Private William James (Jim) Cleland
Number: 9474
Company: 46th (Belfast) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 22 January 1900
Place: Belfast
Age: 20 years 4 months
Trade or calling: Carpenter
Place of birth: In the Parish of Newry, in or near the Town of Newry, in County Down
Address: 44 Canal Street, Newry
Family: Father William James Cleland, grocer, mother Martha Cleland (nee McBride), of 44 Canal Street, Newry.
Previous military service: Served 61 days in the Royal Engineers - discharged by purchase
Description: Height 5' 8 3/4". Complexion fresh, eyes grey, hair brown. Tattoo cross left forearm.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Date home: 8 June 1901
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State, 1901 clasps. King's South Africa Medal with Cape Police.
DISCHARGE
Date: 15 June 1901
Place: Belfast
Reason for discharge: The termination of his engagement
Intended place of residence: 44 Canal Street, Newry, County Down
Conduct: Good
Special qualifications: Fair groom, driver and servant
Cleland was among the 400 men captured by Boer forces at Lindley on 31 May 1900.
On 12 June he wrote a letter to his mother from Vrede, which was published in the Northern Whig of 4 August:
Dear Mother,-- I hope you are quite well. I am well at present. I suppose you have heard ere this of the 13th Battalion being captured at Lindley. McConnell is here; he is well. Holt is at Reitz. All the Newry men are safe, excepting poor Tom Walker, who was shot. We are well treated by the Dutch. -- Your loving son, Wm J. Cleland.
He was mentioned in a letter home from William Holt dated 31 July:
I have not seen Jim Cleland or any of the Newry fellows since we were taken prisoners, but hope to see them all released very soon.
On 29 August 1900 The Newry Reporter published the following letter from Cleland under the headline 'PLUCKY NEWRY YEOMAN ESCAPES FROM A BOER PRISON':
Ladysmith, 3rd August, 1900.
Dear Father and Mother,-- I am sure you were all very uneasy about me when you heard we were captured by the Boers. You will be glad to learn that I am now all right. We were all removed to Nooitgedacht, and placed in a prison there. The Boers treated us very badly, and had it not been for the British residents around us we would have been starved. After enduring the hardships for some time, I resolved, with several of my companions, to try and make my escape. Accordingly, one night I unscrewed a bar from our prison window, and, after helping my three companions to get out, I followed, and we managed to evade detection. I had to walk over 100 miles before I arrived at Ladysmith. It was a very dangerous and daring undertaking, but we managed it. When I arrived here I was brought before the commanding officer, who gave me a good dinner and then a little whisky and soda, and complimented me on my escape. I hear that Harrismith was relieved yesterday, so that James McConnell, of Newry, will also be relieved; so also will Holt, of Newry. I did not see Weir, of Newry, for the past two months. He was well then. We had five days hard fighting at Lindley. Poor Martin was riddled with bullets. The only Newryman killed was poor Tom Walker. The Boers lost more men than us in the fight. I was three days behind one rock, and I can assure you many a shot I fired in that time. We had only about one day's rations altogether during the five days we were hemmed in, so I can assure you I was not in the best of form. We held on for England's glory, and I hope to do a bit more fighting yet for the old country. I expect to be attached to the 13th Hussars for some time, anyhow, until my company is released. Remember me in the warmest terms to Sandy Whelan and George Massey. Many a time I thought of you all when I was captured, knowing you would be fretting about me. You need not fear; I am all right now. I am now twelve stone weight, and in splendid form. I was only eleven stone and a-half when I left home, so you see I have not lost anything. I would like to get a letter from you both soon.-- Your loving son, JIM.
Many of the details he gives about his captivity at Nooitgedacht differed markedly from those of other members of the 13th Battalion, resulting in the following letter to the Belfast Evening Telegraph published on 6 December from Stanley B. Allen, brother of Private John Richard Allan of the 46th (Belfast) Company, about complaints and exaggerations of some Yeomen that were being published in the papers. It read in part:
... I received a letter from my brother yesterday, from which I take the following:-- "What do you think of some of the letters from Yeomanry published in the papers? They are nearly all full of absolute lies. I saw one in a Newry paper. It was headed 'A Plucky Newry Yeoman,' and was from a chap in my company. It gave a most graphic and thrilling account of his escape from prison at Nooitdegacht, while the fact of the matter is he was left in hospital at Reitz, and was never in Nooitdegacht in his life. Several other letters I have seen contain some horrible lies. Some of the writers were rather 'flabbergasted' when they saw them, as they had sent them home to their friends, and never thought they would be published or that we should see them. According to some of the boys we were in several engagements long before we left Maitland Camp."
A further letter from Stanley Allan clarifying the matter was published in the Newry Reporter on 17 December 1900:
... Since the publication of my letter [in the Belfast Evening Telegraph] I have received a communication from Trooper Cleland's mother, Mrs. Martha Cleland, 44, Canal Street, Newry, informing me that her son did not write that he had escaped from Nooitdegacht, but that he had escaped from Harrismith, where he had been removed to after the departure of the battalion from Reitz. She states that it was through the blunder of the person who took the extracts from her son's letter for publication that the mistake arose, as the name Nooitgedacht was given instead of Harrismith. I think, in justice to Cleland, this ought to be made known.
A note from the editor of the Newry Reporter confirmed that this transcription error had occurred, adding "The parents of young Cleland had ample proof of their son's plucky escape in official telegraph."
On 31 August 1901 Cleland enlisted in the Cape Police. He was discharged by purchase on 27 November 1902.
Image from the Belfast Telegraph, 27 March 1900.
This page last updated 7 August 2026.