Page 54 - Who Was Sapper Brown

Fragmented memories of a lone soldier of the British Empire

The stone fragments over the grave are eroded but some snatches of English words can still be detected,

as seen in the photo above, ‘ SA RED’ ‘HE MEM ’, forming part of the words ‘SAcRED to tHE MEMory
of...’, which in this context confirm that this is the last resting place of a lone British soldier. Who was he,

where did he come from, and when did he die?

The Cemetery in Context

One will not find any mention of Mathiatis in the major websites relating to burials or cemeteries in
Cyprus, nor was there any record of this cemetery in the libraries of the British Sovereign Base Areas,

or in the recollection of members of the voluntary cemetery committees on the island in early 2013. It
is known locally in Mathiatis (on enquiry in the local newsagent in February 2013) as the ‘old English

cemetery’, but at the time it appeared to have been forgotten by the British expatriate and military
community. Is there really no memory of Mathiatis Cemetery in the historical record?

The British troops who had landed at Larnaca with Lieutenant General Wolseley’s Expeditionary Force

in the sweltering July heatwave of 1878 soon moved out of their first camp at Chiflik Pasha to more
favourable locations. Wolseley recorded in his Journal that the 71Highland Light Infantry and the 31
st st
Fortress Company Royal Engineers moved to a transit camp near the village of Dali south of Nicosia on

29 August, to commence construction of a temporary hutted winter cantonment at the more refreshing
hillside location of nearby Mathiatis (Mathiadis). They had moved into Mathiatis by 1 November 1878,

abandoning Dali completely.2

Wolseley records that one soldier of the 71st died of sunstroke on 4 September, but there is no indication of
his name or where he was buried: ‘One man dead yesterday of sunstroke and 21 admitted to hospitaltoday

with fever.’ 3

2 Cavendish, Anne, ed. (1991), Cyprus 1878 – The Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley (Nicosia: Cyprus Popular Bank Cultural

Centre) (Referred to as ‘Wolseley Journal’).
3 Ibid, p. 74, (diary entry for Thursday 5 September 1878).

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