For me the inscription on the granite statue, “The greatness of a nation consists not so much in the number of its people or in the extent of its territory as in the extent and justice of its compassion” is apt. That Port Elizabeth chose to honour our equestrian friends who were slaughtered during the Boer War epitomises that humanity.

Main picture: Horses being offloaded  at the Port Elizabeth harbour during the Anglo Boer War using the sling-hoist method.

Raison d’etre for location at PE
Port Elizabeth is home to South Africa’s only Horse Memorial, an impressive life-size bronze and granite monument built to honour the hundreds of thousands of horses that perished whilst on active duty during South Africa’s three-year-long Anglo Boer War. Also, unknown to the general public, was the trauma and miseries experienced by these uncomplaining animals in those vast journeys to South Africa.

Born in the crucible of war
This war was precipitated by conflicting imperial and republican ideologies, the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, tension between political leaders, and the infamous Jameson Raid by the British renegade Cecil John Rhodes against Paul Kruger’s Transvaal Republic.

Also known as the South African War, the conflict raged from 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902 between British forces and those of the South African Republic – a combination of the then Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State. During the war years, Port Elizabeth served as the main port of entry for remounts, as these incoming horses were referred to, for the British and Colonial forces. As a consequence, the townspeople were very aware of the contribution made by thousands of horses and mules during the hostilities. The reason for the continual importation of horses was necessitated by the high rate of death of these beasts.

Altogether the Remount Department, in England and in South Africa, provided for the purpose of war some 520 000 horses (Lord Kitchener purchased 41 000 horses in South Africa and the Remount Department supplied horses at the rate of 10 000 per month during the campaign) and 150 000 mules including an unspecified number of cobs. Of these, some 350 000 horses and 50 000 mules perished  in the campaign. The Boers took the field with between 50 000 and 60 000 horses  which  were  renewed  several  times  in the course of the campaign. Their loss of horses most probably exceeded 100 000. At Winburg in the Orange Free State the British slaughtered 1 500 horses to prevent them falling into the possession of the Boer forces. The carcasses of these horses were left where they were slaughtered and for a considerable time afterwards, soldiers, correspondents, and the public, generally, witnessed a scene of stinking, rotting carcasses of these horses which littered the veld. These staggering, and at the same time, remarkably significant figures of horses and mules which participated and perished in the South African War greatly influenced public opinion

Hardships experienced
During hostilities, the British Army’s War Office realised that mobility  was of the utmost importance and therefore made a vigorous effort to mount its troops. Farmers at the Cape were unwilling to sell their horses and, as commandeering them could have resulted in political unrest, the Remount Department (which began its operations in October 1899) of the War Office decided to import horses and mules from Australia, Argentina , Canada, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the United States of America.

One of the principal reasons for the inhabitants of Port Elizabeth taking such an interest in the movement to erect a permanent equestrian memorial, was the fact that most of the horses and mules transported by sea to this country by the Remount Department during the campaign were landed at Port Elizabeth. The transport of horses and mules by sea during those turbulent days was by no means an easy matter.

Each horse and mule transported  to this country was secured with slings in the stalls provided in the holds of the ships and during the voyage hay and other fodder was hung in nets near the horses’ and mules’ heads to avoid waste.  Some of the noxious weeds which now flourish in abundance in South Africa were originally brought to the country from the Argentine in fodder provided for these horses ( Mexican poppy, Khakiweed, “black jacks” and the onion weed being the worst offenders).

A certain amount of space was allowed for in the holds of the ships where the horses and mules, during transport, were exercised on matting when weather permitted. Over 13 000 horses, as against 2 000 odd mules, died at sea and many times that number perished because they were often ill-suited to the rigorous demands of the South African veld and climate or were taken onto the battlefield before they had properly recovered from the effects of the voyage.

Hardly less important in its effect upon the condition of the horses and mules arriving at the front was the railway journey, especially when, as often happened in South Africa during the campaign, it was a journey lasting several days. Arrangements for watering and feeding had to be carefully planned and precautions had to be taken to prevent the horses and mules from injuring themselves or each other on the way to the various battle fronts. The latter difficulty was aggravated , especially in the case of the large English horses, by the narrowness of the South African trucks. In the trucks the horses and mules stood parallel to the rails and in two lots, facing each other, with a space between them to allow for feeding and watering. Special fittings were fixed inside the trucks to keep the middle of the truck clear.

At the Port Elizabeth harbour the sight of horses and mules being sling-hoisted ashore was a common occurrence remembered by the inhabitants of the town long after the war had ended. The horses and mules were gathered at the bottom of Jetty Street from where they were taken to the Remount Depots situated at the north end of the town (the old showgrounds site in Mount Road, afterwards the Municipal Market), where the remounts and artillery horses were corralled and stabled, and at Kragga Kamma where the mules and cobs were kept. After landing, many horses were broken in and trained at the Remount Depot in North End.

During the campaign, to be “Stellenbosched” became a derogatory term applied by the British to their officers who had proved to be incompetent and were removed from the battlefield to rusticate at a similar depot established at Stellenbosch. From the Remount Depots in Port Elizabeth, the horses and mules were transported by rail via Naauwpoort (and afterwards, Springfontein) or De Aar to the front.

The great stampede
On a Sunday evening between six and seven o’clock during the war, a tragedy occurred which may have been one of the influences leading to the erection of the monument. A large depot for remounts and artillery horses was situated at North End and on that particular evening, church-going citizens were startled by the sound and sight of stampeding animals. Nobody knows what caused the panic, but the horses had charged and broken out of the enclosure, scattering in all directions through the town. The thunder of horse hoofs, caused by a large mob of riderless horses rushing madly through the main road on the hill, together with the darkness being illuminated with sparks which flashed out as the iron shoes struck the hard ground, unnerved the residents.

An idea conceptualised
Whether this event influenced public opinion or not, the staggering losses of horses did greatly influence public opinion.  But it was through the zeal of a committee of ladies comprising Mrs Harriet Mary Meyer nee Bunton, Mrs J. C. Kemsley, Mrs W.H. Edwards, Miss. Edwards, Mrs A. Hall, Mrs H. Mosenthal, Miss V Pride and Miss Smith, all of Port Elizabeth, that this equine war memorial was erected.

More importantly how did this group of women coalesce into an association to raise the awareness of the plight of horses when soldiers were dying in the hundreds? In fact that is precisely what these women were engaged in viz providing hospitality to the troops who had landed at Port Elizabeth and it was during these visits to North Jetty that these women were exposed to the sight of horses in various stages of distress. A vital ingredient of translating sympathy into physical action was a sponsor. It was a Mrs Harriet Meyer nee Bunton, sister of Walter Bunton who owned the Bunton’s Grand Hotel in Belmont Terrace, who took up the baton and rose to the challenge.

Mrs Harriet Bunton, originally from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, but now residing at Mavisbank in Belmont Terrace, agreed to serve as acting Honorary Secretary but afterwards was nominated as President of the Committee. Harriet moved that a permanent equestrian memorial be erected, and the idea was apparently met with general enthusiasm by the Committee. After receiving the patronage of several influential women, a subscription list was opened by the ladies’ committee to finance the erection of an equine war memorial. The support of members of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and the Cattle Trough Association of London was invaluable in that they provided the design and commissioned the sculptor, Joseph Whitehead, of the Imperial Works, Kensington Oval, to execute the work. While this body might have been responsible for the design of the Memorial but the origin of the inscription upon it was, for a long time, obscure.

It was only decades later that the origin of this profound maxim was revealed. Dr. R.M. Leith expressed the opinion that the words are based upon passages occurring in the work “A Crown of Wild Olives,” written by the Victorian writer and philosopher, John Ruskin. Not that these words appear in the succinct, crisp form as the Memorial’s inscription but in a more verbose form. The final proof that these words were indeed purloined from John Ruskin’s erudition, was the fact that Harriet Meyer’s copy of “A Crown of Wild Olives” naturally falls open at certain pages. This proves, without a doubt, that it was these words of inspiration that swirled and coalesced in Meyer’s mind to emerge succinctly stated by Meyer.

Form of the memorial
The memorial, a provincial heritage site, comprises the life-size bronze figures of a horse and kneeling soldier holding a drinking bucket. The bronze statue stands on an inscribed stone plinth and its base forms a water trough. In the days when the horse traffic was frequent on the roads, the trough must have rendered good service, especially for the animals which had to toil up the steep Hill from the Town below. Designed by Joseph Whitehead and cast in bronze by Thames Dillon Works in Surrey, the memorial was unveiled on 11 February 1905 by the then mayor of Port Elizabeth, Alexander Fettes.

Relocation
The motivation for the relocation of this monument from its original position in Park Drive is unclear, but there are two plausible explanations. At its initial site, the monument also served a practical purpose as it was used as a drinking trough. With the horse being phased out as a mode of transport, this was no longer a consideration. Probably of greater import was that new location was more prominent as it was at the junction of Cape, Russell and Westbourne Roads where it could be admired by commuters heading into and out of the city.

The memorial was moved to the bottom of Cape Road in 1957. It was declared a national monument in 1983 and restored by Anton Momberg in 1993. Because of repeated vandalism, an iron railing was erected in 1994.

Inscription

For more than sixty years, questions swirled around the authorship of this inspiring inscription: The greatness of a Nation Consists not so much in the number of its people Or the extent of its territory As in the extent and justice of its compassion

The mystery of who composed the inscription on Port Elizabeth’s famous Horse Memorial has been solved at last. It was John Ruskin, the great popular philosopher of Victorian times.

An intensive search for the origin of those moving 29 words took about four years, when an enquiry about the authorship reached Port Elizabeth from Aberdeen , Scotland. It was one of many such queries which still comes periodically from scattered parts of the world. This Port Elizabeth elder citizen then wrote to the Herald saying that he believed the author was Ruskin but he could not pinpoint the quotation.

In the years since, he had searched Ruskin’s books  and had at last found that the inscription is a composite paraphrase of these three successive paragraphs in “A Crown of Wild Olives”, Chapter III in war: “…… and then observe further this true power depends neither on multitude of men nor extent of territory………”. “Neither does strength depend on extent of territory any more than on number of population. Remember, no government is ultimately strong but in proportion to its kindness and justice”. In “A Joy Forever” Ruskin wrote, “Execute true judgement and show mercy and compassion”. Clearly the inscription on the Horse Memorial  is simply a more positive and concise statement of Ruskin’s words in “A Crown of Wild Olives”.

Proponent of a memorial to horses
All projects are conceived by an individual who assumes the role as mastermind or instigator. Fulfilling this role in this case was Harriet Mary Bunton. Harriet was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk on the 6th October 1848. Her future husband, Ernest Gustav Meyer was born in Neustrelitz, Germany of the 24th April 1841. They were married in Port Elizabeth during April 1876. What is unknown is how either came to be in South Africa but each must have come out as a young adult but unaccompanied by their parents.

There is a tantalising suggestion in a newspaper obituary that she had come out to visit relatives. Her younger brother, Walter Bunton, must have been the relative mentioned. Walter married Marie Louise Pfeiffer from Germany in Graaff Reinet. In 1889 Walter bought the Grand Hotel renaming it Bunton’s Grand Hotel. His wife Marie continued to run the hotel after his death in 1903.

Harriet and Gustav had two stillborn children and then a daughter, Ethel Hildegard, born in 31st December 1879 and a son, Ernst Gustav, later known as Ernest, born on 24th June 1883. These two were both born in Port Elizabeth. The family moved to Kimberley but at that time there were not adequate schools there and the children were sent to their father’s brother and his family in Neustrelitz. Harriet could not bear to be parted from both children so went to bring Ernest home and Hildegard remained in Germany where she received her education and musical training.

Harriet Meyer and her son returned to Port Elizabeth. Gustav died in Kimberley on the 3rd November 1896. Harriet Meyer left Port Elizabeth and moved to Durban soon after the end of the Second Anglo Boer War and died in Pietermaritzburg on 8th March 1921.

Praise and acknowledgement of Harriet’s accomplishment
A newspaper clipping dated P.E. 23.3.1921:
The passing away of Mrs. Gustav Meyer a few days ago brings he many women who knew her splendid work during the Boer War, to the salute. She was a fine organiser, an indefatigable worker and did her utmost best for helping and Country during that strenuous period.

What the town of Port Elizabeth has cause to remember her by is the beautiful and much admired Horse Statue in Park Drive. n everlasting monument to Mrs. Meyer’s thoroughness and ability, and through herto the capability of her sex, for it is the one perfect piece of town adornment which defies even a shadow of criticism.

What the general public do not know is the fight Mrs Meyer had to wage to give us that lovely statue. Against the odds of opposition and ridicule she held on her way, gathering in the smallest subscriptions. The correspondence alone entailed was unbelievable. It was her ambition that each mounted soldier should contribute a minimum of a penny, and any of our collectors will know what that means. She chose the site and because of her importunity, got it. It was through her artistic sense that the particular sense that the particular design was carried out, and in the light of her high ideals she chose the fine wording inscribed on the granite pedestal.

All honour to the memory of Mrs. Gustav Meyer. Well has she earned the salute.

Unveiling of the statue by the Mayor
The statue was initially placed near the intersection of Rink Street and Park Drive where it was unveiled by the Mayor, Mr Fettes on 11 February 1905.  He obviously was neither a very charismatic speaker nor properly attuned to the humble humanity expressed by the statue if his speech was anything to go by. Part of his speech was reported by the EP Herald as follows:
“To raise a monument to the ‘brutes’ that perish is considered by many to be misplaced sentiment, while some are inclined to think with Louis Wain “that all animals have their season of happiness in a hereafter before their final effacement, as a reward for the trials they undergo in life, while under the dominion of man.”

Why couldn’t he just have said sometime like, “We are here to pay tribute to those magnificent horses who gave their all in the service of man without complaint or the prospect of reward in the here or the hereafter.  We are truly humbled and indebted”

Caught in the political crossfire
The final indignity to this statue was when it was made riderless by supporters of the #RhodesMustFall Campaign last year. On the 6th April 2015, the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema’s EFF, decided to vandalise the memorial because of their convoluted and distorted idea that it celebrates something linked to the Apartheid era and pushed the soldier, supplying the horse with water, over.  The focus of the monument was not about the soldier but about his showing the animal compassion, empathy that these hooligans did not show for the memory of these horses.

Other equestrian casualties of war
British mounts were not the only equine casualties of the war. The South African Boers lost large numbers of their legendary boerperde (“farmer’s horses”). The heritage of these horses dates back to 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck arrived in the Cape with Berber-Arabian ponies from Java.

Not many years after Van Riebeeck, a ship carrying 14 Arabian horses to Persia ran aground near Cape Town. The horses made it to shore, only to be captured and added to Van Riebeeck’s stables.

Around 250 years later, during the South African War, the boerperde contributed to the Boer soldier’s international fame as a skilled horseman.

Horses in the South African War c1899 to 1902

Sources
“The Collegiate Church and Parish of St Mary Port Elizabeth” by AT Wirgman and CE Mayo
Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the end of 1945 by Margaret Harradine (2004, Historical Society of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth)
“The Horse Memorial” by Margaret Harradine “Port Elizabeth’s most famous statue: the Horse Memorial” by Christine Marot Looking Back, Vol V No 3 (September 1965) pages 17 – 18
Narrative of the Equine War Memorial by Tennyson Bodill. Looking Back, Volume 22, June 1982, No 2
Juanita McLachlin
Penelope Forrest nee Phelps