Edmund O'Toole

He held back the enemy while rescuing their wounded comrade.

Edmund O'Toole served in the Frontier Light Horse during the Anglo-Zulu War. His precise birthplace and date of birth remain uncertain. In December 1877 he joined Baker's Horse during the Cape Frontier War before transferring to the Frontier Light Horse. He also helped rescue men under fire earlier in the 1879 campaign.

On 3 July, during a reconnaissance near Ulundi, a mounted party had to retreat before rapidly approaching Zulu warriors. Sergeant Fitzmaurice was left helpless when his horse fell. Lord William Beresford turned back, and Sergeant O'Toole helped him recover the injured man. O'Toole fired at the attackers while Beresford took Fitzmaurice onto his horse. When the wounded man could not keep his seat, O'Toole rode alongside and supported him during the withdrawal.

Beresford initially received the Victoria Cross alone. Evidence of O'Toole's essential role led to a separate award later that year. The decoration recognized both this rescue and his courage on other occasions during the campaign.

After discharge from the Frontier Light Horse in August 1879, O'Toole joined the Herschel Native Contingent and fought at Chief Morosi's stronghold. He became a captain in October 1880 and accompanied the Mashonaland Pioneer Column in 1890. His final years and date of death remain uncertain; later archival research places him in Cape Town after his Pioneer Column service. His gallantry lay in a practical partnership: delaying the pursuit, assisting the rescue and keeping an incapacitated soldier mounted until the party reached safety.

Official citation

For his conspicuous courage and bravery on several occasions during the campaign, and especially for his conduct on the 3rd July, 1879, at the close of the reconnaissance before Ulundi, in assisting to rescue Sergeant Fitzmaurice, 1st Battalion 24th Mounted Infantry, whose horse fell and rolled on him, as the troops retired before great numbers of the enemy. When lifted up behind him by Lord William Beresford, the man, being half stunned by this fall, could not hold on, and he must have been left had not Sergeant O’Toole, who was keeping back the advancing Zulus, given up his carbine and assisted to hold Sergeant Fitzmaurice on the horse. At the time the Zulus were rapidly closing on them, and there was no armed man between them and Sergeant O’Toole.