Cecil D'Arcy - Further Information

Further Information

He was born in Wanganui, New Zealand, where his father Major Oliver D’Arcy of the 65th Regiment was in the British garrison there (in 1860 Oliver transferred to the Cape Mounted Rifles and settled at King William's Town, Eastern Cape Colony).

Henry later joined the Cape Mounted Rifles as a captain, and served in the 1880 Basuto rising, but resigned in April 1881. He left the house of Rev. Taberer in the Cape Province where he was staying to recuperate during the night of 6–7 August 1881, and his remains were found next year (though there were rumours that he had subsequently been seen elsewhere).

He is also considered South African, though he probably considered himself British or Anglo-Irish. The Independent newspaper in London reported that the Captain famously faked his own death. "No longer is anyone likely to imitate Captain Henry Cecil Dudgeon D'Arcy of the Frontier Light Horse, who, having been awarded the VC in the Zulu wars, turned to drink. Later, a body wearing his clothes was found in a cave and, this being the pathology of a century ago, presumed to be his. Only many decades later was it learnt that D'Arcy had found a dead man lying in the snow, changed clothes with him, and gone to Natal, and lived out the rest of his life under an assumed name. He was once recognised in 1925, but swore his discoverer to the secret, which the man kept until D'Arcy died. "

His story is told in the (out of print) book "What Happened to a V.C." by Patricia D'Arcy.

He is interred in the King William's Town, Eastern Cape cemetery.