POW HANDICRAFTS: WOODEN OX WAGON

A small wooden ox wagon, a child’s toy, hand crafted in wood with the following dimensions: 42cm in length, 15cm in height and 23 cm in width. It is mounted on a wooden board 30 x53 cm. There are handwritten inscriptions on the body of the wagon, which are now illegible. It is in very good condition. This item has no provenance.

Extracted from Oosthuizen (Peter) Boer War Memorabilia Chapter 6 Prisoner of war handicraft pages 83 – 84 : During the period 1900 - 1902 a great number of Boer prisoners of war were shipped to overseas camps. Transport ships were converted into prison ships and used as collection centres before POW camps were established at Green Point, Bellevue in Simonstown, Ladysmith, Durban and Pretoria.

In 1900 the first POW camp was established on St. Helena at Deadwood. The greatest number of POWs were shipped to Bermuda with other camps in Ceylon and India. At the end of the war there were 24 000 prisoner of war in overseas camps and 6 000 in SA.

To earn more pocket money to supplement their diet or to buy tobacco or simply to relieve their boredom they turned to making curios, carving toys and many different kinds of artefacts. As tools were scarce the pocket knives of the POWs became the most commonly used tool. For material they used wood, bone, ivory stone, horn and textiles. It is common for the handiwork to have been marked with POW signs, sometimes with a date or the name of the camp, or the country it was located in. However, a great many items were produced without any markings,

This additional information was provided by Dr. Vicky Heunis, Collections Manager of the Anglo Boer War Museum in Bloemfontein: During the Anglo Boer War a variety of toys and miniature models such as ox wagons, cannons and ammunition wagons were made by the prisoners of war for their children. Items that were crafted in the Bellevue Camp in Simonstown were sold by A. P. Raphael in Cape Town, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

F. J. Badenhorst wrote from Bellevue on 20 May 1901 that “there are hundreds of toys sent out of the camp to be sold in Cape Town and elsewhere.” In July 1901 a Naval and Military Exhibition was held at the Crystal Palace in London, where a selection of these artefacts were on display and attracted a great deal of attention. The prisoners of war also spent their time crafting items on board ship which is corroborated by an article in the Sphere dated 6 April 1901 entitled “ How the boer prisoners kill time. Making toys on board ship.”