The 1st battalion was dispatched from Britain to South Africa to take part in the Second Anglo-Boer War, arriving in November 1899, after local forces had been besieged in Mafeking, and the British forces stationed there had been surrounded in the town of Ladysmith. The battalion was involved in General Redvers Buller's unsuccessful attempts to approach Ladysmith across the Teluga river, in reserve for the Battle of Colenso, launching diversionary attacks to the east of Spion Kop, and in early February attacked Vaal Krantz with the battalion taking two hills of the ridge, before the position was abandoned. The battalion was in a supporting role for the Relief of Ladysmith and took little part in the offensive that ended with the annexation of the Transvaal in September 1900.