Diary of Trooper Miles Fletcher Swan [Transcript]

Transcript of Boer War diary of Trooper Miles Fletcher Swan, No.9, who joined the 3rd South Australian Bushmen's Contingent whilst working on Nagwarry Station, Penola. The diary is handwritten in pencil in a small Army Memo book, 11 x 17.5 cm, and includes descriptions of looting farms for food and makeshift hospitals set up for soldiers with fever, as well as conflict with the Boers and their good treatment of wounded Australian soldiers. Also includes a biography of Swan's life before and after the war. Diary entries are not in chronological order, however the transcript has been arranged chronologically. The first entry appears on page 87 of the original diary.

Trooper Miles Fletcher Swan (No.9) joined the 3rd South Australian Bushmen's Contingent whilst working on Nangwarry Station, Penola, South Australia, a property owned by his uncle Abram Gardiner and his Auntie Isabell (nee Swan). Trooper Swan was the third son of John and Jane (nee Campbell) and was born on 8 January 1875 at Oakfield, Woodford, near Warnambool in Victoria, where his father was engaged as an overseer. He enlisted in Penola on 27 February 1900 and immediately went to Adelaide for further training. Trooper Swan sailed from Adelaide on the 'Maplemore' on 7 March 1900 with 98 other members of the South Australian Bushmen's Contingent. Disembarking at Beira, Mozambique, on 1 April, their unit crossed Rhodesia by train and entered the Transvaal from the north near Mafeking. On 15 July the squadron was made part of a combined Bushmen's Regiment with units from New Zealand, New South Wales, and Tasmania, and did excellent work in Transvaal as part of Lord Methuen's Division. Losses were frequent, with the enemy being alert and ably led. Lord Methuen, in a letter to the secretary of the South Australian Bushmen's Committee who had defrayed the costs of the contingent from public conscriptions and raffles, expressed praise for the excellent work undertaken by the squadron, their cheerfulness in hardship, and their discipline. "I cannot conceive any body of men of whom a commander has a greater reason to be proud", he wrote. Trooper Swan returned from South Africa in May 1901 on the troopship 'Tongariro' a month later than his unit, having contracted fever in Mafeking, and was discharged in Adelaide after exactly one year's service. He returned to Nangwarry by February 1902 when his uncle Abram Gardiner was killed in a riding accident. In 1903 he married Eleanor Florence Burton, the daughter of a Mount Gambier solicitor, and they had two children, Miles Stanley Hope Swan and Elizabeth Campbell Swan. He made himself a career in station management at Mullagh (Harrow), Ardgarton (Branxholme), Wooriwyrite (Darlington), Ullswater (Edenhope), and Kangatong (Macarthur), before he died in 1968. Miles Swan and his four brothers served in the Boer War, all of whom were in different units. Sadly, one brother did not return home, having died from the effects of fever, and is buried in the old Rhodesian province. [Resume of Trooper M.F. Swan, No.9, 3rd South Australian Bushmen's Contingent, provided by the eldest grandson of Miles Swan]

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