Anstey's body

Would a more experienced man be working as a waiter? And yes I could easily imagine an older senior non common referring to a young officer in that fashion.

I'm mistaken here. It was the writer (the correspondent writing from Zululand), not the man who found the body, who last saw Anstey at a Mansion House banquet. And that was Forbes. It could still have been any one of the five men present who identified the body.

And which one is most likely to have been 'conscripted' to work as a waiter? I doubt it could have been a senior ranked Captain, would a well respected newsman fit the bill? Its the waiter comment that is the most intriguing.

Frank
Therein lay the earlier confusion. There is a tiny comma after "banquet". The writer wasn't the waiter. The writer (Forbes) was merely describing an occasion (which he witnessed) when a waiter mistook Anstey for Wolseley.

Thanks Julian for the clarification.

If you leave out the comma (and it is easily missed at first glance) then the whole meaning is changed.

Thanks Julian
I will amend your Studies booklet accordingly.

Kate, to save you the trouble:
page 5
On 14th March 1879 a party of 32 volunteers under Lieut.-Col. Black made a fleeting visit to the field of Isandhlwana.18  Regarding the discovery of bodies an eye-witness recorded: “The greatest number counted lying together within a very small compass was sixty-eight, and these were in the left rear of the 1-24th, near the officers’ mess-tent.  The majority were 24th men…but with few exceptions, it was impossible to recognise any one and the only officer that was seen was discovered by his clothes.”19  The identity of that officer was revealed by the journalist Archibald Forbes: “When the scene of the disaster was visited by Captain Black’s party, now several weeks ago, decay had been singularly lenient with some of the gallant dead.  The body, for instance, of my poor friend, bright young Edgar Anstey, of the 1st-24th, was easily recognised.  He lay a little apart from the main mass of dead, his face hardly changed from its blithe, frank, expression in life.  He wore cords and leggings, and only his uniform coat had been stripped off.  It seems but yesterday that I last saw the lad at a Mansion House banquet, when a waiter, I suppose because he was the only guest in uniform, thought proper to persist in believing that he must be Sir Garnet Wolseley.”20  There had been no time for burying the dead on this visit.
and fn. 20
Special correspondent (Archibald Forbes), ‘Campaigning on the Zululand Frontier: Headquarters,
Brigadier-General Wood, May 15’, Daily News, 28th June.  The report probably took seven or eight
weeks to reach England and referred to Black’s visit being “several weeks ago.”  The writer could not
have been referring to Black’s burial parties of 20th, 23rd, 25th and 26th June, nor to his earlier visits of 8th June or 19th May.  The only remaining visit is the one of 14th March.*  Forbes did not arrive in Natal until April.  His 15th May report merely stated that Anstey’s body was recognized by someone who had clearly known him well.  Apart from Black, the only other 24th men present were Capts. Symons, Harvey and Banister and Col.-Sergt. Tigar, all 2/24th, and Forbes must have obtained his information from one of them.
A curious corollary to the finding of Anstey’s body is contained in a review of an exhibition at the British Museum: ‘South Africa: The Art of a Nation’ (27.10.2016-26.2.2017) which states that “two spears found in the body of Lt. Edgar Oliphant Anstey after the battle are on display…” (The Guardian, 27th October 2016).  The spears’ provenance has so far been impossible to discover.

*  It is alleged that a fleeting visit occurred on 2nd February 1879 by Black and a patrol of ten Natal Mounted Police with the intention of looking for the 24th’s Colours.  See Clarke, Trpr. W. J., N.M.P., ‘My Career in South Africa’, CC, acc. no. 31184 MS CLA 1.092, pp. 30-31 although Clarke appears to have conflated this with a later patrol.  The anonymous writer (Forbes) could not have been referring to this visit either.

Frank / Kate
You might be interested to know that it took a Frenchman to spot the significance of the obscure comma!

Thanks Julian I will paste that in.
Not sure about your last comment about the Frenchman though.

First time I read the complete article through in full was yesterday.
Not meaning to be picky but it is split into two pieces in your study, the first part on page 5 and the last sentance on page 9, and there is no indication of how they connect together as a complete article.
I was under no illusion that it was an ex waiter who was at iSandlwana as that comma is clearly visible in the article but thats just me.

What do other forum members think?

PAGE 5
para 4 relates to the identification of Anstey's body on 14th March
para 5 et seq relates to the location of Anstey's body on the field of Isandhlwana and its burial

PAGE 6
para 2 relates to the two notes (Brecon & family) stating where the body was found
para 3 relates to the reburying of the bodies following severe rainfall and the arrival on the scene of
Anstey's brother Thomas
para 4 relates to an inaccurate but oft-quoted newspaper report concerning Thomas Anstey's recovery of his brother's body
para 5 et seq relates to Anstey's father's published correction of that newspaper report

PAGE 7
para 2 relates to the recovery of the body in Sampson & Low's memorial tome
para 3 summarizes and clarifies all the foregoing in a logical fashion
para 4 relates to David Jackson's meeting with the family in the 50s and the contents of a family display case containing in the main items taken from Anstey's body
para 5 relates the contents of a letter from that case describing how the news of Anstey's death was broken to his father on the morning news of the disaster first appeared in the papers

PAGES 8, 9 & 10 contain footnotes to the whole article

I'm not sure how you think the essay is split into two or how it's disconnected.  Do you have a duff copy with pages missing?  I'm not aware of any other copies with that problem.

Just re checked my copy. I think it is okay Julian.
When I write of it being split in two in your study I am just refering to the newspaper article I posted up yesterday.
The part of the article in paragraph 4 on page 5 starts with "When the scene of the disaster was visited...." and ends with "...coat had been stripped off" and a footnote number 20 which is on page 9 and which reads  "It seems but yesterday when I last saw the lad at a Mansion House banquet, when a waiter.." and then it stops.(you have printed the banquet comma in your article)
There is nothing to suggest to me that this footnote sentence directly follows on from "Coat had been stripped off." or if there was anything written inbetween
The first eight and half lines of the article are not quoted, neither are the last three.

I can't find the entire newspaper article in the study, so if it is in there somewhere then I am missing pages.Hope that makes sense.

That makes sense, yes. And glad you don't have a mangled copy.
I only quote lines which are relevant for the an explanation of the text. This applied to both the instances which you describe at 3.13 p.m. above.
However, the ordering and wording of the text in the version sent to you at 1.20 p.m. above (which appears in the revised edition) both clarifies and conforms more to your expectation.

It's worth stating- if not done so already- that Forbes wrote several years later that he found Anstey's mortal remains 'on the woeful slope of Isandula'.

It's interesting how many individuals ID'd this one Officer's remains. And how often he appears in correspondence, Natural History Museum records, etc. Edgar Oliphant Anstey seems to have left quite the impression.

Mike
Not wishing to be a pain - can you please tell us where Forbes wrote that? I can't seem to locate it and must be missing it.

Hi Julian, give me a day or two and I can dig up the exact source. It's an extract from an Australian newspaper, quoting Forbes.

Re my 22 Aug 2022 post of 1.20 pm I have unbelievably a year on an answer from the British Museum.
TCR Anstey made a donation to the BM in 1954 of several items picked up from Cetshwayo's kraal - a shield, a powder horn, etc.  In the curator's notes for these is written:
'The spears collected after the battle of ISANDHLWANA, 1879 by the donor's father, whose brother (of the 1st batallion, 24th Foot, now S. Wales Borderers) was killed by the spears. The other things may come from the Krall of Cetewayo, after the battle of ULUNDI, which ended the war'. [see correspondence]"  [Spelling are as on the BM website.]
If you use the search engine on the BM website, several undated assegais can be found but these are not the ones referred to above: they were not donated by TCR Anstey but by other named people (and years later).  Search using the word 'assegai'.  The other items with the quotation of the curator's notes can be brought up by searching using the word 'Anstey'.
In short the mystery deepens because how is it possible for the donor's father to have collected such spears "after the battle".  How would he have known that these were the one's responsible for his son's death?  And where is the provenance? More importantly where are these spears that are being referred to in the curator's notes?
There is apparently "correspondence" which I have asked to see which might reveal something more - I shall report back.

Search the BM website using the words 'Zulu spear' DOES bring up the items concerned: Af1954,03.2 and 3.
They have the same curator's notes with no further explanation.
We'll see what the correspondence says.

Perhaps 'collected' by the father refers to the father's collection (if that makes sense) rather than actually picked up by him?