MEMORABILIA

Countless souvenirs were produced during the War to satisfy people's enthusiastic patriotism.

There are silver items, many depicting Caton Woodville's design 'A Gentleman in Kharki'. Numerous pieces of china portraying Buller, Roberts, Kitchener, French, White or MacDonald can be found. Baden-Powell, being sought also by Scouting collectors, is even more in demand. Kruger and other Boer leaders are less common. There are Staffordshire figures and other porcelain or bisque figures and busts. There is a range of other militaria. In 1899 the Queen gave a Christmas/New Year gift of a tin of chocolate to all her sailors and soldiers serving in South Africa; many of these tins were preserved as souvenirs, some complete with chocolate!

Picture Postcards were just beginning to be popular. British cards relating to the War were most often patriotic; cards from the continent were mostly anti-British, humorous at first but becoming more vitriolic as the War went on. Cigarette cards are common with a few highly prized rarities.

Prints were often produced as supplements to magazines such as 'Vanity Fair' or 'The Sphere'. Several war correspondents, including Winston Churchill, published their newspaper dispatches as books. Soldiers on both sides wrote memoirs. Conan Doyle and others wrote histories; illustrated weekly magazines about the War were published and often bound (e.g. 'With the Flag to Pretoria'). Assorted poems were written, most famously Kipling's 'The Absent-Minded Beggar' (the royalties from which raised £340,000 for War charities through recitations and concerts - Sullivan set it to music).

All sorts of paper Ephemera exist, such as war maps, posters, passes, paper money, ration tickets, directives, photographs and autographs.

Prisoners of War, with much time on their hands, carved artefacts of wood, bone, horn or stone.

The list of memorabilia can go on to include letters, newspapers, sheet music, lapel badges, handkerchiefs, money boxes, doorstops, metal plaques, board games, bibles etc.

Reference Books include:
Artists and Illustrators of the Anglo-Boer War - Ryno Greenwall
Boer War Tribute Medals - M.G. Hibbard
Paper Currency of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902 - John Ineson
Boer War Memorabilia - Pieter Oosthuizen