Royal Navy Artillery Volunteer

One of the 2 men of the Royal Navy Artillery Volunteers who joined the Naval Brigade during the Zulu War.

"An LBC man has been serving with the Naval Brigade in Zululand. Mr. R.V. Jennings, whom the N.W. men will remember as a regular attendant at their meets during his occasional stays in this country, was not only a bicyclist but one of that little known body, the Naval Volunteers. Mr. Jennings found leisure to leave his business at Durban for a time, and offer his services, which were accepted by Captain Richards. Although it is not probable, from the latest news, that the Naval Brigade will see any more active service, Mr. Jennings has performed a very plucky and English action of which we ought all to be proud. It is easy for a man in England to volunteer for service involving risks he can hardly realise at home; it is quite another matter, and a higher kind of courage, when a young Englishman at Durban, with all the panic of Isandula, and the shrieking, of money-grubbing and panic stricken colonists around him, leaves a pleasant home and easy work to face the realities of savage warfare of which he had daily and sad experience. The present writer knew Mr. Jennings well; and those who had the good fortune to share that acquaintance will hope for the safe return among us of one of the pluckiest, and also the most modest and retiring, of the London Bicycle Club."
(London Bicycle Club Gazette, Tuesday, July 29, 1879)

Petty Officer Tom