In late February 1879, a convoy of eighteen wagons carrying 90,000 rounds of ammunition and other supplies was sent from Lydenburg to re-supply the garrison, and from the Transvaal border was escorted by a single company.
On 20 December 1880, Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther and elements of his regiment, the 94th, marched from Lydenburg to Pretoria, the regiment’s band leading the column playing the popular song “Kiss Me, Mother Darling”.
He was in the Siege of Ladysmith, and afterwards served as a staff officer in the operations in Northern Natal (including the action at Laing's Nek) and in Eastern Transvaal (including the actions at Belfast and Lydenburg).
From here he travelled north to Pretoria, east to Bronkhorstspruit and further east to Lydenburg which was to be his headquarters for the next 13 years.
A British garrison under Lieutenant Walter Hillyar Colquhoun Long (uncle of the 1st Viscount Long) took control of Lydenburg to control the goldfields.
The Siege of Lydenburg was a siege carried out by the Boer Republic of Transvaal on Lydenburg, modern day South Africa, between January and March 1881 during the First Boer War.
On 20 December 1880, six officers and 246 men of the 94th Regiment, along with 12 men of the Army Service Corps and 4 men of the Army Hospital Corps, were attacked by 250 Boers at Bronkhorstspruit whilst marching from Lydenburg to Pretoria.
The Class 39-200 locomotives were placed in service on the line between the Mpumalanga Lowveld and northern KwaZulu-Natal, working from Lydenburg via Swaziland to Golela in northern KwaZulu-Natal, en route to the coal export harbour at Richards Bay.