Background
John Rouse Merriott Chard was born at Boxhill near Plymouth on December 21, 1847.
John Rouse Merriott Chard was born at Boxhill near Plymouth on December 21, 1847.
John Rouse Merriott Chard was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School and Plymouth New Grammar School, and after a period of private tuition he enrolled at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich.
In 1878 Lieutenant Chard was ordered to South Africa to take part in the Zulu War, and was stationed at the small post of Rorke's Drift to protect the bridges across the Buffalo river, and some sick men and stores.
Here, with Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (1856 - 1891) and eighty men of the 2nd 24th Foot, he heard, on the 22nd of January 1879, of the disaster of Isandhl- wana from some fugitives who had escaped the slaughter.
Believing that the victorious Zulus would attempt to cross into Natal, they prepared, hastily, to hold the Drift until help should come.
Early in the afternoon they were attacked by more than 3000 Zulus, who, after hours of desperate hand-to-hand fighting, carried the outer defences, an inner low wall of biscuit boxes, and the hospital, room by room.
The garrison then retired to the stone kraal, and repulsed attack after attack through the night.
He was unmarried.