George St Leger Gordon Lennox (1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty_Smith

Graf http://www.graves-at-eggsa.org/main.php?g2_itemId=514289 http://www.graves-at-eggsa.org/main.php?g2_itemId=514282

Microfilm #1295252 Matrimonial Court Minutes Upington/Gordonia Marriage Affidavits Item 4: 1903-1910

Husband: George St. Leger LENNOX, Bachelor, Farmer, residing Lentlands farm, district of Gordonia Wife: Susara Magdelina VAN NIEKERK, Spinster, daughter of Gerhardus Carel David Wentzel VAN NIEKERK Date: 5/27/190(5?)

This was not a marriage certificate, but it was a certificate stating that there was no impediment to their being married and allowed them 3 months in which to do so. Most likely they had to obtain the certificate because the bride was underage.

In the words of Lawrence G. Green, “WILDEST of all the reckless men who rode the Kalahari frontier was Scotty Smith. Every country has its Robin Hood, Dick Turpin or Captain Starlight – highwaymen of varying degrees of courtesy and crime. Scotty Smith was South Africa’s most notorious outlaw for many years, a legendary figure whose exploits live after him.”

Born in 1845 as George St Leger Lennox , the illegitimate son of a noble Scotsman, he studied as a veterinary surgeon and then travelled to Australia (in search of gold) and India (to fight for the British) before arriving in South Africa in 1877 to join the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police. Not being one to be contravened by rules his military career ended and he took on the nickname “Scotty Smith”. Smith he claimed was the name of a fallen comrade (whose papers he took) and Scotty because of his Scottish heritage.

When in South Africa he got involved in gun-running, horse theft (a particular favourite of his) general theft, elephant hunting in Botswana (then Bechuanaland). He was also involved in legal and illegal diamond buying in the diamond fields, and highway robberies. He was caught and sentenced several times for these crimes, but, always managed to escape rivaling Houdini with his skill in this matter.

Scotty was once asked how he managed to slip in and out of Kimberley so often when the police were looking for him and there were warrants out for his arrest. “Police?” scoffed Scotty. “There was nothing to fear from those boobs, and there was not a cell in the place that would have held me overnight. I was as safe on the diggings as in the Kalahari.”

Scotty Smith was an incredibly talented actor. Once when he was arrested near Kimberley, he managed to slip his handcuffs; overpower the plain clothes detective escorting him and then turned the tables, by handcuffing the policeman. Having an extraordinary amount of chutzpah, he then delivered his captive at the Kimberley jail to be locked in a cell where the policeman had a hard time convincing the authorities that he was not Scotty Smith!

In the early Eighteen-nineties he moved into the Kalahari north of Upington and at 46 he married a 19 year old Afrikaans, Miss van Niekerk, with whom he raised a family of 5 daughters and two sons. He named his farms “Kings Rest’ and Leitland‘s Pan and kept his stolen cattle and horses there until the government which had begun to survey the Gordonia District, discovered that he had no title deeds to the land which he occupied.

As a result, he moved with his family to a plot on the Orange river, in Upington, where he spent his last years. He died during the 1919 flu epidemic, at 73 and is buried in the town.

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Dec 5 2016, 12:38:56 UTC