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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
THE SETTLER PARTIES

GURNEY'S PARTY

No. 5 on the Colonial Department list, led by Charles Gurney, a druggist of Brewers Street, Deal, Kent. This was a joint-stock party originally made up almost entirely of young single men, boatmen of Deal, who were 'desirous of being settled near the sea coast' in order to combine fishing with farming. As the party was finally constituted, however, it included men of a variety of trades, three of them married men with their wives.

The party's application was forwarded to the Colonial Department by the Member of Parliament for Canterbury, Stephen Lushington, whose patronage had been solicited on Gurney's behalf by Captain Thomas Baker RN. A further reference was provided by the Rector of Deal, who described the men as 'respectable characters, each of them possessed of some small capital and inclined to be industrious. The distress which is unhappily so universally prevalent in this place, and the consequent difficulty of procuring a subsistence, has prompted them to embrace the opportunity.'

Gurney applied successfully for permission to include a boat from Deal with the party's baggage, and two men were given free passage back to England at the end of 1820 to fetch three whale boats for a fishery to be established at Port Elizabeth.

Deposits were paid for 13 men who sailed in HM Store Ship Weymouth, which left Portsmouth on 7 January 1820. At their own request, Gurney's people were embarked at the Downs. The Weymouth reached Table Bay on 26 April and Algoa Bay on 15 May. The party was located near Port Elizabeth, west of the Zwartkops River mouth, and named the location New Deal.

LIST OF GURNEY'S PARTY

BASDEN, James 20. Labourer.
BUBB, George 21. Boatman.
CARTER, John 44. Accountant. c Thomas 12, Robert 9.
CLARINGBOULD, Richard 22. Butcher.
CRONK, John 37. Sailor. w Ann 34. c Mary Ann 14, John 8, Frances 6.
DARBY, John 23. Painter.
GURNEY, Charles 42. Druggist. c Charles 7.
HUBBARD, Joseph 22. Boatman.
KEOGH (or KEW), Patrick 25. Tailor. w Rebecca 25. c Henry.
TERRY, Matson 18. Labourer.
WATSON, Richard 18. Labourer.
WEBSTER, George 27. Saddler and shoemaker. w Jane 27. c George 3.
WOODLAND, John 20. Boatman.

*JOHN ATKINS,
*MATTHEW KENNETT,

Main sources for party list
Return of settlers under the direction of Charles Gurney (Cape Archives CO 6138/1,11). Muster-roll and Log of HM Store Ship Weymouth (Public Record Office, London).

*Two later additions to the party, Matthew Kennett and John Atkins, accompanied Claringbould and Darby on their return to the Cape with whale-boats in 1821.