Harry “Breaker” Morant was a “likeable rogue”, his distant cousin Cathie Morant says, and he should be posthumously pardoned.
Morant, who was found guilty of murdering 12 people, has also been described as a scapegoat, a folk hero, a womaniser and a bush poet, writing ballads under the name “the Breaker”.
History has him down as a war criminal.
That hasn’t stopped a controversial push for Morant, who was executed for war crimes in 1902, to be included on the Boer War memorial in Adelaide.
According to the National Museum of Australia (NMA), Morant and fellow lieutenant Peter Handcock were “executed by firing squad for murdering 12 Boer prisoners of war” while volunteering for the British as part of the Bushveldt Carbineers.
The Carbineers were an irregular unit with “a reputation for shooting prisoners, looting and insubordination”, the Australian War Memorial (AWM) notes.
The AWM describes Morant as having served with distinction before Boers killed his colleague and friend Captain Percy Hunt, whose body was found “stripped and mutilated”. Morant “led a revenge patrol” and ordered a prisoner to be shot.
He later ordered and carried out other executions. Handcock killed a German missionary, Reverend Heese, allegedly at “Morant’s instigation”, the AWM says. The men were not found guilty of the Heese murder.
“That they committed the crimes is beyond doubt,” the NMA says. “However, the controversy surrounding their trial and execution led to Morant being considered a folk hero by the Australian public.”
Not included in those records are reports that there were two children among the dead.
Peter FitzSimons, author of Breaker Morant, writes that Morant ordered the shooting of Roelf van Staden, a Boer farmer, alongside his two sons.
“Morant and Handcock committed their atrocities in the brutal light of day – calculated, cold-blooded murders of non-combatants who posed no threat at all,” FitzSimons wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Those who want his name on a plaque say he was a scapegoat; that due process was not followed in his trial; that he should be recognised for his service for the second contingent of the SA Mounted Rifles (before the killings); and that a plaque could be put on the steps of the memorial or the footpath nearby.
Those opposed to including him say he was guilty and that his name has no place on a memorial for those who died in the conflict. The inclusion would set a precedent for more than 1,500 names to be inscribed, they say.
Morant’s defence to the murder charge was that he was acting on the orders of his superiors – a claim still being contested by historians.
Cathie Morant, who is also the family historian, says she was “very disappointed” at an Adelaide City council decision this week to knock back the proposal. “I feel that he deserves to be on the memorial. I understand why they made the decision but I’m very disappointed,” she says.
after newsletter promotion
Her sisters also supported the move, as did former state opposition leader David Speirs, federal Labor MP Steve Georganas and more than 20 people who signed a petition to council.
The council’s decision is not the end of the road. There are plans afoot for a possible challenge to the council’s decision and James Unkles, a military lawyer, is also looking at options for a private memorial. He is also on a mission to get Morant a posthumous pardon.
“Whatever they did, that was not acceptable behaviour. There were orders issued not to take prisoners, so they were definitely scapegoats and I think it’s time for them to be pardoned,” Cathie Morant says.
Unkles says the council did not take proper notice of his proposal to put the plaque on a step or the ground near the memorial, which would not alter the actual memorial, or a plan for an interpretative display. It was a “political” decision, he says, and Morant’s trial and execution after his service in SA “should not have carried any weight”.
“It is an opportunity lost, but we have an alternative plan for a private memorial, which will be unveiled in the near future,” he says.
“Ahead of that we will focus our energies on the issue of a posthumous pardon, which has achieved some forward momentum.”
Tony Stimson, SA Boer War Association president, told the council that at the time the memorial was built there “simply wasn’t space” for all 1,530 enlisted men and only the 59 who were enlisted and “died honourably” were included.
“There was no conspiracy to dud poor old Breaker,” he said, and adding him would accord him a privilege denied the others. A vote to allow the addition would mean recognising a man “guilty of a war crime, for executing civilians like Roelf van Staden and his two sons – one a desperately sick 12-year-old on their way to hospital – and who freely acknowledged what he had done”, while not recognising “bona fide” heroes.
“What reputational damage does it stand to do to our city to add such a man?” he asked.