Cape Town Lens: LoweJT_1

A Cape Town Rhodes Memorial tagged image from photographer – sdwilliams as published on Flickr.

LoweJT_1

Image by sdwilliams

Mary Jane
daughter of
Thomas & Ivy Lowe
died May 11th 1891
aged 25 years

also of
Ada aged 2 years

also of
John Thomas
their eldest son
who died at Bulawayo South Africa
August 17th 1894
aged 21 years

also of
Arthur Sam
youngest son
died October 6th 1898
aged 21 years

John Thomas Lowe would probably have been working for the British South Africa Company (BSAC) as established by Cecil Rhodes, receiving a royal charter in 1889 to enable colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the "Scramble for Africa".
The company recruited its own army, which allowed it to defeat and replace the Matabele kingdom and then overcome resistance of the Shona north of the Limpopo river in the First Matabele War and Second Matabele War. It was the first British use of the Maxim gun in combat (causing five thousand Ndebele casualties). The company carved out and administered a territory which it named Zambezia, and later, Rhodesia, and which now covers the area occupied by the republics of Zambia and Zimbabwe.