Page 208 - Who Was Sapper Brown

As a result of this search, the author was surprised to discover as many as 123 British soldiers (and three
sailors) had died in Cyprus between 22 July 1878 and 1 August 1914. Amongst them were 46 soldiers

(including officers) whose graves are now lost (including one who died at sea, possibly in Larnaca Bay,
on 22 July 1878 and who therefore is likely to have been committed to the deep). Their names are now

remembered, as they should be. Seven more died in Malta, in England or at sea after being invalided out
of Cyprus in 1878 – 1879.

The author was also surprised to learn how many soldiers had suffered from the forgotten epidemic of

remittent fever (brucellosis) in 1878 – 1879, and, in this tale sparked off by the search for Sapper Brown,
that Sapper Brown too had died of this.

Even so there remain, tantalisingly, a few unknown names. For instance, the AMD Annual Reports quite
clearly state that three officers died in 1878, and another in 1886, but an assiduous search through the

Muster Books and Casualty Returns failed to reveal their names or regiments. Unfortunately, not all
soldiers or officers listed in the Casualty Returns are clearly ascribed a place of death, simply a date, so

one has to look elsewhere for corroboration, but where?

Could they be officers of the Indian troops of Wolseley’s Expeditionary Force? For instance, Major Vibart,
in his History of the Madras Engineers, records that the Madras Engineers suffered heavily from the

effects of fever in Cyprus: ‘By this time [end August 1878] all the companies were a good deal impaired in
strength by the almost universal fever’.He also records that they lost some officers and men during their
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sojourn in Malta and Cyprus (frustratingly not identifying whether any died in Cyprus specifically).

The records of the Indian, Bengal and Madras Armies are held at the British Library rather than at The
National Archives, and the author has only had the opportunity to consult a few of these, to no avail.

The next few pages gather together for the first time since 1878 the names discovered in this search: there

is a Regimental Roll of Honour (grouping individuals by regiment), a chronological Roll of Honour
(which for instance reveals the toll of illness through the names of the 36 soldiers who lost their lives in

the latter half of 1878 alone, 19 of them of remittent fever [brucellosis] or ague [malaria], compared to
only one from typhoid),3 and a Roll of lost 19th century burials, all 46 of them. This book serves also as

their memorial. For good measure, there is then, for the centenary year of 2014, a Roll of all First World
War burials in Cyprus, and, as the author is a medical man, a Roll of all Army Medical Services burials.

Finally there is a list of military units with the number of men each one lost on active service in the
Cyprus Emergency, in remembrance of the 371 servicemen who gave their lives in 1955 – 1959 and

are now buried in Wayne’s Keep.

2 Vibart, Major H M (1883), The Military history of the Madras Engineers and Pioneers, from 1743 up to the present time

(London: W H Allen & Co), pp. 488 – 491
3 Army Medical Department Annual Report (1878)

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