Alfred Aloysius AYLWARD

- 1890

• Name	Alfred Aloysius AYLWARD
  Born	Ireland
  Gender	Male
  Died	1890	Canada   [1]
  Person ID	I609	Irish in South Africa
  Last Modified	18 Dec 2019

  
  

• Sources

  [S2] SESA, (Nationale Boekhandel). A colourful character of many aliases (Rivers, O'Brien, Nelson). It is even doubtful whether Aylward was his real name; it was probably Murphy. He was an eloquent and witty speaker, extremely anti-British, reckless and versatile. After his imprisonment as participant in the Fenian uprising he emigrated to America and became a journalist. He came to South Africa and edited a newspaper in Kimberley. He had considerable know ledge of medicine and surgery, helping to establish and manage the Diggers' Hospital at Klipdrift in 1871. Shortly after arriving in South Africa he was imprisoned for eighteen months for shooting a fellow digger at Kimberley. In 1874, after his release from prison, he became a prominent figure on the diamond-diggings in Griqualand West. He organised a Mutual Protection Society, which voiced grievances against illicit diamond-buying and non-fulfilment of promises regarding land titles. Aylward fomented the digger agitation which led to the Kimberley Black Flag Rebellion of 1875. His Defence Association armed seven companies, including a company of Germans, but deserting it at the height of the disorder, Aylward fled to a Transvaal farm-house, from which he sent a notice of his death to the papers. On hearing that his friends were being sympathetically dealt with he returned to Kimberley, walked into court, and delivered himself up; he was tried for treason and acquitted. From October 1876 he played a stormy part in the Transvaal, becoming a police officer in command of the Sekhukhune Volunteers, formerly commanded by Capt. C. H. H. von Schlickmann. At the outbreak of the First Anglo Boer War in 1881 'Captain' Aylward was at Lydenburg, and later he served as legal adviser to the Boer forces during negotiations with the British after Majuba. He edited The Natal Witness at Pietermaritzburg and posed as representative of The Daily Tele graph. He wrote the best book of his time on the Transvaal, The Transvaal of to-day (1878).