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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
MAHONY'S PARTY No. 4 on the Colonial Department list, led by Thomas Mahony, an architect and builder of 53 Charles Street, Westminster. In his letter of application, Mahony claimed to own property in London and to have been employed for 12 years by the Royal Engineer Department in Ireland, where he built martello and signal towers at Cork Harbour and Bantry Bay. His party originally included Edward Turvey, and was accepted on the recommendation of Turvey's patroness, the Dowager Countess of Liverpool. Mahony subsequently excluded Turvey from the party and the latter, in high indignation, formed a separate party of his own. This was a proprietary party, and although it included a number of Irish families it seems likely that it was recruited in London. Under their articles of agreement, Mahony's men were to work for him for three years, to be fed and clothed and to receive, in addition wages of £7 a year in the case of labourers and £10 a year for skilled tradesmen. Mahony undertook to give each family 35 acres of land and a two-roomed house at the end of the service period. Deposits were paid for 16 men, and after numerous last minute changes the party embarked at Deptford in the Northampton transport, which sailed from Gravesend on 13 December 1819. A fellow-passenger in the ship, Sophia Pigot, recorded in her journal that several 'great disturbances' were caused during the voyage by the belligerent behaviour of Mahony and his Irish servants. The Northampton anchored in Table Bay on 26 March 1820 and reached Algoa Bay on 30 April. The party was located on the right bank of the Coombs River, and the location was known as The Coombs. Mahony's men soon mutinied against his treatment of them and were released from his service, and Thomas Berrington took over the leadership of what remained of the party. LIST OF MAHONY'S PARTY
BATEMAN, Jeremiah 32. Gardener.
*ALDER, Thomas.
Main sources for party list
Mahony's party is one of the most difficult of the settler parties to list with any degree of confidence. On 22 December 1819, the Colonial Department formally instructed the Commissioners of the Navy to allow substitutes to board the transport ships in place of men who had withdrawn from the emigrant parties, provided the original numbers for whom deposits had been paid and provision made were not exceeded. Mahony's people had embarked in the Northampton a month before this instruction was issued, and rather than risk rejection, the numerous substitutes in the party had temporarily adopted the names of the men they had replaced. This deception does not seem to have been discovered by the authorities; the Agent of Transports who was responsible for the settlers on board the Northampton did not sail in her but in her sister ship the Ocean. *A more reliable source of names than the Agent of Transports' list, in this case, is the agreement signed by Mahony and his servants in the Downs off Deal after the party had sailed. A comparison of the two lists suggests that James Macfarland snr and jnr, Florence Carty, George Hamblin snr and jnr, Alexander Patten and Charles (or Cornelius) Lamb, whose names appear on the Agent's list, did not in fact sail with the party. They seem to have been replaced by Richard Freemantle jnr, Samuel Freemantle, Thomas Alder, John Shearan, Dennis Sullivan (all of whom signed the agreement) and Thomas Berrington. Berrington's signature does not appear on the agreement; he may have been an independent settler who paid his own deposit and was not bound in service to Mahony. References traced in colonial records confirm that all six of these 'replacements' were in fact at the Cape between 1820 and 1825. No mention has been traced of the Macfarlands, Hamblins, Patten or Lamb; Florence Carty (or McCarty) was the brother-in-law of Dennis Holland and came to the Cape in 1826.
Further reading
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