Ladysmith, British Columbia from the mine at Extension, nearer Nanaimo. Dunsmuir, owner of coal mines in the Nanaimo area, needed a location to house the families of his miners. He chose to build the community at what was then known as Oyster Harbour, some 20 miles (32 km) south of his Extension mines. Many buildings were moved from Extension and Wellington by rail and by oxen. In 1900, Dunsmuir renamed the town in honour of the British lifting the siege of Ladysmith in South Africa (28 February 1900) during the Second Boer War. (The original town of Ladysmith in turn took its name
Mafeking Mooch in order to convey the impression that they had fought at Mafeking. The most popular of these simulated handicaps became known as the Mafeking Mooch, so called because the "veteran" performing the assumed affliction would walk with an exaggerated limp. The appellation "Mafeking Mooch" was first coined by the journalist Arthur P. Montague in a scathing article about degeneracy and fecklessness published in the "Pall Mall Gazette" in June 1905. Montague documented a notable distinction between men of different classes as to how the Mafeking Mooch was performed. He noted that working class men affected a limp with the toes