[3] Although the Boers were predominantly farmers and were heavily outnumbered by the regular forces of the British Army, they organised themselves into highly mobile mounted columns called commandoes and fought at long range with accurate rifle fire.

[4] It soon became apparent that the British mounted capability – comprising small contingents of regular infantry on horseback and insufficiently supplied, ill-suited cavalry – needed to be reinforced.

Already, in October and November 1899, Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Lucas, the yeomanry representative in the War Office and a member of the Loyal Suffolk Hussars, had proposed this force as a source of reinforcement.

His proposals were initially declined, but the request by General Redvers Buller, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa, for mounted infantry after his defeat in the Battle of Colenso on 15 December 1899 prompted a rethink.

[16] The first contingent recruits were able to build on the experience many of them already had with horsemanship and firearms courtesy of two or three months drilling in domestic yeomanry regiments before they were shipped to South Africa.

[18] Its first action came in the Battle of Boshof on 5 April, when its 3rd and 10th Battalions surrounded and defeated a small force of European volunteers and Boers commanded by the Comte de Villebois-Mareuil.

Three companies of yeomanry formed part of a regular brigade commanded by Major-General R. A. P. Clements which was attacked as it camped, by a superior Boer force.

The slow demobilisation of the survivors, who were allowed to return home after just one year, and the arrival of a second contingent of over 16,000 new recruits increased the size of the Imperial Yeomanry in-country to over 23,000 by May, though this figure had fallen back to 13,650 by January 1902.

He failed to appreciate, however, that a pay rise had attracted a significantly greater number of working class recruits who had no prior experience of horses or firearms.

Lord Chesham, who in 1901 became the Inspector General of the Imperial Yeomanry, would later state of the second draft that "the shooting and riding test, if it was really applied in all cases, must have been one of very perfunctory character".

[26][27] The difficulties of this sudden injection of raw, untrained recruits were compounded by the fact that only 655 of the original contingent elected to stay on, representing a significant loss of experience.

[33] At Yzerspruit on 25 February, a convoy escorted by 230 men of the yeomanry 5th Battalion and 225 regular infantry of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was attacked by a 1,500-strong Boer force.

It was considered to be one of the most embarrassing defeats of the war, the blame for which was placed on the yeomanry; the 86th (Rough Riders) Company, a raw draft only recently sent to South Africa, lacked leadership, according to Methuen, and were "very much out of hand, lacking both fire-discipline and knowledge of how to act", and the 5th Battalion broke in the face of the Boer aggression, leading to the capture of the artillery and surrender of the column.

Methuen blamed a lack of preparation and training for the yeomanry's poor performance, and later stated that, having gained experience during the campaign, he would "place implicit reliance in them after a short time".

After seven months as commander of the Imperial Yeomanry, Major-General Reginald Brabazon also underlined the acquisition of experience when he wrote that it was "as valuable a corps of fighting men as ever wore the Queen's uniform".

[40][41] That the Imperial Yeomanry did on occasion perform well was exemplified by the action at Rustenburg where, although caught napping and losing the only column operating in the area at the time, the yeomen had fought as well as the regular infantry, and the 74th (Dublin) Company earned high praise for its conduct in beating off an attack on a convoy at Rooikopjes on 24 August.

[46] Although the force had been maintained for its utility as mounted police in aid of the authorities in times of civil unrest, this role had all but disappeared in the second half of the 19th century.

[52][d] As well as issues with the domestic yeomanry, the Boer War also exposed the wider problem of reinforcing the army with sufficiently trained men in times of need.