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Historical person

George Pomeroy Colley

1835–1881

George Pomeroy Colley entered the British Army from Sandhurst in 1852 and served in southern Africa and China before developing a reputation for staff work and military administration. He worked at the War Office on army reform, taught at the Staff College and served with Garnet Wolseley during the Ashanti campaign. His later appointments took him to India and back to southern Africa.

In 1880 Colley became Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Natal and High Commissioner for south-eastern Africa. When the Transvaal Boers rebelled, he led the British field force but suffered defeats at Laing’s Nek and Schuinshoogte. On 27 February 1881 Boer troops stormed the British position on Majuba Hill; Colley was killed and the defeat became the decisive military episode of the First Boer War.

George Pomeroy Colley appears directly in John Wilcox’s Last Stand at Majuba Hill, where his campaign decisions and fatal occupation of Majuba shape Simon Fonthill’s fourth adventure. The novel centres on the First Boer War, a short conflict in which British forces suffered a sequence of reverses at Laing’s Nek, Schuinshoogte and Majuba. Wilcox uses the battle to explore the danger of imperial overconfidence and the effectiveness of mobile Boer marksmanship against conventional British tactics.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring George Pomeroy Colley (1 series)

Simon Fonthill in Order

by John Wilcox 13 books 4.2(4,074)

The Simon Fonthill series follows an unconventional British officer and intelligence scout through the wars and crises of the late Victorian and Edwardian empire. Beginning in southern Africa in 1879, Simon Fonthill and his Welsh comrade ‘352’ Jenkins move from regular army service into scouting, diplomacy and irregular…

All books in this series