Wessex Archaeology
April 2007
Ref: 64441.01
ss
Mendi
Archaeological Desk-based Assessment
SS
MENDI
A
RCHAEOLOGICAL
D
ESK
-B
ASED
A
SSESSMENT
Prepared by:
Wessex Archaeology
Portway House Old Sarum Park Salisbury WILTSHIRE SP4 6EB Prepared for:
English Heritage April 2007 Ref: 64441.01
© Wessex Archaeology Limited 2007 Wessex Archaeology Limited is a Registered Charity No.28778
ss
Mendi
Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment Wessex Archaeology 64441.01
i
SS
MENDI
A
RCHAEOLOGICAL
D
ESK
-B
ASED
A
SSESSMENT
Ref: 64441.01 Summary
‘Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die…but that is what you came to do….Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Swazis, Pondos, Basutos, we die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal, our voices are left with our bodies’. These words are ascribed to Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha, and are believed to have been used to address members of the South African Native Labour Corps as they stood upon the listing deck of the sinking troopship, ss
Mendi
on 21
st
February 1917. The sinking of the
Mendi
resulted in the loss of 649 lives, the majority of them non-combatant black labourers from South Africa, en route to the Western Front in France. The loss of the
Mendi
soon drifted into historical obscurity, and for much of the 90 years since the event, it has been a story which with few exceptions has been largely forgotten in both the United Kingdom and South Africa. In the year of the 90
th
anniversary of the loss of the
Mendi
, English Heritage has commissioned Wessex Archaeology to produce a desk-based assessment of the state of knowledge relating to this event. Using the physical wreck as a starting point, this assessment has examined information relating to the loss of the
Mendi,
from both primary and secondary sources
.
An appraisal of what is known about the wreck itself has also been carried out, based on available survey data and information gathered from the diving community. The project has then considered the wreck of the
Mendi
in its wider social and political context, particularly as a means of addressing a neglected and forgotten chapter of the history of World War I – the vast system of British and foreign labour corps which provided vital logistical support for the fighting forces of the Empire, but which is virtually invisible in the literature of the war. The project has highlighted a range of themes and issues related to the wreck of the
Mendi,
its wider story and the history of the labour corps. It has attempted to demonstrate the potential this particular wreck site has for acting as a focus for a wide range of different interests and research themes, and to show how widely differing meanings of ‘place’ can be ascribed to a single archaeological site.