George H. Cossins

(b. Kapunda, South Australia, 09/04/1857 - d. Timaru, South Island, New Zealand, 11/08/1925). Australian-born novelist. Lieutenant George Herbert Cossins was a transport officer with the 6th South Australian Imperial Bushmen during the South African War (1899-1902). It would seem that he only arrived on board the troopship Warrigal in Durban on 27th April 1901 and was severely wounded at Reitz on 6th June 1901. However, according to The Advertiser (Adelaide, South Australia) of 24 March 1901, “he took part in the last Boer War” and also that “he is thoroughly acquainted with the geographical features of South Africa”. This presumably means that he had been there earlier, probably during the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-81) and that he saw enough of the country to be able to write the H. Rider Haggard-inspired novel Isban-Israel: a South African story (1896), on which Joseph Albrecht’s film Isban; or, The Mystery of the Great Zimbabwe / The Buried City (1919) was based.

Various references on the internet suggest that he lived in Adelaide for some time (he was a member of the local rowing club and played lacrosse) and besides writing two more novels, The wings of silence: an Australian tale (1898) and A Boer of to-day: a story of the Transvaal (1900), he also wrote the lyrics for a cantata composed for the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition (1887). Apparently another novel, entitled A Girl From the Veld, was lost overboard in Durban Bay. Prior to his departure for South Africa, he worked for the South Australian Government Survey Office. After the war ended, he returned to South Africa in 1902 and, in 1904, as claims inspector of the Department of Mines, married Ethel Annie McLaren of Dunedin, New Zealand in Johannesburg. His earlier job at the Survey Office stood him in good stead as there are many archival references to his work as a beacon inspector in the Transvaal between 1908 and 1910. In June 1919, S.A. Pictorial reported that he had been living in Vogelfontein (today's Boksburg) for 13 years, but in 1923 the family left South Africa and in December of that year The Register of Adelaide mentioned that at that time Cossins was “a successful personage in New Zealand”. He died in Timaru, South Island in 1925. (FO)