BRITISH COLONIAL POLICE SOUTHERN AFRICA AND ANTECEDENT POLICE FORCES IN SOUTH AFRICA

CAPE COLONY POLICE: SERJT. JOHN EDWARD REDDING

Rory P Reynolds

This was a recent purchase which I have now found the time to research and write-up. Redding must have been a hard man in many respects but that was how life moulded him. His second marriage was to a girl who was only 16. Would it be frowned upon in this day and age?

John Edward Redding

• Trooper, Cape Mounted Rifles
• Trooper, District Mounted Police, Sutherland
• Chief Constable and Sergeant-in-Charge, Venterstad
• Chief Constable, Richmond

Queens South Africa Medal (Cape Colony) to Serjt. J.E. Redding. C.C. Police

John Redding was born in Cape Town on or about 9 May 1869 the son of Samuel Redding, a Fireman employed at a Saw Mill, and his Dutch-speaking wife Christina Maria born Muller. Oddly, at the time of his baptism in the Dutch Reformed Church he was named John Elijah but this moniker was never used by him.

After what was probably a rudimentary but sufficient education for the times in which he lived in Redding enlisted with the Cape Mounted Rifles at Cape Town on 17 June 1889. Aged 20 he was assigned no. 1845 and the rank of Trooper. After a brief period of training and assimilation he was posted to King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape to commence his service. Although the worst of the interminable wars between the settlers and the Xhosa people were over, the Eastern Cape was still Frontier Country which meant that marauding bands of tribesmen, hell-bent on stealing cattle and other livestock from isolated farmsteads was still very much in evidence. It was the duty of the Cape Mounted Rifles to effectively police the area, which was still very widespread and sparsely populated.

It didn’t take long before Redding was in a spot of bother with his superiors – at King Williams Town on 1 August 1889 he was Admonished by Captain Canterell for Losing Kit. A month later, on 1 September at Mount Frere in the Transkei, he was Admonished and sentenced to 5 days Confinement to Barracks for being Drunk and Absent from Camp when he was Company Orderly from 2 – 4.30 p.m. He was also pulled up for “Committing a Nuisance in his tent.”

He seems to have behaved himself for the next while but, on 2 March 1891 whilst still based at Mount Frere, the demon drink got the better of him and he was found “Drunk on Evening Stables for which he was Admonished. Redding had now built up a head of steam and a number of transgressions followed in reasonably quick succession – he was “Absent from Watchsetting until 11.00 p.m. on 27 April 1901; Absent from Watchsetting until 11.30 p.m. on 12 May 1891 and Improperly dressed in the town on 21 September 1891.” This litany of offences took place at Mount Frere and required punishment. The Big Stick was again trundled out and Redding was Admonished and awarded 3 days C.B.

Transferred from Mount Frere to an even smaller settlement, Qumbu in the Transkei, was not going to improve matters. On 4 November 1892 he was found guilty of Disobedience of Orders and Absent from Drill at 10 a.m. – punishment of 7 days CB was meted out as the authorities became increasingly frustrated with Redding’s obvious lack of discipline. Matters weren’t about to improve – on 9 December 1892 he was guilty of being Drunk; being Absent from Evening Stables and Breaking out of the Guard Room when a Prisoner. The now standard 7 days CB was applied along with the forfeiture of 1 day’s pay.

Transferred back to Mount Frere he was up to his old tricks ere long – on 19 March 1894 he was Absent without Leave, followed by, at Umtata on 3 October 1894 “Furious riding in the village and Breaking his arrest.” – Lt. Grant awarded him 14 days CB for his efforts. But he wasn’t done quite yet – at Mahlungulu on 16 January 1895 he was found to have been “Disobedient of Orders and Breaking his arrest at Cala on 15 January 1895. By now the patience of his superiors had run out and he was awarded 14 days Imprisonment with Hard Labour by a Court of Officers on 25 January 1895. Undeterred, Reding still had one last act of defiance in him – at Xunu on 18 June 1895 he was found guilty of being Drunk in Camp.

By now it had become apparent that something had to give – Redding was clearly not cut-out for the role and, on 30 June 1895, before he was pushed, he jumped, by purchasing his discharge for £4. His forwarding address was provided as 16 Gore Street, Cape Town. Now free from the shackles of authority he sought another field of endeavour.

Where to now for Redding? Surprisingly, given his track record, he opted for life in uniform once more, joining the District Mounted Police. In was whilst employed with this august body, in the capacity of Trooper for the District of Sutherland, that he wed Margaret (van) Schalkwyk at Sutherland on 25 March 1897. The happy couple, he was 28 and she was 21, set about having a family and, before long, welcomed Samuel John Richard Redding into the world.

The baptism register in respect of Samuel revealed that Redding had moved on from the District Mounted Police and, having seemingly put his disciplinary problems firmly in the past, was now the Chief Constable of Venterstad (a small hamlet some thirty miles from Burghersdorp in the Eastern Cape.) It should also be noted that, by this time, the Anglo Boer War which had been raging since October 1899 had finally reached the Eastern Cape with small bands of Boers entering small towns and plundering them for all they were worth with impunity before being driven off by relieving British Columns.

The Cape Civil List for 1901 reveals that Redding was the Sergeant-in-Charge in Venterstad and had been on the Colony’s payroll since 15 November 1895 on an annual salary of £132. He was also a Sheep Inspector – it not being uncommon to have dual roles in the platteland.

As Chief Constable, Redding would have been kept active in monitoring the Boer movements among his other tasks. Sadly, for the family young Samuel wasn’t possessed of a strong constitution and, on 2 July 1902 he passed away with Croup at the age of 14 months in the family home in Loop Street, Richmond. By this time Redding was the Chief Constable of Richmond, an important garrison town and one that the notorious Boer Commandant Wynand Malan attempted to occupy on 25 February 1901. Redding would have been expected to play his part in repulsing this attack.

The Anglo Boer War ended on 31 May 1902 and the peaceful atmosphere that once pervaded the Eastern Cape returned. Redding was awarded the Queens Medal uniquely named off a “Police Force C.C.” roll on which only his name appears. As a rule, the District Mounted Troopers and the Chief Constables appeared on rolls which resided under the Attorney General – Redding’s is thus an anomaly.

Another child was born to the couple with Johannes Jacobus Redding making his debut in Richmond on 15 August 1902. Margaret would have been heavily pregnant with Jacobus when she buried young Samuel a month earlier. Perhaps the strain of her pregnancy proved too much – she passed away in Richmond at the young age of 25 years and 6 months on 9 July 1903 – described as the “Chief Constable’s wife.”

Bereft and having to look after young children (there had been two others since the marriage) Redding looked for and found another wife and mother to him and his offspring. Having also taken his departure from his role in the Civil Service, he wed 16-year-old Anna Juliana Catherina Barendze on 29 February 1904. The nuptials took place in Richmond where a now 32-year-old Redding was a Shop Keeper. If eyebrows were raised at the age of his bride people, wisely, kept their council.

Young Anna was a widow before the year was out! Having moved his family back to Cape Town, John Edward Redding, a Motorman of 1 Arundel Road, Rosebank, passed away at the Woodstock Suburban Hospital at the age of 36 on 10 July 1904 from the effects of Influenza and Abscess of the Liver (Multiple) – all that drinking during his time with the Cape Mounted Rifles (and subsequently) had proved too much for his liver to bear. He had been married little more than four months.

His widow remarried in 1907 – at 19 she was still a teenager.

Acknowledgements:
– University of Cape Town Collection for period Imperial maps

– Adrian Ellard for CMR file extracts

– Cape Civil List 1901

– Familysearch for baptisms, death notices and marriages