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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
DYASON'S PARTY No. 43 on the Colonial Department list, led by George Dyason, a wine merchant of Ramsgate, Kent, whose London address was 12 Old Cavendish Street. George Dyason was the nominal head of a party consisting of six equal partners - the four brothers George, Isaac, Robert and Joseph Dyason, Samuel Bennett and Hougham Hudson - and 14 indentured labourers. The party was recruited in Kent; in his memoir, 'Rough outlines of the life of a British settler', Isaac Dyason junior called it 'the Isle of Thanet party'. He claimed that it owed its selection to the influence of Sir William Curtis, one-time Lord Mayor and Member of Parliament for London, and Stephen Lushington, MP for Canterbury, after whom the party's location in Albany was named. The Colonial Department received other recommendations for the Dyasons from the Ramsgate parish authorities and a well-connected acquaintance of the family who involked the interest of Henry Clive, MP for Montgomery, on their behalf. Deposits were paid for 20 men, and after an unsuccessful attempt by Robert Dyason's creditors to prevent him from leaving the country, the party embarked on board the Zoroaster at Deptford in December 1819. Departure was delayed for several weeks by the freezing of the Thames, and until a thaw set in the ship was unable to drop down the river. She finally sailed from the Downs on 12 February 1820, arriving in Simon's Bay on 30 April. The Zoroaster's charter terminated at this point, and the party was transshipped to the Brilliant for the voyage to Algoa Bay, which was reached on 15 May. The 3-year-old son of Henry Gray died at sea in the Zoroaster. The party was located on the right bank of the Torrens River and named its location Lushington Valley. After complaints about inadequate food and clothing on the one part and insubordination and idleness on the other, most of the labourers deserted their masters or were dismissed, and the partnership was dissolved in June 1821. LIST OF DYASON'S PARTY
ALLEN, Samuel 26. Agriculturist. w Sarah 30.
*RYE, George 22. Husbandman.
Main sources for party list
*George Rye, who died at Baviaans Kloof, Uitenhage, in 1877 at the age of 80, claimed to have emigrated as a labourer with Dyason's party and was described as such in his application for a colonial pass in 1823. He may have been a last minute replacement for one of the listed emigrants, and travelled under the name of the man whose place he took. No reference to Enos Smith has been traced in colonial records, and it is possible that he failed to emigrate and Rye took his place.
Further reading
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