Ernest Edward Lowe, Naval Brigade

[Geoffers]

Ernest Edward LOWE (1866-1954) born Lowestoft, Suffolk was my great grandfather.

He joined the Royal Navy at Portsmouth as a boy in 1882. He was promoted several times until in 1897, he landed as Acting Gunner with the Naval Brigade in South Africa.

He fought in several battles and was mentioned in dispatches for gallant conduct at the Battle of Graspan, "Zeal and energy in the action of 4th June 1900"; and mentioned in Captain Bearcroft's disptach of 17th October 1900.

As a result of this he was awarded the first Conspicuous Service Cross (C.S.C) in 1901 - CSC's were awarded on the same day to Act.Gunner Joseph Wright, Midshipman Thomas Armstrong and Midshipman Reginald Hutchinson.

The Royal Nay List Who's who in the Navy 1915 records that the citation for the award of his C.S.C. read "for having charged to the top of a hill gallantly leading his men, all the time under heavy fire".

Only 8 C.S.Cs were awarded before 1915, when it was renamed the Distinguished Service Cross, D.S.C.

Does anyone know the name of the "action of 4th June 1900"?

Also, I'd love to know what happened to his medal - and finally, I've traced descendents of some, but not all of his children. Is there anyone out there descended from his son, Arthur (1896-1940) or daughter Glagys Flora (1897-1972) who married George Edward Berger?

Geoffers
Charlbury, Oxfordshire

[ziksby]

The most notable occurence around that date was the raising of the British flag in Pretoria on 5th June 1900, which involved a naval brigade. A long way from the sea, but that's what they did. It followed on from Ladysmith, Mafeking and Bloemfontein, at the end of the war(almost).

[Geoffers]

Thanks, the taking of Pretoria is the only incident I could find, but just wondered if I'd missed some skirmish or other. I shall have to dig deeper into my books.

Thanks again for taking the trouble to reply

Geoffers

[peter nicholl]

Hi Geoffers
I don't know whether you have made any further progress on this, if not, a couple of ideas. Do you know the ship he had come from? HMS Terrible? If so and the sailors were not dispersed, could you follow it that way? Were War Diaries kept, as in WWI? If so, could you follow up that way? Were any Naval Brigade Officers awarded medals at the same time? Their write up may be more informative: in the case of War Diaries, Officers seem to be named while Other Ranks are lumped together as just that. Sorry if you've already gone through all of the above.
Regards
Peter

[Geoffers]

Do you know the ship he had come from? HMS Terrible? If so and the sailors were not dispersed, could you follow it that way? Were War Diaries kept, as in WWI? If so, could you follow up that way? Were any Naval Brigade Officers awarded medals at the same time? Their write up may be more informative: in the case of War Diaries, Officers seem to be named while Other Ranks are lumped together as just that. Sorry if you've already gone through all of the above.

Thanks for replying Peter.
I've made odd bits of progress now. The "action of 4th June 1900" definitely refers to the taking of Pretoria. I've also obtained a couple of books from the Naval & Military Press, written about the Naval Brigades in the South African War (I was surprised to find one, let alone two).

One of these in particular has been of use "Naval Brigades in the South African War 1899-1900" by Surg. T T JEANS. Though both this book and "With the Naval Brigade in Natal 1899-1900" by Lt. BURNE RN have some excellent photographs of the brigades in action. If anyone reading this message needs a lookup, please ask - though the books are not particularly well indexed so it may take some time to locate specific details.

At sometime when I've taken a bucketful of painkillers so that I can travel, I hope to be able to get to the National Archives again to follow up on the idea of war diaries.

Thanks again for your welcome reply and ideas.
Geoffers