File:Marriage cert Amritsar Boer POW1.jpg

Summary

Copy from the Register of Marriages at St Paul’s Church Amritsar of a marriage on 28 November 1902 between Edward Meyers and Mabel Lilian Lincoln, made on the day of the wedding.

The groom’s “Rank or Profession” is stated to be Boer Prisoner of War and his residence Amritsar. There was a Boer POW Camp at nearby Fort Govindgarh

In 1897, when he was 19 years old, Edward Meyers settled in Heidelberg in the South African Republic (ZAR or Transvaal). On 30/9/1899, when the start of the Anglo-Boer War was imminent, he was called up by Commandant Danie Weilbach’s Heidelberg Commando. He served as a Burgher with the Roodekoppen Ward under Field Cornet S B Buys. His Form “B” Application for the Angloboereoorlog Medal (ABO) was approved on the surprisingly late date of 20/7/1949, 29 years after the medal was instituted and when Meyers was 71 years old. The reason for this late application is unknown.

Meyers served in the Natal campaign and was present at the battles of Modderspruit (Pepworth or Ladysmith) (30/10/1899), Colenso (15/12/1899), Platrand (Wagon Hill/Caesar’s Camp) (6/1/1900), and Spioenkop (24/1/1900).

He was captured at, or near Heidelberg on 2/11/1900. There are no known records of the circumstances of his capture.

Meyers was transported to India on the Hawarden Castle and lodged in the Ahmednagar Camp in the hill country east of Bombay. Nothing is known of Meyers’ stay at Ahmednagar. The next record of Meyers is late in 1902 and it places him in Amritsar in the Punjab, 1800 km north of Ahmednagar. The Gobindghar Fort in Amritsar served as a prison for Boer POW’s, so Meyers was evidently transferred there on an unknown date. The next record is his marriage on 28/11/1902 to Mabel Lilian Lincoln, Spinster. Mabel was evidently a resident of Amritsar, where her father, Robert Lee Lincoln, had died on 10/8/1894, aged 40 years.

Nothing is known of how the couple met, how their courtship was managed, and who approved the marriage of a Boer prisoner, who was due for repatriation to South Africa, to a presumably British spinster of Amritsar. After the war had ended on 31/5/1902, the restrictions on the movement of prisoners may well have been relaxed. Gobindghar Fort is only a mile or two away from St Paul’s Church, which prisoners may have been permitted to attend, and that may have been where the couple met. After their marriage, the travel costs of the ‘war bride’ would have been another hurdle that faced them. However, whatever problems had arisen in the relationship were solved, since Meyers, presumably accompanied by his new wife, returned to South Africa in 1903^[1]

The transcribed index marriage record on FamilySearch indicates the bride was 14 years old at marriage, and the groom 24. ^[2]

Also see File:Marriage cert Amritsar Boer POW2 for a later partial copy of the marriage record.

Licensing

References