Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Captain T. G. Tyson, Kimberley Town Guard, late Diamond Fields Horse, close friend of Cecil Rhodes, secretary of the Kimberley Club and organiser of the soup-kitchen during the siege of Kimberley

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1877-8 (Capt: T. G. Tyson, Diamond Fds. Horse) fitted with large rectangular silver ribbon buckle; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Defence of Kimberley (Capt: T. Tyson Kimberley Tn: Gd:) extremely fine (2) £2000-2600

Mentioned in Colonel Kekewich’s despatch of the siege dated 15 February 1900 (London Gazette 8 May 1900): ‘Captain T. Tyson performed duties of assistant military censor to my complete satisfaction.’

Also mentioned in Lord Roberts’ despatch of 4 September 1901 (London Gazette 10 September 1901) under the heading ‘Civil Staff, Kimberley’.

Thomas Gilbee Tyson was born in 1848 and arrived in South Africa in 1872. He served in the Gaika-Galeka war with the Diamond Fields Horse under Colonel Warren. In 1884 he joined the Bechuanaland Field Force as Captain. He served as Secretary of the Kimberley Club from 1887 until 1902. During the siege he was assistant military censor and served in No. 1 Section, Belgravia Fort. He is generally credited with the idea of the soup kitchen during the siege but in a letter to the Diamond Fields Advertiser of 25 January 1900 he said the chemist Mr J. W. McBeath deserved the credit. He was appointed to the De Beers Board on 21 November 1902 and served until his death on 19 November 1912.

During the siege a soup kitchen was established on the initiative of Captain Tyson, with soup being issued in lieu of the meat ration. It was very successful with reports estimating that as many as 16,000 pints were issued in a day. Even Rhodes contributed to this by donating vegetables from his gardens.

‘Captain Tyson is a dynamo of energy. He has long been conspicuous in every public work and institution in the town, and as manager of the very ambitious Kimberley Club is one of the best-known and best-liked of the citizens. It is said that everybody in South Africa knows him, and nearly everyone calls him by his first name. The mere management of the “Club” as he carried it on “was a god-send to the scores who lived or got their meals there. He inaugurated the famous work of distributing soup” a task that sometimes compelled the giving out of pint rations to sixteen thousand persons.’ (An American With Lord Roberts, Julian Ralph, refers.)

The Kimberley Club traces its history to the early days of Kimberley. The Diamond Fields Advertisor carried an advertisement in 1881 asking for designs for the Kimberley Club with costs not to exceed £6,000. The club was ready for business on 14 August 1882. The original articles for the club were signed by 74 founding members including J. H. Lange, Theodore Reunet, Leander Starr Jameson and Cecil Rhodes. It was in the Club that Rhodes hatched and developed his plans for Rhodesia and the Jameson Raid.

During the siege the Club served as Kekewich’s headquarters and provided accommodation for the headquarters staff with an overspill at 44 Currey Street. The Military Press Censor was stationed at the Club. The Club provided a company of the Town Guard from amongst its members. The were called ‘The Buffs’ after Kekewitch’s old regiment and were commanded by Captain Mandy. They were about 100 in number and were stationed at Belgravia Fort, which was rumoured to be one of the more comfortable of the posts.

Green, in An Editor Looks Back, says, ‘During the South African War the Kimberley Club made huge profits, for the officers of crack British regiments and of the Imperial Yeomanry, who were constantly turning up, spent lavishly and emptied the extensive wine cellars which were largely the relic of more prosperous days.’

It was no idle boast that there were more millionaires to the square foot in the Club than anywhere else in the world. Chilvers said of the Club, ‘Go into the Kimberley Club, identified for so many years particularly with De Beers men, where have foregathered Jameson, Barnato, the Rudds, Beit, the Stows, the Joels and Oppenheimers, Gardner and Alpheus Williams, Sir John Lange, Sir William Solomon, Sir David Harris, Sir Lewis Mitchell, Sir Julius Wernher, Klisser; also Scott-Turner, Koch, Lord Roberts, Kitchener, Baden Powell and Alverstone, General Kekewich, Justices Bingham and Lawrence, Joe Chamberlain, Sir John Ardach, the Rothschilds, Mark Twain, Sir Charles Warren, and a host of other notables.’

With thanks to David J. Biggins for permission to use portrait and information taken from his Kimberley Siege Account and Medal Roll, Token Publishing.