From the Curatorial Desk · Emergency Currency 1899 – 1902
The siege notes of the Anglo-Boer War.
Baden-Powell drew the £1 note on the back of a croquet mallet. Most of them never came back to the bank.
Emergency currency issued during the sieges of Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith — ingenious solutions to the shortage of coins and stamps. These notes represent some of the most tangible and evocative relics of the 1899 – 1902 conflict.
Edited byBen Ungerer & Johan Ungerer · The Jardines Curatorial Desk
Mafeking, 1899 – 1900
217 Days · Baden-PowellUnder command of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, the garrison held out for 217 days. As normal commerce broke down and coinage became scarce, the town issued its own banknotes — among the most tangible survivors of the Mafeking ordeal4.
Production
The notes were printed on ordinary writing paper in five denominations of one, two, three and ten shillings and one pound, from January to March 1900, in an underground shelter. The town auctioneer Edward Ross, who penned one of the many accounts of the siege, aided in the process. He noted:
I had a little signboard made, Mafeking Mint. No Admission.
Edward Ross · Mafeking auctioneer & chronicler4
The denominations
- 1s, 2s, 3s notes. Simple vouchers used in canteens for a daily ration of hard-baked oat bread and horse meat. These lower-value notes carry a facsimile signature of the Army Paymaster, Captain H. Greener. For obvious reasons these notes are the most commonly encountered, although the three-shilling note survives in lesser numbers4.
- 10s and £1 notes. Baden-Powell himself drew the designs. The original sketch for the pound note was drawn on a boxwood block made from a sawn-up croquet mallet.
In his memoirs, Baden-Powell recalled:
The design for the one-pound note I drew on a boxwood block, made from a croquet mallet cut in half, and this I handed to a Mr Riesle, who had done wood engraving. But the result — two rudimentary images of soldiers with cannon — was not satisfactory from the artistic point of view, so we used that as a ten-shilling note and I drew another design which was photographed for the pound note.
Col. Robert Baden-Powell · Memoirs4
Early issues of the ten-shilling note include a typographical error: "Issued by authority of Col R.S.S. Baden-Powell, Comman[d]ing Frontier Forces"4.
Guarantee & signatures
The notes were issued on the authority of Colonel Baden-Powell, exchangeable for coin at the Mafeking Branch of the Standard Bank of South Africa on the resumption of civil law1. The blue one-pound siege note, complete with Baden-Powell's competent sketch of Rhodesian troops under the Union flag, was signed in ink by Robert Bradshaw Clarke Urry, manager of the Mafeking branch of the Standard Bank, and by Paymaster Greener, who gave each issue of notes authority by depositing a cheque of an equivalent amount into the bank4.
Redemption & survival
In total, more than £5,228 in notes and coupons was issued during the siege. However, little more than £638 worth of coupons were ever redeemed. The rest were kept as souvenirs or lost, and redemption of the notes ceased in September 19084.
Mr Bottomley's statement on the outstanding Mafeking currency
After the relief of the town the notes and coupons were extensively bought as mementoes of the siege, and the paper presented for payment only amounted to £638, leaving a balance of £4,590 outstanding.
Although civil law was resumed in 1902, no steps were taken to obtain an account of the actual sums paid by the bank until January, 1908, when the Paymaster brought the matter to the notice of the chief accountant of the South African Command, and negotiations were opened which resulted in the bank repaying the whole amount of the outstanding currencies.
Hansard · Mr Bottomley, House of Commons4Mr Ross proved prophetic when he wrote at the time: "This note business is going to be a good thing for the Government as I am sure they will be worth much more than face value as curios after the siege, and people are collecting as many as they can get hold of now, to make money afterwards"4.
As early as July 1900, The Times recorded sales of Mafeking notes.
Kimberley, 1899 – 1900
124 Days · Kekewich & RhodesThe diamond town, defended by Col. Robert Kekewich and with Cecil Rhodes present, lasted 124 days. While few actual siege banknotes survive today, the Wits University Research Archives hold the Kimberley Siege Collection (Fonds A64), which contains invaluable primary sources2.
Kimberley Siege Collection · A64
- Correspondence between G.H. Beaumont (Barkly West) and Col. R.G. Kekewich (Commander of the troops, Kimberley) concerning the state of the war, 19002.
- Correspondence between Kekewich, C.J. Rhodes and W. Pickering (Secretary of De Beers) relating to the siege2.
- Notes by Kekewich on Rhodes and the siege, copies of telegrams, press clippings from the Diamond Fields Advertiser2.
- Statistics of rounds fired from 24 October 1899 to 16 February 19002.
- A letter of thanks to Lord Roberts from citizens thanking him for relieving Kimberley2.
The De Beers workshops produced shells and even a gun — "Long Cecil" — during the siege. Rationing was severe, and permits themselves became a form of currency.
Ladysmith, 1899 – 1900
118 Days · Orpen-Palmer's DiaryBesieged for 118 days, the town endured food shortages and disease. No official siege notes are known to survive, but extensive postal history and personal diaries provide a vivid record of life under siege3.
Diary of Lieutenant Harold Orpen-Palmer
One of the most detailed surviving accounts is the diary of Lieutenant Harold Orpen-Palmer of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers, covering 23 August 1899 to 28 February 1900. The diary consists of 157 handwritten leaves in an A5 leather-bound notebook, with daily entries describing life in the camp and encounters with the Boers during the siege3.
The famous "Christmas pudding shell" — fired by the Boers into Ladysmith containing a pudding and two Union flags — remains a legendary episode of the siege.
Other siege & emergency notes
Three Less-Known IssuesGreen Point Track
"Good For" notes issued for 1s, 2s, and 5s, bearing the printed signature of G.W. Barnes, Manager. Sets of four notes occasionally appear at auction, realising £70 – £100.
Diyatalawa
Boer Prisoner of War notes issued in the camp in present-day Sri Lanka. These are extremely rare.
Marshall Hole card money
Denominations from 3d to 10s, issued as emergency currency during the war.
Sources
Six Archives & ReferencesCambridge University Library. Mafeking siege [bank] notes and vouchers, 1900 – 1903 (RCMS 113/69).
Wits University Research Archives. Kimberley Siege Collection (Fonds A64).
Antiquarian Auctions. Diary of Lieutenant Harold Orpen-Palmer — The Siege of Ladysmith.
Anglo Boer War Forum. Mafeking siege currency (Dr David Biggins, citing Antiques Trade Gazette) — including Baden-Powell's memoirs and the 1910 Hansard record.
Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Boer War 1899 – 1902 (Osprey, 2014).
Grehan, John & Mace, Martin. The Boer War, 1899 – 1902: Ladysmith, Magersfontein, Spion Kop, Kimberley and Mafeking (Pen & Sword, 2014).
Revision history
Living DocumentKeep exploring
Related ReadingConcentration camp tokens
The token currencies issued in British concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War — the second chapter of the war's emergency numismatics.
Boer War MysteryThe Kruger Millions
The gold reserves of the ZAR — missing since the fall of Pretoria in June 1900. The other great numismatic puzzle of the Boer War.
Banknotes HubPre-1921 banknotes
The free-banking era. Handwritten VOC notes, colonial sterling, and over thirty private banks before the SARB existed.