BIGGAR MEMORIAL PLAQUE

"a plaque commemorating Robert BIGGAR and seventeen other Settlers who, with a large number of native levies, went from Durban to the assistance of the Voortrekkers in 1838, and of the 17 Europeans all but four were slain by the Zulus on the Tugela River".

Alexander BIGGAR, George BIGGAR, Robert BIGGAR, John CANE, John STUBBS, Thomas CALDER, Robert RUSSELL, John KEMBLE, Richard LOVEDAY, Charles BLANCKENBERG, Richard WOOD, William WOOD, Richard or George DUFFY, Joseph BROWN, Robert JOYCE, Henry BATT, Richard KING, W.BOTTOMLEY and J. CLARK.

[Source: Illustrated Brochure - The Old Fort, Durban compiled by John McINTYRE published by The Royal Light Infantry Regimental Association, printed by Hayne and Gibson Ltd., Durban 1959.]

The four survivors were Robert Joyce, Richard King, Richard (or George) Duffy and Joseph Brown.

Richard (Dick) King as everyone knows made his ride to Grahamstown in 1842 to carry news of the besieged British garrison at what is now the Old Fort. He farmed at Isipingo in later years. Although his 1842 ride is famous, King's other courageous exploit is less well-remembered - he had been at one of the Voortrekker camps attacked by Dingane's troops in Feb 1838 but had survived. What happend was that when the American missionaries heard of Retief's death, they sent a message post haste to the Port. King immediately set out on foot with some natives travelling day and night in an effort to warn the Boers. Biggar sent him mainly to warn his son. He was just too late; the first camp he reached had been attacked and he went on to another. As he entered it the Zulus arrived and he was cut off, remaining to take part in the defence.

Robert Joyce owned an enormous property named Umbellibelli, in the Umzinto area, Alexandra County, Natal and this was subsequently divided up into separate farms (of which my husband's ancestor William Dixon Smith's farm was a portion Umbellibelli is mentioned on the original deed of transfer, 1880s.)

Joyce was an Irishman who deserted from the 75th Regt in the Eastern Cape in 1832 (we tend to overlook just how many Irishmen came to SA as members of the British Army). Using the alias Scott, Joyce and Lovedale (presumably the 'Loveday' mentioned on the memorial at the Old Fort, and certainly Graham Mackeurtan in 'Cradle Days of Natal' gives this as Lovedale, who was also a deserter from the British army) arrived in Zululand in May 1837 at the mission station of Rev George Champion (of the American Board Mission). The two men helped to build Champion's house.

Rev Francis Owen, after the Retief massacre, is said to have read Lovedale a severe lecture on the latter's mode of life.

In 1838 Joyce was among the 17 whites who led a force against the Zulus after the attacks on the Voortrekkers.

When the British Govt took over in Natal, Joyce took advantage of the amnesty offered to deserters but wasn't sent back to re-join his regiment due to ill health. Under British land settlement scheme he claimed the property he had occupied in Umzinto region prior to the British take-over and this claim to the farm Umbellibelli was recognised. Like Fynn, Joyce 'went native' - he had two African wives but in 1847 when he was dying he set aside the 2nd, and married the first, Nozingita, by whom he had 5 children. Joyce, described as 'a penitent, greatly distressed for his sins', was attended by the Wesleyan missionary William Holden at the end.

George Duffy may have the person of that name who signed an oath of submission to the Batavian Republic on 20.11.1803.
(Philip: British Residents at the Cape 1795-1819).

Joseph Brown was a hunter - he escaped being killed at the Tugela but was severely wounded.

Most of the above is reported in Mackeurtan; a few interpolations from other sources.

Rosemary