Often unnoticed, the Boer War memorial in St. Peter’s is dedicated to two local men who died in the second Boer War. It commemorates Private William Edwin Richardson of the 3rd Battalion, King’s Royal Rifles and Trooper Needham Carnall Shelton of the 4th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry.
Private Richardson was killed in action on Spion Kop (‘Lookout Mountain’) on January 24th, 1900. He was aged 28. The battle is notorious for the heavy losses suffered by the British when they were defeated by a smaller Boer army who suffered relatively few casualties.
Trooper Needham died of Enteric Fever – a form of Typhoid which killed a high number of soldiers serving in foreign countries. Trooper Needham died at the Standerton Hospital in South Africa on the 23rd March 1901. He was aged 21.
Needham Carnall Shelton, one of the five children of Nathan and Eliza Cordelia Shelton, was born at Peatling Parva, Leicestershire. In the 1891 census Nathan and his family were living on Beaumont Street (now Beaumanor Road), Belgrave.
