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In a very fun thread on TTF we are considering an outbound passenger record that goes thus (from FMP):
Name: Mr D JAMES
Date of departure: 13 April 1901
Port of departure: Southampton
Passenger destination port: East London, South Africa
Passenger destination: East London, South Africa
Date of Birth: 1881 (calculated from age)
Age: 20
Marital status: Single
Sex: Male
Occupation: C M P
I have no clue. Googling it today finds people with occupation CMP, or CMP this or that, and I rapidly figured out that it means Computer. Not much help there.
Anybody have any thoughts/ideas?
The other info in the thread isn't relevant for this purpose, but it's here in case anybody wants to browse; that record is on page 3, at the top of which is the definitive summary of the findings. ;)
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1187905
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Not relevant I'm sure but the first thing that entered my head was Canadian Mounted Police!!!
Kath. x
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Cape Military Police
Maureen
Edit: Or Corps??
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Um, duh. That was supposed to be my line, I think!
At the time, though, it was the Northwest Mounted Police. ;) And of course now it's the *Royal* Canadian Mounted Police. Didya know our Charles is here with his Camilla at the moment? Dressed in full uniform and laid a wreath at the Cenotaph yesterday morning.
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Maureen! could be?
Maybe if he'd been in SA before - we don't know, can't find him after 1891 (he was born 1880). I couldn't find him in the IY either, which was my first guess for someone not in the 1901 census who ended up in SA. (Just like my gr-grfather's nephew did, as I'd long suspected and was confirmed just a few weeks ago when I found his granddaughter in a tree here at GR!)
Google returns very little for that; a site that seems to be in Afrikaans says it was a paramilitary police force, and there's a book excerpt that says:
"In the Mafeking Mail Special Siege Slip No.107 dated 2 April 1900, Major Lord Edward Cecil for Baden-Powell appointed by proclamation Peter Stuart “Chief Constable, Mafeking; all the Civil Police being under his control”…..and “entitled to draw Extra Duty Pay from Imperial Funds at a rate of 7/6 per diem from the 13th October inclusive”. The Cape Military Police (CMP record vol. 98:62) shows that Stuart was “complimented by the Commandant of Mafeking for the valuable service rendered by him as Military Chief Constable during and subsequent to the siege”.
So that seems like a lead, and I'll pass it on, ta!
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But wouldn't this have been his occupation on leaving England?
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And interestingly, an amalgam -- Cape Mounted Police (but not given that name until 1904):
http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/magazine/articles/uhf_safrica2.htm
but may have been referred to as that earlier:
http://www.angloboerwar.com/units/cape_police.htm
That actually sounds like a very good possibility.
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Dunno!! A LOT of people on the same ship were CMP. Mostly males in their early 20's. As the Boer War was on-I wondered if they were part of some regiment or other.
Maureen
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That's the thing Meg -- we don't know where he was after 1891. He could have gone to SA previously, come back, possibly met his bride (who had come to England from Mozambique but seems to be Scottish) and then returned. He might have done police duty in SA rather than military, even if he went there in the IY or such originally. From my slight research of it, there were a lot of men looking for opportunities to leave the IY and do other duties.
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Yes. Google
CMP Boer War
and a google book result - a back issue of Ulster Genealogical Review - says:
"After the second Anglo-Boer war there was another influx of Irish people to south Africa. Many of them were men who had fought for the British in the war and now returned to South Africa and joined the CMP."
That does still sound like it was later than 1901. But he may have been recruited directly into it, along with the others on the voyage.
Of course, we still have no idea whether this is our man, because his initial wasn't D and we don't know when he changed his surname from Challenger (his birth name, his father's stepfather's name, his in 1891) to James (his father's mother's surname, and the one he married under in SA and all his descendants carry)! Or why ...
http://www.glosgen.co.uk/cheltenham/cheltsawm.htm
This memorial is erected in memory of those Cheltenham men, who, either as regulars, or volunteers, died in their country's service, during the South African war ...
Sgts. G. HASTINGS (C.M.P.),
(and also an N.M.P., Natal Mounted Police. I am now becoming an expert on turn of the century SA police forces ...)
http://home.mweb.co.za/re/redcap/rmp.htm
From the formation of the Military Mounted Police in 1855, the Military Mounted Police grew in number as well as in the scope of duties. In 1877, the Military Mounted Police became a permanent corps of the British Army.
1887 saw the establishment of the Military Mounted Police (MMP) for service at home and abroad, and in 1882 during the Egyptian War the Military Foot Police (MFP), manned by selected cavalry non-commissioned officers with experience as regimental police, was raised for service in Egypt. The MMP was similar to the "Cape Mounted Police" before the establishment of the Union of South Africa. The MFP did not, however, become a permanent corps for service within Britain until 1885 when the corps began to expand; and the MMP and the MFP became two distinct organisations, each with its own promotion rosters, but essentially all part of the same corps. During 1899 members of the MMP and MFP were sent to South Africa, where they earned three DCM's (Distinguished Conduct Medal) during the Second Anglo-Boer War.
>>> The Corps of Military Foot Police was recruited from other corps and regiments of the British Army. The man had to be of good character and have at least one good conduct badge and have 4 years' service. There were no privates in the corps, each man transferred being raised to the rank of corporal.
>>> On the outbreak of war with the Boer republics in 1899, nearly all Britain's 300 military policemen were dispatched to South Africa. They went from MP units in the United Kingdom, Malta and Egypt, to be employed under the Provost Marshal on a wide range of duties over and above their peace time tasks. These included the supervision of civil police forces; the care of prisoners of war in transit to prisons and camps; the provision of guards for important places; the issue of permits and passes, and the confiscation of arms and ammunition.
That could be the answer to the large group on the voyage. They were *British* military police dispatched to SA.
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