Private James Stone
Number: 11289
Company: 61st (South Irish Horse) Company (Dublin), 17th Battalion
ENLISTMENT
Date: 1 February 1900
Place: Newbridge
Age: 25 years
Trade of calling: Gymnastic instructor in the Sackville Hall YMCA
Place of birth: In the Parish of Dublin, near the Town of Dublin, in the County of Dublin
Family: Next of kin stated as W. Rose, Conicare [Coneykeare], County Carlow. Father S. Stone of Ballickmoyler, County Carlow.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 6 1/2". Complexion dark, eyes dark, hair brown.
Religion: Other Protestant
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: 5 June 1900
Place: Umtali (Mutare)
Cause: Dysentery
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.
The fell disease claimed indiscriminantly the strong and the weak as its victims, for Trooper Stone - the first to succumb - was well known in Dublin gymnastic circles, and was perhaps the strongest and best developed man in the squadron.
(Sharrad H. Gilbert, Rhodesia - And After: Being the Story of the 17th and 18th Battalions of the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, 1901.)
Weekly Irish Times, 30 June 1900
Cemetery image sourced from Boer War Association Queensland Newsletter, November 2019, courtesy David 'Magara' Olsen.
This page last updated 24 July 2024.