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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
THE SETTLER PARTIES

PHILIPPS' PARTY

No. 19 on the Colonial Department list, led by Thomas Philipps, a gentleman banker of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. This was a proprietary party consisting of Philipps and his family and servants, accompanied by a young doctor, Robert Currie, who had initially applied to emigrate to the Cape as an independent settler at his own expense but subsequently arranged to join Philipps' party instead. The men were mostly recruited in Pembrokeshire, but four last minute replacements - WB Jones, Larkum, Rickards and Shellard - were probably engaged at Bristol shortly before sailing. Apart from Philipps' own family there was only one married man and no young children in the party.

Philipps was a man of means and was recommended by influential friends, including Sir John Owen, the Member of Parliament for Pembrokeshire, and the Countess of Mansfield. Deposits were paid for 20 men and three maidservants. The party sailed from Bristol in the regular transport ship Kennersley Castle on 10 January 1820, reaching Table Bay on 29 March and Algoa Bay on 29 April.

The Cape authorities had intended to locate Philipps' party at the Zonder End River, with the other Welsh parties led by his friends Captain Campbell and the Griffith brothers, but on arrival in Table Bay the Kennersley Castle was quarantined for measles and its settlers were not permitted to land. Philipps' party was sent to Algoa Bay and located in Albany, on an arm of the Bush River. Philipps named the location Lampeter, after the Carmarthenshire village of Lampeter Velfrey where his father had been Rector and where his boyhood had been spent.

LIST OF PHILIPPS' PARTY

BUTLER, Richard 19. Labourer.
CURRIE, Robert 25. Surgeon.
DAVIES, John 38. Carpenter. c William 13.
DAVIS, John 23. Labourer.
DAVIS, William 21. Labourer. w Mary 25.
ESTMENT (or ESMOND), William 18. Labourer.
GITTENS, John 23. Gardener.
JAMES, Benjamin 21. Labourer.
JAMES, David 18. Labourer.
JAMES, John 21. Labourer.
JOHN, Ann 25 (servant to Thomas Philipps).
JONES, John 21. Miller.
JONES, William Brooks 26. Shoemaker.
LARKUM, Robert 18. Labourer.
MACK, John 19. Labourer.
MATTHIAS, Thomas 22. Gardener.
OWEN, Mary 20 (servant to Thomas Philipps).
PHILIPPS, Thomas 44. Gentleman banker. w Charlotte 41. c Catherine 17, Edward 16, Charlotte 14, Sophia 12, Frederick 10, Emma 6, John 4.
PHILLIP, William 21. Labourer.
PROUT, James 23. Carpenter.
RICKARDS, William 21. Baker.
SHELLARD, George 25. Carpenter (servant to Robert Currie).
THOMAS, Martha 18 (servant to T. Philipps).

Main source for party list
Agent of Transports' Return of settlers under the direction of Thomas Philipps, Table Bay, 29 March 1820 (Cape Archives CO 6138/2,64).

Further reading
Thomas Philipps' letters to his kinsfolk (manuscript in the Cory Library, Rhodes University). A selection of these letters has been edited by A Keppel-Jones and published under the title Philipps 1820 Settler (Pietermaritzburg, Shuter and Shooter, 1960), with an index by Thelma Gutsche (Johannesburg Public Library, 1961).