of Natal.
- Edison, Thomas Alva (1847-1931)
- Inventor in whose laboratories the first practical motion picture films were produced, and whose subsequent film company made fake Boer war films produced by James White.
- French, John 1st Earl of Ypres (1852-1925)
- British cavalry leader during the Boer War, later commander of the British army during the First World War to December 1915.
- Frere
- Village in Natal (named after Sir Bartle Frere, High Commissioner for South Africa) where Buller's force encamped before Colenso.
- Fuerst Brothers
- British film company chiefly acting as an agent for French companies, but also took a series of films of the embarkation of troops in October and November 1899.
- Hamilton, Sir Ian Standish Monteith (1853-1947)
- British officer, a veteran of the First Boer War of 1881, serving as Kitchener's Chief of Staff in the Second.
- Hepworth, Cecil Milton (1874-1953)
- British film producer, manager of Hepworth & Co which filmed scenes of British troops departing for and returning from the war.
- Hyman, Edgar (?-1936)
- Manager of the Empire Theatre of Varieties, Johannesburg, which hosted South Africa's first film shows in May 1896. Undertook some filming for Charles Urban's Warwick Trading Company, including the arrival of British troops in Cape Town. He then followed the troops to the Western front in December 1899, continuing filming up to the raising of the British flag at Pretoria in June 1900.
- Jameson Raid
- Would-be British military incursion into Transvaal to overthrow Kruger's Boer government on 29 December 1895, led by Sir Leander Jameson but encouraged by Chamberlain and supported by Rhodes. It ended in complete failure.
- Johannesburg
- Gold mining town in the Transvaal; fell to Lord Roberts 31 May 1900.
- Kaffirs
- Term then common for the indigenous black population of South Africa; now derogatory.
- Kimberley
- Diamond mining town on the Cape Colony border. Besieged between 14 October 1899 and 15 February 1900, when it was relieved by General French.
- Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Earl (1850-1916)
- British military commander. Chief of staff to Lord Roberts from December 1899, taking over as commander in chief in December 1900. Conducted the British forces against the Boer guerrilla campaign that marked the latter stages of the war. Secretary of State for War at the start of the First World War.
- Kop
- Dutch for hill, `kopje' being a small hill.
- Kruger, Paul (Stephanus Johannes Paulus) (1825-1904)
- Leader of the Boer people and president of the Transvaal from 1883. A veteran of the Great Trek and figurehead of Boer nationalism. Popularly known as `Oom Paul' (Uncle Paul). Escaped to Europe on the outbreak of the war and died in Switzerland.
- Ladysmith
- Town in Natal, location for a British military depot. Following the initial Boer invasion of Natal, the existing British forces retreated to Ladysmith and under Sir George White withstood a siege from 1 November 1899 to 28 February 1900, when it was eventually relieved by General Buller.
- Melsom, Sydney
- See Robert Paul.
- Mitchell, Robert A. (?-?)
- Irish lawyer and amateur cameraman who filmed in South Africa in 1898, prior to the war.
- Mitchell, Sagar (1866-1952) and James Kenyon (?-1925)
- British film producers based on Blackburn, whose Norden films produced several fake Boer War scenes filmed in the Blackburn countryside.
- Modder
- River flowing from the Orange Free State to Cape Colony; a key battleground in November-December 1899.
- Mutograph
- See British Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
- Natal
- Afrikaner colony within the British Empire, invaded by the Boers on 11 October 1899, precipitating the war.
- Norden Films
- See Mitchell, Sagar and James Kenyon.
- Orange Free State
- Boer independent republic, which combined forces with those of the Transvaal to wage war on the British. Annexed by the British and renamed Orange River Colony on 28 May 1900.
- Orange River
- River on the border between Orange Free State and Cape Colony.
- Oxen
- Ox-carts were a common and often essential means of transport over the rough South African terrain.
- Paul, Robert William (1869-1943)
- Pioneer British film maker and producer, whose company Paul's Animatograph Works had two cameramen in the field during the Boer War; Walter Beevor, and another reported to be Sydney Melsom, but whose identity is uncertain.
- Port Elizabeth
- Port in Cape Colony.
- Pretoria
- Capital of the Transvaal; fell to Lord Roberts on 5 June 1900, at which point many felt that the war was over.
- Rhodes, Cecil John (1853-1902)
- British financier and imperialist, whose wealth was built on control of diamond and gold mining in South Africa. Prime Minister of Cape Colony in 1890; the country of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was named after him. Was behind the attempt to overthrow Kruger's Transvaal government in 1895, culminating in the disastrous Jameson Raid. Spent the early part of the Boer War under siege in Kimberley. No film of Rhodes is known to exist.
- Roberts, Frederick Sleigh 1st Earl (1832-1914)
- British military leader, commander in chief of the British forces December 1899-November 1900, replacing General Buller under whose charge there had been a number of defeats. Lord Roberts captured Bloemfontein and annexed the Orange Free State on 24 May 1900, going on to capture Pretoria on 5 June 1900.
- Rosenthal, Joseph (1864-1946)
- British war and travel cameraman, who filmed for the Warwick Trading Company from January 1900, initally at the Natal Front, before following Lord Roberts's column on the advance to Pretoria, filming the surrender of Kroonstad in May 1900 and the fall of Pretoria in June. He then left South Africa, to be replaced for Warwick by Sydney Goldman (none of whose films survive).
- Spion Kop
- Hill in Natal to the west of Ladysmith, scene of a disastrous British defeat under General Buller on 24 January 1900.
- Steyn, Marthinus Theunis (1857-1916)
- President of the Boer republic of the Orange Free State during the Boer War.
- Transvaal
- Boer independent republic, annexed by the British in 1877, a process reversed in 1881 after the First Boer War. Combined forces with the other Boer republic, the Orange Free State, to wage war again with Britain in 1899. Contemporary sources often refer to the fighting as the Transvaal War.
- Tugela
- River in Natal flowing past Colenso and Spion Kop.
- Urban, Charles (1867-1942)
- American film producer working in Britain, manager of the Warwick Trading Company.
- Vaal
- River on the border between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
- Warwick Trading Company
- British film company managed by the American Charles Urban. Its 1899-1900 films of the Boer War were taken by Edgar Hyman, John Benett-Stanford and Joe Rosenthal.
- White, Sir George Stuart (1835-1912)
- British field marshal, who conducted the defence of Ladysmith during its siege from 2 November 1899 to 28 February 1900.
- White, James H. (?-?)
- American film producer, working for the Edison company, under whom it produced several fake Boer War films at West Orange.
- Williamson, James (1855-1933)
- British film producer whose Williamson's Kinematograph Company produced sentimental dramas about soldiers returning from the Boer War.
