Alderson Edwin
Edwin Alderson was a senior British army officer.
Alderson joined the British army in 1876, he left Britain for Natal in South Africa in 1881 and later served several years in Egypt.
He served in the first Anglo- Boer war in 1881. In 1896 as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he commanded four companies of the mounted infantry sent to Rhodesia to help quell the Mashonaland rebellion. They travelled to Salisbury via Beira reliving Umtali (modern day Mutare) and reopened communications on this route. A battle was fought on this journey and Chief Makoni’s kraal was captured. He took command of the local units, the whole force becoming the Mashonaland field force.
He left Rhodesia in 1896 and authored (With the Mounted Infantry and the Mashonaland Field Force). Alderson died on December 14 in 1927 of a sudden heart attack at Lowestoft and was buried at Chesterton, Oxfordshire. He had survived by his wife who later after his death arranged for his private papers to be given to Rhodesian and they are currently stored at the British Library and the National Archives of Zimbabwe.
