The name "Killrush" originates from the sentries that were placed nearby on three peaks surrounding the area.

One could see as far as three days horse-ride from the lookouts and thus enabled the soldiers preparation time for any attack that might occur. They were then able to rush up to the enemy and kill them.

After a year of being known as "Nomansland", EG was finally annexed by the Cape Colony on 1 st October 1879. This led to a large influx of people into the area.

The first owner of Killrush was Donald Strachan. He played a key role in the negotiations with the indigenous peoples. He had huge investments in farms and trading stores.

One of the great characters who arrived in the area was Frederick Johnson Hayward or "Bull" as he was known because of his size. He arrived in South Africa in 1889 and bought tmischief, Hayward organized a party the night priorhe farm Killrush and built a house on the farm.

During the war in 1898 the Cape Mounted Rifles (consisting mostly of Scotsmen) were stationed on Killrush. They built four barracks.

Today the farm seems to be quite remote, but a hundred years ago this area of Swartberg was well populated and “Indawana” passed through the farm to Natal Weekly deliveries arrived on the farm by ox-wagon.

Hayward made sure that Killrush was a place of activity and entertainment. He built a tennis court and swimming pool in the garden and started a public library known as the Killrush Public Library. In addition to that he ran an illicit still, keeping someone on guard to give warning in advance of the authorities arriving. On one occasion a policeman hoping to catch Hayward and make an arrest hid behind a large rock to spy on his activities. Fred and his good friends got wind of this and they deliberately organized target practice, aiming at the very same rock that the policeman was sheltered behind.

When Hayward started building his tennis court he went into the sneezewood forests to cut timber poles. This was illegal and the forrester must have been suspicious of something illegal being carried out and brought the remaining stumps to Killrush where they were matched up to the poles being used for the construction of the tennis court.

On the strong evidence that these were the same trees that had been felled, Hayward was charged and duly summoned to Umzimkulu to answer the charges.

Never being one to miss the opportunity for some to the trial. When the evidence was submitted before court the next day all that could be found were a few stumps from wattle trees. The case was dismissed and Hayward completed the tennis court.

When one experiences 1880 at Killrush Hotel very many more incredible and hilarious stories of the time come to light.

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The regiment ot tlie Cape Mounted Riflemen may claim the interest of an even wider circle than that of its past members, and for two reasons. In the first place, its history, since the middle of the last century, has been interwoven with that of the old Cape Colony, for the regiment contributed in no small measure to the Colony's almost continuous wars in those early claj's and to the peaceful government of the vast native population which resulted therefrom. Secondly, it has a special connection with the militai'y history of the Empire, inasmuch as it was the first regular military force in the colonial pos­sessions and tlie only permanent corps of mounted riflemen in the whole of the British Dominions. The regiment, under the title of Cape Mounted Riflemen, dates from the year 1878. The title itself was not new, for the regiment which had been maintained in the Colony by the Imperial Government from the early days of the British annexation until 1870 was from 1828 onwards known under the designation of Cape Mounted Riflemen. Originally a corps of Hottentot scouts, the regiment subsequently recruited over two-thirds of its numbers in England, though to the end it always contained a contingent of Hottentots. On its disbandmcnt in 1870 its colours were deposited in Cape Town Cathedral, where they still rest.

But though the t'tle of the regiment, as we know it, is of comparatively recent origin, the force itself is, to all intents and purposes, identi­cal with the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, dating from the year 1855. This force in turn was composed of still earlier detachments of armed and mounted police, originally raised in 1852, from what were then the Eastern Frontier Districts of the Cape Colony. These detachments may be said to have been the germ of the Cape Mounted Riflemen who thus inherit by an un­ broken succession traditions dating back to 1852.

Early Days in the Cape Colony

In tracing the history of the Cape Mounted Riflemen and of the forces which were their pre­decessors, it is important to bear in mind the gradual expansion and the peculiar conditions pertaining in the Cape Colony during the half century preceding the Boer War, because the fortunes of this famous corps were, in a very special manner, bound up with the development of the Colony.

In 1850 the Transvaal and Orange Free State in were nominally subject tu the Governor of the Capo of Good Hope, as was also Natal under its Lieutenant-Governor. In passing, it may be mentioned that the Transvaal received its Independence in 1852 and the Orange Free State in 1854. At that time the Cape Colony was barely half its present size and in the east there was a great gap between its boundary and that of Natal. Since Sir Benjamin d'Urban's term of office in 1834 the eastern frontier had been moved back­ wards and forwards according to the changing views of successive governors and secretaries of state. In 1847 Sir Harry Smith, Governor and first High Commissioner from 1847 to 1852, fixed the eastern limit of the Cape Colony at the river Keiskama, reserving for natives, under the name of British Ivaffraria, the territory further east between the Keiskama and the Great Kei River, and placing it under the protection of a British Commissioner, resident at Kingwilliamstown. Between the Great Kei River and and the Umzim-kuku on the border of Natal, there was no attempt made to control the natives. At that period settlers on the eastern frontier were compelled to consider warfare as part of the ordinary business of their lives, for whilst they wore attempting to enlarge the area of cultivation eastwards, hordes of savages were being thrust southwards and westwards towards them by the destructive onslaughts of Zulu and Matabele invaders.

At the beginning of the eighth kaffir war of 1850-3, British Kaffraria was occupied by the western Xosa and Gaikas, of whom Sandile was the chief; by another Xosa tribe called Tslamhies, and by Tembu tribes north of the difficult Amatola mountains. Immediately east of the Kei River, near the sea, was the parent tribe of the Xosas, called, Galekas, under their chief Kreli. North of them were Fingoes, who were wanderers from various tribes all but exterminated by the Zulus and Tembus; and further east again the Pondos. On the Kat River was a settlement of Hottentots gathered from the western parts of the Colony and placed there by Lord Charles Somerset in 1828. The war of 1850-3 had begun disastrously for the Cape colonists. An English force had been routed in Boomah Pass on December 24, 1850, by some of Sandile's Gaikas. The border settlements of Woburn, Auckland and Juanasburg had been sacked and the military settlers there murdered on Christmas Day. The Governor him­ self was isolated and besieged in Fort Cox and, the following year, the Galekas, Tembus and Hottcntos from the Kat river settlement joined forces with the Gaikas and committed renewed depredations on the border farms. To add to the difficulties of the situation, the Orange River farmers were in open revolt and the first Basuto war began in 1851 with the defeat of Warden at Viervoet.

Armed and Mounted Police for the Frontier

Besides a few British soldiers, the only regular levies on the eastern border, were native troops chiefly raised from the Fingoes, who out of hatred for the Xosas, joined the colonists. The farmers and settlers were armed and defended their lives and properties as best they could, but suffered from lack of organisation. In 1852, therefore, authority was given for the formation of arnied and mounted police forces for the border districts of Albany, Uitenhage, Somerset, Cradock, Albert, Victoria and Fort Beaufort. Each force was independent and had its separate commander, and this beginning of organisation proved of great value in stamping out the rebellion. The first notable exploit of the newly created armed and mounted police, was the surprise in December of a Hottentot leader named Brander. who with a band of Kaffirs and Hottentots, had penetrated to the Zuurberg in the heart of the Colony.

At the end of the war in 1853, the Galekas, under Kreli, were confined between the Kei and Bashee rivers, the conquered Tembus established in Glen Grey and Sandile's Gaikas cleared away from the Amatola mountains to the more accessible country near the sea, their land being handed over to the friendly Fingoes. British Kaffraria, north of the Amatola mountains, was settled with military colonists and annexed by the Cape of Good Hope; and Queenstown was founded.

Two years later, by Act No. 3 of 1835, the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police was formed. The first commandant was Captain Walter Currie. The rank and file consisted of about 500 men who were armed with double-barrelled percussion guns, one barrel rifled and the other smooth, revolvers and, strange to say, bowie knives. The pay was 5/- a day and each man had to supply his arms, horse and saddlery, the only thing supplied by a benevolent government being ammunition.

For three years the force was kept constantly occupied with the routine of police work and patrolling the country. In 1856-7 one of the most extraordinary outbreaks of fanaticism ever recorded in history occurred among the natives. Fatal in intention for the British, it turned out suicidal to themselves. In May, 1856, when the cattle plague was raging, Nongkause, a girl of Kreli's Galeka tribe of Xosas beyond the Kei, on returning from fetching water, declared that the spirits of departed chiefs had appeared to her and commanded the destruction of all cattle and corn throughout the country, adding that on February 18, 1857, they would return to the earth with a new breed of cattle, would drive all the white men from the country and introduce an era of triumph and prosperity for the kaffirs. The native witch doctors lent their authority to her story and persuaded the chief to comply with the injunction to destroy all cattle and corn in Galekaland. Messages were also sent to Sandile's Gaikas in British Kaffraria, bidding them conform to the paramount chief's orders. Fortunately,. British influence there, to some extent, prevented a wholesale destruction, although considerable damage was done. In Galekaland, however, the ruin was almost complete and when on the ap­pointed day there appeared no supernatural host or miraculous herds of cattle, starvation stared the wretched Xosas in the face; 25,000 kaffirs are stated to have died of starvation and 100,000 to have wandered away from their lands to seek sustenance. Even in British Kaffraria the natives are said to have been re'duced from 105,000 to 37,000 within seven months.

To continu.e my story of the famine which raged among the natives as a result of the vision of Kongkause, the Government did all that was possible in starting relief works and distributing food, but these measures were only palliatives. The distress naturally drove bands of starving natives to robbery and pillage, while unrest in the native territories were general. Fadana and Quesha, Tembu chiefs prominent in the disturbances, were captured by the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police.

In 1858 it was determined to drive o'ut Kreli's Galekas, whose unrest had. been increased by news of the Indian Mutiny, from their settle­ments beyond the Great Kei River, and to put friendly Fingoes and other tribes in their place.

On this work the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police were employed in conjunction with Hot­tentot and Kaffir levies.

With the advent of Sir Philip Wodehouse as governor in 1861, Sir Walter Currie, who had been knighted for his previous services, was-ordered with a large force of F.A.M.P. to superintend the migration and location of the Griquas, under chief Adam Kok, from the south of the Orange Free State, to their new territory, thence­forth known as Griqualand East. This duty was successfully carried out, a troop of police under Inspector Gilfillan being left to guard the border in the district now called Barkly East and Woodehouse.

Gilfillan's greatest trouble lay with the Bush­men, who came down from their lairs in the Drakensberg and elsewhere to carry off stock belonging to neighbouring farmers. This warfare was exceptionally difficult, as the Bushmen were born fighters and were rarely caught before they had ambushed many of their pursuers, shooting-them with poisoned arrows.

In 1368 and 1869 the Orange Free State Boers. were carrying out the fourth Basuto war, against Moshesh. To avoid the constant frontier dis­ putes, the Governor annexed Basutoland and made a final adjustment of the boundary between tha't country and the Orange Free State. This was done with the aid of the F.A.M.P. under Sir Walter Currie; and in 1869, after the peace of Aliwal North, a troop was left as a permanent force for Basutoland. In the same year Sir \Valter Currie with the F.A.M.P. was engaged in suppressing some Koranna marauders ensconced in the fastnesses of the Lower Orange.

Diamonds Discovered at Kimberley

In the same year diamonds were discovered in the neighbourhood of Kimberley, which led to a dispute between the Cape Colony and Free State governments as to the ownership of the territory. The Kcate award of October 1871 was given in favour of the Griqua chief Waterboer, who had already sold his rights to the English. Accordingly, Griqualand West, which included the Kimberley, Du Toitspan and De Beers mines, was proclaimed British territory. Before the point had been decided, there was considerable lawlessness in the district, necessitating the concentration of the whole of the F.A.M.P. at Hopetown, to keep order among the miners and to watch the Free State border.

During the same year part of Pondoland was placed under a British Resident and in 1375 the F.A.M.P. were employed in carving out the annex­ ation of Gangalizwe's territory north of the Transkei, the districts of Elliot, Engcobo, Umtata and Mqanduli being proclaimed under British pro­tection. In 1876 they had the same duty to perform in Griqualand East.

In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere's stormy period as Governor was ushered in by the outbreak of the ninth kaffir war, which arose from a dispute at a beer drink near Butterworth between Fingoes and Xosas.

In the first fight on September 26 at the Gwadam Mountains in the Transkei, the F.A.M.P. had to retire against vastly superior numbers of Galekas. Three days later a body of about 9,000 Galekas twice attacked Ibeka Post, held by about 200 police and a few Fingoes. The attack was driven off and on the arrival of reinforcements, the chief Kreli was captured and his kraal burnt on October 9. On the same day a force under Major Elliot, to which a troop of F.A.M.P. was attached, defeated the Galeka chief Sitcheka on the eastern border of the Transkei. On October 21, a small detached force of the police at Lusizi drove off another band of Galekas with very great difficulty. The rebellion then appeared to be at an end. The Galekas were swept across the Bashee and the Umtata rivers into Pondoland; but, hardly had the volunteers and burghers been dismissed to their homes when war broke out Moshesh. To avoid the constant frontier dis­ putes, the Governor annexed Basutoland and made a final adjustment of the boundary between that country and the Orange Free State. This was done with the aid of the F.A.M.P. under Sir Walter Currie; and in 1869, after the peace of Aliwal North, a troop was left as a permanent force for Basutoland. In the same year Sir Walter Currie with the F.A.M.P. was engaged in suppressing some Koranna marauders ensconced in the fastnesses of the Lower Orange.

Diamonds Discovered at Kimberley

In the same year diamonds were discovered in the neighbourhood of Kimberley, which led to a dispute between the Cape Colony and Free State governments as to the ownership of the territory. The Kcate award of October 1871 was given in favour of the Griqua chief Waterboer, who had already sold his rights to the English. Accordingly, Griqualand West, which included the Kimberley, Dutoitspan and De Beers mines, was pro­claimed British territory. Before the point had been decided, there was considerable lawlessness in the district, necessitating the concentration of the whole of the F.A.M.P. at Hopetown, to keep order among the miners and to watch the Free State border.

During the same year part of Pondoland was placed under a British Resident and in 1375 the F.A.M.P. were employed in carving out the annex­ ation of Gangalizwe's territory north of the Transkei, the districts of Elliot, Engcobo, Umtata and Mqanduli being proclaimed under British pro­tection. In 1876 they had the same duty to per­ form in Griqualand East.

In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere's stormy period as Governor was ushered in by the outbreak of the ninth kaffir war, which arose from a dispute at a beer drink near Butterworth between Fingoes and Xosas.

In the first fight on September 26 at the Gwadam Mountains in the Transkei, the F.A.M.P. had to retire against vastly superior numbers of Galekas. Three days later a body of about 9,000 Galekas twice attacked Ibeka Post, held by about 200 police and a few Fingoes. The attack was driven off and on the arrival of reinforcements, the chief Kreli was captured and his kraal burnt on October 9. On the same day a force under Major Elliot, to which a troop of F.A.M.P. was attached, defeated the Galeka chief Sitcheka on the eastern border of the Transkei. On October 21, a small detached force of the police at Lusizi drove off another band of Galekas with very great difficulty. The rebellion then appeared to be at

Rising of Native Hordes

On December 2, 1877, a police patrol was set upon near the Umzintzatli river by some thous­ ands of Galekas, but were driven off after a very gallant stand. The recrudescence of disturbance was so serious that the regular troops had to be called upon to assist in suppressing the rebellion. This was not accomplished without some severe fighting at Quintana, Nqamakwe, Komgha, Draaibosch and elsewhere, against Galekas and Gaikas.

It was in one of these engagements that Major Moore gained his V.C., the first to be obtained by a member of the F.A.M.P.

Finally, after Kreli had been captured and Sandile killed, the rising was suppressed in 1878 and as in the case of the Transkei, the district of Elliotdale, between the Bashee and the Umtata rivers, was brought under British protection.

During these troublesome times, it was Sir Walter Currie, the corps' first commanding officer, who, more than anyone, fixed the tradition for soldierly conduct in war, and tactful police work for which the corps has always been distinguished. In the words of one of the officers who served under him, "he was a born fighter" —could ride with or without boots, but he could not move along without adjectives. Still there was melody in his language. The same can be said of Sir Harry Smith, who was much respected and loved by the corps and the whole frontier. His name spread far and wide."

It is of interest to note that Snider carbines were first used in the Koranna expedition of 1869.

Up to 1878 the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police had been a police force only, although, as is evident from what has been related, it had always, when occasion arose, been called upon for purely military duties. In 1878 the Gsvern-ment decided to reorganise the corps as a regular regiment of Mounted Riflemen and for that purpose passed Act No. 9 of 1878, which gave the force the title of Cape Mounted Riflemen, or more familiarly C.M.R. and defined their dual function as a police force to preserve peace and prevent crime and as a military force for the defence of the Cape Colony.

So came into being, the C.M.R.

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Under Adam Kok III, the Griqua had trekked from the vicinity of Philippolis, where they had lost their lands to the emigrant Boers, to find a new home. Granted a safe passage by Moshoeshoe, they crossed Basuto- land, using gunpowder on occasion to blast their pathway through the Drakensberg, and descended, after two years, to the territory known as No Man's Land, between the Cape and Natal, in 1862. Insecure and dis­ trustful, they lived in laager for some 10 years, before founding their own town of Kokstad.

Despite its name, No Man's Land was not an empty territory when the Griqua arrived, but was peopled by, among others, Mpondo and Sotho over whom they were expected to establish some sort of authority, there­ by saving the colonial governments the trouble and expense. The Griqua regarded themselves as independent, but reluctantly accepted as British Resident J. M. Orpen, who had formerly been active in negotiations between Moshoeshoe and the British authorities. So far as Orpen was con cerned, the Griqua were not independent, but were British subjects. Kok must have realised that his territory might, one day, come under British or colonial authority, but he had been assured that he would be consulted first. His position in this respect was insecure, because the land he occupied had been ceded by the Mpondo to the British, at whose pleasure the Griqua were in occupation. Kok was unaware that Orpen was lobby­ ing for annexation.

Escorted by Orpen, Governor Sir Henry Barkly arrived at Kokstad in October 1874, to announce that government of Griqualand East 'will for the future be carried out under instructions by the British Resident, Joseph Millerd Orpen, Esq'. Kok was to be president of a council with vague, undefined authority, and would receive £1000 a year.

It was not so much the takeover the Griqua resented, but the fact that they had not been consulted, and had been 'taken over like so many cattle or sheep'. They possessed great pride in their identity which, in the face of ad­ vancing white colonisation, they had so far preserved. One of the factors that secured this preservation was the political astuteness of Adam Kok, but the Griqua were deprived of this when, in December 1875, he was killed in a cart accident. Kok had banned the sale of land to foreigners, and had also enacted strict regulations over the sale of liquor. Orpen lifted these restrictions, and many Griqua sold their land at relatively high prices. With the community on the verge of breaking up, and still resentful of the high-handed treatment it had received, many individuals turned for solace to the liquor shops that now flourished in various parts of their territory.

Public discussions by the Griqua were regarded by Barkly as a threat to law and order, so he despatched Cap­ tain William Blyth, a tough disciplinarian, as additional Resident to Kokstad. Blyth showed little respect for the leaders of the community, antagonising not only them but also the younger people. He raided houses, including Adam Kok's house, which was still occupied by his widow, and imprisoned one of Kok's relatives, in 1878, on a charge of using 'treasonable' language. Adam 'Muis' Kok per suaded a number of Mpondo to join him in rebellion, and was strength­ ened by an alliance with Smith Pom-mer, a former ' Kat River rebel'.

About 500 rebels gathered near the old laager on the slopes of Mount Cur rie , where they were attacked by a combined force of Frontier Police and Cape Mounted Riflemen. After a four hour battle in which 12 Griqua were killed, the remainder fled towards Pondoland, but were caught on the slopes of Ingeli Mountain, where another 20, including Pommer, were killed. The survivors were taken to Cape Town and imprisoned until, after a long period of argument, their detention was ruled illegal. Their country was formally annexed to the Cape in 1879, thereby ending their cherished independence.

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Turmoil on a Troubled Frontier

In the middle of the last century the land beyond the Orange River was in a constant state c as Voortrekkers, Griqua and British sought to farm their sheep on land claimed by the Sot! and other indigenous people. In an attempt to regulate this troubled region, the British first annexed it and then, tired of policing fights between black and Boer, they i paving the way for the establishment of the republican Orange Free State.

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