battalion headquarters moving to Magersfontein and all detachments being brought in except those at Porterville and Calvinia. The battalion then manned the blockhouses on the Magersfontein to Fraserburg Road line, and later to Sutherland. On 15 June Col Helme was appointed commandant of No 7 area, comprising seven districts, and next day Lt-Col Brenchley was appointed station commandant at Laingsburg. On 22 August Col Helme was returning from Sutherland to Magersfontein with a personal escort of 10 men from the 4th (4th West Yorkshire Militia) Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, when they contacted a party of 25 Boers. Helme and his men engaged at a range of and drove them off. Sutherland was attacked by 250 Boers on 7 September, only 12 hours after the defences had been completed. The town was defended by two companies of the 6th Middlesex under Capt Percival Graves, together with a small town guard and a Troop of district mounted troops. Firing went on from 08.30 to 17.30 but the enemy were unable to approach closer than . In September a party of Boers attempted to capture Cossack Post on a kopje near Calvinia, but Capt Charles Oldfield and 20 men of the 6th Middlesex came out of Calvinia and captured nine of them. In September the battalion provided detachments to Worcester and Ceres, and in October small detachments at Hex River Pass, De Doorns, Tweefontein and Triangle. On 22 September Capt Graves and his company assisted in capturing Boers hidden in a cornfield at Tentelbosch Hoek. On 14 November the same company, forming part of Lt-Col Calwell's column, seized a kopje near Vogelfontein that had been occupied by the enemy. On 22 February 1902 battalion HQ and four companies moved to Beaufort West, and in March HQ and six companies moved to Cape Town to embark for home. The remaining two companies were surrounded by Cape rebels at Clanwilliam and Calvinia, but they rejoined the battalion after being relieved. The battalion was disembodied on 1 April 1902 after arriving home. It had suffered casualties of 1 warrant officer and 26 other ranks killed or died of disease. It was awarded the Battle Honour South Africa 1900–02, and the participants received the Queen's South Africa Medal with the clasp for 'Cape Colony' and the King's South Africa Medal with clasps '1901'. Special Reserve After the Boer War, there were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces