secondangloboerwar

Extract from www.bcin.ca/Interface/openbcin.cgi?submit=submit&Chin...

Abstract: During his second period of duty in India from 1903 to 1914, Brigadier-General Herbert Colborne Nanton of the Royal Engineers was presented with a collection of Indian arms by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, a frontier state in northeastern Bengal. Two of these Nanton family heirlooms, a knife and a sword with a scabbard, recently underwent treatment in the Art Conservation programme at Queen's University. The style and construction of the knife identify it as an Afghan or Khyber knife, decorated on both sides and top of the blade with an Indian metal inlay technique known as koftgari. The second weapon can be classified as a talwar with a Persian blade made of watered steel and an Indian hilt also decorated with koftgari inlay. The history of both types of arms is closely linked to the establishment and spread of the Mughal Empire in India during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

There is an avenue called Nanton in Vancouver, British Columbia. I guess it must be named after this gentleman!

From Archives Canada www.archivescanada.ca/english/search/ItemDisplay.asp?sess...

ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Herbert Colborne Nanton, civil engineer soldier, received his education from Upper Canada College, Toronto, and the Royal Military College, Kingston, Ont. Upon graduation in 1883, he joined the C.P.R. as a civil engineer. He left the railway to serve in the Northwest Rebellion with the Midland Regiment. Shortly after the Suppression of the rebellion, he was offered a commission with the Imperial Forces, and was stationed in India.

During the Boer War, Nanton fought in South Africa. He went to France in 1914 to serve as Chief Engineer of an Indian Army Corps, remaining with it until the end of 1915. He was then transferred to the XV Corps, serving with it until 1917, when he was transferred to the XVII Corps, where he remained until the end of the war. After the war he returned to India where he served as Chief Engineer, Southern Army until his retirement in 1921. He died in Victoria, B.C., in 1935.

See also: Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Time, 1912.

SCOPE AND CONTENT:
Fonds consists of letters by Herbert Colborne Nanton from France to members of his family in Winnipeg, a diary kept by Nanton at the front in France, 1914-1915, 1917, and notes made by Augustus Meredith Nanton during a trip in 1901 to Russia to explore the possibilities of developing trade links between Canada and Russia.

Also included is a photograph, taken by the Albert Jeakins Studio, Simla, India, of Herbert Colborne Nanton in the dress uniform of a Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Engineers, Simla, India.

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/

Details on www.cwgc.org :- Captain 10th Btn Canadian Infantry dies 22/4/1915 age 35 Comem on Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Panel 24-28-30 Son of Mrs and the Late Henry Wallace of Canada, husband of Winifred Laura Jane Wallace of 87 Heene Road, Worthing, Sussex, England. In the Boer War 1899-1902 he served as Pte 3198 in the 14 Company (Northumberland) 5 Battalion Imperial Yeomanry and was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901 In the 1881 Census he is recorded as living at Trench Hall, Lamesley, Chester-le-Street with his parents Henry & Jessie Wallace and 3 sisters. His father was Land Agent to Lord Ravensworth.

The Canadian Great War Project website has some basic service details for Captain Wallace: www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/searches/soldierDetail.as... Captain Wallace appears in the 1891 and 1891 censuses at Lamesley with his parents Henry Atholl Wallace and Jessie Ellis. He had 3 older sisters and by 1891 a further 3 siblings. He married Winifred Laura Jane Archer circa 1902 in Gateshead, Durham and by 1906 they were living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where they had been since 1902 according to the census record, so presumably straight after marrying. No children are shown on the 1906 census and Winifred's age is given as 22 (she was born in 1881 in Gateshead), with Henry's shown as 26.

He and Winifred had two children, Harold and Dorothy.

Help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War at www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/