Private James Martin
Number: 9404
Company: 46th (Belfast) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 6 January 1900
Place: Belfast
Age: 27 years 6 months
Trade or calling: Draper's assistant
Place of birth: Parish Ballybay, Town Ballybay, County Monaghan
Address: 40 London Road, Belfast
Family: Father Samuel Martin, Lisgonin, Ballybay. Wife Margaret Martin, 49 London Road, Belfast.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 6". Complexion fresh, eyes grey, hair brown. Little finger left hand contracted.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Campaigns: South Africa 1900
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony and Orange Free State clasps.
DEATH
Date: 30 May 1900
Place: Lindley
Cause: Killed in action
Buried/ Commemorated: Martin is buried in the Lindley Cemetery (images below). He is commemorated on the Lindley Cemetery Memorial; and on the Yeomanry Kop Memorial, Lindley.
The Northern Whig reported on 8 June 1900 that:
Trooper J. Martin is a native of Belfast, and had been engaged as a commercial traveller in the city up to the time of his joining 'A' Company. He resided at London Road, Mountpottinger, and unfortunately leaves a wife and children, whose bereavement is particularly sad. He was older than most of his comrades, being about thirty years of age.
On 26 June the Belfast Evening Telegraph announced an appeal for donations to help support Martin's widow and children.
On 29 August the Newry Reporter published a letter from James Cleland which included the following reference:
We had five days hard fighting at Lindley. Poor Martin was riddled with bullets. The only Newryman killed was poor Tom Walker.
According to an account by an officer of the 46th Company, published in the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph on 15 September:
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 30th of May (we had been fighting since the Sunday previous) when an order came from our colonel to seize a kopje about a mile and a half in front of the trenches which 46th Company were occupying. Lieutenant H. F. Montgomery and a small party of sixteen men immediately set out across the open between the two positions. They reached the top under a heavy fire, and took possession, only to be almost immediately surrounded by fifty or sixty Boers, who worked round between them and us; this prevented our firing for fear of shooting our own men. A few minutes was sufficient. The fire was something terrible, coming in on them from every side, and poor George McLaughlin was shot through the heart, Lecky, Martin, and Walker being killed at the same time. The others were taken prisoners. McLaughlin died bravely, fighting to the last, as all who knew him knew he would.
The caption to the image of Martin above, from the Belfast Evening Telegraph of 12 June 1900, reads:
He was the son of Mr. J. Martin, farmer, Ballybay, County Monaghan, served his apprenticeship to the drapery business in Enniskillen, and subsequently represented the firm of Henry Mack, wholesale drapers, Donegall Street, Belfast.
This page last updated 29 December 2025.