Biography – Ptivate Roland Philip Pitt
Regimental No 119, First Tasmanian Mounted Infantry Contingent
The Late Private Roland P Pitt Tasmanian Mail 30 June 1900 p20
(AOT & NLA)
Roland Philip Pitt, the son of Frank and Marion Pitt (nee Rooke), was born on 14 September 1874, at Hagley, Tasmania. At an early age he took a keen interest in the volunteers and joined the Deloraine Company. He also belonged to the Ulverstone Company for a period of three years. He moved to Queenstown and then Zeehan, where he was employed as a miner in the Western Mine. It was from here that he enlisted with the second Tasmanian Contingent on 24 December 1899 and left Launceston with the contingent on 18 January 1900.1
In April at Bloemfontein he was transferred to the First Contingent under the command of Major Cameron and saw action in the advance to Pretoria, the Zand River and the battle and occupation of Kroonstadt. At the end of May he was sent from Kroonstadt to Norval's Pont, where he subsequently died of enteric fever on 11 June 1900.2
At Zeehan where Private Pitt was employed prior to his enlistment, the flags were flown at half-mast, when news of his death reached the town. He was buried in the local cemetery at Norval's Pont but later his remains were removed to the Garden of Remembrance, at Colesberg.3
Private Pitt is commemorated on memorials in Hobart and Launceston. A framed photograph of him was hung in the Town Hall at Deloraine.
Pitt's grave in Colesberg Garden of Remembrance
(Colin Roe)
1 Letter from Mrs Pitt, published in Tasmanians in the Transvaal War, John Bufton, Hobart, 1905. This differs from the Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the War in South Africa, P L Murray, Melbourne, 1911, in that the departure of the second contingent was from Hobart on 5 March 1900.
2 ibid.
3 All records located in Australia give date of death as 11 June 1900, however information from National Monuments Council of South Africa database gives date of death as 11 July 1900.
