In 1889 Cecil John Rhodes was granted a royal charter by Queen Victoria to settle Mashonaland, in what was to become Southern Rhodesia. So was formed the British South Africa Company; its regiment of troopers raised to protect the occupying Pioneer Column dubbed the British South Africa Police, the BSAP.
From the 1893 Matabele War, the 1896 Mashona Rebellion and the Jameson Raid, the Anglo–Boer War, through both world wars and finally to the bitter Rhodesian bush war of the 1960s and ’70s, troopers and officers of this fine regiment of policemen, both black and white, were proudly to the fore, in civilian and military roles … until the disbandment of the Force in 1980 when the country became the independent Zimbabwe.
Incorporating Volume I: The First Line of Defence 1889–1903, by Peter Gibbs; Volume II: The Right of The Line 1903–1939, by Peter Gibbs; and Volume III: The End of The Line 1939–1980, by Hugh Phillips. Also with dozens of anecdotal contributions and accounts from ex-members, updated and comprehensive nominal rolls and roll of honour and Dick Hamley’s beautiful colour plates.
Over 750 photographs–many of them previously unpublished. This never-to-be-repeated ‘coffee-table’ record of the history of a country is a must for former BSAP members, their children and descendants, and anyone with an interest in the unfolding developments in the country now known as Zimbabwe.
www.bsap.org/blueoldgoldprom.html
§ Back to list |
