3-070-979 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Major W. M. Laurence, killed in the Basuto War, 1881. First Boer War. 'This gallant officer was killed in one of the last actions of the Basuto War, on March 9, at Thlotsi Heights, while commanding the left wing of the Kimberley Horse. He was the second son of the Rev. Perceval Laurence, Rector of Walesby, Lincolnshire, and was born at Woking...[in] 1855. Major Laurence had served during part of the Zulu War as an officer in the Imperial Forces, and at the close of that war had undertaken the work of a journalist at Kimberley. He was there among the first to respond to a call made last year by the Government of the Cape Colony, for volunteers to serve in Basutoland. His skill in landing troops, his untiring energy in drilling them, and his conspicuous gallantry in action were soon recognised; and he was intrusted with the command of the left wing. On March 11, the anniversary of the day on which, twenty-three years before, his uncle and godfather, a well-known officer on Sir James Outram's staff, fell leading one of the final attacks upon Lucknow, Major Laurence's body, surrounded by his devoted comrades, was borne to his grave, over which they have since erected a stone, "in memory of a very gallant commander and a deeply lamented friend".' From "Illustrated London News", 1881.