Beschreibung:

A scarce collection of 30 Anglo Boer War letters 1899-1903 and 2 Great War letters 1915, all from Lieutenant William Rice Jeudwine to his sister Alice, later Mrs S F Barnes, the letters are mainly lengthy with much of an interesting content and all barr one with the original envelopes which have various postage stamps where applicable. Lieutenant Jeudwine writes of his journey from Alexandria to Ladysmith and of the bad state of sanitation he encounters there, he quickly travels on to Dundee and gives an account of the Battle of Talana "we kicked them out, our artillery simply smashed what they had of guns to bits..". Taken prisoner in Novemer 1899 and held at Pretoria in a POW camp for Officers he encounters Winston Churchill "..he was here for about a month and I don't think he stopped talking the whole time, the most terrible buckstick I've ever come across...". By August 1900 he is no longer a prisoner and between September and November is a patient ".. leg in plaster.." at Princess Christian Hospital near Durban, his next letter is not until October 24th 1901 from Scheepers Nek transval ".. I don't believe this war will ever end..". A letter of December 29th from Springfontin relays that ".. in the last fortnight just under 1000 Boer's have been caught..". The penultimate Anglo Boer letter of June 15th 1902 ".. it is very nice to think that there is now no more war.. soon the men will be withdrawn from the blockades as they [the blockades] are to be sold to the Boer's for £20.00 as living houses...". Final letter dated April 4th 1903 (no envelope) there now follows 2 Great War letters the first dated February 15th 1915 ".. the weather is still beyond description and our trenches as bad as ever so are the lice in our dug outs..". The next letter dated October 17th 1915 Junior United Service Club notepaper "..given three months further leave.. we were in the Gaity Theatre the night of the last zeppelin raid and bombs were dropped on it not at all pleasant..". Lietenant Richard William Rice Jeudwine jointed Princess Victoria's (Royal Irish Fusiliers) in 1899 from 3rd Batallion the Suffolk Regiment together with 7 letters dated 1919 to Alice from her son Gilbert and a letter to Gilbert from Uncle Jack [Jeudwine] 8th Battery 3rd West Riding RFA BEF dated 13 Sept 1915 ".. we live like bunny rabbits underground..we see a few Germans now and then in the distance and when we send a few shells at them they send just as many back.. the Germans fire big shells full of horrid gas which burns your eyes.." (40)