List of Soldiers at Rorke’s Drift: Defenders by Unit, 22–23 January 1879
Who were the soldiers at Rorke’s Drift? The garrison on 22–23 January 1879 was built around B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, but it also included men from the 1st Battalion, Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, medical and transport organisations, colonial units and civilians.
The exact roll is not completely uncontested. Historical lists differ over who was physically present, who remained for the main defence, how hospital patients were counted and the spelling or identification of individual men. The roll below follows a compilation based on Lieutenant John Chard’s list, Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne’s lists and Major Dunbar’s January 1880 list. The National Army Museum gives the useful overall scale as roughly 150 defenders facing several thousand Zulu attackers.
For the battle itself rather than the roll, read the complete Battle of Rorke’s Drift field guide.
1st Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Sergeant: Wilson.
Privates: Beckett, Desmond, Horrigan, Jenkins, Nicholas, Parry, Payton, Roy, Turner and Waters.
A Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Drummer: Meehan.
Privates: Lyons, Manley, Scanlon and Sears.
B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
B Company formed the core of the defence and is the largest group on the roll.
Officer: Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead VC.
Colour Sergeant: Bourne.
Sergeants: Gallagher, Smith and Windridge.
Lance Sergeant: Thomas.
Corporals: William Wilson Allen VC, French, Key, Lyons and Saxty.
Lance Corporals: Bessell and Halley.
Drummers: Hayes and Keefe.
Privates: Ashton, Barry, Bennett, Bly, Bromwich, Buckley, Burke, Bushe, Caine, Camp, Chester, Clayton, Cole, Collins, Connors, Timothy Connors, Davies, Davis, Daw, Deacon, Deane, Dick, Dicks, Driscoll, Dunbar, Edwards, Fagan, Gee, Hagan, Harris, Hitch, Hook, Jobbins, Evan Jones, John Jones (970), John Jones (1179), Robert Jones, William Jones, Judge, Kears, Kiley, Lewis, Lines, Lloyd, Lockhart, Lodge, Lynch, Marshall, Martin, Mason, Mireham, Moffatt, Augustus Morris, Frederick Morris, Morrison, Murphy, Neville, Norris, Osborne, Parry, Pitt, Robinson, Ruck, Savage, Shearman, Shergold, Smith, Stevens, Tasker, Frederick Taylor, Thomas Taylor, Thomas, Thompson, Michael Tobin, Patrick Tobin, Todd, Tongue, Wall, Whetton, Wilcox, John Williams, Joseph Williams, John Williams, Thomas Williams and Caleb Wood.
There are several men named John Williams in the surviving rolls. The VC recipient born John Fielding is covered separately in the John Williams VC biography, rather than assuming identity from surname alone in this list.
D Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Drummer: Galgey.
Privates: Adams, Chick and Haydon.
E Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Lance Sergeant: Taylor.
Private: John Williams (934).
G Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Sergeant: Maxfield.
Privates: Conolly and Partridge.
H Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot
Private: Evans.
General Staff
Colour Sergeant: Mabin.
N Battery, 5th Brigade, Royal Artillery
Bombardier: Lewis.
Gunners: Evans, Cantwell and Howard.
Royal Engineers
Lieutenant: John Chard VC.
Driver: Robson.
2nd Battalion, 3rd Foot
Sergeant: F. A. Milne.
90th Perthshire Volunteers
Corporal: Graham.
Commissariat and Transport Department
Acting Commissariat: Walter Dunne.
Assistant Acting Commissariat: James Langley Dalton VC.
Acting Storekeeper: Louis Byrne.
Army Service Corps
Second Corporal: F. Attwood.
Medical Staff
Surgeon: James Henry Reynolds VC.
Medical staff: William Pearse.
Hospital Corps
Corporal: Rowland Miller.
Privates: Luddington and McMahon.
Natal Mounted Police
Troopers: Green, Lugg and Hunter.
1st Battalion, 3rd Natal Native Contingent
Lieutenant: Adendorff.
Corporals: Anderson, Doughty, Mayer, Scammell, Christian Ferdinand Schiess VC and Wilson.
Private: Umkungu.
Civilians
Reverend George Smith; Daniells, the ferryman; and an unnamed servant to Reverend Smith.
How many men defended Rorke’s Drift?
You will see different totals in books and online. That is not automatically evidence that one source is careless. Different rolls can count men at the station, men who actually remained through the principal action, patients, colonial personnel and men whose presence is disputed in different ways.
The safest short answer is that the post was defended by roughly 150 men, with the final effective fighting strength smaller than the headline garrison total. That is also why a named roll is more useful than forcing every source into one apparently exact figure.
The eleven Victoria Cross recipients
Eleven men received the Victoria Cross for the defence. They were John Chard, Gonville Bromhead, William Wilson Allen, Frederick Hitch, Alfred Henry Hook, Robert Jones, William Jones, John Williams, James Henry Reynolds, James Langley Dalton and Christian Ferdinand Schiess.
Read the complete Rorke’s Drift Victoria Cross winners guide →
Why the roll matters
Rorke’s Drift is often reduced to a handful of famous names. The roll shows a more complicated garrison: regular infantry, artillerymen, an engineer, medical staff, transport personnel, colonial troops and civilians. It also shows why the battle should not be treated solely as the story of two officers or eleven medals.
If you are tracing an ancestor, treat this page as a structured starting point rather than the final word. Contemporary and later rolls should be checked against service records and specialist research because spellings, service numbers and claims of presence can conflict.
Continue the Rorke’s Drift archive
- Battle of Rorke’s Drift — complete field guide
- The 11 Rorke’s Drift Victoria Cross winners
- Battle of Isandlwana — companion field guide
- Anglo-Zulu War 1879 research hub
- Rorke’s Drift & Anglo-Zulu War collection
Sources and roll notes
- National Army Museum — Defence of Rorke’s Drift — battle context and approximate garrison scale.
- Graham Mason / Mole’s Genealogy — Rorke’s Drift garrison roll — compilation stated to use the Chard, Bourne and Dunbar lists.
Featured image: Lady Elizabeth Butler, The Defence of Rorke’s Drift (1880), public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons.
