"The Auckland Weekly News has this photo of a Lieutenant R Matheson, who died in action in German Southwest Africa (now Namibia).  Research has shown that Lt R T Matheson was killed on 27 April 1915 while serving in the Natal Light Horse regiment.  He was buried in the Gibeon Station military cemetery, which contains South African and German dead from the battle of Gibeon on 27 April 1915.

Though he was serving with a South African unit, there must have been a New Zealand connection for him to have featured in the Auckland Weekly News.  And indeed there is.  Ronald Tracey Matheson was born in Tauranga in 1874 to Otumoetai farmers Robert and Sarah Matheson.  Ronald was a mining agent and an veteran of the Anglo-Boer (or South African) War, when he was mentioned in dispatches.  During the First World War he was a lieutenant in the Union Forces of South Africa.   Ronald was the uncle of Tauranga historian Alister Hugh Matheson (1925–2011) and brother of Alister’s father (also Alister Hugh Matheson), who served in the First World War (75110) and the South African War." Source - Clan Matheson.co.nz