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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD NASH
In July 1819 the British Government advertised a scheme to assist emigration to the Cape of Good Hope. The response was immediate and overwhelming; contemporary estimates of the number of applications that poured in to the Colonial Department varied from 10,000 to 90,000. In the following year roughly a thousand families from all parts of Britain and all levels of society, many of them ill-prepared and ill-equipped, were set down on the 'savage and unpromising' shores of their new land. These were the 1820 settlers, whose coming was to have far-reaching effects on the history of South Africa. The story of their early struggles and, in some cases, eventual success has often been told, both as history and as popular mythology - perhaps no other episode in South Africa's past has inspired so many amateur historians. This book does not retell that story: it deals only with the beginnings of the 1820 settlement, and is intended for the student of settler history (and in particular, the settler descendant) who wants to know who the individual emigrants were, where they came from and how and why they embraced the government scheme. There have been five published lists of names of the 1820 settlers, starting with Thomas Sheffield's Story of the Settlement, which was produced in 1884 to celebrate the opening of the Settlers' Memorial Tower in Grahamstown two years earlier, and included a list of 'the Fathers of the Settlement, with their honoured wives and children'. The most recent list, E. Morse Jones' Roll of the British Settlers in South Africa, was published in 1970 under the auspices of the 1820 Settlers National Monument Committee to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the settlers' landing. None of the five versions of the settler lists is still in print, and since the publication of Morse Jones' work, detailed studies of the Nottingham and Irish settlers and the large groups who emigrated under the leadership of Sephton and Bailie have brought much new information to light. About the Emigration Scheme The Cape emigration scheme for which the British government voted £50,000 in July 1819 had a three-fold purpose. In the first place it was intended to settle the disputed eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope with an agrarian farming community whose presence would discourage Xhosa pastoralists and cattle-raiders from crossing the colonial boundary. Secondly, it was intended to increase the English-speaking population of a recently acquired colony that was still predominantly Dutch in its language and customs. Thirdly, it was an expedient gesture on the part of a shaky government to ease political tensions in Britain that had been stretched to snapping-point by post-war unemployment, 'the distress of the times, and the badness of trade'. This last object was the most urgent of the three; faced with mass protest meetings, strikes and the threat of riots, the government was anxious to make 'a show of doing something for the people'. Emigration was seen by many as their chance for a better life, although Radical critics of the government argued that political reform, not emigration, was what Britain needed. As soon as the scheme was announced, the Colonial Department in Downing Street was inundated with applications, most of them from individuals from the middle and lower middle classes of society. These individual applications, however, fell outside the terms of the emigration scheme, which was restricted to organised groups or 'parties' of 10 or more men. To reduce the administrative load for the organisers of the scheme and for the colonial authorities, and to ensure that land at the Cape would be granted only to settlers with the capital and labour to develop, it, the Colonial Department decreed that selection was to be limited to men who could afford to engage and maintain a party of at least 10 able-bodied labourers over the age of 18, with or without families. Heads of approved parties would receive free sea passages and victuals during the voyage for themselves and their servants, and be granted land at the Cape in the proportion of 100 acres for each man they took out. Full title to the estates would be given them after their land had been occupied and cultivated for three years. To ensure that the settlers would have the means of subsistence until they could harvest their first crops, each head of party was required to deposit with the authorities, before leaving Britain, the sum of £10 for each single man or family group of man, wife and two children under the age of 14 in his party. The money was to be refunded to him in instalments, either in cash or in the form of rations, after arrival in the colony. A deposit of £10 was payable for a single woman over 18, £5 for a child from 14 to 18, and £2.10.0 for every additional child under 14. Large parties of 100 or more families would be permitted to take with them an approved clergyman of their own denomination whose salary would be paid by government. Under the prevailing system of poor relief, unemployed labourers were subsidised from parish rates, which imposed a heavy burden on landowners, particularly in areas where unemployment was high. Such parishes were invited to advance the necessary deposit money for able-bodied labourers who wished to emigrate, organised in parties under the leadership of some 'intelligent individual'. Although the emigration scheme was primarily designed for men of capital - 'proprietors' with a labour force of their own indentured servants - less than a third of the 60-odd parties that eventually emigrated were of this type. The leaders of the 'proprietary parties' were officers of the army or navy on half-pay, gentleman farmers or respectable merchants who saw themselves becoming the landed gentry of the new settlerment. Their labourers and workmen were contracted to serve them for a number of years, and in most cases were promised a few acres of land at the expiry of their service contracts so that they could become smallholders in their own right. The majority of the emigrants, however, in parties ranging in size from ten to one hundred families, consisted of men who were not wealthy enough to head their own proprietary parties, but not so poor or low in the social scale as to hire themselves as labourers. They included men of education and some means, as well as artisans, tradesmen and agriculturists, who formed themselves into parties under nominal leaders. Some of these groups were made up of friends, neighbours and relatives, recruited by word of mouth; the larger parties were mostly recruited through advertisements and public meetings, and taverns in London and Liverpool became known as meeting-places for prospective emigrants. Each man paid his own deposit, and in some cases that of one or more servants. Most of these groups were organised on a basis of mutual assistance, shared labour and a jointly-owned stock of tools and implements. Although the nominal head of such a 'joint-stock party' would eventually receive title to the party's grant of land in his own name, it was to be divided as soon as possible into agreed shares among all the members. Included among the joint-stock parties were several parish-aided groups, some or all of whose members had their deposits paid by the parishes from which they came. Other parties were formed that were variations or combinations of these two types. In addition to the parties that received government assistance to emigrate, land was allocated in several instances to the heads of proprietary parties who undertook to pay all their own expenses and to make their own arrangements for the transportation and maintenance of their settlers. In return they obtained a grant of land in the usual proportion of 100 acres for each able-bodied man under their direction. Three of these 'independent parties', directed by Major-General Charles Campbell, Lieut Richard Daniell and George Wilkinson, have been included in this book; although they fell outside the conditions for the emigration scheme, they nevertheless formed part of the Albany settlement. Two other parties led by Lieut David Thomas Nightingale as agent for John Leigh and Co of London, and John Roberts, have been omitted. They landed at Cape Town, where the parties broke up almost immediately and they are not usually listed among the 1820 settlers. The Colonial Department confined its dealings to the heads of parties only and did not concern itself with service contracts, articles of agreement or other internal arrangements made between the settlers themselves. The actual selection of parties was based in almost every case on the recommendation of influential friends or patrons of the directors. In an age when influence frequently counted more than ability, and patronage was the key to entry and promotion in most professions, it was to be expected that the choice of emigrants would depend on whom they knew or were known to. Thomas Wilson's application was accepted in error when he was confused with another man of the same name who had been influentially recommended; the Colonial Department suffered William Parker's importunities because of its reluctance to offend his powerful friends. The Department's staff had no first-hand knowledge of the party leaders on which to base their selection; the Under-Secretary, Henry Goulburn, admitted to a friend, 'I know of no person whom I could call responsible that is going to the Cape. Many indeed have offered and have engaged parties to accompany them but they are unknown to me except for their correspondence'. About the Settler Lists As part of his application to emigrate, each head of party was required to complete an official form giving the names, ages and occupations of all his proposed settlers. These lists were amended as the Colonial Department was notified of any changes that took palce. The lists formed the basis on which the amount of deposit money was calculated, copies were sent to the naval authorities in charge of transport arrangements, and in due course copies were delivered to the colonial office at the Cape. These official lists, which are now preserved in the Cape Archives Depot and the Public Record Office, London, provide the information on which all later attempts to list the 1820 settlers have been based. However, for a variety of reasons they cannot be taken simply at face value. From the time the first lists were submitted to the Colonial Department in August 1819 until the transports finally sailed, numerous changes took place in the composition of the settler parties. Some of these changes were put down to 'prejudices' - Radical propaganda against emigration, and fears of ferocious wild beasts and bloodthirsty savages. Most parties were not informed of the success of their applications until October or November; Michaelmas quarter-day - 29 September - was a traditional time for renewing leases and labour contracts, and many prospective emigrants, unsure whether their parties would be accepted or rejected, decided to play safe and withdraw from the party rather than risk possible homelessness and unemployment.
Ill-health was frequently given as the reason for withdrawal from an emigrant party, but the most powerful factor was probably fear of leaving the familiar for the unknown. Changes of heart resulted in an almost 100 per cent replacement rate in some settler parties, and even after families had gone on board their allocated transports, the icy weather conditions which enforced weeks of delay before sailing gave a last opportunity for second thoughts about emigration. As places in the emigrant parties became vacant through withdrawals or desertions, most of them were taken up by eager substitutes, often former members of other parties whose applications had been rejected. Even after the parties had embarked, would-be emigrants hung about the docks on the chance of becoming official or unofficial replacements for last minute deserters, or even smuggling themselves aboard as stowaways. It was a common practice for substitutes to travel under the names of the men they replaced. Party leaders neglected to inform the authorities of changes, or hesitated to do so in case objections were raised. When the first parties went on board their transports, the Navy Board agents turned away anyone whose name was not on the official lists, and emigrants were quick to adopt other men's names rather than risk rejection. It was not until late December 1819 that a formal directive was issued permitting substitutes to embark, so long as the original number of settlers in the party was not exceeded. An attempt to reconcile the name of settlers that appear in colonial records with the names on the official party lists makes it abundantly clear that many of the people on the lists did not in the event emigrate, and that those who did emigrate were not always listed under their own names. Even when families are known beyond doubt to have been among the actual emigrants, the details given in the official lists are often unreliable. Variations in spelling and ages suggest that some of the emigrants themselves were uncertain of their and their children's actual ages and the spelling of their own names - perhaps not surprising when church registers were the only formal population records, and the level of literacy among the labouring classes was low. A spoken name, particularly if the speaker's dialect was unfamiliar, could be misheard and consequently misspelt; an illiterate settler would not be aware of the error. Badly-written names could be misread and miscopied. In addition, apart from inadvertent mistakes made in writing and copying, the terms of the emigration scheme itself invited deliberate falsification. Ages, occupations, number of children and even marital status were deliberately falsified by the settlers themselves or by the party heads who compiled the returns, in order to make applications more acceptable and to reduce the amount of deposit money that had to be paid. Children from large families were temporarily transferred to other 'parents' to avoid paying extra deposits; apprentice lads were listed as 'sons' of adult settlers, single women as 'wives' of unmarried men, and any 16-year-old who could reasonably pass as 'under 14' was listed accordingly. Middle-aged men reduced their ages in case they were considered too old to make useful settlers. Clerks, confectioners and piano-tuners were entered on the official lists as 'agriculturists' in order to improve their chances of selection. (Ironically, it was seen as an advantage in the Albany settlement a year or so later to belong to the 'ornamental trades', when permission to leave their locations was granted only to men who could not reasonably be expected to earn a living on the land. As many settlers then claimed to be coach-painters and pastrycooks as had formerly claimed to be farmers.) For most of the settler parties there are at least two official lists on record, sometimes differing considerably from each other. The latest - and most reliable - of these lists are the Returns compiled by the Agents of Transports, officers appointed by the Navy Board to over-see the embarkation of the settlers and travel with them to the Cape. In some cases the Agents' Returns were brought up to date on arrival at the Cape to include births and deaths on the voyage. Unfortunately, Agents' Returns exist for some settler parties only. Those for Carlisle's party on the Chapman and the parties on board the Nautilus, the Stentor and the John, La Belle Alliance and the Weymouth, as well as Synnot's party on the Fanny, have not been traced. For the eleven settler parties on the Weymouth this gap is effectively filled by the ship's Muster-roll and Log which are preserved in the Public Record Office, London. For the others, the only official lists available are those that were submitted to the Colonial Department in London (the 'London lists'), sometimes months before the parties sailed, and these lists do not usually reflect last minute changes. The accuracy of even the Agents' Returns must depend, of necessity, on the conscientiousness of the particular officer who compiled them, and the accuracy and veracity of the head of party and the individual settlers who provided the information in the first place. About This Book For this revision of the settler lists, the most reliable of the available official lists was selected as the basic source of information for each settler party. This list has been amended in the light of the voluminous correspondence relating to the Cape emigration scheme preserved in the Publc Record Office, London (available on microfilm, in the Cape Archives Depot), and the colonial records relating to the early years of the Albany settlement preserved in the Cape Archives Depot of the South African Archives. The Cape records have been used to confirm, whenever possible, that the men listed in each party actually reached the Cape; many of the indentured servants in particular, however, seem to have dropped out of sight after leaving the employ of their oringial masters, and are not to be found in official records. The records that were consulted include letters written by settlers to the Cape authorites, magistrates' records, applications for colonial passes and for permits to leave the colony, and the detailed notes made by special Commissioner William Hayward, when he was appointed in 1824 to investigate land claims made by the Albany settlers. The alphabetical list of settlers is intended to be used both for quick reference and as an index to the sections that relate to individual settler parties. Each of these individual sections incorporates a brief history of the origins and organisation of the party, based mainly on the Colonial Department correspondence in the Publc Record Office, London, as well as a list of its members. The spelling of names conforms in most cases with that of the official lists. The names of settlers who are believed to have been attached to a particular party, but were not included in the official lists, have been added at the end of the party lists and marked with asterisks. It has not been possible to cite every source reference, but the main sources used in compiling each list have been noted as an aid to further research. Where published works relating to a particular party exist, they have been listed under 'Further reading'. Readers who are interested to know which parties sailed in what ship will find this information in the section headed "The settler ships'. Unfortunately, there is no short cut to verifying the details of wives' and children's names and ages that are given in the official lists. In many cases they differ from list to list, or are contradicted by the evidence of family records of births, marriages and burials. As far as possible, these details have been cross-checked and reconciled with information found in the Colonial Department correspondence, but the laborious task of searching and sifting church records, death notices, estate papers and local newspapers and directories is one that must be left to the amateur or professional genealogist.
Further reading
Lynn Bryer and Keith S. Hunt, The 1820 Settlers
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