A RECORD number of descendants of the soldiers awarded the Victoria Cross at Rorke’s Drift in 1879 attended the Royal Welsh Regimental Museum’s Zulu Dinner recently, and the museum friends want to contact more families who are descended from Robert Jones VC and John Williams (Fielding) VC.
“We were so pleased that there a significant number of descendants of the winners of the Victoria Cross at Rorke’s Drift as part of our Zulu Dinner. We hope that more will come to this ad other museum events in the future,” said Dorcas Cresswell, museum trustee and organiser of the event.
For retired university law lecturer Robert East from Llangorse, whose great grandfather was Private Robert Jones, the Zulu dinner was a great success, because after 10 years of attending dinners, this year was the first time he had met other descendants.
John Williams/Fielding
Jones had been born on a farm near Clytha in Monmouthshire, but there was little work about, and so had joined the army and was 21 years old when he fought at Rorke’s Drift, and won the VC for his part in rescuing patients in the hospital.
After being discharged from the army Jones had settled in Peterchurch, Hereford, as a farm labourer, but died after borrowing his employer’s shotgun to shoot crows on the farm.
He seemed to suffer from nightmares from his Rorke’s Drift fighting, and it was thought that it was suicide. Usually suicide cases meant that their bodies could not be buried in the consecrated ground of the churchyard.
“Because he was a VC he was allowed to buried in consecrated ground, but the coffin could not be passed through the main gate and so had to be lifted over the wall, and he was buried facing the different direction of all the graves,” East said, but he discovered from his newly discovered cousin that it had been now proved not to be a suicide, and that was strangely comforting.
The defence of Rorke’s Drift with the awarding of 11 Victoria Crosses made it a famous historical event, but it was the film Zulu that immortalised East’s great grandfather.
And to prove it, his parents were always proud of being invited to the Welsh premier of the film in Queen Street, Cardiff, in 1964 because of his grandmother’s father.
East’s forebear Robert Jones was immortalised by Denys Graham in the film Zulu.
The other Gwent VC was John Fielding, who joined the army under the name Williams, who was born in Abergavenny, but lived in Ty Coch, and is buried in Llantarnam Cemetery. Until recently a march was held in his honour on the anniversary of his death.
Private Robert Jones
The original Victoria Cross of Lt Gonville Bromhead is on display at the Royal Welsh Regimental Museum in Brecon until December 16. His descendant David Bromhead, who was a former Colonel of The Royal Regiment of Wales, was also at the dinner.
Contact Friends of Royal Welsh Regimental Museum at dorcascresswell@gmail.com or visit the website royalwelshmuseum.wales/
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