We are now able to add further to the story of the Remounts at Swaythling, Southampton, run by the Legion of Frontiersmen from the start of the First War until Lt.Col. Driscoll was ordered to form the 25th Battalion Royal Fusiliers (Frontiersmen) in early 1915. Jungle Jim’s memories deserve detailing in full. In due course this story will be amalgamated with the Remounts page to show all the accounts as we know them. Although War Office records in the British National Archives curiously omit all mention of the Frontiersmen it is certain that the Frontiersmen were officially detailed to run Remounts Depots at Swaythling, Southampton and near Avonmouth. An army officer was posted in command at Swaythling, but the highly skilled Frontiersmen did the work. The depot at Swaythling was commanded by a regular cavalry Colonel who took a somewhat jaundiced view of “these b****y Colonials”. The full reminiscences of the late “Jungle Jim” Biddulph-Pinchard have just come to light regarding the Swaything remounts. Jungle Jim was a boy at the time, but his father, Robert Biddulph-Pinchard, was the c.o. of the Hants and Wilts Squadron, Legion of Frontiersmen. Robert was stopping with his wife and his two sons Jim and Bob at the home of Legion Capt Arnold in Hillhead, Hants, when Frontiersman Pat Keane, who ran the remount stables in Shirley, rode up to the house with a led horse, to inform Jungle Jim’s father that war had been declared. He immediately mounted and rode back to Southampton to mobilise the Legion Squadron. Capt. Arnold, who was the 2i/c, rode back to Wickham to change into uniform and report for duty.

Jungle Jim’s account of the drive of horses from the docks to the camp differs from others, such as Vahd W (Bill) Tobin’s, recounted on the separate Remount Depots page on this website, most notably in the number of horses and who was in charge. However many horses there actually were, the story is a great tale of Frontiersmen initiative and Jungle Jim’s account written in his own style is a splendid one. In 1981 Jungle Jim went to meet Mr H G Thew who as an 11 year old boy in 1914 had spent much of his spare time at the Frontiersmen camp. The two men re-traced the route taken by the horses and some notable places of interest near the camp. Some of their photographs are reproduced with this item.

In 1914 Lieut Colonel D.P. (Dan) Driscoll, DSO, famous as the leader of Driscoll’s Scouts – known affectionately throughout South Africa as “Driscoll’s Scallywags”, who did a magnificent job as Scouts and Mounted Infantry against the Boers, offered the Home Command as a complete force for active service as a “commando” unit. The Government were not interested, but did allow us to form the two great Remount Depots at Avonmouth and Southampton.

“Dan” Driscoll was a great personal friend of my mother and father, and many an hour he sat on the floor with me and told me wonderful stories of war, big game hunting of Courteney Selous, the greatest naturalist and White Hunter, and of the native tribes!!

Swaythling Park, a beautiful place of greensward, stately oaks, beeches, horse chestnuts, elms and the darker fir and pine trees, also rough ‘shooting’ pastures, coppice and hedge. I can remember as a small boy the long straight lines of tents, dressed to perfection, the big mess marquee, the headquarters, cookhouse and open fire which we sat round after the evening meal and sang talked and smoked until ‘Lights Out’. I remember the horse lines, the smell of hay, horse and sweaty horse blankets drying in the sun, of shoeing when the farriers dealt with both Troop and Remount horses, the ‘corral’ where the horse breaking and training took place, the bucking horses, sun fishing around the posts, the dust, the noise and the hard riding men ‘fading’ the horses with their hats as they clung like limpets to their backs – spills and knocks were frequent, but the work of breaking and training the horses for use in the Army went on without cessation. I remember the parades, the Union Jack and the Hants Squadron flag flying from their respective flag poles, the reveille at Retreat, the bugle’s sobbing notes, the comradeship, and the wonderful tales told to a small boy who loved every minute of it and made up his mind then and there that one day when he grew up he would be a Frontiersman also.

…the greatest day came one Sunday when the camp commandant, who was a regular Hussar officer, sent for my father, informed him that there were 600 heavy draft horses arriving at the docks station, and ordered my father to fetch them up to the depot at once. It was pointed out to the Commandant that my father had only six men available, everyone else was breaking and training horses, but the commandant did not want to know, and repeated his order that the 600 horses were to be brought up at once “Ak Dum” and the “Aker” the “Dummer”!!

“Very good, sir”, said my father, saluting. “We will leave immediately.” So, seven men, Canadians, Australians and ex-cavalrymen armed with stock whips mounted up and rode down to the station. Then it happened! – the episode that was to make Legion history in Southampton and which was the “talk of the town” for many a year afterwards.

My father turned the 600 horses loose and proceeded to drive them through the town back to the depot, a distance of approximately 8-9 miles with the seven hard-riding, whooping Frontiersmen urging them on from the flank and rear, the Old Man leading. The peaceful Sunday afternoon was shattered as the herd rambled along the High Street, down through Portswood, over the River Itchen by Cobden Bridge and then up to Swaythling Park. There were pedestrians running round corners to get out of the way, cyclists dispersing in all directions, tramcars brought to a standstill as the herd swept by on either side, householders at their windows and doorways gasping with amazement or cheering wildly as the horses trotted by, in and out of some gardens! – along the pavements and the roadway, moving like a heavy brigade of cavalry, advancing inexorably, like some many-legged juggernaut! At Portswood one rash police constable in a brave but foolhardy attempt to stem the tide rushed into the middle of the road, raised his arms, hesitated, and then climbed up the nearest lamppost before being engulfed! He was shouting at my father who said afterwards that he could not hear what was said because of the noise and, from the look on his face, it was perhaps just as well!

Again, crossing Cobden Bridge, bystanders were climbing on to the rail and one chap also imitated the policeman by taking refuge up a lamppost. Whilst on the country road to Swaythling, the herd swept into fields, farms and a cowshed and, on arrival at the depot there were 612 horses, 2 cows and a goat that had somehow joined the procession!

The Commandant’s face was a picture – what he said was unprintable! I gathered from my father that the C.C. was not amused at the mile long queue next morning of aggrieved citizens claiming cows, goats, horses and compensation for trampled gardens etc etc etc. My father said “I have carried out your order, sir”, which was unanswerable! An epic – and no-one but Frontiersmen could have done it – may good luck and fortune attend them and their colours wherever they proudly fly. The old names return, Capt. Arnold, Sgt Scot, F/man Pat Keene, Tom Bulbeck, the brothers Arthur and Swinton Hewet, ‘Lanky’ Lawrence and many others too numerous to mention – most of whom had crossed the Great Divide by the end of the War.

After the Remount Camp at Swaythling, the Squadron were assigned to guard duty on the Common in Southampton. This area was used as a transit camp for troops on their way to France. The Guardroom tent and camp was at the main entrance to the Common, opposite the Cowherds public house, a small countrified beer house, which by the 1980s had changed to an up-to-date hotel with expensive food and good liquor, a complete change from the zinc counter oil lamps and wooden benches of the 1915 era.

Those sunny summer days and later the rain wind and snow, the long columns of infantry marching four abreast, their faces in quiet repose, thoughts away back with their families, or singing full-throated as the regiments went by – Tipperary, Long Long Trail a-winding, Roses of Picardy, Little Grey Home in the West, to name a few. The jingle of harness and rumble of the artillery, RAMC ambulances, and the horse-drawn pontoon bridges of the Royal Engineers – a country going to war! I remember it all so vividly. My mother working in a Red Cross canteen, my father in command of the guard, the sing-songs around the fire at night, the assistance given to the lads who had had ‘ a drop over the eight’ and were attempting to find their regimental lines, the sadness, the laughter that was near tears, the splendid singing of the troops as they went off to the Front.

The Legion did a wonderful job, patrolling the area at all times, checking civilian passes, supplying information, assisting with the horse transport, the unloading of fodder, attendance of local blacksmiths and many other details too numerous, but under it all was the eternal question – when are we going to really take part in this war? I remember Colonel Driscoll inspecting the guard camp, and saying that he was doing everything possible to get us moving. Then members were making their own arrangements. At last my father was commissioned into the 13th battalion the Essex Regiment as their transport officer. He always swore that he got the job because he could tie a load on a mule in a ‘diamond hitch’. He had learned this in Canada!

Harry Thew found the Frontiersmen’s uniform a romantic sight. He first made contact with them when they rode their horses down to the Brook Inn at Hampton Park close to where he lived. This was the terminus of the tram system and the start of the shopping district. Of course, the real interest to the Frontiersmen was the Brook Inn and young Harry would hold their horses for them while they visited the Brook Inn and occasionally the shops. At times the Frontiersmen would ride down on a little two-horse cart similar to those seen in old western films. From these contacts Harry contrived to get himself a job cleaning boots, riding tack and shoulder chains “for the noble sum of sixpence a week, a free supply of Chicles chewing gum, a new thing then, and breakfast of sausage bacon and beans and fried bread and ‘cawfee’ or ‘char’.” This meant getting up at 5.30, creeping out of the house and walking the mile and a half to the camp, returning un-noticed in time to get to school by 9 o’clock. He also spent weekends and evenings at the camp. Life at the camp was very exciting for an 11 year-old who could wander around at will and see all that was going on everywhere.

and above all the breaking in area, full of dust, sweat, spills and bad language, most of which I was not able to understand for many years after, and of course an occasional stampede to liven things up for when this occurred there was a general call-out of all camp personnel by a bugle call. I met some colourful characters of which I recall Long Buck from one of the Southern States of the U.S.A. and Pedro from one of the Latin countries, always good for a banjo solo: Cocky, a Londoner an ex-jockey the comedian of the crowd: Paddy the big Irish blacksmith who could pick me up with one hand and the cook who, I am afraid, I have forgotten his name, perhaps I was more interested in his grub.

Thew remembered the big run of horses but he was more vague about the numbers. He clearly remembered sitting on a wall opposite the Brook Inn to watch, but he gave the numbers as between 200 and 700. We may probably never know the exact number of horses in that famous run and who were the Frontiersmen involved, but however many horses were involved, it is a great Frontiersmen yarn.

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