page_title: August 1901
section_title: August 23, 1901 (Friday)
hierarchical_section_title: August 1901 / August 23, 1901 (Friday)
caption_attribution_description: English: Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant (1864- February 27, 1902), circa 1900 26 February 1902 The 'Confession' The 'Confession' written on the back of photograph A05828 addressed to the Reverend Canon Fisher was written by Lieutenant (Lt) Harry Harbord Morant and signed by Morant and Lt Peter Joseph Handcock, it reads: 'To the Rev. Canon Fisher, Pretoria The night before we're shot We shot the Boers who killed and mutilated our friend ( the best mate I had on Earth) Harry Harbord Morant Peter Joseph Handcock' http://cas.awm.gov.au/screen_img/A05829
context_page_description: The following events occurred in August 1901:
context_section_description: Reverend Daniel Heese, a German missionary assigned by the Basel Missionary Society, was shot to death along with a young black child, on orders of Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant of the Bushveldt Carbineers, an Australian infantry division fighting on the British side of the Second Boer War.  Heese had been working along with British missionaries in evangelical activities, and he and the child had been the only surviving witnesses to the Carbineers' murder the day before of four Boer schoolteachers and four Afrikaner soldiers.  The missionary's murder would expose the atrocities that had been committed by British forces against civilians during the Boer War.  Morant and Lt. Peter Handcock would be convicted of numerous murders in their court martial, and executed on February 27, 1902.
  Led by Millicent Fawcett, the "Ladies' Commission" appointed by the British government began its inspection tour of the civilian internment camps set up in South Africa by the British Army during the Boer War, starting with the one at Vryburg.  On the first camp on the list, they noted that the majority of the 458 internees were living in tents without beds and that there was no school for the children, but concluded that the food and fuel rations were adequate, and advised the superintendent.
  Born:
  John Sherman Cooper, U.S. Senator for Kentucky between 1946 and 1973, first United States Ambassador to East Germany (1974 to 1976) and member of the Warren Commission; in Somerset, Kentucky (d. 1991)
  Karl Bechert, German theoretical physicist and political activist, in Nuremberg (d. 1981)
caption: Morant
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