Ancestor Details

Ancestor's Name: Alexander Joseph Wykes? Russell

Ancestor's date of birth: 09/09/1876

Ancestor's date of death: 01/02/1958

Cause of Death: Age Related

Service and Life Before the Boer War: Alexander was born in the Bathurst/Sofala area of NSW. He became a permanent soldier with the NSW garrison artillery. When it was decided to send the Field Ambulance the unit was short of drivers so volunteers from other units including the regular artillery were drafted in. The medical officers considered the drivers so valuable that they trained them as medical orderlies and stretcher bearers on the SS Kent on the way to South Africa and replaced them with native drivers in South Africa

Service Number: 58

Colony or State of enlistment: NSW, Place of Enlistment: Sydney

Unit: NSW Army Medical Corps

Rank attained in Boer War: PTE, Date Effective: 11/10/1999

Highest Rank attained (if served after war): No evidence of post Boer War promotion.

Murray Page: 22

Contingent: Second New South Wales

Ship: SS Kent, Date of Sailing: 30/10/1999

Memorial details: cremated 21 February 1958 Northern Suburbs Crematorium Sydney

Awards/Decorations/Commendations: Queen's South Africa Medal with Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill and Cape Colony clasps. George V Silver Jubilee Medal 1935.

Personal Characteristics: An honest man, 182 cm tall, blue eyes, and fair hair. Remembered for singing to his grand children when they we young.

Reasons to go and fight: A professional soldier he wished to volunteer to get to the war.

Details of service in war: Service: December 1899 - December 1900 in Cape Colony, Free State, and Transvaal. He was noted as one of Major Fiaschi's stretcher bearers at Paardeburg.

Service and life after the Boer War: Is said to have have retained his Boer War rifle. No further details provided. Must have continued in some form of public service in order to be awarded the George V Silver Jubilee Medal.

Descendant Details

Name of Descendant: Margaret Henskens, Hamilton South NSW
Relationship to Ancestor: Grand Daughter

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