The Honoured Dead Memorial is a provincial heritage site in

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia * Kimberley (Western Australia) ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley * Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania * Kimberley, Tasmania a small town * County of Kimberley, a ...

in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It is situated at the meeting point of five roads, and commemorates those who died defending the city during the

Siege of Kimberley The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony (present-day South Africa), when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try ...

in the

Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. In 1986, it was described in the ''Government Gazette'' as Rhodes sent Baker to Greece to study ancient memorials - the

Nereid Monument The Nereid Monument is a sculptured tomb from Xanthos in Lycia (then part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire), close to present-day Fethiye in Mugla Province, Turkey. It took the form of a Greek temple on top of a base decorated with sculpted friez ...

Xanthus Xanthus (; grc, Ξάνθος, ''Xanthos'', "yellow, blond") or Xanthos may refer to: In Greek mythology * Xanthos (King of Thebes), the son of Ptolemy, killed by Andropompus or Melanthus *Xanthus (mythology), several figures, including gods, men, ...

greatly influenced his design. The monument is built of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

quarried in the Matopo Hills in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

and is the tomb of 27 soldiers. It features an inscription that Rhodes specifically commissioned

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

to write. The

Long Cecil Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing secto ...

gun that was designed and manufactured by

George Labram George Labram was an American engineer employed as Chief Mechanical Engineer at the De Beers diamond mines in Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley during the Siege of Kimberley. Early life Labram was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1859, but attende ...

in the workshops of

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...

during the siege is mounted on its

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate ( el, στυλοβάτης) is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a level ...

(facing the Free State). It is surrounded by shells from the

Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape Colony, Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controll ...

Long Tom. The memorial was dedicated on 28 November 1904. It was vandalised in 2010 when brass fittings were broken off parts of the gun.

References

South African Heritage Resource Agency database

External links

3D Google model by JacappPanoramio photo of the Honoured Dead Memorial
Buildings and structures in Kimberley, Northern Cape Second Boer War memorials Herbert Baker buildings and structures {{SouthAfrica-struct-stub