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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
THE SETTLER PARTIES

CRAUSE'S PARTY

No. 2 on the Colonial Department list, a joint-stock party led by Lieutenant Charles Crause of Borstal Court Farm, West Rochester, Kent, an officer of the Royal Marines on half-pay. Included in the party was his brother Lieutenant John Crause, an infantry officer who had been Adjutant at the Invalid Depot, Chatham. A third brother, Captain Henry Crause, was a member of the party led by their brother-in-law John Bailie.

Soon after submitting his application to emigrate, Charles Crause gave up his farm and moved to Mill Street, Lambeth, and it is likely that his party - made up mostly of small tradesmen - was recruited in London. James Moorcroft enquired independently from a Lambeth address about emigrating with 10 families before he joined Crause's party, and according to their death notices in the Cape Archives, Charles Spiller and Samuel Dredge were also Londoners. The Attwell family was from Bedfordshire.

Articles of agreement were drawn up and deposits were paid for 12 men. The party sailed from Gravesend in the regular transport ship Nautilus, in company with her consort the Chapman, on 3 December 1819. The two ships were separated when the Nautilus struck on the Goodwin Sands, off Ramsgate, during a violent storm, but was set afloat again without much damage. Both the Nautilus and the Chapman reached Table Bay on 17 March 1820. While the ships lay at anchor the three Crause brothers applied for separate grants of land by virtue of their situation as half-pay officers with long service records.

The Nautilus, reached Algoa Bay on 14 April 1820, and the party was located between the Wellington and Kap Rivers. Lieutenant Crause separated from his party soon after it was located, and was replaced as leader, first by Thomas Phillips and then by James Moorcroft. The location was named Spanish Reeds.

LIST OF CRAUSE'S PARTY

ATTWELL, Richard 48. Farmer. w Ann 47. c Edwin 16, Sarah 13, James 11, Brook 9.
ATTWELL, Richard Labrun 19. Baker.
ATTWELL, William 22. Baker.
CRAUSE, Charles 35. Lieut, Royal Marines (half-pay). w Emily 26. c Major 9, Edward 7, Charles 6, Emily 3,
Henry 1.
CRAUSE, John 26. Lieut and Adjutant, 50th Regt (half-pay).
DREDGE, Samuel 24. Bookbinder.
DREDGE, William 29. Cabinetmaker. w Elizabeth 25.
MARTINSON, George 37. Goldsmith.
MOLLETT, Samuel John 40. Printer. w Margaret 38. c Rebecca 13, John 9, Samuel 6.
MOORCROFT, James 26. Gardener. w Sarah 28. c George 6, James 1.
PHILLIPS, Thomas 35. Bookseller and stationer. w Alice 35. c Robert 10, Alice Ann 8, Thomas 6, Maria 4,
George 1.
SPILLER, Charles James 28. Grocer. w Catherine 27. c Susanna 3, Mary 2.

Main sources for party list
List of settlers under the direction of Lieut Charles Crause (Cape Archives CO 6137/1,4). This is the London list; no Agent of Transports' Return has been traced for the Nautilus, showing the state of the parties as they arrived at the Cape, but all the men's names on the London list are confirmed by the signatures on a memorial addressed to the Governor by the free settlers on board the Nautilus, in Table Bay (Cape Archives CO 3917).

The names of Lieut John Crause's wife Amelia (25) and George Martinson's wife and family are included in the London list. However, Martinson's family were left in England (Cape Archives CO 2629) and there is no record of Amelia Crause's presence in the colony. Lieut John Crause married Sarah Boardman in 1825, and it is assumed that his first wife died in England.

Further reading
John Mandy's letters to his mother, written on board Nautilus, reproduced in CT Campbell, British South Africa (London, Haddon, 1897) and in the Souvenir in Commemoration of the 1820 Settlers of Albany (East London, Daily Dispatch, 1920).