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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:02 pm

Someone has pointed to a website article on The Winckley Club in Preston which says:

"Years later, in 1890, Lt. Col. Chard who had been the senior officer at Rorke's Drift and, with Lt. Bromhead, had headed the list of those awarded the Victoria Cross, came to live at Sumners Hotel in Fulwood, Preston. He remained there for six years and, along with the Rev. G. Smith who had been the Chaplain at Rorke's Drift and also lived at Sumners Hotel, became a member of the Winckley Club. No wonder that the Club prized the famous picture in which Lt. Chard, as he was at the time of the battle, can be seen bare-headed on the right, holding a rifle, and Chaplain Smith, in a Dark coat, handing out ammunition. The original picture is in the National Army Museum."

According to the information I had, Chard served in Singapore as a Lieutenant Colonel between 1892-1896. He returned to take up a post in Perth in Scotland, dying in Hatch Beauchamp in 1897.

Does anyone have further details?

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:22 pm

Alan

Did you know that John Card's Hatch Beauchamp residence is now a B&B
'Close House' I think it is called. Well worth a stay, just for the atmosphere.
When I stayed there the owner sold me a lengthly (approx 50 pages) photocopied document all about John Chard by someone called something like Rev Lethworthy or something like that for �5. I will consult the document and see if it contains anything helpful.

It's well worth a nights stay but be warned the breakfast is not up to much.

Andy

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:10 pm

Alan, being a native of Preston, I can tell you that the Sumners is the nearest bub to Fulwood Barracks, home of the Queens Lancashire Regiment, being right across the road from it. The barracks were built between 1843-1848.

Sadly, the original Sumners Hotel that Chard and Smith could have occupied was demolished and rebuilt furth south to allow the junction of Watling Street Road and Deepdale Road (now Tom Finney Way) to be widened. I do recall it as a kid as I went past it every day to school. The Garrison pub is on the other side of the road.

You might try the Harris Library in Preston as they have a good collection of period photos and maps.

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:31 pm

Alan

Yes, I had certainly understood both were members of the Winckley. I doubt if the exact period (or claimed length) of Chard's residence at Sumner's was accurate, though. (In my files on Smith one of my research notes shows that in the early '90s Chard was residing alone - except for his Greek Cypriot manservant - in a terraced house in the same town).

Smith, also a member of the Winckley, lived at Sumner's on and off for some years, after his Fulwood period and either side of his world cruises in retirement.

I have often imagined these two old codgers (or, rather, middle-aged codgers) reminiscing together in the Winckley about a certain busy night a few years back while enjoying a nightcap. It wasn't just the lads from the Valleys or the Midlands who had the opportunity to get together in later years for a Rorke's Drift chinwag, although I daresay these two gentlemen eschewed all opportunities of any unseemly immodesty - well, Chard at least.

Interesting, also, to think of these two in each other's company in Lancs in later years, as each had been responsible for the two longest and most detailed published accounts of the affair, which both appeared pretty rapidly in the colonial and British press and thereby formed the earliest and clearest picture of the engagement for the Victorian public. I daresay they "compared notes" from time to time and Smith's early gift from de Neuville himself of a very large copy of the painting mentioned above - as well as Smith's very prominent place in the centre of the picture - was, perhaps, an indication of his assistance towards the artist.

Peter