Colonel Robert Baden-PowellPrint Page

An oak tree commemorates the Mafeking hero, Colonel Robert Baden Powell (1857 - 1941).

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, Lord Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, who had failed to persuade the British government to send troops to the region, instead sent Colonel (later Lord) Baden-Powell, accompanied by a handful of officers, to the Cape Colony to raise two Regiments of Mounted Rifles from Rhodesia. Their aims were to resist the expected Boer invasion of the Natal Colony.

Baden Powell immediately started organizing Mafeking due to its strategic positioning. Within a few months Mafeking was ready for any emergency and war was declared on October 11th 1899.

The Boers also believed that Mafeking was an important port and decide to take it at once. Despite heavy shelling and a shortage of food Mafeking held out. On May 16th 1900, seven months after war was declared, the British relief column arrived. The Relief of Mafeking (the lifting of the siege) was a decisive victory for the British and a crushing defeat for the Boers.

The neat fence which surrounds the 'Mafeking oak' on this township bears the following inscription in raised letters : 'In honor of the Mafeking hero, 1900.' There are also raised figures representing cavalry and infantry on the plate. Mr Thomas Stroud, a deservedly popular storekeeper, and Mr James Burn, a not less deservedly popular railway guard, designed this plate and had it cast in Launceston, and it is quite safe to predict that so long as these two genuinely loyal subjects, reside in Deloraine the ' Mafeking oak ' will be kept well watered. And may it flourish and grow as a memorial to the brave deeds of a brave man.
The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times (Tas), 28th December 1900
 

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