Thomson Favard

Rank: Sapper

Service: East African Engineers / Southern Rifles

Grandparents: Mr & Mrs H Horscroft

Grandparents’ Address: Hastings

Other Info: Tom Favard, whose clever achievement in the capture of a rebel leader in the Cape Rebellion (possibly the Boer Rebellion of 1914?) was related in the Observer on March 20th.

The report in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer reads: “… A letter from Uitenhage describes the affair. A report came to the camp at Kimberley that the rebels were in the neighbourhood, so a party of the Southern Rifles, to which Mr Favard is attached, went in pursuit. There was a sharp fight with the rebels and two horses were killed. The main body had been stationed at likely spots for the rebels to trek through near the Vaal River; but Lieutenant Duthrie, with three men and Mr Favard captured eleven rebels and thirteen horses, and among the rebels was Commander Conroy, the last active rebel leader active in the Union of South Africa.

Mr Favard had taken a revolver and joined the combatants. The four or five were stationed on a high plateau, and Favard was relieving guard at 3am, when the sentry reported that he saw a small native boy herding sheep. Mr Favard fetched the boy and questioned him in Dutch as to whether he had seen any armed or mounted men, and the boy said there some behind behind a farmhouse about a mile away.

So the went to the spot and the Lieutenant called upon the rebels to surrender, which they did, and they were made to come one by one and give up their rifles. They were frightened and begged for their lives, and looked as if they would feint. Conroy gave Mr Favard his rifle and revolver, telling him to keep them, and asked him where the remainder of his men were. And his surprise can be imagined when he found that his party had surrendered to four or five lads. Some of the prisoners were handed over to another party to take into town as they could not deal with them all.”

Published: April 1915

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