Private Thomas Walker
Number: 9399
Company: 46 (Belfast) Company, 13th Battalion, First Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 8 January 1900
Place: Belfast
Age: 26 years 7 months
Trade of calling: Sea captain
Place of birth: In the Parish of Newry, in or near the Town of Newry, in County Down
Address: Rosneath, Newry
Family: Father Abraham Redmond Walker, milling merchant, Hill Street, Newry. Mother Mary Walker (nee Medill), of Roseneath, Newry.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 6 1/2". Complexion fresh, eyes grey, hair brown. Tattoo snake, sailor, left forearm.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 3 March 1900
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, Orange Free State clasps.
DEATH
Date: 30 May 1900
Place: Lindley
Cause: Killed in action
Buried/ Commemorated: Walker is buried in the Lindley Cemetery (images below). He is commemorated on the Lindley Cemetery Memorial; and on the Yeomanry Kop Memorial, Lindley.
On 18 July 1900 the Newry Reporter carried the following report:
POOR TOM WALKER! The sad news of his death on the battlefield at Lindley reported in Corporal Berry's letter some weeks ago, but at the time discredited, has now been officially confirmed. On Monday his relatives received a wire from the Yeomanry Office to the effect that he had been killed in the fighting at Lindley between the 28th and 31st of May. Deceased, who was not more than twenty-seven years of age, was remarkably popular in Newry, for he was a young gentleman of a bright and lively temperament that made him friends wherever he went. He was plucky and "hard as nails," thanks to his experience as an officer in the mercantile marine, and not one of the local volunteers seemed better fitted for the hardships of a campaign; but the deadly Mauser picks off the robust as well as the weak, the plucky more frequently than the timid, and we are satisfied that Trooper Walker's death was one of which, while they must deplore it, his bereaved relatives will to a degree be proud. He went to his death, we have no doubt, as a soldier and, if a few months had not changed his nature, with a laugh on his lips and defiance in his eyes. His relatives have our sincere sympathy in their bereavement.
Private James Barriskill recorded in his diary that:
I only found out on the evening we surrendered that Tommi Lackey had been shot dead the previous evg. he was charging up a kopje when he fell shot thro the groin & several other bullets struck him while lying there, two other chaps were killed at the same place – McLaughlin & Tom Walker. No other three chaps in the 46th Co. were thought more of [than] they were & Capt Maude & his men tried hard to get permission to go out & bury them but could not.
According to an account by an officer of the 46th Company, published in the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph on 15 September:
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 30th of May (we had been fighting since the Sunday previous) when an order came from our colonel to seize a kopje about a mile and a half in front of the trenches which 46th Company were occupying. Lieutenant H. F. Montgomery and a small party of sixteen men immediately set out across the open between the two positions. They reached the top under a heavy fire, and took possession, only to be almost immediately surrounded by fifty or sixty Boers, who worked round between them and us; this prevented our firing for fear of shooting our own men. A few minutes was sufficient. The fire was something terrible, coming in on them from every side, and poor George McLaughlin was shot through the heart, Lecky, Martin, and Walker being killed at the same time. The others were taken prisoners. McLaughlin died bravely, fighting to the last, as all who knew him knew he would.
On 25 August the Belfast Evening Telegraph published a letter from Adam Bothwell, which included the following:
Poor George McLaughlin, unfortunately, as you will now be aware, was one of the killed. I am now wearing a pair of his socks; and a very strange thing. George and a fellow from Newry called Tom Walker (whose hair brush I am presently using) and I were "chumming" very much for over a month, and both were killed on the spot. Many a long thought I have had over it. Many an hour I have had thinking over little things generally that happened, when the three of us would go for a walk at Stellenbosch and Bloemfontein.
On 30 August the Newry Reporter published a letter from Private William Holt which included the following reference:
Poor Tom Walker, of Newry, got shot in the head with an explosive bullet, and one of our fellows had seven shots in the stomach..
In a later report in that paper (10 December): "It is stated that he was shot in the forehead while handing a cigarette to his companion".
This page last updated 1 September 2026.