Private Denham Charles Franklin
Number: 11262
Company: 61st (South Irish Horse) Company (Dublin), 17th Battalion
ENLISTMENT
Date: 22 January 1900
Place: Newbridge
Age: 22 years 9 months
Trade of calling: Electrical engineer
Place of birth: In the Parish of Clonakilty, near the Town of Clonakilty, in the County of Cork
Family: Father Denham Franklin, railway secretary, JP for County Cork, mother Ellen (nee Harvey), 11 St Patrick's Hill, Cork.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 10". Complexion dark, eyes grey, hair dark. Scar on right wrist.
Religion: Church of Ireland
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 6 April 1900
Campaigns: South Africa 1899-1901
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal; Rhodesia clasp.
DEATH
Date: 12 June 1900
Place: Umtali (Mutare)
Cause: Dysentery/ malaria
Buried/ commemorated: Umtali Cemetery
The evils of Bamboo Creek did not spare the Irish Squadrons, and they had not been encamped at that place many days before half the men were in the fell grip of dysentery and fever, the fatal effects of which were shown a little later in the Umtali hospitals. Six young lives were claimed as the dread toll for their stay in the Portuguese swamps. - Trooper McCarron of the 60th and Troopers Franklin, Stone and McCann of the 61st died at Umtali; while Troopers Walters and McNally of the 60th were invalided, but died on their way home. (Sharrad H. Gilbert, Rhodesia - And After: Being the Story of the 17th and 18th Battalions of the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, 1901.)
Cork Weekly News, 23 June 1900
Cemetery image sourced from Boer War Association Queensland Newsletter, November 2019, courtesy David 'Magara' Olsen.
This page last updated 25 July 2024.