Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Alexander Beveridge Cunningham – My Soldier of the Queen.

Photo extracted from “The Queenslander” (Brisbane), Saturday 19 May 1900.

Copyrighted story by Mary E. Metcalfe, his only granddaughter, which was published in the last Committee Newsletter of the Boer War Association Queensland, Queensland edition, Volume 12, No 3, November 2019, page 8. (In late 2020 that Association was forced to fold through lack of support.)

This story also appeared in the Toowoomba & Darling Downs Family History Society Inc “Our Backyard & Beyond” Volume 6, published April 2022 pages 46-48 regarding cemetery stories for the Toowoomba Regional Council.

Original personal research on my grandfather came from Queensland State Archives paysheets for the Fourth Contingent; Lt. Col P. L .Murray 1911 Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the war in South Africa; Queensland Defence Force Land Medical report on discharge from National Archives for Alexander Cunningham; and wide reading of Trove digitised newspapers.

The tall, thin gentleman whom I remember from my youth could be one of the longest surviving members of the 4th Queensland Imperial Bushmen. On 12th July 1877 his birth is recorded at Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, the firstborn child of William Cunningham and his wife, Marion Kennedy Beveridge. As a motherless six year old, Alex enjoyed visiting the stables of his aunt. This love translated later into driving a pedlar’s horse and cart in the developing area of Clifton, Darling Downs, around the time the situation deteriorated in South Africa. Perhaps his boyhood experiences groomed him in survival tactics that would benefit him all through the years.

A man well-known in the Queensland Teachers’ Volunteer Corps, Captain W.H. Halstead, as Alex called him, who was appointed headmaster of the Coorparoo State School in 1885 may have inspired my maternal grandfather’s enlistment during the South African conflict. Three Cunningham children were enrolled at Coorparoo on 1st October 1889, just three weeks after the family’s passage to Sydney on The Australasian. Halstead’s views were reflected in a meeting at Toowoomba, reported by The Brisbane Courier of 3rd March 1896, page 4. It was his belief that if teachers set a good example with drill corps, “they would foster in the lads of the colony a respect for the Volunteer and Defence Forces, which would bear good results in the future.”

Was indeed Alex influenced by this philosophy? His first pay period as No 344, member of ‘G’ Company, is noted from 19th April 1900, followed by embarkation on The Manchester Port in May 1900. He did not return with others on The Britannic, but arrived home by train from Sydney on 3rd May 1901, after The Tongariro berthed there. That ship carried one of De Wet’s captured guns, considered indeed a trophy. Imagine the excitement of the Queenslanders arriving home, only to find themselves impatiently quarantined on Peel Island, because of a shipboard outbreak of measles. The discharge of Private Alex Cunningham, dating from 17th May 1901, showed the term “invalided”.

On resumption of civilian life, what does it take for a man who has experienced the horrors of battle conflict to live a long and contented life? This “Soldier of the Queen” apparently knew the answers, for he was to live another seven decades after his homecoming to Clifton. So many of his fellow Bushmen met an earlier fate.

It was not unusual to see many South African veterans committing to marriage within a few years of their return. On 4th November 1908 a joyful Cunningham celebration occurred at “Gladsmuir”, Clifton, when Alex married Lillian Violet Slaughter, daughter of “Fortitude” pioneer, Edward Slaughter and his wife, Sarah Eliza Slaughter. Alex, Vi, their three daughters and one son, became stalwart members of the local community on the church, school, musical, cricket, and golf scenes. Records indicate that a connection to the South African Veterans’ Association was also maintained.

For pastimes, this general store owner read to his family on Sunday nights, never extending over the allocated time, despite family pleadings for just one more chapter. The poetry of “Bobbie Burns” also gave him great satisfaction. His fingers would pluck the strains of “Danny Boy” on his violin, even in his nineties. Alexandra Headland beckoned for their retirement, then Dalby, and finally Toowoomba when family support became essential. My grandparents reached the noteworthy milestone of 63 years of married life together.

Conscientiously maintained habits of a rolled oats breakfast; cold daily bath; a walk most days; a short nap while home from his store for lunch; and the above relaxation measures apparently stood Alex in such good stead that he lived to be 97 years old. In fact, he survived twenty years more than his younger siblings -- May (Marion Jane) and John Beveridge; and his half brother, James Forrest Turnbull Cunningham, and half sisters, Winifred and Evelyn. Death came in Toowoomba on 12th September 1974, following surgery to repair a broken hip.

In the Garden of Remembrance, Toowoomba today, can be found the last resting place of a canny Scot whose service with the 4th Queensland Imperial Bushmen is recognised in the Memorial Wall there.



ALEX CUNNINGHAM #344

A tribute from Mary Metcalfe – 7 April 2014 ©
Alex, saddle up and mount your horse
In 1900 it’s time to join the fighting force
Your country needs your bravery and skill
Though it’s not within your nature to kill.
South Africa seems so far away
Departure day is the 18th May.
On the “Manchester Port” a troopship great
4th Queensland Imperial Bushmen wait
For their expected battle
In the Orange Free State.
21 years old, the criteria met
Good horsemen, good shots and bushmen yet
Their task still ahead
Is ‘chasing General de Wet’!