Series 2 - Stories from the South African War - Part 1- Major Charlie Childe

At long last... we have produced another series of video clips, exploring stories from the South African War. Our first is about Charles Baldwyn Childe-Pemberton who was born in Kinlet, Shropshire in 1853, the son of a wealthy local family. After completing his education at Harrow, he joined the Household Cavalry in 1876, seeing action during the Egyptian War and being present at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 1883. He married Amelia Montgomery in 1884 and left the army the following year with the rank of captain.
When the South African War broke out in 1899, he sailed for Cape Town where, now with the local rank of Major, he arrived in November 1899 and was tasked with recruiting local colonial volunteers into a regiment of mounted infantry - the South African Light Horse. Major Charlie Childe (having by now dropped the ‘Pemberton’ from his surname) would serve as second-in command of this regiment under Lt-Col Julian Byng. On the 20th January 1900, during the Battle of the Rangeworthy Hills, Childe led the dismounted force on an attack on Bastion Hill which was on the extreme west of the British line. The hill, only lightly defended, was quickly abandoned by the Boers and the SALH troopers soon found themselves on the summit. It was then that Charlie Childe’s luck ran out when he was struck by fragments from a Boer shell which killed him instantly. He is buried in the small military cemetery near the foot of the hill where his tombstone bears the epitaph that he, himself had chosen only the evening before - “Is it well with the child. It is well”.