Henry's Story.
Private Henry Higginbotham, 4th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, army number 3245, was deployed to South Africa for the Second Anglo Boer War. in January 1900 He died of enteric fever (typhoid) and pneumonia at the Stationary Hospital, Sterkstroom on 13 May 1900 aged 22 years old.
London Evening Mail 16th May 1900
His entry for burial shows his age as 22, though he was older than that, but no details of next of kin, apart from a note that the soldier was unmarried. Private Higginbotham had been ill for fifteen days.
n 1901, Private Higginbotham was posthumously awarded the QSA medal, with clasps for Cape Colony and Orange Free State. He is commemorated on a brass plaque in St Michael and All Angels Church, Macclesfield.
Henry Higginbotham (also Heginbottom) was born in the summer of 1876, the son of Abel Higginbotham (1847 - 1887) and Mary Ashton, and brother of Mary Ellen, Harriet and Emily. He grew up in Stockport, at 2 Longshut Field. In 1887, when Henry was ten years old, his father, a hatter, died, and the 1891 census shows his widowed mother living with her three younger children at 36 Thomas Street, Higher Hillgate. Henry enlisted into the Cheshire Regiment in 1899, and in January 1900 embarked for South Africa. The notice of his death records that he had worked as a carter for Messrs T and J Smith.
Researched by Shena Lewington (November 2026)
London Evening Mail 16th May 1900
His entry for burial shows his age as 22, though he was older than that, but no details of next of kin, apart from a note that the soldier was unmarried. Private Higginbotham had been ill for fifteen days.
n 1901, Private Higginbotham was posthumously awarded the QSA medal, with clasps for Cape Colony and Orange Free State. He is commemorated on a brass plaque in St Michael and All Angels Church, Macclesfield.
Henry Higginbotham (also Heginbottom) was born in the summer of 1876, the son of Abel Higginbotham (1847 - 1887) and Mary Ashton, and brother of Mary Ellen, Harriet and Emily. He grew up in Stockport, at 2 Longshut Field. In 1887, when Henry was ten years old, his father, a hatter, died, and the 1891 census shows his widowed mother living with her three younger children at 36 Thomas Street, Higher Hillgate. Henry enlisted into the Cheshire Regiment in 1899, and in January 1900 embarked for South Africa. The notice of his death records that he had worked as a carter for Messrs T and J Smith.
Researched by Shena Lewington (November 2026)