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DateOriginal Topic
7th November 2002Anstey's body
By Julian Whybra
A question for Martin Everett!
In a reply given to an enquirer on 27th Oct you wrote that you'd visited the spot where Anstey's body was recovered. Where you speaking in general terms about the Manzimnyama area or is there a specific spot so marked? Anstey was the only man whose body was brought back to England and I wasn't aware that the place the body was dug up from had been marked. Anstey's brother doesn't mention it.
DateReplies
7th November 2002Mark Hobson
I have had the 'pleasure' of walking Fugitives' Trail on two occassions and on neither time did I see any marker showing the spot of Anstey's death or his last stand. It's generally believed that he and his men died somewhere near the manzinyama stream, where the chasm in which the artillery guns came to grief opens out. You can actually walk down into this very narrow gully just where it joins the manzimyama. It is very muddy and very wet, a nasty place to die if this is where Anstey met his fate. This stand petered out somewhere in this area, and in the stream itself. There are several cairns in the area above but as the erosion here is quite bad and the undergrowth very thick they are hard to find. I don't believe any indicate the precise spot where Anstey's body was recovered.
On a similar theme, Major Smith's final resting place has been lost too. He escaped from Isandlwana, as I'm sure you're aware, only to be killed on the final slope leading down to Sothondose Drift shortly after bumping into Smith Dorrien. Later, when a party of men went out to recover the lost Colours his body was found and buried, but the location of the site was subsequently forgotten, and has never been found since.



7th November 2002Martin Everett
Julian,

I cannot disagree with the discription given by Mark above. My guide was none other than Ian Knight who has spent more hours on the ground than I have. He may have some more positive information about the location of Anstey's death. Ian did say that Maj Smith's grave was marked - by the notch on a nearby tree - but this has never been found.

I have a personal interest in Lt Anstey as he is buried in St George's Woking - the same church were I was christened.
8th November 2002Ian Woodason
Martin,

St John's, Woking is where Anstey is buried.

Ian Woodason
www.keynshamlighthorse.com - dedicated to the pursuit of memorials to those involved in the Anglo Zulu War of 1879
8th November 2002James Ray
It may well be that the church has changed its name over the course of time.

Jim