Farmsteads burnt, but still the commando raids continued. Kitchener and his staff couldn’t leave women and children to starve on the Veldt. They brought them together where they could be fed, and so Concentration Camps were started.
The Boer War was dragging on and despite Pretoria and the towns being under British control, fast moving columns of mounted riflemen raided far and wide. Soon a huge number of civilians needed moving and supplying in camps erected by water sources and often near the few rail routes. Now another problem appeared; illness spreads through people kept together, especially the young and old.
Natal’s Uitlanders Committee, based Durban, advertised for doctors and nurses. Especially needed were doctors who could cope with pregnant women and young children. Frederick Anness, age 42, was well qualified and his younger wife Mary, age 27, was a pro-active church member. He’d been House Surgeon at the Seamen’s Infirmary in Ramsgate, while Mary’s father Rev. Gerrard Lewis, was a non-conformist minister in Thanet. They left for The Cape soon after their marriage at St Anne in Lambeth, on January 12th1901.
On May 7th the Uitlanders Committee sent an enquiry to CSRC (probably Central British Red Cross Committee) saying that Dr Anness wanted to know where he would be sent. Then on the 9th another enquiry to ask if he could bring his wife. No answers exist. There is one reference to Frederick at Vredefort, but a fairly detailed report of the camp doesn’t mention him. This camp 90 miles west of Johannesburg, was isolated on the uplands, so was short of water and supplies, having many infection problems. Frederick may well have been sent there for a while as they were in a dire condition.
Eventually Frederick and Mary would live in the port of Durban, where their daughter Isabel was born in the first week of 1902, being baptised on the 5th.
Merebank, on the southern edge of Durban, is a possible destination, as Frederick was employed by the Uitlanders Committee, who housed refugee Uitlanders (people who weren’t Boer), and Uitlander children, often orphans. Some of these refugees had low paid jobs in the camp. Local South Africa people did most of the manual work. The camp housed 9,000 inmates, mainly captive Boers. It was the largest camp, divided into three sections, Windermere, Hazelmere and Grassmere. It was near the port’s water system and a rail line for supplies.
However, Boers found the climate very different from the High Veldt, it being humid, with windblown sand and on the edge of swampy ground. The Ladies Committee found bell tents used in the early months, then wood and iron huts – all leaked and offered little privacy. Being sub-tropical, mosquitoes, fleas and lice abounded.
Food was easier to source on the coast, there being fresh vegetables and fruit. Little milk was available for the children, but there was frozen meat. The Boers cooked over open fires and no communal ovens were used at first. The teachers employed there had to cook outside their tents on open fires. Children could take examinations, but often had extra lessons from Boer adults who taught their own history. Evening sessions for adults were often practical. Small groups were allowed to picnic at the beach or swim, others to fish, breaking the tedium.
Measles was the main killer of children until October 1902, as few had any immunity – Frederick and Mary must have had a lot to cope with. Coughs and lung problems persisted with those who’d caught measles. There were also outbreaks of dysentery, diarrhoea and enteric fever. Merebank’s death rates were close to those of a British industrial town, and far better than Transvaal’s camp, which had four times this rate. The hospital dealt with all races, but with the ‘Colour Bar’, Boer orderlies could walk out.
With peace, Boer families were gradually released to return to their homelands, followed by returning prisoners of war. Frederick and Mary stayed in Durban until about 1911. Baptismal records show the birth of four children; Isabel 1902, Lionel Hubert 1905, Lewis Richard 1910 and Leslie Victor in 1911. Unfortunately, Leslie didn’t survive. The family address in Durban for 1903 was Lyndhurst, Bulwer Road, Durban. In 1908 Frederick appears on a Natal Lines Shipping freighter’s passenger list, travelling from London to Port Natal (Durban). The family returned to England in mid-1911, first staying in Westgate, where Mary’s relations dwelt.
Frederick was in his mid-50s when the Great War began. He took the place of a doctor from Tooting Bec Mental Hospital who’d gone to ‘The Front’, so I assume the couple were in London. Mary and her family moved to 98 Dover Road, Folkestone in 1919. On the 1921 census they are at home with Isabel, 19, while Lewis, 11, is boarding at Thanet prep school. Lionel, 16, is at boarding school in Sussex.
The family moved to 1 Seaview Villas, Wear Bay Crescent, where Frederick died on 5th January 1927, in his 68th year. Mary remained in the town becoming a notable member Folkestone Town Council and prominent worker in the Conservative Party. She died in 1956.
Daughter Isabel married Cecil Trippett later in 1927. She is buried with her parents. Eldest son, Lionel was an officer in the RAF at the start of WW2 and married to Florence, a secretary in the same base. Lewis married Marie and had two daughters in South Australia, which accounts for his mother appearing on a passenger list there.
Rob & Carole Moody, Friends of Folkestone Old Cemetery
