Private William Freeman, “D” Squadron, 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles

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William was a Catholic from the Cooma district, who served in the local militia before joining the 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles, which became part of the second contingent of colonial Australians sent to the war in South Africa. He sailed from Sydney on board the Southern Cross on 17 January 1900, arriving at Cape Town in February. 

The 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles travelled north by train from Cape Town, arriving at the army camp at Modder River in late February. From there, it marched north to join the column of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the commander of British forces in South Africa.

The men and horses of the 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles struggled through sudden heavy thunderstorms as they crossed the veld. A fellow soldier in the unit wrote that when these storms broke, “in a few minutes the camp will be pretty well afloat”. The cold and wet weather, and skirmishes with Boers, took a toll on the horses, too, with only 150 of the original 500 horses brought from Australia surviving to the end of March.

The army column under Lord Roberts, to which the Mounted Rifles were attached, had the objective of capturing the capitals of the two Boer republics. On 13 March, Roberts’ forces captured Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. William Freeman and the other New South Wales Mounted Rifles did not participate in the occupation, but were stationed at a camp about ten kilometres from the town.

Conditions on the march north were poor, and outbreaks of dysentery and typhoid fever were becoming common. The effects of heavy rain were made worse by the fact that the men had not been issued with tents, meaning that they were constantly wet and suffering the effects of exposure.

In April, the Australian war correspondent and poet, Banjo Paterson, wrote “the men are dying like flies from enteric fever … and fatigue parties can hardly dig the graves fast enough.” Bloemfontein’s waterworks were held by the Boers for more than a month after the city’s capture by the British Imperial forces, meaning that the only water available to the troops was poor quality.

William and his unit were involved in the action at Karee Siding on 29 March, but mainly saw action in flying skirmishes against Boers, rather than large-scale battles. By this time, the Mounted Rifles were the furthest north of the Imperial troops, and their scouts were fired on almost every day by Boer patrols. In one action, William’s horse was killed under him, but he survived.

Yet the conditions and lack of shelter proved more dangerous than the fighting. The rain persisted and men continued to sicken and die. In mid-May, commander-in-chief Lord Roberts wrote about the difficulty of procuring food for the men, other than meat from local farms.

The 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles left Bloemfontein on 1 May on the march to Pretoria, but it appears that William did not go with them. In late May 1900, British authorities reported to London that William was dangerously ill with typhoid fever in the hospital at Bloemfontein. The exact date of William’s death is not known, but it was reported on 2 June 1900. Just over half of the Australian soldiers who fought in South Africa died of illness

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