Cecil Rhodes Cecil Rhodes Cecil Rhodes


Honoured Dead Memorial Honoured Dead Memorial

The Honoured Dead Memorial

Kimberley, South Africa
Location co-ordinates: 28°45'4"S 24°46'10"E


The Honoured Dead Memorial is a provincial heritage site in Kimberley in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated at the meeting point of five roads, and commemorates those who died defending the city during the 124 day Siege of Kimberley in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. In 1986, it was described in the Government Gazette as Cecil John Rhodes commissioned Sir Herbert Baker (Baker & Masey Architects – Herbert Baker & Francis Edward Masey) to design a memorial…which commemorates those who fell during the Kimberley Siege. Rhodes sent Baker to Greece to study ancient memorials – the Nereid Monument at Xanthus greatly influenced his design. The monument is built of sandstone quarried in the Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe and is the tomb of 27 soldiers. It features an inscription that Rhodes specifically commissioned Rudyard Kipling to write. The Long Cecil gun that was designed and manufactured by George Frederick Labram, who died on 9 February 1900, in the workshops of De Beers during the siege is mounted on its stylobate (facing the Free State). It is surrounded by shells from the Boer 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.

The imposing monument known as The Honoured Dead Memorial was erected to perpetuate the memory of the British soldiers who gave their lives in defending Kimberley form the Boers during the siege that lasted 124 days. It was unveiled on 28 November 1904, the fifth anniversary of the second battle of Carter’s Ridge. The prototype was the Nereid monument that was discovered in Xanthos, Asia Minor, in 1840-1842. The Nereid monument, presumed to be a tomb, had been destroyed but had been re-constructed in a model.

The idea for the Memorial came from Rhodes himself after the first action of the siege on 24 October 1899 and a Kimberley committee, which included the colossus himself, chose the Kimberley design. The winning design was submitted by (later Sir) Herbert Baker, a friend of Rhodes. The inscription on the western wall is by Rudyard Kipling, famous for the Jungle Book stories as well as his ballads and verse.

All the stone, according to the history books, comes from the Matopos, although there is a strong belief that it in fact came from Nyamandhlovu as the Matopos does not have sand stone of the type used in the memorial. The monument stands some 52 feet tall and weighs over 2000 tonnes. The cost came to £10 000.00, the majority coming from public subscription. John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard, designed the bronze tablets commemorating Long Cecil, George Labram, and the Honoured Dead.

Twenty-seven British soldiers lie buried within the tomb, which was situated on the (then) highest point of Kimberley. The five roads leading to the Memorial were made by the unemployed blacks during the siege to afford employment.

The Honoured Dead Memorial is Part of the Kimberley Ghost Tour