Daniel , Thomas (T)

William Spurgeon Staynes was the eldest son of William Joseph & Louisa Staynes and was born on 3 October 1877 at Burbage, a village near Hinckley, in Leicestershire where his father was the Baptist Minister. When William was 17 in 1894 his father, then Baptist Minister at Southsea in Hampshire, chose to accept a post of Minister in Vryburgh, South Africa, in the hope the climate would be more kind to his asthma. William accompanied his father to South Africa leaving his mother, his younger brother and his two sisters behind. After his father?s death in 1897 William remained in Vryburgh where in 1900 he enlisted in the newly raised Denison's Scouts, to fight the Boers, and was given the rank of Sergeant Major. Captain Dennison and his Scouts left Vryburgh on the 15th of November 1900 for Schweizer Renecke with a convoy of 140 ox and donkey wagons escorted by men of the Welsh Regiment, Imperial Yeomanry and the Australian Bushmen. On the 17th of November the Scouts approached Koppie?s Dam held by a large number of Boers. On nearing a hill to the left of the dam Dennison?s second in command, Lieut. Streak, reported that Boer reinforcements were also approaching the dam. Dennison sent a message by galloper to Sergeant Major Staynes, who had been placed in charge of the right flank, to close on the centre and not to advance further until so ordered. The Sergeant Major either did not get the message or chose to disregard it and continued to advance with the result that he was mortally wounded by the Boers and only later rescued by the surgeon, Doctor Ellis, who came under heavy fire whilst doing this. William died on the 20th of November, the day after the troop?s arrival at Schweizer Renecke. Dennison wrote ?by his death I lost one of my bravest and best lads.? William was buried with full military honours at Schweizer Renecke. (John Staynes, the writer of this would be delighted to hear from anyone living in the vicinity of Schweizer Renecke whether the graves of either William or his father retain their gravestones and if so the inscriptions on them.)