Page 207 - Who Was Sapper Brown

Chapter 15

The Rolls of Honour

When the author started writing this book and researching the history of the British in Cyprus in the 19th
century, it quickly became evident that there was no tangible memorial or Roll of Honour commemorating

those soldiers who died while stationed in Cyprus between 1878 and the First World War.

No-one that the author consulted in Cyprus, and no book in the military or civilian libraries there or on
the internet, could reveal how many soldiers had lost their lives in Cyprus in those years, nor did anyone

know for sure what had caused their deaths, apart from a few exceptions where typhoid was firmly

identified as the culprit. The rest were all loosely ascribed to malaria, typhoid or the heat.

In the cemeteries themselves, only one grave (that of Private Edward Capel, in Polemidia) directly
confirms a tale of enteric fever (typhoid), and the Troodos Cemetery records confirm only that typhoid

killed ten soldiers evacuated from Suakin in the 1880s. Moreover, the names inscribed on the 19th century
graves scattered in the military and civilian cemeteries tell only part of the story, for a cursory glance at

primary sources, such as Wellesley’s Journal, reveals that several soldiers (how many?) must have been
buried in graves now lost, such as at Dali, Paphos, Nicosia and Chiflik Pasha.

From these same primary sources, the words of Esme Scott-Stevenson, outspoken wife of Captain Scott-

Stevenson, Commissioner of Kyrenia, slice through the mists of time that had obscured the memory of

these men, resonating still with the emotion that she had felt when she inked her pen:

‘these poor men’s lives had been just as much sacrificed for their

country as if they had been killed in battle’
1

Moved by these words, the author determined early on to try and collate a Roll of Honour in memory

of these men. This daunting task paradoxically became easier once he had left Cyprus and returned to
England. He visited the Army Medical Services Museum at Mytchett, Hampshire (where he consulted

the Army Medical Department Annual Reports), and The National Archives in Kew (where he consulted

the Muster Books [containing monthly Pay Lists] and the Casualty Returns of each Regiment).

The AMD Annual Reports list the (anonymised) number of non-commissioned officers, soldiers,
dependants and officers who fell ill or died, within each regiment, usually giving the cause as well. These

numbers could then be correlated with the Regimental Muster Books and Casualty Returns, which in
most cases reveal both the individual’s name and exact date of death. These details were then checked

against lists of identified burials in Cyprus, often providing extra details (such as full names), or correcting
mis-spellings or incorrectly ascribed dates (especially for those graves with newer headstones replacing

eroded ones). This is the case, for instance, with infant Mary Jane Adams in Troodos (whose modern
inscription mistakenly lists her as dying in 1859) and the name plaques with erroneous dates on the

memorial to the 31st Fortress Company Royal Engineers, also in Troodos.

1 Scott-Stevenson, Esme (1880), Our Home in Cyprus, (London: Chapman & Hall), p. 45.

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