Lance Corporal Benjamin Johnston
Number: 9554
Company: 54th (Belfast) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 5 February 1900
Place: Belfast
Age: 20 years 10 months
Trade or calling: Bank clerk
Place of birth: In the Parish of Stranorlar, in or near the Town of Stranorlar, in the County of Donegal
Address: __
Family: Father Henry Maturin Johnston, medical practitioner, mother Millicent Agnes Bleunerhassett Johnston (nee Stapleton), of Stranorlar.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 7". Complexion fresh/ fair, eyes grey/ blue, hair brown. Mole on left side of neck. Tattoo "B. J" right forearm.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Date home: 12 April 1901
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State, 1901 clasps.
DISCHARGE
Date: 28 August 1901
Place: Shorncliffe
Reason for discharge: Medically unfit for further service
Intended place of residence: Stranorlar
Conduct: Very good
Special qualifications: Bank clerk
The Ballymena Weekly Telegraph of 28 April 1900 reported that:
He is the eldest son of Dr. Johnston, of Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, and was 20 years old on the 20th April. He entered the Bank of Ireland service in April, 1899, and since that time up to the date of volunteering was stationed in the Derry office, where he made many friends, and was a general favourite. He is a noted athlete, and was well known on the footfield [sic] field at Portora Royal School where he was educated. He is an enthusiastic hockey player, and won for himself golden opinions on many a hockey course in Co. Donegal. Trooper B. Johnston is at present on 12 months' leave from the bank service, and he carries with him in his new duties and devotion to his country the best wishes of a large circle of friends.
Johnson was wounded at Lindley between 28 and 31 May 1900, being left behind with the other wounded men rather than taken prisoner with most of his battalion. On 14 August 1900 the Northern Whig published the following:
Mr. Ben Johnston, who left the Bank of Ireland, Londonderry, in order to volunteer for service with the Irish yeomen, and who was one of the members of B Company wounded at Lindley, has just sent to Mr. Godfrey Forbes, of he Provincial Bank, Londonderry, an interesting account of his adventures. The letter is dated Lindley Hospital, July 9, and the writer says:-- "A Mauser bullet nearly finished me. It knocked me over like a garden thrush. Part of my hip-joint was smashed. A fortnight afterwards I was put under chloroform, and they chopped into me till they found the steel casing of the bullet. The first couple of days I was here I hardly remember anything. I nearly got snuffed out from loss of blood, and then I never ate anything. I was lifted into the ambulance by Marshall Donnell, Joe Allen, Davy Mooney, Henderson (a Derry farrier), and Harvey, an old Portora boy like myself. I was exactly five weeks in bed, but now I am carried into the sun for a little every day. I should be home some time in September, but may be forced to go to Netley for a while, but not if I can possibly avoid it. That is all the news about myself. Remember me to everyone on Derry. We are smoking very little - can only get a very little Boer baccy and a little Kaffir baccy (awful stuff). We have a little dry old English black shag, which we make cigarettes out of with common paper. Mercy deliver us from a baccy famine again! I don't know where Marshall Donnell and the rest are at all - whether they are prisoners still or not. In fact, we know nothing about anything. For forty-eight hours before I was captured all I got to eat or drink was bad water and about 1/4lb. of a raw piece of sheep. High-class living! For four weeks here we were practically in a state of seige. Though the Boers were not bombarding the town, we could hear the shells whisting over the hospital every day. We had a garrison of 1,500 against 7,000 Boers. More wounded every day. Then at last a convoy of provisions fought its way in, and now that 7,000 or 8,000 Boers have over 30,000 of our men chasing and collecting them south of Bethlehem, where I hope there wil be a second Paardeberg. I have seen and been asked how I was by both Lord Methuen and General Paget. Every place available is an hospital here - churches and all. Three men have died in this ward. One lived five weeks, and then got lockjaw and died. On the field the first man who was hit fell into my arms and died there. My chum in this job he was. A lot of the Boers were using soft-nosed, expansive bullets, with awful results. One chap, hit in the shin, got the whole calf of his leg blown out. In spite of grub and ammunition running out and their numbers, we could have held out a day or so longer if they had not got their big guns on us. Four guns they had - 12 and 15 pounders. Shrapnel and percussion shells they used.
At some point following his discharge Johnston emigrated to Canada, where he worked as a rancher. In World War 1 he served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Lord Strathcona's Horse before being commissioned and posted to the North Irish Horse. Further details can be seen here.
First image from the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph, 28 April 1900.
This page last updated 12 January 2025.