Mess Servants and Field Kitchen of the 80th Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers), 1879 (c)

Photograph, Zulu War (1879).

Though it may have seen more active service than some, the experience of the 80th Regiment was not untypical of that of regiments which garrisoned South Africa. It was broken up into detachments soon after it landed in early 1876. These fought in four campaigns, and the men, in the words of their commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Tucker, 'not having had a roof over their heads for upwards of three years'. The regiment left South Africa in April 1880.

From an album compiled by Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Turner Anderson.