Time saver... enter a name or any word(s) to
search for in this page, click 'Submit' once.
[ Press ALT + S to repeat your search ]

THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
THE SETTLER PARTIES

HOWARD'S PARTY

No. 21 on the Colonial Department list, led by William Howard of Blucher Street, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. a school master 'on the Lancastrian plan', a system of education for the children of the poor that relied on the use of pupil-teachers, with one usher presiding over the whole school. His first application to take out a joint-stock party of 15 men and their families from Buckinghamshire was turned down, and he met this rejection with a desperate appeal to the Colonial Department, backed up by a testimonial to his moral character (which he drafted himself) signed by the curate, overseers, churchwarden and magistrate of Chesham. He stoutly asserted that he was 'prepared to conflict with difficulties of any description, and feared no dangers whatever'. On the strength of the testimonial his party was accepted to fill a late vacancy occasioned by the withdrawal of one Edward Webb Wilson. By this time, several of Howard's people had fallen away, but gaps in his list were filled by four members of a London party led by Thomas Bainbridge of Soho, whose application had been unsuccessful (Bainbridge, Willan, Felton and Niland).

Deposits were paid for 15 men, and the party embarked at Deptford in the Ocean regular transport, sailing from Portsmouth on New Year's Day 1820, and arriving in Table Bay on 29 March and Algoa Bay on 15 April. Its location on the Blaauwkranz River was named Salem Hills.

William Howard's florid calligraphy and literary style were put to good use in the Albany settlement; he was employed by his fellow-settlers as a professional writer of petitions to government, and much of the correspondence in the colonial records is unmistakably of his composition.

LIST OF HOWARD'S PARTY

BAINBRIDGE, Thomas 39. Tailor. w Elizabeth 38. c Elizabeth 13, Jane 12.
BARNES, James 12, George 8 (stepsons of Henry Harper).
CADLE, John Henry 24. Tallow chandler. w Sarah 28. c Mary 8, Elizabeth 3, William 1, John.
FELTON, George Henry 19. Farmer.
HANGER, Edward Henry 30. Carpenter. w Harriet Sophia 26. c Caroline 6.
HARPER, Henry 30. Cooper. w Mary 37. c James 14, Elizabeth 6.
HEALEY, Edward 34. Farmer. w Mary 28.
HEATH, George 23. Shoemaker.
HOWARD, William 42. Schoolmaster. w Elizabeth 39. c John Henry 17, William 15, Mary Ann 14, Thomas 10,
Emily 1.
JEFFRIES, Edward George 12 and Gad 10 (in the care of J Watts).
MEHRTENS, Seba 25. Willow cutter. w Ann 24.
NILAND, John 29. Gardener. w Catherine 25.
POULTON, John 42. Shoemaker. w Ann 35. c Ann 13, John 11, Mary 10, Samuel 9, Eliza 8, Sarah 6, Charles 5, Charlotte 3, Ruth 1.
TARR, William 32. Butcher. w Susannah 35. c John 9, Maria 3, Sarah 2, Oceanus (born and died at sea).
VAUGHAN, John 19. Engraver.
WATTS, James 32. Brickmaker.
WILLAN, Giles 38. Farmer. w Rachel 29. c Alice 6, Elizabeth 1, Sarah (born at sea).

Main sources for party list
Agent of Transports' Return of settlers under the direction of William Howard (Cape Archives CO 136); Special Commissioner William Hayward's notes (Cape Archives CO 8542).

Further reading
William Howard's description of the Ocean's voyage to the Cape appears in Memorials of the British Settlers of South Africa (Grahamstown, R Godlonton, 1844, reprinted in facsimile by the South African Library, Cape Town, 1971).