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THE SETTLER HANDBOOK by MD Nash
THE SETTLER PARTIES

WAINWRIGHT'S PARTY

No. 38 on the Colonial Department list, led by Jonathan Wainwright, a cloth manufacturer of Little Woodhouse, Leeds, Yorkshire. Wainwright wrote to the Colonial Department that he had been 'engaged for the last 20 years in an extensive line of business, and having during that period met with an almost unprecedented series of losses and disappointments', he was eager to make a new beginning. He forwarded a testimonial to his good character ('respectable, loyal, intelligent and industrious') signed by the Mayor and magistrates of Leeds and sanctioned by the Earl of Harewood and his heir Lord Lascelles.

This was a mixed party; Jonathan Wainwright and his son Daniel, John Braithwaite, Charles Cockcroft, William Hartley and a latecomer to the party, FP Bentley, were all 'free' settlers who had paid their own deposits and in some cases those of their servants. The party was recruited in Yorkshire; Leeds was hard-hit by the collapse of the cottton trade, and Wainwright stated that most of the men had been unemployed for a considerable time.

Only four of the names that were originally submitted to the Colonial Department remained on the final sailing list: the two Wainwrights, Cockcroft and Hartley. After a number of withdrawals and substitutions, deposits were finally paid for 11 men and the party embarked at Liverpool in the John, which sailed on 13 January 1820, reaching Table Bay on 19 April and Algoa Bay in May. The party was located on an arm of the Lynedoch River and its location was named Harewood. (Harewood House, near Leeds, is the seat of the Earl of Harewood.)

LIST OF WAINWRIGHT'S PARTY

BENTLEY, Francis Parratt 37. Farmer. w Elizabeth 31. c William 9, Susanna 8, John 4, George 3.
BRAITHWAITE, John 28. Farmer.
COCKCROFT, Charles 35. Cloth dresser. w Harriet 36. c Thomas 13, William 9, Mark 7.
DUFFIELD, George 20. Farmer.
HARTLEY, William 40. Manufacturer.
STIRK, Joseph 18. Farmer.
STIRK, William 30. Farmer.
WAINWRIGHT, Anne 20 (daughter of Jonthan Wainwright).
WAINWRIGHT, Daniel 23.
WAINWRIGHT, Jonathan 48. Manufacturer. w Elizabeth 50. c Ellen 17, Edward 14.
WHITEHEAD, George 25. Farmer.
YOUNG, Thomas 36. Farmer.

Main source for party list
Return of settlers under the direction of Jonathan Wainwright (Cape Archives CO 6138/1,107). This is the London list; no Agent of Transports' Return showing the state of the parties on their arrival at the Cape has been traced for the John. However, the names of all the men of the party except George Whitehead have been found in colonial records.

John Braithwaite, a farmer of Knaresborough, was initially a member of Hayhurst's party but withdrew to join Wainwright. In December 1819 he and his family and several others dropped out of Wainwright's party, and William Braithwaite's name was among those entered in place of theirs. Colonial records indicate that John Braithwaite did in the event emigrate with Wainwright, leaving his wife and children in England, but no confirmation of William Braithwaite's presence at the Cape has been traced.