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The Effects of Illness
Lieutenant General Wolseley commented repeatedly about the devastating effects that illness was having
on the 42nd (The Royal Highlanders) in his Journal. Indeed, the effects of illness on these soldiers so
impressed the First Lord of the Admiralty, W.H. Smith, and the Secretary of State for War, Colonel Stanley,
on their visit to Cyprus in November 1878 that they immediately ordered the regiment’s withdrawal and
drastically altered their plans to use Cyprus
as a station for troops to rendezvous for
potential deployment to Asia Minor or to
Egypt:7
‘Monday 4 November 1878: Visited (Kyrenia)
Camp and went round the hospital. The men
are listless and weak and evidently most
depressed in spirits. I never saw a Corps
so utterly demoralised... The men have no
strength. They tumble down when in the
ranks at early church parade on Sunday. As
a military unit the 42nd is useless. This struck
Stanley so forcibly that he asked if I could
dispense with the Regt altogether. I said yes...’8
As a result the Regiment departed on a
troopship on 10 November, to the chagrin of
their colleagues:
‘Sunday 10 November 1878: The 42nd go to
Gibraltar. The 71st are furious at the 42nd
leaving before them...’9
Their departure on 10 November explains
why there are no burials of Royal Highlanders
on the island after that date. During their
four months in Cyprus they lost 12 men to
illness or sunstroke,10-11
Memorial to Private David Nevay (died 7 September 1878), Private William Towns (died 2 October 1878)
and Private Dickson (died November 1878) at St Barnabas Church, Dhekelia.12
They were buried in a now-lost cemetery in Paphos.
7 Varnava, Andrekos (2005), ‘Punch and the British occupation of Cyprus in 1878.’ Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Vol.
29, No. 2, pp. 167–186.
8 Wolseley Journal. Op cit, 4 November 1878
9 Ibid.
10 ‘Report, 1 March 1879, by Surgeon General A D Home VC, KCB, Principal Medical Officer, Nicosia, on the medical history
of the troops stationed in Cyprus since July 1878’ (presented to the House of Commons 28 April 1879).
11 Army Medical Department Annual Report (1878). The AMD Annual Reports list the number of men (and the rate per
1,000) from each regiment who fell sick and were admitted to hospital, the number who died (both in Cyprus and after being
invalided out of Cyprus), and the causes of death. Figures for officers, women and children are given separately.
12 Private Dickson is listed as 2200 Private Hugh Dickson (not J Dickson) in the Casualty Returns of the 42nd Foot, held at
The National Archives, WO 25/3386. His exact date of death is not listed, which is not unusual.
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