1 JANUARY 1900 - KURUMAN “SIEGE” ENDS

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On the outbreak of war, the garrison (35 Cape Police under Capt Bates) at Kuruman, a mission station in British Bechuanaland, was unable to retire on Kimberley.

 

Preparing the station’s defences, Bates recruited 33 civilians as special police and 60 locals for military and other duties. 

Field Cornet J.H. Visser, with 200 (burghers from the South African Republic and rebels from Vryburg district) arrived on 12 November 1899, and unsuccessfully demanded the garrison’s surrender. After a week of investment, the Boers retired to Phokwane. 

 

Returning on 5 December with some 500 burghers, the siege restarted and Visser was joined by Field Cornet Wessels with some 130 rebels from Griqualand; the latter left on 26 December.

 

Eventually, shelling from a 7 pdr muzzle-loader, which had arrived on 30 December, destroyed the garrison’s defences and it was forced to surrender on 1 January 1900. Cape rebels then held the station, but it was reoccupied on 24 June 1900.

Source: Gazetteer of the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902, HM Jones & MGM Jones 1999.