Before Anzac troops landed at Gallipoli and earned the Digger title was a war in South Africa – the Boer War – the first conflict Australia saw as a nation.
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Etched in stone at Maitland Park is the name Osborne Alexander Chilcott, great uncle to Rae Williams, one of a strong Lower Hunter contingent.
“I’m proud of him,” she said.
This year marks the 110 years since the war finished with the treaty of Vereeniging.
Chilcott left the farm Cheshunt, Singleton, in 1899 on a boat to England for training with the NSW Lancers (reservists).
He paid 20 pounds for the privilege and was seconded to South Africa in the light horse division, making good use of a childhood spent with horses.
“They were all bushies and that is why the Australians coped so well in South Africa; they left the English for dead,” Mrs Williams said.
Australians fought and died beside men from New Zealand, Britain and Canada, spending long periods in the saddle through searing heat and freezing cold nights.
Chilcott, Trooper 803, survived the war which ended in 1903. Chilcott heeded the call again in 1914 and enlisted for the Great War.
A memorial service, conducted by the Maitland RSL sub-branch, to commemorate Maitland soldiers who died in the Boer War, starts at 10am in Maitland Park on Sunday.
