Empire-Enlarging Genius Scottish Imperial Yeomanry

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry

Volunteers in the Boer War
E. W. McFarland
War In History 2006; 13; 299
DOI: 10.1191/0968344506wh340oa
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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’:
Scottish Imperial Yeomanry
Volunteers in the Boer War
E.W. McFarland
The article examines Scotland’s engagement with the Boer War, through
the medium of Imperial Yeomanry detachments raised locally between 1900
and 1902. Drawing partly on data from surviving attestation forms, a picture
is built up of the recruitment profiles, enlistment motivations, and war experi-
ences of these ‘soldier-citizens’. This volunteering phenomenon is placed in
the context of the Scottish military tradition and popular empire loyalty.
Geographically and socially inclusive, the ‘Scottish Yeomanry’ represented a
distinctive presence within the larger UK corps. Its war service captured the
popular imagination and helped reconnect public opinion with Scotland’s
role in the broader imperial project.
O ne Scottish veteran of the Boer War, writing in retrospect, saw it as

‘the shattering of all’, a bridge between the decades of peace and
prosperity and the onset of many far-reaching crises in national life.1,2
For recent historians, the emphasis is on paradox as well as transition.
The conflict emerges from the historiography as a ‘large small war’,
standing on the brink of the modern age – an essentially limited, but test-
ing, conflict, fought ‘about big ideas’.3 A number of other novel features
stand out. Fought against the background of a rising urban society, with
mass politics and the mass media now well entrenched, this was certainly
a struggle of competing ideologies. As a result, the war possessed an
uncontrollable quality, with military action rendered vulnerable to the
dictates of an imperfectly grasped public opinion. It was also a polarizing
experience, acting, as Surridge comments, ‘to produce confusion and
ambivalence, to highlight complexities found both within the group and
1
Thanks are due to Dr David Barrie for fieldwork assistance and to the staff of the
Scottish National War Museum, Edinburgh.
2
Edinburgh, Scottish War Museum, M2003 369: ‘Handwritten Memoirs of the Boer War
and Other Conflicts’, Franc P. Martin (n.d.).
3
B. Nasson, The South African War, 1899–1902 (London, 1999), pp. vii, xiv; K.T. Surridge,
Managing the South African War, 1899–1902 (Suffolk, 1998), p. 1.
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WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 300
300 E.W. McFarland
individual with regard to loyalty, motive and even identity’.4 Finally, this
distant colonial campaign had immediate local impact. In the after-
math of the First World War, commentators could dismiss it as a
‘parochial war’, but this was true in a literal sense as the telegraph, war
journalism, and above all the participation of literate civilian volun-
teers brought the distant glories and tragedies of the veldt into thou-
sands of British homes.5
The present article seeks to draw together these themes by examin-
ing a single military formation in its unique national context. The
focus is on Scottish companies of the Imperial Yeomanry (IY),
analysing substantive issues of recruitment profiles and combat experi-
ences, but also critically examining the place of this volunteering phe-
nomenon in Scottish popular culture. The parameters of the research
are therefore fairly straightforward. As a volunteer corps, the IY pro-
vide a striking example of the enforced improvisation and experimen-
tation that characterized the Boer War, and also the civilian and
military interface which this required. In practical terms, the unit
offers the historian an extensive set of attestation forms, completed for
recruits who had been accepted for service. Despite their comparative
simplicity, these records contain a wealth of raw data with which to
explore the social anatomy of enlistment, including age, county of
birth, marital status, occupation, and previous military service.6
Meanwhile, the focus on Scotland is suggested by its singular
engagement with the conflict. Despite a relatively small Scottish emi-
grant population, South Africa was to provide a laboratory for national
ambitions and self-awareness. By the end of the nineteenth century,
Scotland was already a small nation who saw its future in global terms,
its self-proclaimed imperial mission providing a more than adequate
salve for the lack of formal political autonomy. As one IY volunteer,
T. F. Dewar, reflected in 1901:
We have … so much reason to be proud of ourselves that I cannot
understand how any can be jealous of our greater neighbour. But
for our alliance with our Southron [sic] cousins we could never have
blossomed out in the way we have done. If England had not fallen,
by the laws of inheritance, into the hands of our Scots King James,
we should never have had adequate scope for our great energies,
4
D. Judd and K. Surridge, The Boer War, 1899–1902 (London, 2003), p. 2.
5
R. Auberon, The Nineteen Hundreds (London, 1922).
6
For an example of the forms in use at a ‘ceremony of attestation’, see the Scotsman, 11
January 1900. They were almost identical to the attestation documents used for
ordinary army recruits, with the important exception of a heading which set out the
limited duration of volunteer service. Most records also contain discharge papers,
although the amount of information on these is highly variable. They are held at the
National Archives, Public Records Office (PRO), London: WO 128/1–165. A total of
4525 forms were located for men successfully enlisting in Scotland for local IY units and
irregular corps affiliated to the IY. The Scottish Horse also recruited around 400 men in
Aldershot and London, but in the interests of consistency these records have not been
included in the present study.

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WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 301
‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 301
never have been able to manifest our colonising and empire-

enlarging genius!7
Indeed for many Scots, these ‘energies’ and ‘genius’ had an intrin-
sically martial cast. One of the pillars of Scottish identity was precisely a
reputation for military success in the service of the empire. The British
army had grown generally in popular esteem at the end of the nine-
teenth century, but the development of the Scottish military tradition
was a more deeply rooted phenomenon than veneration of popular gen-
erals, or the civic pride which had developed around local English regi-
ments. The iconography of the ‘Scottish soldier’ was the fruit of a
complex cultural process through which modern, urbanized Scots
deliberately welded a secure, if prosaic, present to a heroic past. Here
the ‘historic’ Highland infantry regiments claimed a defining role,
despite declining local recruitment. The forces that in the previous cen-
tury had threatened the security of the union settlement were now hailed
as its staunchest defenders.8 As Heather Streets has recently argued, this
conception formed part of a much broader imperial ideology of ‘martial
races’, which linked Highland Scots with other ‘born warriors’ such as
Punjabi Sikhs and Nepalese Gurkhas.9
However, the Boer War would be a source of questions as well as
opportunities for Scotland’s emotional investment in the empire. The
material and ethical consequences of Scottish imperial endeavour and
its future direction were brought sharply into focus, as debates over the
conduct of the war threatened the unity of the Liberal Party, which,
despite recent Unionist inroads, had managed to frame the horizon of
Scottish politics magisterially during much of the Victorian era. Was the
national mission to civilize or merely to accumulate wealth?10 Scotland’s
confident and outward-looking self-image also faced a crisis at a more
visceral level, as claims of warlike prowess were placed under closer
scrutiny following battlefield reverses in the early stages of the conflict.
Nevertheless, in adversity the Scottish military tradition rose to these
challenges, proving resilient and adaptable. As commentators have
recognized in the case of the colonial nations, military participation in
the Boer War built as well as tested national identity.11 In the Scottish
case, the role of civilian volunteers in units such as the IY was even able
7
T.F. Dewar, With the Scottish Yeomanry (Arbroath, 1901), pp. 184–85. For a full discussion,
see G. Morton, Unionist Nationalism: Governing Scotland, 1830–1860 (E. Linton, 1999).
8
S. Allen and A. Carswell, The Thin Red Line: War, Empire and Visions of Scotland
(Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 20–27. See, for example, L. Valentine, Heroes of the United Service
(London, n.d. [c.1900]), pp. 5–8.
9
H. Streets, Born Warriors: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture,
1857–1914 (Manchester, 2004), pp. 3–4.
10
S.J. Brown, ‘“Echoes of Midlothian”: Scottish Liberalism and the South African War’,
Scottish Historical Review LXXI (1992), pp. 156–83; see also M. Fry, Scottish Empire
(Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 340–45.
11
Judd and Surridge, Boer War, pp. 77–80; Nasson, South African War, p. 80.

© 2006 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or War in History 2006 13 (3)
WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 302
302 E.W. McFarland
to temper the doubts of political elites over the South African project
through a populist restatement of a broader imperial destiny.
I. Raising the Imperial Yeomanry

In order to grasp the ways in which the IY’s image of practical empire
loyalty claimed its place in Scotland’s collective consciousness, we
should start from the circumstances of the force’s creation.
The Yeomanry Cavalry were far from obvious candidates to enter the
Scottish pantheon of military heroes. The rise of the volunteering move-
ment from the mid-nineteenth century had indeed been more strongly
represented in Scotland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but
these self-improving ‘citizens in arms’, drawn from the middle class and
skilled working class in urban, industrial areas, were quite distinct in
their social profile and ethos from the auxiliary cavalry regiments.12
Although one new contingent was raised in Glasgow in 1848, most of
the county yeomanry regiments owed their origins to the invasion threat
from revolutionary France at the end of the previous century.13 Con-
centrated in the Scottish lowlands, they had remained exclusive rural
bodies, officered by the aristocracy and gentry and with substantial local
farmers comprising the bulk of their rank and file.14 More importantly,
during the first half of the nineteenth century, they had been deployed as
an adjunct to the civil powers to maintain public order amid local waves
of political unrest. This record immediately set them at a distance from
the mainstream liberal and progressive tradition that still shaped
Scottish civil society in the late Victorian era. In Ayrshire, for example,
the nickname acquired by the local regiment during the ‘Radical War’
of 1820 – ‘soor-dooks’ – remained firmly entrenched in popular usage.15
Nor did the military establishment hold the professional reputation
of the yeomen in much higher regard. By the end of the nineteenth
century, the remaining regiments, now chasing foxes in lieu of rad-
icals, had become an essential part of county society. But social cachet
was no guarantee of military efficiency. Virtually untouched by the
Cardwell reforms, they remained governed by statutes dating from
1804. With numbers in decline, not only were they the most costly of
12
I. Beckett, The Amateur Military Tradition, 1558–1945 (Manchester, 1991), p. 168.
13
The Glasgow and Lower Ward of Lanarkshire Yeomanry Cavalry provided the escort for
Queen Victoria’s visit to the city in 1849 and were re-designated the Queen’s Own Royal
Regiment: T.L. Galloway, The Queen’s Own Glasgow Yeomanry, 1848–1948 (Glasgow,
1948).
14
P.J.R. Mileham, The Yeomanry Regiments (Tunbridge Wells, 1985), p. 11; W.S. Cooper,
A History of the Ayrshire Yeomanry Cavalry (Edinburgh, 1881).
15
‘Sour milks’ – castigating the quality of the milk they supplied to local markets in their
capacity as farmers: W. Steele Brownlie, The Proud Trooper: The History of the Ayrshire (Earl
of Carrick’s Own) Yeomanry from Its Raising in the Eighteenth Century till 1964 (London,
1964), p. 124. See also Yeomanry Record, August 1892, p. 63, for equally unflattering
soubriquets.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 303
the auxiliary forces, but their rather timeless quality also hinted at the
lack of clearly defined role in imperial defence.16
Yet, not for the first time in modern Scottish history would military
necessity weld this intractable material into an evolving national narra-
tive like the transition from ‘Highland rebel’ to ‘Scottish soldier’, the
journey from ‘Yeoman Cavalry’ to ‘Imperial Yeomanry’ involved cultural
redefinition as well as rapid organizational change, though the latter was
more immediately apparent. The strategic imperatives and the precise
administrative arrangements at work here are well documented.17 The
advent of the IY followed the successive disasters of ‘Black Week’ in
December 1899, with General Buller’s call for ‘mounted infantry’ after
the defeat of Colenso dramatically removing War Office objections to vol-
unteer assistance. Accordingly, the initial contingent of IY volunteers was
raised during the first three months of 1900, through the medium of
standing yeomanry regiments throughout the United Kingdom which
were asked to ‘sponsor’ service companies of existing yeomen and new
civilian recruits. The new corps of 10 242 men was organized in battalions,
each of four companies, with recruits serving for 12 months or the dur-
ation of the war at cavalry rates of pay. As the war continued to demand
increased manpower, local yeomanry regiments were again involved in
recruiting the second contingent or ‘New Yeomanry’, numbering 16 597
men, during January and February of 1901. Enjoying improved condi-
tions of service, some of these recruits formed new companies, but the
majority were used as drafts to replenish existing units. A third contingent
of 7239 – the ‘1902 Yeomanry’ – followed in the autumn of 1901 to 1902.18
While following these broad contours, the Scottish experience of
raising the IY had a number of characteristic features which promoted
the development of a strong national profile within the UK-wide for-
mation. From the outset in January 1900, the Scottish press attached
considerable importance to the announcement that ‘a distinctly
Scottish battalion was to receive Scottish recruits’.19 The four Scottish
16
Beckett, Amateur Military Tradition, p. 189. In 1899 the establishment of the yeomanry in
Britain stood at 11 891, a 17% decrease since 1887: Royal Commission on the War in South
Africa [Elgin Commission] (1903), I, p. 70.
17
See, for example, Anglesey, Marquess of, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, 4 vols
(London, 1986), IV, pp. 87–103; W.J. Reader, ‘At Duty’s Call’: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism
(Manchester, 1988), pp. 10–15; T. Pakenham, The Boer War (London, 1992), pp. 252–53.
18
Statistics from Annual Report of Inspector General of Recruiting for Year 1900, Reports, vol.
IX, Cd 519 (1901); Annual Report of Inspector General of Recruiting for Year 1901, Reports,
vol. X, Cd 962 (1902); Annual Report of Inspector General of Recruiting for Year 1902,
Reports, vol. XI, Cd 1417 (1903). See also PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry:
report on drafts raised for service in South Africa, December 1902.
19
Scotsman, 11 January 1900. The Ayrshire Yeomanry and the Lanarkshire Yeomanry raised the
17th Company; the Queen’s Own Royal Glasgow and Lower Ward of Lanark Yeomanry, the
18th Company; the Lothians and Berwickshire Yeomanry, the 19th company. The 20th
Company was sponsored by the 1st Fifeshire Light Horse Volunteers and the 1st Forfarshire
Light Horse Volunteers. The latter regiments were actually part of the volunteer force and
differed from the yeomanry in terms of their constitution and conditions of service, despite
strong social affinities. They merged to form the Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry in 1901:
G. Burgoyne, The Fife and Forfar Imperial Yeomanry and Its Predecessors (Cupar, 1904); P.
Mileham, ed., ‘Clearly My Duty’: Jack Gilmour’s Letters from the Boer War (E. Linton, 1996), p. xiii.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 304
304 E.W. McFarland
regiments of yeomanry and two of Light Horse Volunteers proceeded to

sponsor four IY companies which formed the 6th (Scottish) Battalion.
Additional ‘freelance’ assistance in recruiting was at a particular pre-
mium here, since the local yeomanry organization was less extensive than
in England. The raising of independent units was, of course, a striking
feature of the conflict, but in the Scottish case these aspired to a distinc-
tive historical pedigree. Drawing on bonds of personal loyalty, the
Highland magnate Lord Lovat, hereditary chief of the Fraser clan, set the
pace in January 1900 with the raising of a specialist scouting corps of
236 men at Beaufort Castle estate in Inverness-shire.20 The Scottish
military tradition was also consciously invoked in the creation of the
Scottish Horse, whose ‘truly imperial’ character underlined the readily
exportable nature of Scottish identity.21 Formed in December 1900, the
original regiment consisted chiefly of Scots resident in South Africa, but,
‘wishing to command a more representative Scottish corps’, their origin-
ator, Lord Tullibardine, son of the Duke of Atholl, encouraged the rais-
ing of further drafts of men direct from Scotland and Australia in
February 1901. The new regiment contributed over 200 men to the sec-
ond IY contingent, and continued to dispatch squadrons to replenish
their original field force throughout the war. Indeed during May and
June 1901, the Scottish Horse and Lovat Scouts raised between them over
400 men for overseas duty independently of the main UK intakes.22
According to the surviving attestation forms, the first IY contingent in
Scotland numbered at least 803 – 7.8% of the UK total.23 By the raising of
the second contingent, the momentum for the creation of an assertive
Scottish presence was already well under way. Two new companies, the
107th and 108th, were created in Glasgow and Lanarkshire. Assisted by
the opening of a new Edinburgh recruiting office, the new intake con-
stituted 9.8% of total second-force recruitment in Scotland, estimated
officially at 1626.24 With unit integrity threatened by the draft system
20
Elgin Commission, I, p. 19; M.L. Melville, The Story of the Lovat Scouts, 1900–1980
(Edinburgh, 1981), pp. 5–6. Technically, only the 2nd and 3rd contingents were
designated as ‘yeomanry’.
21
Marchioness of Tullibardine, A Military History of Perthshire, 1899–1902 (Perth 1908),
pp. 30–37; PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, pp. 36 –37. For attestation forms for
South African regiment, see PRO, WO 126/122–6.
22
PRO, WO 128/1–165.
23
The surviving forms do not correspond exactly to actual recruiting figures, but still
represent a very substantial sample of those accepted for enlistment. Individual gaps, for
example, exist where records have been removed for pension purposes. A few larger
gaps (ranging from 40 to 143) are also apparent in the numerical sequence of forms.
The problem is compounded by the patchy nature of official statistics themselves and by
their lack of specific data on Scottish recruitment. Judging by company establishment
requirements and regimental estimates, the forms for the first contingent, however, seem
largely complete. For the second contingent the 1325 surviving forms represent 83% of
the official total of Scottish enlistments. (The largest discrepancies are in the case of the
Royal Glasgow Yeomanry and the Edinburgh recruiting office figures.) Again using
regimental data, the third-contingent forms seem to map more closely onto recruitment.
As regards individual units, records for the Scottish Horse and Lovat Scouts seem
particularly comprehensive.
24
PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, p. 118.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 305
and the centralization of training at Aldershot, officers reported that

‘all the Scottish recruits were desirous of joining the 6th (Scottish)
Battalion in South Africa, and difficulty occurred in securing men,
unless a promise was given that they should join a Scottish corps’.25
These lessons were learnt in the organization of the final IY contin-
gent, the largest sent from Scotland, whose 1948 recruits were trained
at a dedicated depot in Edinburgh rather than being sent south.26
Again, the military authorities were convinced that this force would
not have been so rapidly formed if it had not been allowed to enlist for
a specially designated Scottish battalion. The presence of further con-
tingents of the Lovats and Scottish Horse, the latter now recruiting
heavily in Edinburgh, continued to bolster enlistment, assisted by
another improvised unit, ‘Fincastle’s Horse’, led by Lieutenant
Colonel Fincastle VC, who personally raised five squadrons during
1901–1902.27 With the flow of volunteers elsewhere in Britain retarded
by the decision initially to use regular army recruiting depots in pref-
erence to the yeomanry centres, the Scottish presence now loomed
even larger, constituting 18.95% of the UK total.
As Table 1 suggests, the cumulative effect of the various recruitment
initiatives was the creation of a corps in which the Scottish regions
were well represented. The lowland population centres provided the
majority of enlistments (66%), but there was also a substantial leaven-
ing from the Highlands. Rapidly outgrowing its ‘county’ origins, the IY
could thus combine strong territorial loyalties with the pretensions of
a national force. Indeed, 93.5% of recruits were Scottish born, with
Table 1 IY recruits by place of enlistment
No. (% of total enlistments)
Edinburgh 1350 (29.8)

Glasgow 1146 (25.3)
Cupar 466 (10.2)
Beaufort Castle 431 (9.5)
Inverness 331 (7.3)
Ayr 277 (6.1)
Lanark 219 (4.8)
Perth 162 (3.6)
Aberdeen 93 (2.0)
Other 50 (1.1)
Total 4525 (99.7)
25
Op. cit., p. 20. A new ‘Caledonian Horse’ regiment was even mooted as an alternative to
organizing men in drafts.
26
Op. cit., p. 20.
27
Op. cit., p. 257.

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306 E.W. McFarland
locally raised detachments displaying strong roots in their counties of

origin.28
Scottish volunteering in the war was not, of course, confined to this
effort. Along with the call for mounted troops, the infantry volunteer
force was asked to raise ‘Volunteer Service Companies’ to reinforce
the regular battalions with which they were affiliated. Around 5000 of
these Scottish infantry volunteers served in South Africa.29 However,
unlike these troops, the IY recruits did not have the opportunity to
draw on the reputations of the famous Scottish regiments of the line.
Instead they had to construct their own mythology, the starting point
being the social profile and motivation of the men who volunteered
for service in South Africa.
II. Recruitment Profiles

In UK terms, it was the first contingent of the IY who undoubtedly
shaped general perceptions of the new force. Published memoirs
flowed almost exclusively from the 1900 intake, while literary contem-
poraries such as Conan Doyle were equally lyrical on its reputation for
spontaneous patriotism and sporting instinct: ‘eight-thousand men
from every class … wearing the grey coats and bandoliers’.30 The ‘1902
Yeomanry’ is perhaps easily overlooked since its active service was limited,
but it is the fate of the second and largest UK-wide IY intake that is the
most intriguing. When the ‘New Yeomanry’ does appear in primary
accounts it is in the role of the poor relation, dismissed not only as
‘socially inferior’, but as lacking in basic military competence. Indeed the
two failings were seen as intimately related. As is clear from the evidence
presented to the Elgin Commission, this dismissal was partly due to the
abiding scepticism of career soldiers for amateur formations, but more
specifically for some officers, such as Major-General Sir Charles Knox, it
was the opening up of yeomanry ranks to ‘townsmen’ in the second
intake which encouraged men who were ‘very bad; they could not be any-
thing else’.31 The contrast was also drawn in the strongest terms between
the ‘patriotism’ of the first intake and the economic motivation of the
second: as Sir Thomas Kelly-Kenny concluded, ‘I think we had to buy
28
This was particularly evident in the Highland recruiting areas: 87% of those enlisting
in Inverness and 74% at Beaufort Castle were born in the surrounding counties. In
Ayrshire 67% of recruits were born in the county, with 63% in the cases of Cupar and
Lanarkshire. The main recruiting grounds for the Lovats were Aberdeen, Caithness,
Orkney, Outer Hebrides, Ross and Cromarty, Shetland, and Sutherland. Besides
Edinburgh, the Scottish Horse recruited chiefly from Aberdeenshire, Argyllshire,
Moray, and Nairn.
29
Perhaps another 400 served in the artillery and other specialist corps: D. Sinclair, The
History of the Aberdeen Volunteers (Aberdeen, 1910), pp. 235–36; General J.M. Grierson,
Record of the Scottish Volunteer Force, 1859–1908 (Edinburgh, 1909), pp. 92–96.
30
A. Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War (London, 1900), p. 199.
31
Elgin Commission, I, pp. 73, 299.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 307
them, and rather dearly too.’32 His view was echoed by some first-
contingent veterans themselves, who compared the ‘Five Shilling
Yeomanry’ recruited on preferential terms with the financial sacrifice
entailed by their own service.33
These distinctions have also been widely taken up by historians,
though it is in an early study by Price that the differing motivations of
the contingents are made to carry particular analytical weight.34 As
part of a broader examination of working-class attitudes to the Boer
War, he examined recruitment patterns, using UK-wide attestation
data for the IY, to test the links between social class and patriotism. The
greatest non-working-class enlistment peaked very early in the war in
January 1900, amid scenes of ‘frenetic patriotism’, and thereafter this
group would never again comprise so large a proportion of the force.
Instead the IY was sustained by a large working-class influx in early 1901,
and again in 1902, peaking in January of that year. This movement, Price
suggests, was related to unfavourable labour-market conditions, with a
strong relationship between volunteering and economic security. The
working-class response to national crisis, he concludes, ‘seems to have
been selfishly related to the necessities of living rather than to fear for
the security of the Empire. It is thus probable that the working-class
reaction to imperial ventures was not governed by the patriotism that
was attributed to them’.35
Subsequent work has challenged this analysis, pointing notably to
the wider ‘environmental’ pressures of British popular imperialism
through both education and entertainment.36 Here the case of Scotland
presents a particularly useful case study, for although the contours of IY
recruitment emerge as broadly similar to the British experience, the way
that this was negotiated in cultural terms was distinctive, reflecting the
role of the Scottish military tradition as a component of national iden-
tity. As a starting point, the Scottish IY attestation data has been used
below to offer a detailed occupational breakdown of those who enlisted
across the various contingents from 1900 to 1902. The records have also
been mined for valuable additional information, such as previous
apprenticeships and destinations after service.37
Uniting the various Scottish contingents was, first, the youth of those
who volunteered, largely conforming to the nationally imposed age lim-
its of 20 and over, and under 35. A total of 88% of surviving attestations
were of men under 30, with 68% under 25. The largest single age
32
Op. cit., I, p. 72.
33
A.S. Orr, With the Scottish Yeomanry in South Africa, 1900–1901: A Record of the Work and
Experiences of the Glasgow and Ayrshire Company (Glasgow, 1901), p. 146.
34
R. Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class: Working Class Attitudes and
Reactions to the Boer War, 1899–1902 (London, 1972), pp. 178–232.
35
Op. cit., p. 262.
36
M.D. Blanch, ‘British Society and the War’, in P. Warwick, ed., The South African War,
1899–1902 (Harlow, 1980), pp. 210–30; E. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902
(Manchester, 1902), pp. 189–203.
37
Price, Imperial War, pp. 206–207, for his discussion of methodological issues.

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308 E.W. McFarland
group recruited into the IY were 20-year-olds, compared with 18–19-year-

olds into the regular army.38 The great majority (96%) were unmar-
ried. Their occupational breakdown is set out in Table 2, broadly
mirroring Scotland’s male occupational structure at the beginning of
the twentieth century, with its strong presence in the manufacturing
sector. Although skilled workers constitute the largest grouping, the
semi- and unskilled presence is also significant.39 Within these categor-
ies, it is clerks who are the top individual occupation enlisting (7.7%),
followed by joiners (4.8%), farmers (4.5%), grooms (4.4%), engineers
(4.2%), and labourers (4.1%). The presence of estate workers, stalk-
ers, and ghillies was the product of personalized recruiting calls in the
north. Indeed, the very diversity of callings, ranging from taxidermist
to tea taster, from coffee planter to golf-club maker, was striking, fur-
ther distinguishing the new force from both the regular army and pre-
vious auxiliary cavalry units. Systematic comparison with Price’s
UK-wide statistics is difficult, given differences in classification and in
broadly compositing occupational categories, but it would appear that
the ‘non-working class’ element was less significant in the Scottish
case, comprising 27% of total recruitment, compared with 38% in the
UK generally. Some key groups such as farmers and ‘gentlemen’ cer-
tainly appear to have been less well represented over the total period
of recruitment, further suggesting a more complete break with county
yeomanry antecedents.40
Table 2 Total IY recruits by occupational categories
No. (% of total enlistments)
Skilled workers 1277 (28.2)

Technical, commercial and other white collar 838 (18.5)
Semi/unskilled workers 824 (18.2)
Equine trades 553 (12.2)
Farmers 202 (4.6)
Professional and managerial 181 (4.0)
Agricultural workers 168 (3.8)
Public sector and allied workers 144 (3.2)
Service trades and servants 131 (3.0)
Estate workers 128 (2.9)
Not recorded 79 (1.7)
Total 4525 (100.3)
38
PRO, WO 128/1–165: there were 23 under-age recruits and 73 who admitted to being
over 35.
39
Clearly definitional issues exist around this boundary. The incidence of men reporting
served apprenticeships has been used as an indicator of where a particular occupation
should be located.
40
Price, Imperial War, p. 202. Farmers constitute 7.9% of enlistments in the UK study,
compared with 4.6% for Scotland; gentlemen represented 6.3%, compared with 0.4%.
It is difficult to compare other occupations such as ‘clerk’, as Price has included these
in a broader ‘commerce’ grouping.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 309
However, much more significant is the complex and shifting pattern

of enlistment by occupational grouping revealed in Table 3, which
offers an occupational breakdown by intake. In addition to the
Scottish component of the three main UK contingents in 1900, early
1901, and autumn 1901 to 1902, it includes a breakdown of the unique
Lovat Scouts and Scottish Horse intake in the late spring of 1901.
There are three general observations to be made here. The first con-
cerns the composition of the 1900 intake. As elsewhere in the UK, the
popular imagination in Scotland was at once engaged by the way in
which the initial call for IY volunteers seemed to transcend class barriers.
As one local Ayrshire weekly enthused: ‘Thousands offer to go … from
castle and cottage, from the office, the mine, the factory comes the same
cry: “Take me”.’41 These claims are not without foundation. The first
contingent in Scotland did continue to draw on the occupations associ-
ated with the old yeomanry tradition, such as farmers and the equine
trades, who comprised a combined 20.3% of total enlistments. Indeed
serving yeomen were particularly welcome in the new companies, with
59% of the intake declaring previous military experience.42 This com-
pares favourably with Beckett’s estimate of 22.42% of the entire UK male
population aged 17–40 who in 1898 had ‘some current or previous mil-
itary or quasi-military experience’.43 Yet the new companies also had a
broader appeal to ‘civilians’. Gentleman rankers, like Charles Kennedy,
the son of the Marquess of Ailsa, who joined the Ayrshire company as a
trooper, added to the glamour of the new force, but it was men from
professional and white-collar occupations, notably clerks (12.5%) and
students and professional apprentices (4.8%), who formed the real
backbone of enlistments (42.3%), though skilled workers, including
engineers (5.8%) and joiners (2.7%), were also represented (18.9%).44
Second, while the recruitment of farmers, gentlemen, students, and
the professional middle classes tailed off dramatically after 1900, as in
the rest of the UK, enlistments from other ‘junior’ white-collar groups
actually rose with the second and third contingents in Scotland. This
was the case for seven out of the eight main occupations in the ‘tech-
nical, commercial, and other white-collar’ group, but was particularly
evident in the case of clerks, grocers, salesmen, and travellers. Table 4
illustrates their pattern of recruitment across intakes.
The third aspect of the changing social profile of recruitment is the
accelerated involvement of working-class occupational groups not pre-
viously associated with the Yeomanry Cavalry tradition. For example,
the enlistment of agricultural workers increased 89% between the first
and final intakes (Table 3). This was a group who in the past had
41
Irvine Herald, 22 December 1899.
42
For recruitment of existing yeomen, see Scotsman, 2 January 1900.
43
Beckett, Amateur Military Tradition, p. 200.
44
See Elgin Commission, III, p. 331, for the Earl of Scarborough’s partial breakdown
of his company raised for the Yorkshire Yeomanry Dragoons. The proportion of
traditional yeomanry trades seems similar, but clerks (9%) are slightly lower.

310
WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd
War in History 2006 13 (3)

Table 3 Occupational breakdown by intakea
E.W. McFarland
Farmers Agricultural Estate Equine Skilled Unskilled Service Public Middle Middle Not Intake
27-4-2006
workers staff trades class (prof- class recorded totals

essional) (other)
17:59
No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No. (%) No.
Intake 1 98 (12.2) 10 (1.2) 41 (5.1) 69 (8.6) 152 (18.9) 34 (4.2) 11 (1.4) 6 (0.7) 110 (13.7) 224 (27.9) 48 803
Intake 2 49 (3.6) 27 (2.0) 2 (0.1) 202 (14.9) 440 (32.5) 224 (16.7) 40 (3) 51 (3.8) 33 (2.4) 274 (20.3) 10 1352
LS/SH 18 (4.3) 42 (9.95) 46 (10.9) 49 (10.9) 91 (21.5) 76 (18.0) 8 (1.9) 33 (7.8) 8 (1.8) 51 (12) 0 422
Page 310
Intake 3 37 (1.9) 89 (4.6) 39 (2) 233 (12) 594 (30.5) 490 (25.2) 72 (3.7) 54 (2.8) 30 (1.5) 289 (14.8) 21 1948
Occupational 202 168 128 553 1277 824 131 144 181 838 79 4525
totals
a
Intake 1, January–March 1900; Intake 2, January–February 1901; LS/SH: Lovat Scouts/Scottish Horse, May–June 1901; Intake 3, September 1901 to May
1902.
© 2006 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 311
Table 4 Distribution of selected white-collar occupations across intakea
Intake 1 Intake 2 LS/SH Intake 3 Total

No. (% of No. (% of No. (% of No. (% of
total total total total
occupation) occupation) occupation) occupation)
Clerk 101 (29.5) 108 (31.6) 20 (5.8) 113 (33.0) 342

Grocer 10 (9.5) 38 (36.1) 10 (9.5) 47 (44.7) 105
Student and 39 (54.9) 19 (26.7) 9 (12.7) 4 (5.6) 71
professional
apprentice
Salesman 6 (12.5) 15 (31.3) 0 27 (56.2) 48
Traveller 13 (30.2) 13 (30.2) 3 (7.0) 14 (32.5) 43
Gentleman 17 (100) 0 0 0 17
a
Intake 1, January–March 1900; Intake 2, January–February 1901; LS/SH: Lovat
Scouts/Scottish Horse, May–June 1901; Intake 3, September 1901 to May 1902.
joined the militia rather than enter yeomanry ranks, which had
remained their employers’ preserve. Also significant is the surge in
skilled and unskilled workers’ participation, both in absolute and in
relative terms, as part of the expanded second intake of January to
March 1901. This was evident across all of the top eight individual
occupations comprising the ‘skilled’ and ‘semi/unskilled’ categories.
Skilled workers now became the largest occupational group in the new
contingent (32.5%), pushing white-collar workers into second place
(20.3%). The growth in participation between the first and second
intakes was even more rapid in the case of the semi/unskilled trades,
now constituting 16.7% of the force. This confirms the impressions of
officers at the Scottish yeomanry depots, who found recruits, ‘perhaps,
socially not up to the same standing as last year’.45
Continued participation from these groups also ensured that the
Lovats/Scottish Horse intake formed later in 1901 were fairly mixed in
composition, though the emphasis on field-craft skills in the specialist
detachments meant estate workers retained an important presence
(10.9%) relative to other intakes. As elsewhere in the UK, the climax
of this ‘democratizing’ process came with the creation of the third
contingent from the end of 1901 to 1902. A total of 56% of this intake
were drawn from the Scottish urban centres, compared with 46% in
1900. Although skilled workers continued to be the single largest
group (30.5%), supported particularly by rising enlistment from join-
ers, masons, and butchers, there was a rapid rise in enlistments in
some of the semi/unskilled trades, now comprising 25.2% of the total
45
PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, appendix 18, pp. 120–30. In Lanarkshire,
recruitment was from ‘a superior class of tradesmen’, while in Edinburgh from ‘mostly
wage-earning mechanics and clerks earning up to 30s. per week’.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 312
312 E.W. McFarland
Table 5 Main skilled and unskilled occupations across intakea
Intake 1 Intake 2 LS/SH Intake 3 Total

No. (% of No. (% of No. (% of No. (% of
total total total total
occupation) occupation) occupation) occupation)
Joiner 22 (10.3) 69 (32.4) 12 (5.6) 110 (51.6) 213

Mason 6 (4.2) 49 (34.0) 19 (13.1) 70 (48.6) 144
Labourer 3 (1.6) 30 (16.5) 24 (13.2) 125 (68.7) 182
Miner 0 36 (24.3) 3 (2.0) 109 (73.6) 148
Butcher 6 (5.8) 40 (38.5) 10 (11.5) 48 (46.1) 104
Plumber 4 (5.4) 30 (40.5) 6 (8.1) 34 (45.9) 74
Baker 9 (13.6) 22 (33.3) 1 (1.5) 30 (45.4) 62
a
Intake 1, January–March 1900; Intake 2, January–February 1901; LS/SH: Lovat
Scouts/Scottish Horse, May–June 1901; Intake 3, September 1901 to May 1902.
intake. As Table 5 suggests, the increased involvement from labourers

and miners was particularly striking. Indeed, only 21% of this contin-
gent had served an apprenticeship, compared with an average of 38%
in the previous intakes.
Social mobility in the ranks of the later intakes was more than
matched by the changing composition of the officer corps. One of the
greatest challenges with the formation of the new force was in securing
officers.46 While some were provided from the volunteer force and
militia battalions, both traditionally considered ‘socially inferior’ to
the county yeomanry regiments, others came from rankers returning
from service with the first contingent. The 20th Fife and Forfarshire
Company yielded eight of these promotions, and the 17th Ayrshire
and Lanarkshire and 18th Glasgow six each, but the Scottish Horse
proved an even more fruitful source, with 46 men promoted from the
ranks.47 Few aspects of the expanding IY would prove as controversial
with the army establishment.48
To sum up, in contrast to Price’s division of the IY into a simple two-
class model of ‘working-’ and ‘non-working-class’ recruits, the preced-
ing discussion has sought to retain the richness of the occupational
data captured in the original attestation forms. The resultant profiles
illustrate the heterogeneous and shifting nature of the volunteering
phenomenon which surrounded the IY – quite distinct from enlist-
ment patterns into the regular army and from traditional yeomanry
recruiting. This is an important basis from which to consider IY mobil-
ization in more qualitative terms. Here, unlike Price, it will be argued
that economic rationality and patriotism were far from hermetically
46
Elgin Commission, I, p. 41.
47
Op. cit., II, 455; Trooper 9176 [J.P. Sturrock], The Fifes in South Africa (Cupar, 1903),
pp. 181–90; Orr, Scottish Yeomanry in South Africa, pp. 154 –55.
48
Anglesey, History, IV, pp. 97–99.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 313
sealed, with ‘patriotism’ and indeed ‘empire’ deeply nuanced and open
to a range of interpretations.
III. Enlistment Decisions

Analysis of the impulses behind patterns of voluntary enlistment is
notoriously difficult. An obvious starting point in the case of the IY is the
emotional climate at the end of 1899. Here it is at once apparent that the
general foreboding produced by the news of Black Week was attended
by a particular bitterness and poignancy in Scotland. The source was
a national disaster without recent precedent. At Magersfontein on the
night of 10 December, the Highland Brigade had marched in close for-
mation into the face of concealed enemy trenches. As dawn broke, the
Boers opened fire. By the end of the battle, over 700 soldiers from
Scotland’s most prestigious regiments lay dead – the Black Watch alone
lost 19 officers and 300 men. Among the fallen lay the brigade com-
mander, Major General ‘Andy’ Wauchope, shot down before he could
take control of the battle. Already a household name in Scotland,
Wauchope was described as ‘a high type – one might almost say an
ideal – of the Scottish character’, combining a glittering record of impe-
rial service with the distinctly Presbyterian virtues of modesty, hard work,
and stoicism.49 To a nation accustomed to small-scale colonial cam-
paigns, losses on this scale were difficult to sustain, weighing grievously
on local communities who formed the traditional recruiting grounds for
the regiments.50 However, worse was to come when the Natal column’s
commander, Lord Methuen, hinted that Wauchope had been himself
to blame for the disaster, even chastising a parade of Highland Brigade
survivors for quitting the field.51
With the blow to national pride complete, the intimation that the War
Office would accept volunteers for service in South Africa coincided with
the publication of the first casualty lists.52 The sense that Scotland had
now been rudely challenged to ‘accept the dread arbitrament of war’ rap-
idly gained ground in both press and pulpit.53 The fact that recruiting
rhetoric failed to develop further at this stage was largely due to the
instantaneous response to the volunteer call. For the moment, even
the fissures in Scottish public opinion that had begun to open up over
the elusiveness of victory were shelved, though for many Scots there
49
Glasgow Herald, 14 December 1899; G. Douglas, Life of Major General Wauchope CB, CMG,
LLB (London, 1904), p. 4; see also W. Baird, General Wauchope (Edinburgh, 1901).
50
People’s Journal, 23 December 1899, for the impact on Dundee, one of the Black Watch’s
main urban recruiting areas.
51
PRO, WO 132/14 (16), Lord Methuen’s Despatches, 4 January 1900; Pakenham, Boer
War, p. 240.
52
Scotsman, 15–18 December 1899; Glasgow Herald, 15 December 1899.
53
Scotsman, 19 December 1899, for sermon of Revd Wallace Williamson, a personal friend
of Wauchope, at St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh. Note also the Revd J.R. Scoular’s address to
the IY recruits at Cupar: Scotsman, 22 January 1900.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 314
314 E.W. McFarland
remained an insistent desire to distinguish the local enlistment response

from mere jingoistic effusion. As one local Liberal weekly expressed it:
For the soldier-citizen it is not a question of Boer versus Briton; it is
a question of the maintenance of one of the humane and mighty
powers of the world … ‘Defence not Defiance’ is the motto of our
auxiliary force, and their employment … lifts the war to the level of
a fight for national existence.54
How far did these sentiments really drive the IY’s ‘soldier-citizens’?
In most of the published memoirs of those who served in the first con-
tingent, patriotic impulses are fused with a youthful thirst for adven-
ture.55 The prospect of galloping across the veldt in pursuit of the
Queen’s enemies – more inspiring than foot-slogging in one of the
Volunteer Service Companies – tapped into a powerful current in
juvenile literature in which young empire-builders battled impossible
odds.56 Some seemed simply caught up in the excitement of the
moment, reflecting that ‘our many friends must have appreciated our
motives and the sacrifices we were about to make better than we did
ourselves’.57 Economic motivations for enlistment in 1900 – ‘a time when
employment was never more plentiful’ – simply did not fit the prevailing
image of ‘spontaneity’, ‘selflessness’, and ‘sacrifice’.58 Nevertheless, one
of the speakers at a banquet to honour the Ayrshire IY contingent did
voice his fears that the current lack of prosperity in Scottish agriculture,
coupled with the prospect of confiscated land in the Transvaal, might
tempt some men to remain in South Africa.59 T.F. Dewar, as a combatant,
could be even more realistic on the mixed attractions of service of his col-
leagues in the Fife and Forfar contingent:
Out of the five hundred who comprise the Scottish Yeomanry there
are of course men of very varied types, men who have come out for
very varied reasons. Some fifty, namely, about ten per cent, are here
to earn a livelihood, – saddlers, smiths, cooks and grooms; another
fifty are here for no very obvious reason, simply, it would appear,
because the chance of a foreign holiday offered itself; still another
fifty are restless souls who must have a finger in every pie – men who
have fought in Zululand and Matabeleland, climbed mountains in
Chili [sic], or washed gold in Yukon; and perhaps one half of the
company have come out from a blend of motives, in which patriot-
ism, ambition, and love of adventure had each a share. Yet another
few have come for entirely different reasons, urged by their friends
who were anxious to be rid of them.60
54
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 22 December 1899.
55
Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, pp. 1–5.
56
See J. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire (Manchester, 1984); Popular Imperialism and the
Military, 1850–1950 (Manchester, 1992); Streets, Born Warriors, p. 13.
57
Orr, With the Scottish Yeomanry, pp. 1–3.
58
59
Irvine Herald, 21 January 1900.
60
Dewar, With the Scottish Yeomanry, pp. 28–29.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 315
Whatever their inspiration, these unlikely young avengers of the

Highland Brigade were at once recognized as ‘a special force’. As one
local provost explained to men about to leave for South Africa: ‘The
cloud of national trial has overshadowed the empire, but it has a bright
lining, and we now wear the cloud inside out, to shew the lining of
bright hope and confidence.’61 The new troopers themselves revelled
in the overwhelming sense of being ‘chosen’.62 As each sponsoring
yeomanry regiment had been set a strict quota of recruits, stringent
riding and shooting tests supplemented the normal physical require-
ments. In Ayrshire, a third of potential recruits failed the shooting test
alone, while attrition was even greater in the Lovat Scouts, with only
one in six volunteers accepted.63 The result, in the words of one med-
ical officer, was ‘the finest body of men who had ever passed through
his hands into the army’.64 This elite reputation became the staple
theme of the receptions and public assemblies held all over Scotland,
at which a host of local bodies, from farmers’ clubs to temperance soci-
eties, representing the rich texture of Scottish civil society, showered
local IY recruits with watches, medals, and burgess tickets.65 Bringing a
vicarious dash of colonial glamour to douce Scottish towns, the new
force was also able, as one Fife recruit grasped, to link Scotland’s mili-
tary past and present:
It was a picturesque scene to see the yeomen in big slouch hat and
long cavalry overcoats riding through the snow-covered streets on
these bright winter’s mornings. Probably some hundreds of years
had elapsed since the Bonnygate of Cupar had worn such a martial
aspect. The clatter of hoofs and the jingling of spurs must have
awakened recollections of days long gone in the impassive minds of
the old buildings that flanked the way to the new riding school.66
This emotional investment could never quite be recaptured with the
subsequent IY contingents. While enthusiastic, the local leave-takings of
the second and third contingents in early 1901 and 1902 were less pro-
tracted and choreographed than those of the original recruits, their
immediate destination being Aldershot or Edinburgh rather than Table
Bay.67 The balance of forces in Scottish politics was also shifting during
these months. The improvement in British military fortunes during
the late spring of 1900 had brought widespread rejoicing in Scotland.
The relief of Ladysmith in March and Mafeking in May produced an
unaccustomed frenzy of ‘bells, bonfires and flag flying’ in Scottish towns
and cities, renewed in June by the fall of Pretoria.68 In the general election
61
62
Orr, With the Scottish Yeomanry, p. 3; Glasgow Herald, 8 January 1900.
63
Scotsman, 6–9 January 1900; Melville, Story of the Lovat Scouts, p. 7.
64
65
For examples, see Dundee Advertiser, 28 February 1900; Scotsman, 24 January 1900.
66
Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, p. 9.
67
Scotsman, 31 January 1901; Glasgow Herald, 8, 26 June 1901.
68
Glasgow Herald, 2 March, 25 May 1901.

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316 E.W. McFarland
of autumn 1900, the Liberals even lost their majority of Scottish seats for
the first time since the Reform Act in 1832. But, despite the capture of
the Boer capitals, the war was not over. During 1901 progressive opinion
became increasingly re-energized by the ‘Bismarckian’ methods neces-
sary to subdue the civilian population.69 In April an anti-war meeting in
Edinburgh, organized by the pro-Boer ‘Young Scots Society’, a Liberal
ginger group, attracted an estimated 10 000 people.70
Yet these ideological cross-currents did not threaten the popularity
of enlistment. Clearly, not all ‘young Scots’ were convinced by doubts
over the morality of the war and calls for the rejection of imperialism.
The IY remained easily the most popular and prestigious volunteer
unit locally, beating off competition from both Voluntary Service
Companies and the newly formed South African Constabulary.71 In
Ayrshire, advertising was hardly necessary for the second intake, with
applications being forwarded in some areas as soon as the War Office’s
intention was known, while in Glasgow so many men presented them-
selves that a temporary recruiting office was necessary.72 The Lothian
and Borders yeomanry sponsors were even confident of raising a fur-
ther draft from their 1900 ‘reserve list’ alone.73
In these circumstances, entry remained highly selective, although
only 47.2% of those presenting themselves at the five main Scottish
recruiting centres were rejected, compared with 57.9% for the UK as a
whole.74 The differential rejection rate does not seem to have been the
result of lower recruitment standards, but may simply reflect that
recruitment had been more rapid in Scotland, compared with some of
the English centres where a large number of men applied and were
rejected after the recruiting deadline had passed. While some English
units reported limited time to scrutinize individual performance
because of the hurried nature of the call for men, aptitude tests in
Scotland were apparently firmly enforced. Of Scots applying to enlist,
14.8% failed in riding, for example, compared with 9.3% nationally.
Some of the sponsoring county regiments, like the Fife and Forfar
Light Horse, were particularly strict in this respect, turning away
infantry and artillery volunteers who could shoot, but ‘had not the
slightest idea of riding’.75 In shooting tests Scots compared more
favourably, with 7.1% failing against the nationwide average of 8%.
The physical quality of Scottish recruits may also have been slightly
superior to the average UK-wide recruit, possibly reflecting the con-
tinuing presence of junior white-collar and skilled workers. While the
69
Brown, ‘Echoes’, pp. 175–78.
70
Scotsman, 27 April 1901.
71
Op. cit., 31 January 1901.
72
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 1 February 1901; Scotsman, 25 January 1901.
73
Scotsman, 17 January 1901.
74
Figures compiled from PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, appendix 18, pp. 120–30.
75
Op. cit., p. 126. In the view of one recruiting officer the problem was that ‘horse
exercise’ was not a national pastime in Scotland.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 317
national rate for medical rejections was 14%, only 13.5% were rejected
in Scotland, with strong regional variations. Rejections were most fre-
quent at the main IY recruiting office in Edinburgh, but usually only
for minor conditions, such as dental problems and varicose veins. This
was more than compensated by much lower rejection rates in Glasgow
and at the county depots.76 Against this background, it is also interest-
ing to note that Scots in the war had a lower proportion of deaths from
disease than any of the other nationalities fighting among the imperial
forces.77
Screening was also maintained for subsequent intakes, particularly
for specialist units: only 250 out of 1000 applicants to the Lovats were
accepted during May and June 1901, and only 125 out of 400 in
October 1901.78 Comprehensive information on the main 1902 cohort
has not survived, though in Ayrshire the rejection rate appears to have
declined to 20%, compared with 51% in 1900.79 Most of the Scottish
recruiting centres again, however, stressed the buoyancy of demand
and the good ‘physique, stamp and appearance’ of applicants. Raising
local squadrons still proved more popular than general recruiting.
Lothian and Borders recruiting officers found the men ‘better than
1901 and equal to 1900’, while at Lanark they compared favourably to
both previous intakes. In line with their changing occupational profile
their riding ability was often negligible, though the proportion with
previous military experience (40%) had also increased slightly from
the second contingent (39%).80
With competition for places still keen, the lure of the IY for some
recruits remained bound up with adventure and escape. The artist Franc
Martin has left one of the few personal testimonies from the second con-
tingent. In his case the ‘environmental’ effects of exposure to Scotland’s
military tradition had left their mark. Newspaper accounts of the exploits
of Scottish regiments on the northwest frontier of India had attracted
him to soldiering, and he joined a Highland Light Infantry volunteer
company as a teenager. While highly susceptible to the patriotic tide, he
also confessed his desperation to flee from the ‘bondage’ of his job as a
post office clerk. Rejected as under age by infantry service companies in
1900, he joined the IY in Glasgow – still under age – in March 1901.81
As in the rest of the UK, material concerns also seem to have played
a more obvious role in enlistment for the later intakes – a feature
which contemporaries were also more ready to admit than in 1900.
76
Op. cit., p. 126. The rejection rate at Edinburgh was 22.6%, compared with 7.7% in
Fife, 8% in Glasgow, and 9.7% in Lanarkshire. However, 269 men were rejected in
Glasgow for unspecified ‘other’ reasons, probably, as in England, because recruiting
had been stopped.
77
E.M. Spiers, ‘The Scottish Soldier in the Boer War’, in J. Gooch, ed., The Boer War:
Direction, Experience and Image (London, 2000), p. 165.
78
Melville, Story of the Lovat Scouts, pp. 15, 19.
79
80
Op. cit., pp. 40–47.
81
‘Handwritten Memoirs’, Martin.

WIH 13(3)-340oa-2.qxd 27-4-2006 17:59 Page 318
318 E.W. McFarland
The 5s. pay per diem felt necessary by the authorities to encourage
rapid expansion of the corps in 1901 was an obvious inducement, at
once tempting over 400 experienced infantry volunteers in Scotland
to switch units.82 Its attraction should be set against the background of
a deteriorating economic climate from early 1901 onwards, which
some Scottish radicals believed was directly attributable to the war.83
With an enlistment period of one year, or not less than the duration of
the conflict, there seems little doubt that for some recruits the IY
appeared as a shelter from potential hardship – albeit one heavily
loaded with cultural significance and expectations in a Scottish con-
text. Tracing the precise impact on enlistment is difficult, as the
depression was variable across trades and regions, but some correl-
ations do emerge. The growing representation of masons, joiners, and
labourers in IY ranks (Table 5) during 1901 may be linked to the lay-
offs and industrial disputes affecting the building trade during 1901,
climaxing at the end of the year.84 By spring 1902 the unemployment
rate for another prominent group of recruits, bakers, was reported at
never less than 33% in some larger centres.85 The sudden advent of
miners as mounted yeomen suggests a similar process. While the
domestic coal industry in Ayrshire remained steady during 1901, fear
surrounded the future prosperity of the export-orientated pits in the
east: 58 miners enlisted at Cupar during the 1901 and 1902 intakes,
but only 8 presented themselves at Ayr.86
The changing nature of war exerted a further external influence in
shaping recruitment profiles, making it easier for some ‘new’ occupa-
tional groups to enlist in the IY. One early lesson from the hard cam-
paigning of 1900 was the cost of poor ‘horsemastership’. Not only did the
relative representation of the equine trades increase between the 1900
and 1901 intakes (Table 3), but their profile also expanded beyond the
smiths and saddlers, who had traditionally provided specialist skills to
the yeomanry. Now grooms, stablemen, carters, and cabmen entered the
ranks, the ‘proletariat’ of the equine industry, yet experts in practical
horse care.87
For some, enlistment was more than a temporary expedient – joining
the IY was the first step in leaving Scotland for a new start in South Africa
(Table 6). Indeed, according to surviving discharge papers, 14.8% of
82
PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, pp. 120–29.
83
Report of the Fourth Annual Scottish Trades Union Congress (Glasgow, 1901), p. 35.
84
Scotsman, 3 January 1902. Employment in building trades was to contract by 21.4%
during the decade 1901–11: J.H. Treble, ‘The Occupied Male Labour Force’, in
H. Fraser and R.J. Morris, eds, People and Society in Scotland, 1830–1914 (Edinburgh,
1990), pp. 195–96.
85
Report of the Sixth Annual Scottish Trades Union Congress (Glasgow, 1903), p. 40.
86
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 4 January 1901; Scotsman, 2 January 1901. See Price,
Imperial War, pp. 215–16.
87
The representation of these trades rose from 57.9% in the first contingent to 74.8% in
the second: PRO, WO 128/1–165. For contemporary comment, see Ardrossan and
Saltcoats Herald, 1 February 1901.

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Table 6 Recruits remaining in South Africa
No. (as % of intake)
Intake 1 37 (4.6)
Intake 2 110 (8.1)
LS/SH intake 52 (12.3)
Intake 3 474 (24.3)
Total 673
Scots enlisting in the IY remained behind at the end of their service,

compared with an estimated 5.3% for IY recruits from the UK as a
whole.88 Again, the accelerating pattern across intakes is striking, peak-
ing in April 1902 when at least 54.8% of those enlisting settled in South
Africa. This bears out the comments of staff in recruiting centres in
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cupar, and Lanark, who believed that many appli-
cants ‘desired to reach South Africa with the personal object of doing
well for themselves as settlers rather than as fighting men’.89
Official British policy played a large part in encouraging this migration
wave. In the struggle for political supremacy in the Crown Colonies, set-
tlers were seen as the key to shifting the demographic balance, creating a
British heartland in place of the ‘Augean stable’ of Boer domination.90
Beside improved rates of pay, the 1901 and 1902 married IY recruits were
encouraged by the promise of facilities for their families joining them in
South Africa, while the British government also sponsored local branches
of the National Association for the Employment of Ex-Soldiers.91
Scottish recruits were particularly well attuned to this pursuit of the
imperial dream. Far from economic self-interest supplanting empire
loyalty in the later intakes, here they were part of the same ideological
complex. The impact of Scotland’s low-wage economy, concentrated
in volatile capital goods industries, in shaping a culture of mobility has
been well documented.92 Gross emigration as a percentage of the
88
Discharge papers are enclosed with around 75% of attestation records, with a few
attestation papers also containing information. The total number who remained in
South Africa is thus likely to be rather higher. For UK figures: Annual Report of Inspector
General of Recruiting for Year 1902, Reports, vol. XI, Cd 1417 (1903), pp. 23–24.
89
PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial Yeomanry, p. 126. Four out of five Scottish recruiting
centres flag up migration as a motivation in 1901, compared with only two of 37 the
English and Welsh yeomanry centres surveyed.
90
Surridge, Managing the South African War, pp. 180–81.
91
The proportion of married men rose from 4% in 1900 to 12% in the second Scottish
contingent, but levelled out at 9% in the third: PRO, WO 128/1–165; Annual Report
of Inspector General of Recruiting for Year 1902, Reports, vol. XI, Cd 1417 (1903),
pp. 23–24. See also S. Constantine, ‘Empire Migration and Social Reform,
1880–1950’, in C.G. Pooley and I.D. Whyte, Migrants, Emigrants and Immigrants
(London, 1991).
92
For a classic account, see T.M. Devine, ‘Introduction: The Paradox of Scottish
Emigration’, in T.M. Devine, ed., Scottish Emigration and Scottish Society (Edinburgh,
1992), pp. 1–15.

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320 E.W. McFarland
national population increase rose from 54.1 to 84.3 during the decade
1901–10, an exodus at almost twice the English rate.93 While Scots had
traditionally been attracted in large numbers to the USA, the colonies
also exercised a powerful pull for migrants with marketable skills and
industrial experience. The ‘Scot on the make’ overseas was a familiar
national role model, underlining Scotland’s practical contribution to
the British imperial project.94 Although the Scottish Liberal establish-
ment may have debated the benefits that developing the South African
region would bring to the Scottish economy, recruits such as Trooper
Jamieson, who joined the 107th Company IY in Glasgow in early 1901,
were more confident of their personal future in the Crown Colonies:
he promised his friends at home that once he was a manager, he would
‘send for the whole crowd’.95 Indeed the presence of ‘good colonists’
such as Jamieson in the ranks was a point of pride for the Scottish
recruitment agencies, who were generally more positive about the
later intakes than their southern counterparts.96
The specific combination of military service with economic
advancement in the colonies had the strongest historic resonance in
the Highlands, where soldier emigration had become a cultural com-
monplace from the mid-eighteenth century onwards.97 From the dis-
charge papers available, at least 27.6% of IY recruits remaining in
South Africa were from this region, with Inverness recording the high-
est proportion (29%) of those enlisting choosing permanent emigra-
tion. However, in keeping with the general profile of Scottish
migration, it is the lowland urban centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh
that make the largest and most significant contribution (53.8%). The
majority of these men were regarded by contemporaries as migrating
from a position of strength, having ‘good trades’ or ‘a very fair amount
of capital’ to start up farms.98 This is supported by the surviving data
on the main occupations settling in South Africa (Table 7).
Skilled workers comprised 30.7% of those setting in South Africa.
Bricklayers were the trade most likely to remain (35% of those enlisting
settled), followed by carpenters (28%) and masons (22%) – trades
affected, as we have seen, by seasonal downturns during 1901 and 1902.
The main unskilled group remaining were labourers (14.8% of those
enlisting), but the proportion of farm servants (11.9%), miners (10.1%),
and coachmen (8.1%) settling was below the average for the IY as a
93
M. Harper, Emigration from Scotland between the Wars: Opportunity or Exile (Manchester,
1998), p. 2. See also her Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus (London, 2003).
94
I. Donnachie, ‘The Enterprising Scot’, in I. Donnachie and C. Whatley, eds, The
Manufacture of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1992), p. 90.
95
Edinburgh, Scottish War Museum [SWM], Letters and Diary of Trooper A. Jamieson,
M2004, 51.3: A. Jamieson to W. Hood, 26 May 1901. He succumbed to fever and died in
South Africa in 1901.
96
97
A. Mackillop, ‘More Fruitful than the Soil’: Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands
(E. Linton, 2000).
98

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Table 7 Occupational breakdown of recruits remaining in South Africa
No (% of occupation enlisted)
Skilled workers 185 (14.5)

White collar (other) 127 (15.1)
Unskilled 102 (10.5)
Equine trades 58 (14.1)
Public sector 29 (20.1)
Farmers 29 (14.3)
Agricultural workers 25 (14.8)
Service trades 19 (14.5)
Estate workers 17 (10.1)
Professionals 11 (6.0)
Total 602
whole. Clerks were the most numerous group among middle-class

colonists, with 16% of recruits remaining behind, followed by trav-
ellers (23%). The pursuit of new opportunities in South Africa for
these junior white-collar occupations may partly explain their con-
tinued willingness to enlist in the later IY contingents.
The ultimate career destinations of Scottish settlers are also reveal-
ing here. Of known destinations 114 men (43%) entered civilian
employment, helping build the infrastructure of a British South
Africa, notably in the General Post Office, railways, and banks.
Farming was another attractive prospect, with the government farms
offering work at 10s. a day.99 White-collar migrants seem mostly to have
gravitated to these sectors, but a more frequent destination for other
ex-servicemen was police work. At total of 175 Scots entered the vari-
ous South African forces, mainly in Johannesburg (78 recruits), the
Cape (42), and Natal (17). Demand was buoyant, as rising law enforce-
ment and peacekeeping demands coupled with local shortages had
put many urban forces under pressure. In the Transvaal the key chal-
lenge was to replace the notorious Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek
Politie (ZARP) with ‘modern’ policing which would underpin the new
political and commercial order.100 Some Scots arrived with existing
experience – of all occupations policemen were the most likely to set-
tle (38.8% of those enlisting) – but for others, such as Hugh McKay, a
Sutherland waiter, or William Reid, an engine fitter from Midlothian,
99
Mileham, ‘Clearly My Duty’, p. 167. See Dewar, With the Scottish Yeomanry, p. 184, for the
ubiquity of Scots in postwar South Africa.
100
B. Nasson, ‘Bobbies to Boers, People and Social Control in Cape Town’, in D. Anderson
and D. Killingray, eds, Policing the Empire: Government, Authority and Control, 1830–1940
(Manchester, 1991), p. 239; A. Grundlingh, ‘“Protectors and Friends of the People”?
The South African Constabulary in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, 1900–08’,
in op. cit., p. 179.

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322 E.W. McFarland
both of whom had joined the Scottish Horse in April 1902, this meant
an entirely new livelihood in their adopted country.101
This link between military service and migration added a further
dimension to the heroic mythology of the IY. Born in the wake of
Magersfontein, the new force had subsequently grown to reflect the
geographical and social diversity of Scotland, blurring the exclusive
tendencies of the old yeomanry regiments with the more democratic
Scottish volunteering tradition. Now the volunteers who had defended
the empire would actively colonize it.
However, the road from trooper to colonist was not an easy one –
the final ingredient in the IY’s hold on the popular imagination in
Scotland would be its war record.
IV. Fighting the War

A very similar war emerges from the accounts of IY combatants, regard-
less of rank and unit: the gloom of Black Week; the leonine rallying of
the British Empire; intensive training; rapturous farewells, followed by
the travails of troopship life and the picnic atmosphere of the initial
camps in South Africa. Then, amid the novelty of sea bathing and chas-
ing ostriches, realization dawned that the purpose of enlistment was to
fight the enemy.102
The IY faced two great challenges in the field, both of which largely
stemmed from their status as an improvised corps. First, their tactical
deployment was inconsistent. Forsaking traditional cavalry tactics, the
squadrons were generally required to gallop into position, dismount,
and shoot. However, when the Boers discovered that their role was
‘mounted infantry, practically’ rather than the classic ‘arme blanche’
they allegedly changed tactics and went on the offensive.103 Second,
troops were often deployed in piecemeal fashion to deal with each new
eruption of Boer resistance. As the Elgin Commission heard, esprit de
corps was the casualty when ‘the whole force was used as a mass of
mounted troops, of a plastic character’, with squadrons grouped
together regardless of their original regimental affiliations.104
The Scottish IY detachments could not avoid the first of these com-
bat realities.105 By the time the first contingent moved up-country in
May 1900, they had little sense of how they would be used. With the
great set-piece battles over and the war entering its guerrilla phase, the
101
Lord Tullibardine of the Scottish Horse showed great energy in finding situations for
his former soldiers, arranging for the formation of a special squadron in the Natal
Police, which retained the regiments’ distinctive badge of black cock’s feathers:
Tullibardine, Military History, p. 36.
102
Dewar, With the Scottish Yeomanry; Orr, With the Scottish Yeomanry; Sturrock, Fifes in South
Africa; Mileham, ‘Clearly My Duty’.
103
Elgin Commission, II, p. 293.
104
Op. cit., II, p. 47.
105
For a comparison with the testimony of Scottish infantrymen, see Spiers, ‘Scottish
Soldier’, pp. 152–66.

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IY were soon engaged in mobile columns, where a trooper’s life was dom-
inated by endless treks, the squalor of the towns, and above all the vast-
ness and unseen danger of the veldt. After four months ‘the Great Boer
Hunt’ had seen the 17th Ayrshire and Lanarkshire company travel some
2210 miles on horseback through Cape Colony and the Transvaal.106
Exposure to extreme weather conditions, dust, lack of water, and dysen-
tery were incidental to this fast-moving form of warfare, but boredom
and routine were also corrosive of morale.107 Casualty figures for the first
UK contingent stood at 3093 (30%), including 216 killed in action, but
attrition varied across companies.108 While the 17th was known as ‘the
lucky company’, the 20th Fife and Forfar Company lost 40.6% of its
original force, mostly invalided home through disease.109
One advantage retained by the Scots in the face of these hardships
was a shared military identity. It was now that the policy of grouping
together the newly raised companies in a distinctive national battalion
paid dividends. Although they were later deployed with different
columns, the sense of being a ‘national’ force within the first UK contin-
gent was reinforced by the battalion’s initial attachment to the 10th
Division under the Scottish general Sir Archibald Hunter.110 While Spiers
suggests that the disappointing war experiences of Scottish professional
soldiers may have prompted fuller integration into the British army, in
the case of the IY volunteers another unofficial shift in yeomanry
nomenclature is revealing, with the ‘6th (Scottish) Battalion, Imperial
Yeomanry’ increasingly giving way to the shorthand ‘Scottish Yeomanry’
or ‘Scotch Yeomanry’ as the conflict wore on.111 While the identity of
the new force was to remain greater than the sum of its parts, judicious
‘branding’ further benefited individual units such as the Scottish
Horse, who took the field in the spring of 1901. In the view of Lord
Tullibardine, the secret of his regiment’s success was precisely its esprit
de corps, a feature that in turn, he believed, was the direct result of its
name, as ‘the men felt that they were representatives of a national regi-
ment, and knew that if they did badly they could not show their faces
at home again’.112 Other newly raised IY companies, such as the 107th
106
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 7 November 1900.
107
For a ‘typical day’s work of the Yeomanry’, see Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, pp. 157–55.
Robert McCaw’s memoir offers a comparison with the experience of the Volunteer
Service Companies – ‘the fatigue-fever creeps into the brain and lulls it half asleep’:
With the Ayrshire Volunteers in South Africa (Kilmarnock, 1901), p. 77.
108
109
Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, pp. 181–90: five men and two officers were killed, three
died of disease, and 53 officers and men were invalided home.
110
Steele Brownlie, Proud Trooper, p. 141; Melville, Story of the Lovat Scouts, pp. 10–13. In
June 1900 the 17th and 18th Companies and the 1st and 2nd Companies Lovat Scouts
were attached to the Highland Brigade commanded by General Hector Macdonald,
while the 19th and 20th Companies joined General Hart’s Cavalry Brigade. They were
reunited in the spring of 1901.
111
Spiers, ‘Scottish Soldier’, pp. 164 –65.
112

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324 E.W. McFarland
Company from Glasgow, found their national identity reinforced by the

welcome awaiting them in Scottish enclaves such as Port Elizabeth.113
By this point in 1901, the solidarity of serving yeomen could actually
work against the integration of new drafts. For the first-contingent
men of all ranks, weary for home after a year of farm-burning and pur-
suing De Wet, the arrival of the better-paid and under-trained ‘New
Yeomanry’ was a source of irritation. As Trooper A.S. Orr explained,
the raw condition of the new Glasgow troops led to fears that the vet-
erans would be sent back to Scotland in ‘paltry dribblets’, rather than
arriving home together.114 While Lieutenant Jack Gilmour of the 20th
Fife and Forfar Company dismissed the new men as ‘not real Yeomen’
and ‘a very different class to deal with’, he reserved his real distaste for
their officers.115 The Fifes had struggled to obtain ‘Scotch’ officers,
after the recently formed Glasgow and Lanark companies had soaked
up the best men: the residue for Gilmour was ‘the dirtiest lot I ever
met’, and ‘to put it plainly none of them … gentlemen’.116
The lack of instruction in riding and field craft before arrival in
South Africa certainly constrained the effective operation of the new
force as a whole, but while the naivety and ineptitude of the latest
arrivals became a commonplace among serving yeomen, riding ability
actually varied between the Scottish drafts, being apparently most lack-
ing in the troops raised in urban areas.117 Yet, in time even men such
as Trooper Jamieson, who initially blamed the South African terrain
for their many falls, learned to live in the saddle and take part in the
continuing grind of reconnaissance, flank guards, and screening sup-
ply columns in the later stages of the war.118 Indeed, more perceptive
commanders, such as Tullibardine, grasped that the best type of man
for this machine-like work was not the ‘high-class yeoman farmer’, but
those used to a hard outdoor life, including farmhands, keepers, car-
penters, plumbers, and masons. While he retained doubts over the
physical endurance of ‘men from the towns’ he could not fault their
spirit.119 Already socialized into monotony and regularity in the work-
place, the soldiers of the second and third IY contingents in a sense
proved ideal ‘military labour’ for an ‘industrial war’.
As a new national volunteer force, with strong local linkages, it was clear
that the service of the ‘Scottish Yeomanry’ would be keenly scrutinized.
113
‘Handwritten Memoirs’, Martin; see also Spiers, ‘Scottish Soldier’, p. 153.
114
Orr, With the Scottish Yeomanry, p. 138.
115
Mileham, ‘Clearly My Duty’, pp. 125, 155.
116
Burgoyne, Fife and Forfar Imperial Yeomanry, p. 78.
117
Jack Gilmour, later Sir John Gilmour Bart., secretary of state for Scotland and home
secretary, admitted that most of the new Fife recruits could ride, thanks to efficient
screening by the regimental colonel, his father, Sir John Gilmour senior, but discovered
one of his men returning from an attack on foot, having tied his horse up to a fence in
disgust: Mileham, ‘Clearly My Duty’, p. 176.
118
SWM, Letters and Diary of Trooper A. Jamieson, M2004, 51.3: A. Jamieson to W. Hood,
26 May, 28 June 1901.
119

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A key medium for this was Scotland’s vibrant local press, where official
war news was supplemented by the letters and diaries of serving sol-
diers. In this way the ‘nearness of the war’ that had been widely experi-
enced at the outset of the volunteering wave was constantly
reinforced.120 As a minimum, the Scottish companies were able to
avoid the humiliating disasters that beset other IY formations – or
indeed the repeated misfortunes of their compatriots in the regular
battalions of the Highland Brigade. Still in shock, Jack Gilmour
believed that the surprise attack at Nooitgedacht in December 1900,
which cost the Fifes their first serious casualties, was the worst blow
since Magersfontein.121 Yet this was a minor reverse compared with the
fate of the 13th Yeomanry Battalion at Lindley the previous May, when
over 400 officers and men, including some of the most socially presti-
gious companies of the first contingent, surrendered to the Boers.
However, more positive achievements were also required for home
consumption. While the war presented few opportunities to deliver
conventional ‘victories’, the Scottish regiments, from the Crimea to
the Indian mutiny, had proved themselves adept in monopolizing
whatever military glory was available.122 The ‘Scottish Yeomanry’ was
no exception, weaving solid military achievements, such as the 17th
Company’s dramatic night march to Potchefstroom, into a reputation
for ‘dash’ and ‘efficiency’.123 Against the background of a frustrating
conflict, professional as well as popular approval was highly prized,
and General Ian Hamilton’s compliment that the Scottish IY were ‘the
only fellows who ever saw the Boers before the Boers saw them’ conse-
quently obtained wide circulation.124
Of all Scottish IY units, it was perhaps the Lovats and the Scottish
Horse, led by spirited aristocratic commanders, who proved most mar-
ketable and distinctive in terms of their military profile. Here adapt-
ability to the conditions of modern warfare combined with more
traditional elements of the cult of the Highland soldier. While the 1st
and 2nd Lovat companies had fought a series of sharp, successful
engagements pursuing their vital reconnaissance role with the
Highland Brigade, the second contingent companies were cast in the
role of tragic heroes when their camp at Guadeberg was stormed in
September 1901. The response to this reverse underlined the strong
identity that the new regiment had already acquired. When the news
reached Inverness there was an immediate demand from first-contingent
Lovat Scouts to take the places of those killed and wounded, and a fur-
ther company was raised the next month.125 The 2nd Scottish Horse
120
121
Mileham, ‘Clearly My Duty’, pp. 104 –107; Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, pp. 90–91.
122
Allen and Carswell, Thin Red Line, pp. 23–24.
123
Steele Brownlie, Proud Trooper, pp. 148 –49.
124
Scotsman, 18 January 1901.
125
Melville, Story of the Lovat Scouts, p. 18.

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326 E.W. McFarland
attached to Colonel G.E. Benson’s column in the Eastern Transvaal

were initially more fortunate. At Vlakfontein in May 1901 they salvaged
the IY’s reputation by launching a vigorous counter-attack, after their
English counterparts had fled.126 This was followed by a desperate
stand in October at Bakenlaagte, where the regiment again averted
disaster by preventing the entire column being overwhelmed by Boers.
Meanwhile, the 1st Scottish Horse, including two squadrons fresh
from Scotland, had faced a similar costly rearguard action at Moedwil
in September. Again the prestige of the regiment helped the rapid
replacement of losses, even persuading 100 men from the Volunteer
Service Companies of Scottish infantry regiments in South Africa to
take to the saddle.127
V. Conclusion
While the conduct of the IY as a whole had its military detractors, the
Scottish yeomanry regiments emerged from the South African war
with their self-confidence and popular standing enhanced. This was
clear from the civic receptions held in towns and villages throughout
Scotland to greet the return of the men of the first contingent in the
summer of 1901.128 Not only had the new troopers seized the lime-
light, compared with other, more venerable British regiments, they
also threatened to eclipse the exploits of the locally raised Volunteer
Service Companies, some of whom had spent a great deal of their war
service guarding communication lines. Doubts over the specific con-
duct of war may have persisted, but these ‘khaki nights’ also suggest
how the dramatic narrative of the Scottish yeomanry had succeeded in
reconnecting popular sentiment with the Scottish military tradition
after the shock of defeat in December 1899. Indeed, ‘tradition’ had
itself expanded beyond the Highland infantry regiments to accommo-
date this latest improvised unit. As a result, continuity had also been
restored in Scotland’s record of imperial service. In welcoming the
returning Irvine yeomen in July 1901, Mr Davidson captured the web
of local, national, and empire loyalties which had become intrinsic to
the yeomanry’s new public image of service and sacrifice:
When they left us eighteen months ago they sacrificed home with all
its comforts and all its associations; they sacrificed friends, they sac-
rificed business, they sacrificed everything for their country … [But
had] our friends not the inestimable privilege of fighting for an
Empire the most wonderful that the world has ever seen? Had they
not too, the privilege of fighting in an army of the most glorious
heritage? They have seen a great deal of fighting, and in all of their
126
Glasgow Herald, 6 June 1900.
127
Tullibardine, Military History, pp. 32–35.
128
Glasgow Herald, 28–29 June 1901.

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engagements they have been successful. Often they have gone to

rest on empty stomachs – their pillow being the veldt, the roof over
them the sky, and the stars their sentinels; but in spite of all their
hardships and all their trials, they have never forgotten that they
were SONS OF AYRSHIRE AND SOLDIERS OF KING EDWARD.129
The transformation from objects of derision to national heroes was
also neatly captured in the popular doggerel which the Boer War pro-
duced in abundance:
Before the war we used to sneer
Whene’er a Yeoman wad appear,
And say that he wad fa’ wi’ fear
If he should meet a foeman.
His country walk we used to mock,
And say, ‘There goes a soor milk Jock’,
But noo, a royal fechtin’ cock
Is oor braw Ayrshire Yeoman.130
This was finally a process to which the volunteers themselves actively
contributed. Published war memoirs, packaged in the style of adven-
ture novels, reinforced the Scottish yeomanry’s image of imperial
endeavour. Despite the hardships of the forced marches and picket
duty, Sturrock did not regret his 18 months in the field and remem-
bered his time in South Africa as ‘a glorious holiday’. The war had
taught him that: ‘there is more reason than might appear for the patri-
otism of the music halls that finds expression in such words as “You’re
a credit to your country” ’.131
It was not only the reputation of the yeomanry regiments that was
altered by the war. The great majority of men did not rejoin after dis-
charge and the regiments returned to their normal peacetime duties,
with most units in Scotland under establishment strength by the end
of 1902.132 However, despite the warnings of traditionalists, such as Sir
John Gilmour senior, that the ranks had been opened up to ‘undesir-
ables’, the process of social change could not be reversed.133 The rural
roots of the force were progressively eroded, so that by 1904 the War
Office complained that ‘a large number of yeomen are really towns-
people, with no intimate knowledge [of], or feeling for, horses’.134
The pace of professional modernization also continued to increase.
Conditions of service and training provisions had already been altered
129
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 12 July 1901.
130
Poems by Constable Anderson (Kilmarnock, 1912), p. 74.
131
Sturrock, Fifes in South Africa, p. 159.
132
A total of 390 Scots re-enlisted in the home yeomanry from South Africa: Annual Report
of Inspector General of Recruiting for Year 1902, Reports, vol. XI, Cd 1417 (1903).
133
For Gilmour’s comments on the later Fife intakes, see PRO, WO 108/375, Imperial
Yeomanry, p. 126.
134

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328 E.W. McFarland
by the royal warrant of April 1901, when the whole force was formally
renamed the ‘Imperial Yeomanry’, and assigned a formal mounted
infantry role. A more fundamental reorganization took place with the
consolidation of the auxiliary forces in 1908, when the IY were merged
with the Volunteers into the Territorial Force. Training and equip-
ment were further modified, with new machine-gun and wireless tele-
graph sections introduced.
The war for which the Yeomanry were now preparing revealed a
final legacy in Scottish popular culture. By the outbreak of war in 1914,
empire loyalty and the prestige of the Scottish regiments had reached
their zenith. Scotland produced 320 589 recruits during the months of
voluntary enlistment from August 1914 to December 1915.135 Born in
the 1890s, many may have lacked a detailed recollection of the Boer
War, but the volunteering wave of 1900–1902 had made an important
contribution to the climate of expectation which surrounded them,
redefining notions of an individual’s patriotic duty in wartime. The
concept of the ‘soldier-citizen’ now stood as a junction point for
Scotland’s progressive tradition and the embrace of empire.
Contemporaries had quickly grasped the inspiring precedent set by
IY enlistment. As the audience welcoming home Trooper George
Paterson to Ayrshire in 1901 were reminded:
The effort put forth by the volunteers in dear old Scotland would
live in history and be an incentive to future generations to do like-
wise should the rights and liberties of their native land be attacked
by a foreign power. Scottish history proved that in all ages, whenever
needed, men were never lacking to fight and die for civil and reli-
gious liberty.136
But the words of another Ayrshire volunteer, Trumpeter Brown, were
even more prophetic. Pointing to the Boys’ Brigade, who were paraded
at Ochiltree in his honour, he expressed the hope that ‘the youthful
soldiers would make a name for themselves in the near future’.137 His
hope was fulfilled, but the sacrifice of their generation would be on an
altogether different scale to his own.
135
S. Wood, The Scottish Soldier (Manchester, 1987), p. 87.
136
Irvine Times, 26 June 1901.
137
Irvine Times, 5 July 1901.


Empire-Enlarging Genius Scottish Imperial Yeomanry

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War in History

‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry

The online version of this article can be found at:

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O ne Scottish veteran of the Boer War, writing in retrospect, saw it as

War in History 2006 13 (3)Downloaded

300 E.W. McFarland

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 301

never have been able to manifest our colonising and empire-

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302 E.W. McFarland

I. Raising the Imperial Yeomanry

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 303

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304 E.W. McFarland

regiments of yeomanry and two of Light Horse Volunteers proceeded to

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 305

and the centralization of training at Aldershot, officers reported that

Table 1 IY recruits by place of enlistment

No. (% of total enlistments)

Edinburgh 1350 (29.8)

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306 E.W. McFarland

locally raised detachments displaying strong roots in their counties of

II. Recruitment Profiles

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 307

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308 E.W. McFarland

group recruited into the IY were 20-year-olds, compared with 18–19-year-

Table 2 Total IY recruits by occupational categories

No. (% of total enlistments)

Skilled workers 1277 (28.2)

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 309

However, much more significant is the complex and shifting pattern

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War in History 2006 13 (3)

workers staff trades class (prof- class recorded totals

‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 311

Table 4 Distribution of selected white-collar occupations across intakea

Intake 1 Intake 2 LS/SH Intake 3 Total

Clerk 101 (29.5) 108 (31.6) 20 (5.8) 113 (33.0) 342

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312 E.W. McFarland

Table 5 Main skilled and unskilled occupations across intakea

Intake 1 Intake 2 LS/SH Intake 3 Total

Joiner 22 (10.3) 69 (32.4) 12 (5.6) 110 (51.6) 213

intake. As Table 5 suggests, the increased involvement from labourers

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 313

III. Enlistment Decisions

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314 E.W. McFarland

remained an insistent desire to distinguish the local enlistment response

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‘Empire-Enlarging Genius’: Scottish Imperial Yeomanry Volunteers 315

Whatever their inspiration, these unlikely young avengers of the

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