George H. Cossins

(b. **/**/**** - d. **/**/****) Australian 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 it was during 1880-81 that he saw enough of the country to be inspired to later write the H. Rider Haggard-inspired novel Isban-Israel: a South African story (1896), on which Joseph Albrecht’s film Isban / The Buried City (1919) was based.

Various references on the internet suggest that he came from Adelaide (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). 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. In July 1905 Mrs. Cossins of Klerksdorp gave birth to a daughter. 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 December 1923 The Register of Adelaide reported that at that time Cossins was “a successful personage in New Zealand”. (FO)