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Red Deer’s strong connection to Lord Strathcona’s Horse
In my role as Honorary Lieutenant Colonel 41 Signal Regiment, I’ve been brushing up on my local military history. In a recent visit with Michael Dawe, former Archivist for the City and newly-minted City Councillor, he told me about our city’s connection to the the Lord Strathcona’s Horse and the story of Angus Jenkins, the first member of the Regiment killed in action. Here’s the first of 3 stories we’ll feature leading up to Remembrance Day this Saturday.
(by Michael Dawe – Photos courtesy Red Deer Archives unless noted)
Red Deer has a strong historical link with the Lord Strathcona’s, going back to the original creation of the regiment. In 1900, Lord Strathcona (Donald Smith), one of the founders of the Canadian Pacific Railway, offered to fund the raising of the regiment for service in the South African (Boer) War. Men across Western Canada and from Red Deer enthusiastically applied for enlistment in the new unit.
It was not hard to figure out the popularity of the Ld.S.H. It was a Western Canadian regiment, not one based elsewhere. It was a unit of cavalry/mounted rifles. The free-wheeling mobility of such a military unit was attractive to the cowboys who made up a sizeable portion of Central and Southern Alberta’s population at the time.
According to the Calgary Herald, 17 men from Red Deer and district applied for enlistment and 9 were accepted in the Ld.S.H. The regiment arrived in Cape Town in April 1900. They went into action in June as part of General Buller’s Natal Field Force.
Bad news started to reach Red Deer shortly thereafter. Archibald McNichol, of the Balmoral district on the east side of Red Deer became ill with enteric (typhoid fever). He passed away at Newcastle, South Africa on June 19, 1900.
On July 1, 1900 (Dominion Day), Angus Jenkins, also from Balmoral, was killed in an ambush near Waterval. He was the first member of the Lord Strathcona’s to be killed in action. His funeral was attended by the Earl of Dundonald and Sir Sam Steele, the commanding officer of the Ld.S.H.
On September 4, 1900, Charles Cruickshank, another young man from Balmoral, was killed in an enemy attack near Badfontein. He, and five others of the Ld.S.H. who were killed that day, were buried on the banks of the Crocodile River.
In the fall of 1900, a decision was made to build a hospital in Red Deer as a memorial to the three young men of the Ld.S.H. who had lost their lives in service overseas. Lord Strathcona made a large donation to the project. When the Red Deer Memorial Hospital officially opened in April 1904, a large marble plaque was erected in the hospital so that the three young men would never be forgotten.
The veterans of the Ld.S.H. had a significant influence on Red Deer after the end of the Boer War. A.T. Stephenson became the first Town/City Commissioner in 1908,. He was the most important person in the running of municipality for the next 27 years, despite on-going ill-health due to the malaria which he had contracted while in South Africa.
When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, many local young men flocked to enlist in the cavalry/mounted rifles, but they mainly joined the 35 Central Alberta Horse/ 5 Battalion. Nevertheless, some, such as H.B. (Ted) George joined the Ld.S.H. Ted George not only survived his service in the trenches of the Western Front. He narrowly escaped being killed in the terrible Halifax Explosion of 1917.
The strong connections between Red Deer and the Lord Strathconas continued for many more years. Lionel Page, who had been a student in Red Deer and then farmed what is now the Rosedale subdivision, became a highly decorated veteran of the First World War. After the return of peace, he enlisted with the Ld.S.H. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and became the Ld.S.H.’s commanding officer in 1929. During the Second World War, he became the Commander in Chief of the Canadian Army’s Atlantic Command.
The distinguished service of the Lord Strathcona’s to Canada has continued through the Korean Conflict, peace-keeping in Bosnia and, most recently, the war in Afghanistan.
Festival of Trees tickets are on sale now! Get ’em while they’re hot!
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