Private George McLaughlin
Number: 9370
Company: 46th (Belfast) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 30 December 1899
Place: Belfast
Age: 22 years 6 months
Trade or calling: Builder
Place of birth: In the Parish of Belfast, in or near the Town of Belfast, in the County of Belfast
Address: Brookville, Antrim Road, Belfast
Family: Single. Father William Henry McLaughlin, builder, mother Emily Sophia McLaughlin (nee Dobbin), of Brookville, Antrim Road.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 8 1/2". Complexion fresh, eyes blue, hair brown. Scar back right leg. Three marks each arm.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State clasps.
DEATH
Date: 30 May 1900
Place: Lindley, South Africa
Cause: Killed in action
Burial/ Commemoration: Walker 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 G. McLaughlin, one of the earliest volunteers for 'A' Company, was the son of our esteemed fellow-citizen Mr. W. H. McLaughlin, of the firm McLaughlin & Harvey, builders. Needless to say, his action in joining the Yeomanry was prompted solely by patriotic feeling and youthful enthusiasm. He was a fine athletic young man, genial and kindly in disposition, and a great favourite with all who knew him. Mrs. McLaughlin, his mother, died only a fortnight ago, and in this second great bereavement his father has the sympathy of every inhabitant of Belfast.
The circumstances surrounding McLaughlin's death were described in a letter home from Private Robert Johnston Stewart, published in the North Down Herald and County Down Independent on 19 October:
On Wednesday ... there was a call for one man from each trench to go and occupy a hill or kopje about 1 1/2 miles distant from our trenches. We started off 17 strong and had just got to the bottom of the Kopje when the Boers poured a trenendous fire into us, causing a good deal of confusion and breaking up our line of advance. After resting a moment we again advanced and our sergeant, who was in charge of the right flank, became a little detached and we just got up in time to see him being captured by the Boers. We immediately opened fire upon them which they quickly returned and if our maxim gun had not just then been turned upon them neither I nor any of the others would be living now to tell the story. While the maxim was pounding at them I got an opportunity of slipping down the hill about 20 yards and lay there until dark, when I attempted to return to our entrenchments. I got pretty well lost in the dark and as the Boers had lit the grass all round our position there were no land marks to direct me and I found myself eventually near a farm house held by the Boers. As I knew our entrenchments lay entirely in the opposite direction I turned my back to the farm house and after a long walk found myself near an outpost of the Dublins, which I joined and remained there all night, finally getting back to my own company about 6.30 in the morning. The kopje which we attempted to capture was the one where poor MacLaughlin and Lecky, and two others were killed and eight captured, so of the seventeen who went out in the morning only five returned, most of them having had an experience much the same as myself.
Private James Barriskill recorded in his diary that:
I only found out on the evening we surrendered that Tommi Lackey had been shot dead the previous evg. he was charging up a kopje when he fell shot thro the groin & several other bullets struck him while lying there, two other chaps were killed at the same place – McLaughlin & Tom Walker. No other three chaps in the 46th Co. were thought more of [than] they were & Capt Maude & his men tried hard to get permission to go out & bury them but could not.
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.
On 25 August the Belfast Evening Telegraph published a letter from Adam Bothwell, which included the following:
Poor George McLaughlin, unfortunately, as you will now be aware, was one of the killed. I am now wearing a pair of his socks; and a very strange thing. George and a fellow from Newry called Tom Walker (whose hair brush I am presently using) and I were "chumming" very much for over a month, and both were killed on the spot. Many a long thought I have had over it. Many an hour I have had thinking over little things generally that happened, when the three of us would go for a walk at Stellenbosch and Bloemfontein.
McLaughlin's death was also mentioned in a letter home from Private John Moore.
This page last updated 1 September 2026.