Son of Col. Rowland Albermarle Bettington. Attended St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown from April to December 1890. At the start of the Boer War Bettington served in the Imperial Light Horse from its formation to May 1900, later a lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery, 14th Battery from May 1900 to end of war. Bettington was a member of the Mechanical Engineers Assn. of the Witwatersrand and a member of the Chemical and Metallurgical Assn. of the Witwatersrand. and worked as a mining mechanical engineer from 1891 to outbreak of the Boer War in 1899. Bettington invented a new type of steam boiler and together with Anthony M Robeson invented a boiler furnace for burning pulverized fuel. As a young officer serving with the Royal Artillery was fascinated by the possibilities which flying offered to the artillery regarding observation and reconnaissance. After learning to fly and becoming the first South African to take the Aviator's Certificate of the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. Bettington transferred to the newly formed Royal Flying Corps (RFC).
16 Sep 2026, ServiceNo contamination sweep: the stored ServiceNo '90822' was CLEARED. It was not a reading of this man's record. PersonNumbers 38434 to 38435 -- 2 consecutive records -- all carried the identical number, which belongs to the record at the head of that run (38434, Connolly, Kevin (K)). A value repeated down an unbroken block of PersonNumbers is a forward-fill import artefact, not men who shared a service number; the pattern holds across 850 such runs on this roll and is independently confirmed by Mike Sandham's research log, which attaches such numbers to the head of the run 167 times against 6 contradictions (all examined). No replacement is guessed: this man's real service number is simply not known, and a blank field says so honestly where another man's number did not.
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