J C Chase: 1820 settler and servant of the Colony
- Authors: McGinn, M J
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Chase, J. C, 1806-1876 , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2610 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012872
- Description: J.C. Chase was an 1820 settler who travelled to the Cape with Bailie's party. He was a man of some standing and education. There is evidence that he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Founders, whose arms were later adopted by Aliwal North, but he was reputedly a bookseller in London in 1819. Clearly the reading and writing of books were among his chief preoccupations at the Cape. He was particularly interested in travel and exploration and was one of the early white visitors to Griqualand. But his main objective at the Cape was probably to seek the security of a government appointment, and he held quite a succession of offices until he secured a permanent post in the administration. Even then he was moved from Graham's Town to Albert before he found his niche at Uitenhage, where he was Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate from 1849 to 1863. Intro., p.1.
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- Date Issued: 1975
The case of James Erith, 1820 settler, and his struggle for compensation
- Authors: Woods, Timothy Phillips
- Date: 1969
- Subjects: Erith, James, 1790-1869 , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Emigration and immigration
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2618 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013451
- Description: James Erith, a freeholder of the country of Kent, was one of the “1820 Settlers" who emigrated to the Cape and were settled mainly in the Zuurveld in the present district of Albany. This investigation was prompted by the fact that though he was by no means the settler to suffer misfortune and injustice, he was the only proprietor of a small party who eventually secured compensation. The case was the case of James Erith but the initiative and persistence was that of his wife, Jane Erith, who made in all five voyages spread over twelve years, before she secured some at least of the ends she sought and the family settled in Cape Town. The Eriths fought their case with the respective Colonial Offices for twelve years in all, and in the case of the Colonial Office, London, confronted no less than four Secretaries of State in five successive Cabinets. In the course of their struggle the Eriths received (a) the balance of their deposit; (b) cash compensation for cattle stolen by the Xhosa, and in the fina1 arbitration in 1832 the sum of £500 cash. James Erith, master baker, remains a rather shadowy figure, sharp-sighted to his own interest, querulous and not very effective. The triumph of 1832 was in the main the triumph of Jane, his wife, an amateur and robust Portia. Shrewd, tenacious, deft in argument this importunate woman knew how to stand her ground; there can have been few women who secured passage on a naval vessel and then allowed the Admiralty to submit its account to the Colonial Office. How the Eriths subsisted between their eviction from Waaye Plaats in 1823 and the arbitration award of 1832, has not been established. On occasion in London Mrs. Erith stayed with the Rev. R. Stewarts, Rutland House, Black Heath Road in Greenwich: in Cape Town it is believed that Erith plied his old trade. When he died there, in 1869 at the age of seventy nine, he left a house and three cottages to his daughter Ellen: mortgaged property in the district of Caledon, to his son-in-law George Budge : a house and three mortgaged properties in Simon’s Town to his daughter Anne Budge. He left an income of £24 per annum to his daughter Jane Moodie, widow of the late John Powell. The records used in this study, in addition to those printed in Theal, were the series C.O. 48 from the Public Record Office, London, now available on microfilm in the Cory Library at Rhodes University and records of the District of Albany in the Archives, Cape Town. The investigation has, it is thought, thrown new light on the background to the emigration scheme of 1819, on the mishandling of the Settlers in the Zuurveld after their arrival in the Cape, and on the punctilious attention to detail given by the Colonial Office, London. While it is true that the interests of the Eriths were probably smothered in the Tory endeavour to damp down the attack on Somerset in l826-1827, the Secretaries of State are by no means discredited by this analysis. It sasys much for any pattern of administration that in the thick of the Reform Bill crisis, the efforts of a single obscure member of Parliament, Mr. J O Briscoe, could secure a final arbitration award.
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- Date Issued: 1969
The letters of Hannah Dennison, 1820 settler, 1820-1847
- Authors: Edgecombe, Dorothy Ruth
- Date: 1968
- Subjects: Dennison, Hannah Elizabeth, 1791-1850 -- Correspondence , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) -- Correspondence , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Women -- South Africa , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Women -- South Africa -- Correspondence
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2540 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002392 , Dennison, Hannah Elizabeth, 1791-1850 -- Correspondence , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) -- Correspondence , Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- History -- 1814-1852 , Women -- South Africa , British settlers of 1820 (South Africa) , Women -- South Africa -- Correspondence
- Description: In 1959, the late Miss M.G. Masson of Salem, at the instigation of Mrs. Dorothy Rivett-Carnac, presented a bundle of Gush family papers to the Cory Library. Among these papers was a series of letters written by Hannah Dennison, who came to South Africa in 1820, as a member of Carton's party from Nottinghamshire. This thesis offers a transcription of the letters together with editorial comment, and the letters from the main source for a reconstruction of the life and attitudes of a most enterprising woman.
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- Date Issued: 1968