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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 2:40 pm

I am conducting research on the Naval Bigade that landed during the Zulu War, and am looking for sources that provide more detailed information than found in most books. I know that there were diaries kept by both officers and enllisted men (navy & marine). Lt. Craigie (HMS Active), Gunner Carroll (HMS Active), & Benjamin Marshall (HMS Shah) all come to mind, but I cannot find any of these in print. I am interested in the day to day notations that would have been made regarding marches, battles and mess mates. Can anyone out there help guide me in the right direction? I live in the States just outside of Washington, DC.

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:48 pm

Tom,

I recently made a reply elsewhere on the forum relating the Naval Brigades, I copied it below, with some minor edits:

You can add The Career of H.M.S. Shah, (Naval Brigade,) during The Zulu Campaign, being a Diary of Events compiled by G[eorge].H. W[eston]., Signalman. Published in January 1880 in Gloucester by C. Jeynes.

Reprinted by the then Anglo-Zulu War Research Society in Volume 7, Issue 2 of The Journal of the Anglo-Zulu War Research Society in 2001.

For some H.M.S. Boadicea interest see A Young Heart of Oak: Memories of Harry Stuart Boldero, Lieutenant R.N. with a preface by the Very Rev. H.D.M. Spence, D.D., Dean of Gloucester. Published 1891, by Hodder & Stoughton. Boldero was a Boadicea officer. Chapters V-VII relate to the South African Station.

In addition to those the National Maritime Museum, at Greenwich has material relating to A. H. Smith-Dorrien of the Shah.

John Y.

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 5:47 pm

Tom,
A scrap album of numerous contemporary newspaper cuttings, together with documents, letters, telegrams and sketches, 1872- 1892, belonging to Lieutenant Thomas Guthrie Fraser, RN,who served on HMS Active, was present at the Battle of Nyazane, was part of the Eshowe garrison and later with Crealock's division, is in the hands of a local collector, who lives nearby.
Fraser later recorded events in Egypt. (HMS Superb)
bombardments of forts,Alexandria, Tel el Kebir, Sierra Leone & back to Simon's Bay (HMS Imperious.)
Inside the front jacket cover are stamped HMS Aurora and HMS Victory.
From a limited AZW perspective there is a detailed hand-written account of the battle of Nyazane, together with a very detailed sketch map of the action.
The owner of the diary, (green hard-cover marked 'Scrap Album') may wish to dispose of the diary, which essentially records Fraser's naval career.
Peter

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:44 pm

Petty Officer Tom,
Have you tried Letters from Afghanistan, 1878-80, and from Kaffraria and Zululand, 1877-78-79 from Lieut. W. Des. V. Hamilton, R.N., (of H.M.S. "Active") printed by their Father, for Private Circulation only and published by the Dublin Steam Printing Company, 1881? Ron Sheeley

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:57 pm

John, Peter & Ron,

Thank you for all the references you supplied. I'll try to find them. Not sure if I could afford Frasier's Album.

Tom