Ceylon: Boer War: Repatriation of Dutch Prisoners of War to the

Ceylon: Boer War: Repatriation of Dutch Prisoners of War to the Netherlands

Form:

Circular with and without attached loop for a ring

By:

G.F. Keyzer

Date:

1902

Ref:

AM: 134; Hern: 302; Laidlaw: 0786b;

Variations:

Size	Metal	Mass	Value
34,4	Bronze (loop)	19.5 gm	Rare
33.5 mm	Bronze (no loop)		Rare

Edge:

Plain.

Obverse:

Within a circular border, the bow of the ship: “GEDE” at sea, hut surrounded by fence in the background above. Legend outside border: “S:S: SALAK ROTTERDAM.CEYLON.PADANG.”

Reverse:

Within a circular border, across: “REDDERS / IN DEN / NOOD (rescuers in the emergency)”. Legend outside the border above: “ROTTI LLOYD MiJ NEDDERLAND.” and below: “28 JUL 1902”.

Notes:

The medals were made by Gerhardus Franciscus Keyzer aged 52, a resident of Pretoria and employed as a bench worker by the N.Z.A.S.M. - NEDERLANDSCHE ZUID-AFRIKAANCHE SPOORWEG MAATSCHAPPIJ (Dutch South African Railway Company). He was captured at Boshof on 5 April 1900 and sent as a P.O.W. to Ceylon (No. 2783) where he was interned in the Ragama camp. He refused to sign the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and was repatriated as an exile to the Netherlands at the end of hostilities.

It was originally thought that the blanks used were skimmed ZAR Pennies. However, a Newspaper paper article in ‘De Locomotief’ published in Semarang, Indonesia, confirmed that the coins used were filed off Ceylon 5 Cents of Queen Victoria. Where the medals were made is not known. The possibilities are: in the camp, on the journey back to the Netherlands or in the Netherlands.

The first batch of prisoners arrived in Ceylon on 9 August 1900 and subsequently others followed until some 5 000 prisoners had landed. Diyatalawa was the main camp. Mt Lavinia was the convalescent camp while foreign volunteers, dissidents and irreconcilables were housed at Ragama.

The majority of Boer prisoners were repatriated to South Africa on British ships once the war had been concluded. However, some of the prisoners refused to sign the oath of allegiance to King Edward VII and others were volunteers from the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and America, many of them having served in the Hollander Corps. Alternative arrangements were made for them on Dutch ships to the Netherlands

The steamships SS Gede and SS Salak belonged to the Rotterdamsche Lloyd Maatschappij, a Dutch shipping company based in Rotterdam which existed between 1883 and 1970. Both ships were in the Dutch East Indies service.

The second example of this medal shown here, belonging to Burger H. H. Smorenburg who was a member of Hollander Corps, was sold by Stephan Welz on auction for approximately $13,500 on 17 November 2012.

Herman Hendrik Smorenburg (1883 – 1946) from Waterval Boven in northern Transvaal was captured, aged 17, at Tobakop on 1 May 1900 and taken as a POW to Ceylon (No. 3362) and interned at the Diyatalawa camp. He was probably transferred to the Ragama camp as an 'irreconcilable'. He refused to sign the oath of allegiance to the British Crown and was repatriated as an exile to the Netherlands at the end of hostilities but later returned to South Africa.