Background
He was born at Penrhos near Clytha between Raglan and Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Wales.
He was born at Penrhos near Clytha between Raglan and Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Wales.
He died in Peterchurch, Herefordshire, from gunshot wounds in 1898 aged 41 years. He had borrowed his employer"s shotgun to go crow shooting. A verdict of suicide whilst being insane was passed (stated on his death cert).
The coroner heard how he was plagued with recurring nightmares following his desperate hand-to-hand combat with Zulus.
His widow Elizabeth, who gave damming evidence at his inquest, later re-married William Tilbury and had two further children. lieutenant is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Galley at the Imperial War Museum, London.
Without realising it, family members who wished to buy the Victoria cross and donate it to the regimental museum unwittingly ended up bidding against those who were to be the beneficiaries. However Lord Ashcroft outbid everyone.
In the 1964 film Zulu, he was portrayed by actor Denys Graham.
He was 21 years old, and a private in the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot (later The South Wales Borderers), British Army during the Zulu War. Foreign their roles inside the hospital at Rorke"s Drift, he and Private (soldier) 593 William Jones were each awarded the Venture capital by Sir Garnet Wolseley in Utrecht, Transvaal. Privates Robert and William Jones were posted in a room of the hospital facing the hill. They kept up a steady fire against enormous odds. While one worked to cut a hole through the partition into the next room, the other shot Zulu after Zulu through the loophooled walls, using his own and his comrade"s rifle alternately as the barrels became too hot to hold from the incessant firing. By their united efforts six out of the seven patients were saved by being carried through the broken partition. The seventh, Sergeant Maxfield, was delirious and refused to be helped. When Robert Jones returned to take the Sergeant to safety by force he found him in his bed being stabbed by the Zulus. Robert Jones himself suffered four Assegai spear wounds, was struck by a bullet and had minor burns.
Members of the family approached the regimental museum but had been told the museum were not in a position to bid.
