Characters

The Victorian era provided a stage for adventurers and heroes, military and civilian. On the Mahdist side, under Osman Digna’s leadership, the heroes amongst the tribal warriors, immortalised by Kipling in his poem Fuzzy Wuzzy, are mostly un-named.

Here are the characters from both sides, as I have named them and modelled them.

Osman Digna and his personal standard bearer Abdul Adab. Adab was killed in March 1885, leading a night attack on the British Ordnance camp outside Suakin. The wily Digna was finally captured after Kitchener’s victory at Omdurman in 1898, and lived to a ripe old age.

Rear Admiral Sir William Hewett VC KCB was a veteran of the Crimean War. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for actions at the Siege of Sevastopol (while attached to the Naval Brigade) and the battle of Inkerman. He commanded the Naval Brigade that landed at Suakin on 6 February 1884 prior to the arrival of General Graham’s field force.

Valentine Baker (Baker Pasha) led the Tokar relief force, which resulted in the debacle of first El Teb (4 February 1884). With a handful of European officers, he fought his way out, and made it to Suakin. There he joined Graham’s forces.

The archetypal Victorian hero adventurer, Colonel Fred Burnaby with the shotgun which raised eyebrows in The House in the wake of second El Teb (29 February 1884). Melton Prior later wrote ‘I remember seeing Colonel Burnaby at this time without a coat, with shirt-sleeves tucked up above the elbow, and a double-barrelled gun in his hand, picking off the enemy as they rushed in, in the same way you would kill big game.’

Captain Arthur K Wilson, commanding torpedo boat depot ship HMS Hecla. Wilson was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions defending a machine gun battery at second El Teb (29 February 1884), where he fought on with his fists after his sword blade snapped.

Private Thomas Edwards was seconded from 1bn Black Watch to the Naval Brigade as an ammunition mule driver. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for defending a machine gun battery at Tamai (13 March 1884), during which action he was wounded.

War correspondents and old friends Melton Prior (left) and Bennet Burleigh (right) were often in the thick of it together in the Sudan. Burleigh had had an adventurous career, including spying for the Confederates during the American Civil War. In 1881 he was hired by the London Telegraph to cover the war in the Sudan, and he was the first to report the failure of the Gordon relief expedition. Together the duo had covered the Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. Prior worked for the London Illustrated News.

My online alter-ego, Drummer Jones. The much loved Dad’s Army character Lance-Corporal Jones claimed to have been a drummer boy with the Gordon Relief expedition and with Kitchener at Omdurman. He often related tales of the Fuzzy Wuzzys, in particular how ‘they don’t like it up ’em’.

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Osman Digna
Rear Admiral Sir Willian Hewett VC KCB
Captain Arthur K Wilson VC
Private Thomas Edwards VC
Valentine Baker
Colonel Fred Burnaby
Colonel Fred Burnaby’s shotgun
Bennet Burleigh
Melton Prior
Drummer Jones