ASANTE! THIRD ASHANTI WAR, GHANA, 1872-74
Lieutenant Frederick Henry Eardley-Wilmot, Royal Artillery
St. John the Baptist, Berkswell, Warwickshire
Lieutenant Arthur Hardolph Eyre, 90th Light Infantry
St. Mark's, Bilton, Warwickshire

The Background

When you think, if you ever do, of the great African kingdoms that Britain fought against, the chances are that it is the Zulu who come to mind. The famous battles at Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift mean they have come to epitomize the pre-colonial African empire – but compared to the Ashanti they were parvenu.

The Zulu Empire was a 19th Century phenomenon, but the Ashanti Empire dated back to the first years of the 18th and was vast, covering much of current Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin. The Ashanti were already established traders with the Portuguese and Dutch, as well as the British. The main goods were ivory, gold (Ghana’s colonial name was the Gold Coast) and slaves, and as a result of this long-established trade they possessed firearms alongside their spears. They were not a force to be dismissed lightly, as the British discovered in conflicts in the 1820s and the 1860s, and it was an empire which took itself seriously.

The immediate origins of what is known as the Third Ashanti War started with Britain’s purchase of the Dutch Gold Coast in 1871, including the port of Elmina. The Ashanti regarded Elmina as their property, and indeed the Dutch had been paying a rent or tribute for it, but this claim was not acknowledged by the British, and relations began to deteriorate.

In early 1873 the Ashanti decided to assert their claim by invading the British territory and taking possession of Elmina. In retaliation the British called in the navy, and in June Elmina was shelled and destroyed, precipitating a series of skirmishes between the Ashanti and British native forces commanded by British officers. A stalemate seemed to be established, and so the British General Sir Garnet Wolseley was sent out (famed for his efficiency and high standards, he is the origin of the phrase “All Sir Garnet”, meaning everything in order).

The Conflict: Lieutenant Eardley-Wilmot

What Wolseley found was that the native troops were not organized or reliable enough to defeat the enemy, despite the efforts of their officers, one of whom was a 28 year-old Royal Artillery lieutenant, Frederick Eardley-Wilmot, member of an established military family. On November 4th 1873 Wolseley sent a dispatch to the Secretary of State for War describing a series of skirmishes the previous day. In all of them the local native levies ran away or were reluctant to fight, leading to their officers exposing themselves more than was wise. Wolseley went on to report that

              I regret that one young Officer lost his life, Lieutenant Eardley Wilmot, Royal Artillery, a fine promising soldier. He was badly hit early in the skirmish, but, like an English gentleman, continued in the field at his post, until subsequently shot through the heart, when he died almost immediately; several of the officers were hit, mostly slightly.

Eardley-Wilmot came from Berkswell in Warwickshire, and it is in the church of St. John the Baptist that his memorial can be found (the church is worth a visit to see the two Norman  crypts, the timbered porch, and the Mouseman carvings inside, as well as Frederick’s memorial). The seat of his father Sir John, Berkswell Hall, is still there, a Grade II Listed building, although it is now residential apartments, no longer a family home. Frederick was not to be the only member of the family to die at war. In the following generation his namesake, Lieutenant Frederick Lawrence Eardley-Wilmot, of the Canadian Light Infantry, son of his cousin Arthur, was killed in 1915 fighting on the Ypres Salient. In the generation after that his great-nephew, Major Anthony Neville Eardley-Wilmot, died in North Africa in 1943. Some families take more than their fair share of deaths.

The Conflict: Lieutenant Eyre

After reviewing the shambolic conduct of the native troops in battle, Wolseley decided he needed British troops, and he asked for them in the dispatch quoted above. By January 1874 he had three thousand British and West Indian troops at his disposal, with an officer corps that featured some famous names – including Butler, Bullers, Eyre, Paget, Wauchope – many of whom went on to gain prominence in the army.

The campaign now was short. The Ashanti had the numbers, but even though they were armed they could not match the firepower of the modern weapons wielded by the British. At the battle of Amoafo on January 31st  the Ashanti apparently fought hard and skilfully, but the British, with the 42nd Regiment distinguishing themselves, won the day; Lance-Sergeant Samuel McGaw  was awarded the Victoria Cross. Five days later the battle of Ordashu led to the Ashanti abandoning their capital, Kumasi, leaving the British to destroy it. Lieutenant Mark Sever Bell, of the Royal Engineers, won the war’s second Victoria Cross; Lieutenant Arthur Hardolph Eyre lost his life.

Born in Cape Town in 1850, when his father was fighting in the Xhosa Wars, Eyre was brought up at Bilton Hall, near Rugby in Warwickshire. His father died in 1859, in ill-health following the Crimea campaign, but his mother remained at Bilton until her own death in 1898. It was she who erected Arthur’s memorial in the fourteenth-century St. Mark’s Church at Bilton – he was her only child.

Bilton is only about 15 miles east of Berkswell, and like Berkswell Hall Bilton Hall is a Listed building (Grade I) turned into apartments (though it has not been lived in as a house since the First World War). 

Afterwards

The capture of Kumasi signaled the end of the war.  By the 14th March a peace treaty had been agreed, with the Ashanti making political and territorial concessions. Twenty years later it was all to start again, until in 1902 the land of the Ashanti became officially a British Protectorate - for just over half a century, when Ghana, and the Ashanti, bid their colonisers farewell, which raises the query as to whether the deaths of the two young lieutenants were worth it. 


Frederick Henry Eardley-Wilmot, Lieutenant of the Royal Artillery, fourth son of Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, Bart. formerly of Berkswell Hall in this parish. He fell in the Ashantee War at Dunquah near Cape Coast Castle 3 November 1873 in the 28th year of his age, while endeavouring to rally Native troops against the enemy. He died universally lamented, both on account of the heroic courage displayed at the time of his death, and his gentle and noble disposition 
   
     
A LAST TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION  FROM A BEREAVED MOTHER OF ARTHUR HARDOLPH EYRE, LIEUTENANT 90TH LIGHT INFANTRY SON OF MAJOR GENERAL SIR WILLIAM EYRE K.C.B. AND LADY EYRE. BORN AT CAPE OF GOOD HOPE 10 NOVEMBER 1850.  ENTERED THE ARMY 1 DECEMBER 1869. VOLUNTEERED FOR SPECIAL SERVICE ON THE GOLD COAST, WEST AFRICA, IN THE EXPEDITION SENT AGAINST THE ASHANTEES SEPTEMBER 1873. FELL IN ACTION AT ORDASU THE LAST  BATTLE AFTER FIVE DAYS CONTINUED FIGHTING BEFORE CAPTURE OF COOMASSEE 4TH FEBRUARY 1874.  AND I BEHOLD & LO A GREAT MULTITUDE WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER OF ALL NATIONS & KINDREDS & PEOPLE & TONGUES STOOD BEFORE THE THRONE & BEFORE THE LAMB CLOTHED  WITH WHITE ROBES THESE ARE THEY WHO CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION & HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES & AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB THEY SHALL HUNGER NO MORE  NEITHER THIRST NEITHER SHALL THE SUN LIGHT ON THEM NOR ANY HEAT. REV VII

Frederick Eardley Wilmot

Lieutenant Arthur Eyre in civilian clothing

Sources

Photos
A bush fight, third Anglo-Ashanti War - from The Graphic, on Wikimedia Commons
St. John the Baptist, Berkswell - by Necrothesp, from Wikimedia Commons
Lieutenant Frederick Henry Eardley Wilmot, Royal Artillery - from collection of Queen Victoria, The Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Lieutenant Arthur Hardolph Eyre (1851-74) - from collection of Queen Victoria, The Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016

Military
glosters.tripod.com
www.royalcollection.org.uk
www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/asante1873.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/ashanti-wars
http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/britishguide/ashanti/4th_november_1873.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire

Geneology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkswell_Hallhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilton_Hall
http://www.eyrehistory.net/rampton_branch/ind214.php
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eyre,_William_(DNB00)


 © Jonathan Dewhirst 2013