HONOURABLE WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND--INTERPRETER TO CHELMSFORD

THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND--INTERPRETER TO LORD CHELMSFORD AND KILLIED AFTER ULUNDI (Isandula Collection)  Thanks to John Young
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Same image in the Royal Collection Trust: https://www.rct.uk/collection/2501090/the-honourable-william-henry-drummond-1845-1879-interpreter-to-lord-chelmsford

“Drummond, Mr William Henry (vertebrate zoology)

Born: 1 August 1845, United Kingdom.
Died: 4 July 1879, Ulundi, Zululand, South Africa.
William Henry Drummond, trader, hunter, soldier and civil servant, was the son of William Henry Drummond, 7th Viscount Strathallan and his wife Christina Maria Hersey Drummond, born Baird. He undertook his first trek with a Boer transport rider in 1862, from Natal through the Free State to the Transvaal. From 1868 to 1872 he hunted and traded, mainly in Zululand, Swaziland and Tongaland. Having kept a journal, he transformed this into a book and upon his return to Britain in March 1875 had it published under the title The large game and natural history of South and South-East Africa: From the Journals of the Hon. W.H. Drummond (Edinburgh, 1875). It dealt mainly with hunting large mammals and game birds and was not primarily a zoological work. However, Drummond did read a paper before the Zoological Society of London in February 1876. He also edited a volume of articles by D. Leslie, which was published in Glasgow in 1875 as Among the Zulus and Amatongas.

He returned to KwaZulu-Natal to hunt, visited Cetshwayo and travelled to the White Umfolozi and Tongaland. During the Anglo-Zulu War (1879) he acted as interpreter, guide and advisor on Zulu customs on Lord Chelmsford's staff, and was killed in the battle of Ulundi.”

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Natal Witness 21st August 1879

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South London Observer - Wednesday 13 August 1879

Kate,

The inherited Zulu oral history rather contradicts that report. That records that Drummond heard the cries of a Zulu woman, who with her child, was trapped inside one of the burning thatched huts. Drummond - an isiZulu speaker - reacted by dismounting from his horse and attempting to rescue the woman and her child, tragically all three perished in the flames.

Personally, I prefer the Zulu account, which rather contradicts some of the allegations made that Drummond was blind-drunk that day, and managed to get himself lost in the warren of huts.

JY

John
The Zulu oral history is indeed very dramatic and heroic but I was just wondering, if he was burned to death along with two others and the remains buried beneath a collapsed hut how did they
A/ Find him
B/ Identify him
The report from the Natal Witness above says he was found on hillside near Ulundi. Not in the burnt remains of a hut.
K

Kate,

Like so many events that occurred in the Zulu War, there are contradictory interpretations of the same event. Unfortunately, I feel, that there can be no certainty in those circumstances.

JY

The discussion brings to mind the Polish philosopher Kolakowski's Law of Infinite Cornucopia viz., there are an infinite number of explanations for any simple event or to put it in plainer language – you’ll never know which so-and-so hit you or why.

"After the Battle of Ulundi on the 4th July 1879 he was riding ‘Percy’ a large grey, which he had purchased after the Prince Imperial’s funeral, and was riding through some Kraals which the group that he was with were torching, but he lost his way in the labyrinth of passageways. He was never seen alive again, and a month and a half later on the 18th of August his charred corpse was found in the ashes of the Kraal."
(The Washing of the Spears by Donald R Morris)

Andy