A rush to victory – and the Victoria Cross

Born to an Irish father and an Afrikaans mother on the Cape Colony’s Eastern Frontier, Joseph Crowe became one of the first South African-born recipients of the Victoria Cross, earning it in India.

- Mike Burgess

When former soldier Joseph Crowe Snr and his wife Classina Vermaak welcomed their son Joseph Petrus Hendrik into the world in Uitenhage on 12 January 1826, they might well have predicted that the child would one day serve in the military. But few would have dared imagine that he would receive the British Empire’s highest military honour.

BIRTH AND EARLY MILITARY CAREER

Joseph Snr served as a lieutenant in the British Army’s 60th Regiment of Ireland, and was garrisoned in the Cape Colony when he met and married Dutch-speaking Classina at a military post on the turbulent Eastern Frontier. Although Joseph Snr was discharged from the army and lived in Uitenhage, it is likely that he would have been involved in military operations against the Xhosa as a local levy.

It seems fair to surmise that Crowe’s interest in the military was influenced by his father and frontier conditions, but he was determined to join the British Army proper.

This he did, and in October 1846, he was appointed as an ensign in the 78th Highlanders. He was posted to India the following year, promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1850, and went on to serve in the Persian Campaign of 1856 to 1857, earning the Persian Medal and Clasp.