Patrick William Forbes was born in 1861 and educated at Rugby before training at Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and first saw service in Zululand in 1888. By 1890 he had joined the British South Africa Company Police as second‑in‑command, accompanying the Pioneer Column into Mashonaland. He was closely involved in the negotiations with Chief Umtasa that extended Company control into Manicaland, and he was appointed the first magistrate at Fort Salisbury. This early phase of his career showed the dual military and civil responsibilities often placed upon BSAC officers, who were expected to combine frontier soldiering with administrative authority in newly occupied territories.
In 1893 Forbes was selected to command the Shangani Column in the campaign against Lobengula and the Matabele. His force of around 700 men was equipped with rifles, cannon, and Maxim guns, weapons that proved decisive in the engagements that followed. At the Battle of Shangani in October 1893, the laager formation repelled a night attack by thousands of Ndebele warriors, inflicting heavy casualties. A week later, at Bembezi, his column again faced overwhelming numbers but broke the attack with disciplined firepower. Lobengula abandoned and burned Bulawayo, leaving the capital open to occupation. These victories were widely reported in the press and Forbes was praised as the “Hero of Rhodesia.” Yet his reputation was soon overshadowed by the tragedy of the Shangani Patrol.
The Shangani Patrol became one of the most enduring legends of Rhodesian history. Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson hoped to capture Lobengula quickly and sent Forbes to pursue him. Forbes advanced cautiously, reluctant to risk his main column in unknown terrain, and detached Major Allan Wilson with a small patrol to reconnoitre. Wilson pressed beyond his orders, located Lobengula’s encampment, and became cut off by the flooded Shangani River. On the night of 3 December 1893 Wilson sent back an urgent request for reinforcements and Maxim guns. Forbes, judging the risks, delayed until daylight and sent only a small detachment. By morning the river was impassable and the main column was itself under attack. Wilson and his men made a last stand and were annihilated. Their deaths were memorialised in paintings and press stories, embellished with tales of the survivors singing “God Save the Queen” before their ammunition ran out. Forbes, by contrast, was blamed for hesitation and failure to reinforce, and his reputation never recovered. Frederick Russell Burnham, one of the scouts, gave a vivid but contested account in his memoirs, while later historians such as John O’Reilly examined the conflicting testimonies of surviving scouts and ageing Ndebele warriors. The episode became a founding myth of Rhodesian identity, but for Forbes it was a permanent controversy.
Despite this, Forbes continued in Company service. In 1895 he was appointed Administrator of the territories north of the Zambezi, later part of Northern Rhodesia. The title sounded grand but carried limited authority, yet it placed him at the centre of frontier administration during the transition from conquest to civil governance. Earlier, in November 1890, he had intervened at Messakessie against a Portuguese mission swearing chiefs to Lisbon’s authority, arresting Colonel Andrada and his officers and sending them under guard, an incident that nearly caused a diplomatic crisis. Such actions reflected the contested boundaries of empire in Central Africa and the assertive role played by BSAC officers. A contemporary described Forbes as having “the bravery of a bulldog and the brains of one,” a remark that captured both admiration for his courage and criticism of his judgement.
After the Boer War Forbes returned to England. On 21 January 1903 he married Beatrice Grey, daughter of Robert Grey, Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, in the Foundling chapel. In 1908 he succeeded Roger Pocock as Chief Executive Officer of the Legion of Frontiersmen. The Legion had been founded amid fears of an impending invasion of Britain and the Empire, intended to act as a field intelligence corps that would watch over and protect imperial boundaries. Pocock had built the Legion on the idea that leaders should be elected from men of frontier experience, but wealthy supporters such as Lord Lonsdale and Sir Henry Seton‑Karr demanded more conventional leadership. Seton‑Karr pressed Pocock to resign, and Forbes was appointed in his place. Under Forbes the Legion tightened its organisation and gained credibility, forming guards of honour for King Edward VII and receiving compliments for their turnout. Forbes’s appointment gave the Legion social and official standing while retaining its frontier ethos, and he remained loyal to the organisation throughout his life.
During the First World War Forbes rejoined the Army. Too old and unfit for active service, he was placed in charge of prisoner‑of‑war camps in Wiltshire. He retired in 1916 and settled in Salisbury, Wiltshire, rather than Salisbury in Rhodesia. He died in 1922 at the age of 61. His legacy is complex: praised in 1893 for decisive victories, blamed in 1894 for Wilson’s death, remembered as courageous yet cautious, and as a soldier‑administrator who carried Company rule from conquest to civil administration. Whatever the criticisms, his bravery was never in doubt, and his role in the conquest of Matabeleland and the administration of Northern Rhodesia places him among the formative figures of Company rule in Central Africa.
