Endicotts In South Africa

By William T. Endicott (JEFA President) Jun 2020

Tim said that while he spoke with several people in Endicott, no one knew how the place got its name although there is a local joke about it:“The locals have a joke about the origin of the name. One of the men was in the army and when he returned found a crib and asked his wife, “En die Cot?” (And the cot?).”Tim also reported that “the next town along is called Devon,” which certainly supports that idea that someone from Devon, England, called Endicott settled in the area. Location of Endicott, Mpumalanga, South Africa Endicott is a small dorp (village) with no church or school. Its main raison d’etre seems to be as a railway siding, because it is located on an important line. Trains no longer stop for passengers but there is a huge grain silo for which the trains must stop. The station master’s house is no longer functioning. The village consists of perhaps a score of houses, mostly plotte (plots or small holdings). The whole area is mainly maize farming with a couple of dairy farms. Across the line is a somewhat larger rural town called Vischkuil where there is a municipal office and a library (shut, of course, on Sunday).

Queen’s South Africa Medal rolls during the Boer War. He was a Trooper in the Natal Police and his Regimental Number was 1769. The Queen’s South Africa Medal was awarded to all British Empire personnel who served in the Boer war between October 11, 1899 and May 31, 1902, including colonial forces as well as members of the British Army and Royal Navy. Natal was a British colony in between the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State and on the east coast of South Africa.

The Natal police, formed in 1874, was a paramilitary group that policed it. During the second Boer War, the Natal Police fought in a number of important battles, and C.T. Endicott was awarded the Belmont Clasp and the Natal Clasp on the South Africa medal. The Belmont Clasp was one of the 26 State or Battle clasps that could be added to the South Africa Medal. It was a Battle Clasp for participation in the Battle of Belmont on November 23, 1899, in which 9,000 British forces attacked 2,000 Boers. The British lost 75 officers and men, and 223 were wounded; 83 Boers were killed, 20 wounded, and 30 captured.

The Natal Clasp was a State Clasp, which was awarded for service within the state of Natal when no Battle Clasp was issued to the recipient for a specific action within the same state.After the unification of South Africa in 1910, the days of the colonial police forces were numbered. In 1913, the Natal Police ceased to exist, and its men were assigned either to a military unit, the South African Mounted Rifles, or the South African Police and South African Prisons Service. A South African Endicott in WWII There was a South African Endicott in WWII, H.W. Endacott. He was a Sapper (i.e., an engineer) in the South African Engineer-ing Corps (SAEC), and his name appeared on a Department of Defense casualty list in the Eastern Province Herald on May 4, 1945 as having died of natural causes. The SAEC served in the North African and Italian theatres from the Battle of El Alamein to the end of the war, although it is not known how much of this H.W. Endacott was involved ???? JEFA 2020