Biscuit Boxes of the Zulu War Period

[fantomark]

Hi!

I know this one could sound a bit funny...

However I am trying to help a friend of mine who is trying to biuld a Rorkes Drift Diorama as accurate as possible.

On of the items about we have been so far unable to get accurate info. are the BISCUIT BOXES used for barricading Rorkes Drif.

Can anybody supply any scraps of info on the Army Biscuit Boxes used at this period? Does anybodly know if they were Natural Wood or painted ? And which sizes were they?

Many Thanks in advance.

Cheers!

Marco

[roconn]

Marco:
That is a very interesting question as there is exhaustive detail about ammunition boxes and their construction - but very little about other supplies and how they were packaged or boxed up.
I would suspect that the contents were quite light in comparison to ammunition or rum so would have had much less weighty containers and consequently less bullet-proof but certainly capable of slowing down a spear.

regards
roconn

[nigelutting]

Marco,

As far as I know, the biscuit boxes weighted 90 lbs. In Hook's memoir he says: "The Zulus were swarming around us, and there was an extraordinary rattle as the bullets struck the biscuit boxes, and queer thuds as they plumped into the bags of mealies.". I presume the biscuit boxes were not dissimilar to the ammunition boxes, i.e. they had a wooden outer and a sealed metal or metal foil inner to keep the biscuits dry? Was the 'rattle' that Hook refers to the sound of bullets and bits of broken biscuit hitting a metal liner?

As an aside, the bags of mealies are stated to have weighed 200 lbs. When I was a child on an English farm, I was told that corn used to be carried up into the loft of the farm house to dry over winter in sacks called 'coomb sacks' that weighed 14 stone. 14 stone = 196 lbs which is remarkably close to the reported weight of the mealie sacks.

Nigel.

[fantomark]

Many thanks for the info. supplied!

As far as the appeareance of the boxes, I can only presume the ones shown in the attached atwork are accurate enough , in order to be copied for modelling purposes...

Ciao!

[STEVIE SPRINGBOK]

Hi Marco,Regarding the biscuit boxes Britains toy soldiers do a superb range of figures and accessories for the Zulu war including excellently detailed biscuit boxes.

[polarbear]

Here are the Wm. Britain Biscuit boxes. They are currently available from dealers who sell WB products.
Note however: I have been told by an expert on Rorke's Drift and the Anglo-Zulu War that the boxes were only piled 2 high not 3 as seen in the WB set.

http://www.wbritain.com/products_detail.cfm?productID=45102

[The RQM]

biscuitbox.jpg (39.82 KiB) Viewed 152 times

[The RQM]

A replica.

Bread+Box+from+RRW+Museums.jpg (20.55 KiB) Viewed 118 times

[fantomark]

Thanks for the nice photos!
They will really help!

Ciao!

Marco