Baby's Name, The

DESCRIPTION: "The War, the War, the blooming war, has turned my wife insane, From Kruger to Majuba she's the Transvaal on the brain." She tries to name the baby "Kitchener, Carington, Methuen, Kekewich, White." The parson resists; she beats him for it
AUTHOR: C.W. Murphy and Albert Hall (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall)
EARLIEST DATE: 1900 (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall)
KEYWORDS: humorous war wordplay clergy baby | name Boer War
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1899-1902 - Boer War
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Howson-SongsSunginSuffolk, #87, "The Baby's Names" (1 short text, combining the chorus of this song with something else too short to identify)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Baby's Name, The"
Roud #21229
NOTES [1700 words]: The chorus of this is peculiar:
The baby's name is Kitchener, Carington, Methuen, Kekewich, White,
Cronje, Plummer, Powell, Majuba, Gatacre, Warren, Colenso, Kruger,
Capetown, Mafeking, French, Kimberley, Ladysmith, 'bobs,'
Union Jack and Fighting Mac, Lyddite, Pretoria, Blobbs.'
Many of the words in the baby's name, starting with "Kitchener," are people, but somel, such as Majuba, Colenso, Capetown, Mafeking, Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Pretoria, are place names. Lyddite is a chemical -- the chemical used in fuses to make shells burst. And it's not even as if the people's names and the town names are organized in any way; they're just mixed up. And where is Sir Redvers Buller, who made such a hash of things at the start of the war? Or Frederick Roberts, who replaced him? (Possibly Roberts is "Bobs.") In any case, it's a confused mess. But that, I suppose, is the point.
The full list of names in the song, verse and chorus, is given below, with identifications. The notes are based on Martin Marix Evans, Encyclopedia of the Boer War: 1899-1902, ABC-Clio, 2000, unless otherwise noted.
Bobs -- I assume this is Frederick Sliegh Roberts, Field Marshall, Earl Roberts of Kandahar, V.C., 1832-1914, the general who won the war.
Blobbs -- I can't find any real explanation for this one.
Bloemfontein -- At that time, capital of the Orange Free State. In 1899 a conference there failed to bring agreement between the British and the Boers. In 1900, the British advanced on it; the Boers abandoned it in March; the British occupied it and used it as a base for later advances. See also the rhyme "One, Two, Three, Relief of Kimberley."
Capetown -- At that time, capital of the Cape Colony. It was never directly threatened by the war, but it was one of the main British supply bases (and a place where they set up some of their prisoner of war camps). Also, it was one of the few places in South Africa that the ordinary Englishman might have heard of and known how to pronounce, so it was an obvious place to mention!
Carington -- Should be "Carrington." Sir Frederick Carrington (1844-1913, according to online sources). A British general who commanded cavalry in the war.
Colenso -- Town where a battle was fought on Dec. 15, 1899. Sir Redvers Buller attacked the place as he tried to make his way to relieve Ladysmith and was driven off with more than a thousand casualties; Boer losses numbered in the dozens.
Cronje -- Piet Cronjé, 1836-1911. A senior Boer commander in the west, but not very successful; he was taken prisoner in 1900.
Fighting Mac -- Hector MacDonald (1853-1903). A brigade commander with a sterling reputation who was driven to suicide. He is the subject of the song "Hector MacDonald" (which see)
French -- Sir John French (1852-1925), who would later be the first commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I. He spent most of the Boer War successfully commanding a cavalry brigade.
Gatacre -- Sir William Gatacre (1843-1906), A division commander, he was defeated at Stormberg in December 1899 and was relieved of command for that and other failures.
Kekewich -- Robert George Kekewich (1854-1914). A mere lieutenant colonel at the start of the war, he had been directed to prepare Kimberley for defense. He finished barely in time, and was responsible for defending the town. This and other successes in the war brought him a general's commission, but he committed suicide in 1914 as his health deteriorated.
Kimberley -- Town in central South Africa, almost due west of Bloemfontein. The site of a major diamond mine (which was probably why Cecil Rhodes was there at the time of the War). Starting on October 14, 1899, the Boers besieged the town and its defenders under Kekewich. The siege at first was fairly civilized, but the Whites of Kimberley eventually drove out the Blacks, while the Boers eventually started to bombard the town. The place wasn't really important, but Cecil Rhodes made a lot of noise, so after a few incompetent attempts at relief, the British got serious, and relief forces were able to enter the town on February 15, 1900. See also the rhyme "One, Two, Three, Relief of Kimberley."
Kitchener -- probably refers to Hubert Horatio Kitchener (1850-1916), the Hero of Khartoum and later the minister who pushed so many British boys to fight in World War I, but Hubert's younger brother Frederick also served in the Boer War. Frederick's role was relatively minor, though, whereas Hubert was Chief of Staff to Lord Roberts, and took over when Roberts went home. In that role, Hubert was largely responsible for the creation of the concentration camps that held the Boers -- a very black mark on his record.
Kroonstad -- Not the site of a battle, but a place where the Boer government of the Orange Free State moved once the British took Bloemfontein. The Boers surrendered Kroonstad in turn on May 12, 1900.
Kruger -- S. J. Paulus "Paul" Kruger (1825-1904) was, despite his advanced are, President of the South African Republic (Transvaal) before the Boer War. Afraid that the British intended to annex his country, he engaged in a diplomatic escalation that resulted in war. In 1900 he was forced to flee South Africa; he tried without success to get help from European countries and spent his last years in Switzerland.
Ladysmith -- Currently officially known as uMnambithi, lying about about halfway between Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa. At the time of the Boer War, it was an important British base as well as a transport hub between Durban and the Boer Republics. Yet the British had done little to protect it, and the Boers soon moved to take the town. On Nov. 2, 1899, the last locals escaped Ladysmith and the siege began. It was probably more bitter than the almost-contemporary siege of Kimberley; both defenders and residents were suffering severe shortages by the time the British finally arrived at the end of February to lift the siege. See also the rhyme "One, Two, Three, Relief of Kimberley."
Lyddite -- The main British shell-firing compound, consisting primarily of picric acid (which was a very powerful explosive but very touchy; it was, for instance, one of the main causes of the Halifax Explosion; see "The Halifax Explosion" [Laws G28]).
Mafeking -- site of the longest and bitterest of the sieges that opened the Boer War (the others being at Kimblerley and Ladysmith), since the British under Baden-Powell instituted a food rationing plan that restricted the food supply to Blacks more than to Whites. The town itself was on the railroad from the Cape Colony to Southern Rhodesia, and was near the border with the Transvaal. It was a divided town, with about 1500 whites in Mafeking proper and some 5000 blacks in neighboring Mafikeng. The Boers began the siege on Oct. 14, 1899. It was an oddly civilized siege (e.g., by agreement, they took Sundays off from fighting), It was also fairly passive -- with the Blacks, despite the discrimination against them, being the key to the defense. On May 17, 1900, relief troops entered the town.
Majuba -- Properly "Majuba Hill," and an anachronism of sorts, because the Battle of Majuba Hill had been part of the first Boer War (Feb. 27, 1881). The Boer victory there had played a large part in causing the British to negotiate a peace that gave the Boers a measure of independence after the first war.
Methuen -- Paul Stanford, Third Baron Methuen (1845-1932). A British corps commander, he fought at the Moodder River and was defeated at Magersfontein. Although he was retained in command, he doesn't seem to have done the British much good.
Modder River -- "Modderrivier" in Afrikaans; the name means "muddy river" -- is a river flowing into the Riet River about a dozen miles southeast of Kimberley; there is a town of the same name near the confluence. In late 1899, a British force on the way to the relief of Kimberley headed toward that town by way of the Modder River, of which they had no good maps. On Nov. 28, 1899, the well-entrenched, well-concealed Boers inflicted heavy losses on the approaching British, then pulled out.
Plummer -- Herbert Plumer (1857-1932), who in World War I came to be known as "Daddy" Plumer because he was one of the few good senior generals in the British army and he took care of his men. In the Boer War, he was in effect a brigade commander, and took part in the relief of Mafeking.
Powell -- Presumably Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941), who commanded the defense of Mafeking. In that role, he enlisted Black soldiers -- but also restricted the rations allotted to Blacks in general. He was and remained very controversial with historians, although he was acclaimed in the popular press. He would later found the Boy Scouts.
Pretoria -- The capital city of the South African Republic, i.e. Transvaal, and the subject of campaigns in both Boer Wars, as well as the subject of the song "Marching to Pretoria." The British did march on it, but there wasn't much of a battle there; the British began their attack on June 4, 1900, and the city surrendered the following day.
Transvaal -- The formal name of this Boer state was the South African Republic (ZAR), but it was usually known as the Transvaal. It is in the northeast of South Africa, close to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and was one of the major centers of the war.
Union Jack -- Obviously a reference to the British flag
Warren -- Charles Warren (1840-1927). In a war marked by British ineptness, his were perhaps the most inept results of all. Although he had spent time in the military, his main claim to fame was as the police commissioner who never managed to catch Jack the Ripper. His rank entitled him to command a division in South Africa, but he was bounced around between assignments, and Redvers Buller didn't trust him, so he sent Warren off on his own at the Battle of Spioenkop (Jan. 23-24, 1900), contributing to heavy British losses at that battle (which both sides thought they lost).
White -- George White. He had won the Victoria Cross in 1879 for his bravery in the Indian Mutiny. Given a command in Natal, he ended up commanding the defenses of Ladysmith but was so worn out after the siege that he was relieved and sent home. - RBW
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File: Hows087

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