Henry Arthur Bunton was the son of Walter Bunton and Marie Louise Pfeiffer. Their son, Henry Arthur Bunton, was born in July 1883 making him only 17 years old when the Anglo Boer War erupted in October 1899 yet at the age of 19 he joined Gorringe’s Flying Column.  This force was raised by Lt Col G F Gorringe in 1901 and served in Cape Colony against numerous Boer Commandos.

In 1916 Henry would again participate in a war but this time it would be during WW1 fighting not in the trenches in France but would serve in the South African Heavy Artillery Regiment.

Main picture: Henry aka Harry Bunton with his wife Grace on honeymoon

Walter Bunton was born in King’s Lynn in July 1883 becoming a Hotel Manager there. At some point he emigrated to the Cape Colony, ultimately running an hotel in Graaff Reinet where Henry Arthur Bunton was born in July 1883. It was here that Henry attended school at the Graaff Reinet College at which he obtained his matric in 1900 [Estimated]  

Bunton’s truncated first war
Gorringe’s Flying Column was raised in the Eastern Cape in January 1901 as one of the Colonial Defence Force Regiments and served under Colonel Gorringe until it was disbanded in December 1901.

Queen’s Medal awarded to Henry for service in the Anglo Boer War.

Gorringe’s Flying Column was a superb unit from their inception at Graaff Reinet on the 5th of January 1901. Whilst on anti commando duties they did a lot of hard work, yet they are often both, forgotten and very sadly, these days, underrated by a great many.

According to the unit’s Nominal Roll, Henry signed up on 5th April 1901. Surprisingly Henry’s service with this unit only lasted slightly in excess of two months as he was discharged on the 14th June 2001. 

The reason for his truncated service is unknown

Colonel, later Lieutenant-General, Sir George Frederick Gorringe was in November 1900 appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for services during the Boer War.

Units served in prior to WW1
Port Elizabeth Town Guard – Resigned
Gorringe’s Flying Column – Service expired
Western Province Mounted Rifles – Disbandment
Heavy Artillery – Disbandment
Source: Attestation Form

Henry Bunton changes direction
Henry’s father, Walter, was the main driving force in transforming the eponymously named Bunton’s Grand Hotel into an elegant hotel with a superior view over the Bay compared with either the Palmerston Hotel in Jeppe Street or the Phoenix Hotel in Market Square.

Two years after Henry’s abrupt discharge from military service during the ABW, his father died in 1903. Either Henry’s father Walter had not yet inculcated the ethos of hotel management into him, or Henry – nicknamed Harry – did not possess the same interest, enthusiasm and passion as his father. That begs the question of who managed the hotel until Henry was capable of doing so. This person came in the form of his mother, Marie Louise Pfeiffer, who grasped the reins and assumed the role as hotel manager. In 1911, she once again demonstrated her management skills when she was instrumental in extending the hotel on the Prospect Road side of the hotel. This expansion during 1911 and 1912 was probably as a consequence of the fact that the hotel was constantly using annexes to provide additional accommodation.

Service in WW1
Military service during WW1 was not mandatory. Even in the event that it was mandatory, why would a 33 year old who was not eligible for call-up volunteer for service. By that stage in his life Henry was presumably well-established as a manager of a successful hotel. By joining the military, who would run the hotel in his absence. Having been born in August 1855, in 1915 his mother – Marie Louise nee Pfeiffer – the ideal candidate was already superannuated at the age of 60. Did Henry find the prospect of fighting in another war as exciting, the very antithesis of running an hotel or was it an escape mechanism? On joining the Army in 1916 at the age of 34, Henry recorded his occupation as Hotel Manager.

Being purely voluntary, volunteers were able to select the unit in which they would serve. In the case of Port Elizabeth, the residents of the town supported the creation of a machine gun unit which would serve in France. Even though Henry was in all probability aware of the creation of this unit, he elected to serve in the Heavy Artillery.  

The South African Heavy Artillery (SAHA) was a regiment formed in 1915 as part of the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force to serve under British command during World War I. It never fought as a single formation, but contributed a number of batteries and brigades to the Royal Garrison Artillery that fought on the Western Front from 1916 until the Armistice.

Generic information on the SAHA during WW1
The following 6 paragraphs are a direct extraction from Wikipedia

The South African Union Defence Act of 1914 forbade the deployment of South African troops outside of its national borders and immediate surrounding territories. After the suppression of the Maritz rebellion and the successful conclusion of the South West Africa campaign at the beginning of World War I, the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force (SAOEF) was created in July 1915 to support the British Empire during the continuing war. It consisted of volunteers from the Union Defence Force (UDF) and had the status of Imperial troops under British command, rather than independent South African units.

South African Heavy Artillery Regiment
A heavy artillery brigade armed with 4.7-inch and 4-inch naval guns had served in the South West Africa campaign. It had been formed at Cape Town from volunteers from various UDF artillery regiments (including the Cape Garrison Artillery and the Durban Garrison Artillery) with a nucleus of officers and non-commissioned officers from the Royal Marine Artillery. This brigade reached a strength of 60 officers and 1000 men but was disbanded in July 1915 at the conclusion of the campaign, and shortly afterwards a 600-strong regiment of heavy artillery was formed for the SAOEF, largely from ex-members of the earlier brigade. When it sailed from Cape Town on 28 August 1915 it was organised into five batteries:

• No 1 (Western Cape Province) Battery, SAHA
• No 2 (Eastern Cape Province) Battery, SAHA
• No 3 (Transvaal) Battery, SAHA
• No 4 (Kimberley and the Diamond Districts) Battery, SAHA
• No 5 (Province of Natal) Battery, SAHA

Organisation and training
The regiment landed at Plymouth on 15 September and went to Cooden Camp, Bexhill-on-Sea, for general training. The British War Office decided to equip the SAHA as siege artillery attached to the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). Although numbered as RGA units, the batteries retained their SAHA cap badges and national identity. Under War Office Instruction No 276 of 20 October 1915, they were to be equipped with tractor-drawn 6-inch howitzers and organised as follows:

• Northern and Central South Africa Siege Brigade, RGA
  • 71st (Transvaal) Siege Battery, RGA
  • 72nd (Central and Diamond) Siege Battery, RGA
• Cape Province Siege Brigade, RGA
  • 73rd (Cape Peninsula) Siege Battery, RGA
  • 74th (Eastern and Port Elizabeth) Siege Battery, RGA
• Unbrigaded
  • 75th (Natal) Siege Battery, RGA

(The brigades and batteries soon dropped their provincial subtitles and became simply ‘South African’.)

The batteries went to the RGA training camp at Lydd in December where they were introduced to modern heavy guns, but did gun drill on 9.45-inch Skoda howitzers from the Second Boer War and their actual field firing with 8-inch rifled muzzle-loading howitzers dating from 1879. Other units under training at Lydd at this time included 69th and 76th Siege Btys.^[4][7]

On completion of training, each of the batteries was equipped with four 6-inch howitzers of the latest 26-cwt pattern. Mobilisation then began: the Northern and Central Brigade mobilised at Woolwich on 8 March 1916 as 44th (South African) Siege Brigade, RGA, and 71st (SA) Siege Bty at Fort Fareham on 6 April. They embarked at Southampton on 15 April and landed at Le Havre next day, followed by 72nd (SA) Siege Bty on 21 April. 75th (SA) Siege Bty arrived on 23 April, and 72nd and 73rd on 30 April. The Cape Province Siege Brigade did not mobilise until 30 April, when it became 50th (South African) Siege Brigade, RGA. It arrived in France in June, when it was assigned two British RGA batteries

Reinforcements
Immediately the first five batteries had begun mobilising, an additional 6-inch howitzer siege battery was formed on 3 April 1916 from the remaining SAHA details at Bexhill. This was 125th (SA) Siege Bty, which went to the Western Front in July.

At the end of 1916 a policy was adopted of increasing RGA batteries to six guns. Over the next year this was done by forming new batteries in England, and then breaking them up on arrival on the Western Front, sending them by sections to reinforce existing batteries. Three new South African 6-inch batteries were therefore formed:

• 496th (SA) Siege Bty formed about August 1917; arrived on Western Front February 1918 and split between 71st and 73rd (SA) Siege Btys
• 497th (SA) Siege Bty formed about August 1917; arrived on Western Front February 1918 and split between 72nd and 74th (SA) Siege Btys
• 542nd (SA) Siege Bty formed January 1918; arrived on Western Front May 1918 and split between 75th and 125th (SA) Siege Btys

In addition, 552nd (SA) Siege Bty, equipped with 8-inch howitzers, began to form in autumn 1918 but was too late to see action.

Service
When the SAHA units arrived on the Western Front the policy within the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was to move batteries frequently between brigades, which were designated Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs). On arrival, the South African batteries began registering targets for that summer’s ‘Big Push’ (the Battle of the Somme) but 71st and 72nd had to interrupt their preparations and move north to reinforce the Canadian Corps at the Battle of Mont Sorrel. They returned in time for the First day on the Somme, when 73rd and 74th (SA) Btys supported the diversionary Attack on the Gommecourt Salient as part of 46th HAG. All six South African batteries served during the Somme offensive. By late 1916 44th (SA) Bde was commanding heavy rather than siege batteries, including 22nd and 126th (Camberwell) Heavy Btys

The South African Heavy Artillery was demobilised after the Armistice.

The South African Heavy Artillery Memorial, including 6-inch howitzers brought back from the Western Front, stands in Pretoria, another at the Johannesburg Zoo and a 3rd Gun in Port Elizabeth. 

Market Square 1921. The South African Heavy Artillery Memorial unveiled by Field Marshall Earl Douglas Haig in April 1921

Addendums

Personal information

Details according to the Master File:
Surname: Bunton   Christian name: It is recorded as Henry Arthur but the word Henry is deleted and Harry inserted in pencil
Reg. No: 564 Rank: Gunner/ Bombardier S.A.H.A [SA Heavy Artillery]. Cpl 28.10.15 Sgt:27.12. 15
Battalion or Service:
S.A.O.E.F. = South African Overseas Expeditionary Force
South African Heavy Artillery from W.P.M.R. [Western Province Mounted Rifles
Depot 13.9.16 Depot/130 13.9.16
Religion:   C of E [Anglican]
Next-of-kin: Mother / Mrs W[alter] Bunton, Grand Hotel Port Elizabeth

Remarks:
Sailed for Cape Town 26.12.16. Medically unfit
Disembarked at Cape Town   HMAT [His Majesties Australian Transport] Nestor 5.2.17
Physically unfit for further war service
Address as above   Wynberg 8.2.17 (Dep No. 430)  

Repatriation to South Africa
As Henry was declared to be physically and medically unfit for further war service, he was discharged from
service.  He sailed for Cape Town was Southampton on the 6.12.16 aboard HMAT [His Majesties Australian Transport] Nestor, disembarking at Cape Town   on the 5th February 1917. Finally he was cleared through Wynberg on the 8th February 1917  

The HMAT A71 Nestor weighed 14,501 tons with an average cruise speed of 14 knots or 25.92 km per hour. It was owned by the Ocean SS Co Lts, Liverpool, and leased by the Commonwealth until the 26th June 1917.

Hospital ship Lanfranc

Commentary on Harry’s War
Henry was christened Henry Bunton yet used the nom de guerre Harry. In his Military File, the word Henry is scratched out and replaced with a pencilled Harry. What was the reason for disliking the name Henry?

A second anomaly arises in that Henry elected to enter military service at the relatively old age of 33 when he was the manager and owner of a thriving hotel. By doing so, he would either have to once more delegate the management of the hotel to his aged mother or alternatively employ a manager for the period of the war. Did this decision expose a possible dislike for the hotel business?

Post war
Unless his mother’s death was unexpected and sudden, letters from home must have relayed the condition of his mother’s health to him. On being discharged from Wynberg on the 7th February 1917, Henry would have been spurred to proceed with all haste to visit his mother in Port Elizabeth. She would die some 15 days later on the 23rd February.

Letter from Marie Bunton to her son Harry on the 25th October 1916

Bunton’s Grand Hotel                                                                PO Box 82
Port Elizabeth
South Africa
                                                                                                  October 25, 1916
My dearest Harry,
Sorry our letters only arrive tomorrow from you. So have nothing to answer. Shall be glad to hear what you will have to do and where? By this mail the Mr H.C. Hobson, mother and son and also one of Jonny Hobson’s Sons. They are both going in for flying [but] Mrs H did not ask me. If I had anything to send to you, so [that I] wouldn’t [have to] ask her, [I] shall send you by [the] next mail a Waistcoat and a Scarf, which I hope you will like. [It is] my own knitting. [I] gave the two Hobsons a pair of socks and the other a scarf. You must let me know how you like it and what you are most in need of. We have been fairly busy. [We] expect a rush on the 6th November. We get about 35 to 40 people for a XXXXXX XXXXXX and a dinner for 60 [is] guaranteed, 18/6 with wine, XXXXXX and XXXXXX etc – any French wine to be [charged as an] extra. Hope it will pay. Mrs Robertshaw is with me today. She sends her love & hopes you got her letter alright. How are you, my boy? Hope you keep well. Dora has been laid up with muscular rheumatism but is better. Joyce is lonely. [I] shall take these ladies out for a drive after he is finished with the trains. Lots of people [are] leaving. Hope we shall fill up again by the Walmer Castle.

Goodbye for today. Fondest love and all good wishes for you and all your Chums & may God bless you all & keep you well and bring you home safe & well. Fondest love from us all.

Your loving
Mother

Comments on the letter
Personal letters often draw back the curtain on hidden aspects of life in the past. Unlike genealogy, it is not a mere record of dates but provides some colour and texture to those lives.

Firstly some background
When Brister acquired this large house in Belmont Terrace in June 1885, he opened it as an hotel. ON the 3rd January 1889, Walter Bunton acquired the hotel and immediately renamed it Bunton’s Grand Hotel. Walter’s wife, Marie Louise, whom he had married in Graaff Reinett when managing a hotel there, gave birth to Henry in 1883. As Walter had presumably learnt the hotel trade from his father, John Pert Bunton, in King’s Lyn, Britain, he envisaged that his son, Henry Arthur would take over the hotel from him when he passed on. Life was cruel for Walter as the timing was inopportune as Walter passed away in 1903 when Henry was only 20 years old. As a callow youth, John had only served a cursory apprenticeship in hotel management but he did have his mother Marie who stepped into the breach. She proved to be more than capable in managing the hotel while Henry played soldier boy by joining Groginge’s Flying Column. During WW1, Henry would once again abandon his mother, now very elderly, to serve in the SA Artillery in France

The letter
The letter was written on the 25th October 1916 by Marie Bunton, Henry’s mother. On that date Henry was in the process of returning to South Africa having been discharged from the Army. In one way, the family was fortunate that Henry was coming home as Marie would only live for another 4 months, dying on the 23 February 1917. This death would propel Henry into finally accepting responsibility for the management of the hotel

The issues highlighted by the letter are as follows:

Flying
Marie makes a curious off-the-cuff comment alluding to flying: They are both going in for flying [but] Mrs H did not ask me. Without being aware that the first aircraft had not yet landed at Port Elizabeth, most people would read that statement to imply that flying in aircraft was readily available in Port Elizabeth whereas the first aircraft, Alister Miller in his BE2, nicknamed, Rio de Janeiro No1, would only land in the town in 11 months in the future [on 8th November 1917]. Unless Marie was psychic, she would have been unaware of that fact. Unless of course there is an alternative explanation for her comment.

Competition
Diagonally opposite the Grand Hotel, the luxurious King Edward had opened as an hotel in 1911 under R.S. Lambson but it only received a liquor licence in 1920 when Lambson’s licence for the “George” was transferred to the “King Edward”. Even though Marie does not make any mention of the King Edward hotel in this letter, it must have been a concern for the Buntons as it occupied the same clientele segment as the Grand Hotel.

Going for a drive
Were their any misogynistic views of women car drivers in that era? The nonchalant manner in which Marie mentions the fact that she is taking her friends for a drive implies that it was an acceptable practice that women drove vehicles. There is no hint of the anticipated route but it definitely not a trip around the Marine Drive as it was only opened in 1922.

Hotel occupancy
Marie Bunton stated that everyone is leaving so she hopes it will fill up again when the ship arrives. As the main quay was only completed in 1923, the passengers would have to alight into tug which would transfer the passengers to North Jetty. The process of alighting was treacherous as the passengers had to clamber down a rope ladder into a lighter or a tug bobbing in the water. The level of danger was a factor of the state of the sea with offloaded postponed for days during stormy weather.

Harry versus Henry
Walter’s eldest son was baptised as Henry Bunton yet his military and other records often use the name Harry. On his military record the name Harry is deleted and replaced in pencil with the name Harry.