Month: October 2020

William Nightingale and Delagoa Bay Fever

Recently a number of people who knew that I was researching the St Paul’s Graveyard, Rondebosch sent me a Facebook or email message about the article on St Paul’s on The Heritage Portal by S. J. de Klerk.1  In the article de Klerk makes mention of the NIGHTINGALE grave and the fact that the gravestone mentions William, ‘who fell a victim to Delagoa Bay fever on his way to the Gold Fields and died at Geelhoutboom…aged 23 years.’  Purely by chance in the same week as I was told about this article, I was working on the NIGHTINGALE family’s history for my St Paul’s Graveyard Project vide www.thefamilyhistorian.co.za and click on St Paul’s Graveyard on the menu. 

The Nightingale Grave at St Paul’s


William himself is not buried at St Paul’s Graveyard but his brother Charles NIGHTINGALE is.  They were sons of Joseph NIGHTINGALE who was a draftsman for ‘Her Majesty’s Ordinance Department of the War Office’.  He was married three times and had a daughter in each of the first two marriages and six children with his third wife.  His first wife died, his second, from what I’ve found, ended up in the Wandsworth Workhouse and in the list of those who died in the workhouse it shows her death on 23 August 1840.  In the list next to her name and her age (29y) and date of death and it also says ‘Intoxication’.  I find it strange that a man who is obviously doing well financially (he had servants in the Census records) should send his wife to the workhouse to die but unfortunately the mere BMDs do not tell you the story behind the facts.  The daughter from this second marriage married an engineer and like her step sisters and brothers came to the Cape.

I am not sure if Joseph’s children all left for the Cape at the same time.  All children but William appear at home with mother and father in Surrey in the 1871 Census.  Charles must have left within the next year or two because he died ‘suddenly’ in Kalk Bay in January 1873 and his death notice was filled in by younger brother Walter Maxwell NIGHTINGALE and the gravestone commemorates William NIGHTINGALE dying a year later (1874) ‘on his way to the goldfields…’

Where did William die?

As S. J. de Klerk  points out in The Heritage Portal website article, Geelhoutboom is a farm in the Graskop area where gold was discovered.  The actually diggings were called Mac-Mac.  Today there is a waterfall still bearing that name in Mpumalanga.  It is a two-stream waterfall, because of the early gold-diggers using explosives to get to the gold and thus divided the stream. 

For gold-diggers from overseas or the Cape Colony and Natal, it was a long trek to get from the coastal areas to the goldfields by going across land.  Thomas Baines, writing in his book The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa tells of the attempt to get to the fields via Delagoa Bay in Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa.

 

He wrote: A small iron steamer, the “Adonis,” had been brought from Europe and put together in Port Natal, and by the close of 1873 was fit for sea. Several persons took passage in her for Delagoa Bay, with the view of shortening the land journey, but the exposure to fever in the rains then prevalent, the detention and difficulty of procuring native carriers in Delagoa Bay, the entire absence of accommodation and consequent hardships, privations, and exposure, during a pedestrian journey of 178 miles, during which two large and several small rivers must be crossed, far more than countervailed the 240 miles saved in the distance. ((Thomas Baines, The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa. (Port Elizabeth: J.W.C.Mackay, 1877)page 148 also re-published in 1968 by the Rhodesiana reprint library, v. 1 ))

William NIGHTINGALE appears to be one of those who were infected by the fevers and hardships that Thomas Baines is talking about.  Baines continued:

A letter from Pilgrim’s Rest, dated Feb. 16, 1874, records the death of three persons who had arrived, via Delagoa Bay, and states that hardly one had been exempted from attacks of fever; while many narrowly escaped with their lives, and were compelled to abstain from work till the bracing air of the elevated regions should restore their health. The first who died at McMc was William Nye Nightingale, aged twenty-six or twenty-seven, believed to have come from Durban; next, Thompson, aged twenty-seven or twenty-eight, formerly connected with a brewery in Cape Town. The third victim was named Stewart, aged about forty-seven. He was supposed to have come from Algoa Bay, was formerly an engineer in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company, was a widower, and had left a daughter. The writer considerately gives these particulars to facilitate the identification of the unfortunate victims to a deadly climate, and adds that every attention was shown them during their illness by the ladies of Mr. MacLachlan’s family, and they had such medical assistance as could be obtained on the fields.  (( Baines, Gold Region ))


Delagoa Bay Fever
But what actually was Delagoa Bay Fever that William NIGHTINGALE is supposed to have died from?  Most websites will tell you that it is Enteric Fever (Typhoid) or Malaria.  I got this information when I googled it and found a digitised booklet by a Dr J.A. Simeons who had developed certain medications to fight this disease. 

The booklet was published by B G. Lennon & Co. of Port Elizabeth.  Lennon’s were a well-known pharmaceutical company and the inside cover of this tract tells the reader that

The medicines referred to in this Book are manufactured solely by B. G. LENNON & Co., and none are genuine unless bearing their name and address.  The cost of a complete Medicine Chest is 50/nett each. Postage extra. (( J. A Simeon, Advice and Instructions for the prevention and cure of fever, which is prevalent in the Low Districts of the Transvaal, in Delagoa Bay, and East Africa. (Port Elizabeth: B. G. Lennon, 1890) p2 )) 

Then there is a list of the ten different pills, mixtures, tinctures and powders with only Epsom Salts being given a name and not a number.  The tract also had positive ‘reviews’ of the efficaciousness from numerous doctors and hospitals in the Eastern Transvaal.  I must admit I felt it a bit like a classical quackery tract especially after I read the opening paragraph of this tract:

The poisonous substance giving rise to malarial fever is produced by putrefaction and decomposition of the decayed vegetable matter; the decomposed matter gives out an invisible poisonous substance called malaria, which, mixing with the air, gets into the human system through the lungs…. When a person breathes such a poisonous air and his blood becomes impregnated with malaria, he gets fever. Usually he receives premonitory warnings of the coming attack of fever one or two days before he is seized with it, for he feels a sense of weariness or fatigue on exertion, a disinclination for work, a want; of vigour and of cheerfulness, headache, pains in the body, want of appetite, disturbed sleep, and a general feeling of being out of sorts. The symptoms are observed more in new-comers in malarial districts, and in persons who are about to suffer for the first time from an attack of fever.2

However, that made me ask when was it realised that the mosquitoes were the spreaders of malaria.  I discovered that this discovery only came in 1897 by Dr (later Sir) Ronald Ross whose story is also fascinating.

Sir Ronald Ross was born in Almora, India in 1857.  At the age of eight, like most children of the Raj, he was sent to England to be educated.  During these early years he developed interests in poetry, literature, music, and mathematics, all of which he continued to engage in for the rest of his life.

Although he had deep desire to study medicine, at the age of 17 he submitted to his father’s wish to see him enter the Indian Medical Service.  He began his medical studies at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, London in 1874 and sat the examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1879.  He took the post of ship surgeon on a transatlantic steamship while studying for, and gaining the Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, which allowed him to enter the Indian Medical Service in 1881, where he held temporary appointments in Madras, Burma, and the Andaman Islands.  During a year’s leave, from June 1888 to May 1889, he developed his scientific interests and studied for the Diploma in Public Health from the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in England and took a course in bacteriology under Professor E. E. Klein.

In 1892 he became interested in malaria and, having originally doubted the parasites’ existence, became an enthusiastic convert to the belief that malaria parasites were in the blood stream when this was demonstrated to him by Patrick Manson during a period of home leave in 1894.  Sir Patrick Manson is considered by many to be the father of tropical medicine. He was the first person to demonstrate, in 1878, that a parasite that causes human disease could infect a mosquito—in this case, the filarial worm that causes elephantiasis. He was the founder of the London School of Tropical Medicine.

On Ross’s return to India in 1895, he began his quest to prove the hypothesis of Alphonse Laveran and Manson that mosquitoes were connected with the propagation of malaria, and regularly corresponded with Manson on his findings. However, his progress was hampered by the Indian Medical Service, which ordered him from Madras to a malaria-free environment in Rajputana. Ross threatened to resign but, following representations on his behalf by Manson, the Indian Government put him on special duty for a year to investigate malaria and kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis).

On 20 August 1897, in Secunderabad, Ross made his landmark discovery. While dissecting the stomach tissue of an anopheline mosquito fed four days previously on a malarious patient, he found the malaria parasite and went on to prove the role of Anopheles mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria parasites in humans.

While Ross is remembered for his malaria work, this remarkable man was also a mathematician, epidemiologist, sanitarian, editor, novelist, dramatist, poet, amateur musician, composer, and artist. He died, after a long illness, at the Ross Institute on 16 September 1932.3
    “…With tears and toiling breath,
    I find thy cunning seeds,
    O million-murdering Death.”
(This is a fragment of a poem by Ronald Ross, written in August 1897, following his discovery of malaria parasites in anopheline mosquitoes fed on malaria-infected patients)

So maybe I’m being too harsh on Dr A J Simeon especially as he had good medical school qualifications.  He was Doctor in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Brussels, had the Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Licentiate of the University of Bombay, and qualified in Sanitary Science and Public Health in the University of Durham.

What about the rest of the NIGHTINGALE family?
Louisa, Joseph’s daughter from his first marriage married George GARWOOD, a horse dealer.  They had four children before Louisa died in 1857. 

Emily daughter of second wife Emily Kilbourn NIGHTIGALE and Joseph, married an engineer and had five children who seemed to have come to South Africa at some point.  One daughter died as an unmarried Art Teacher and another married into the HARE family – well-known in Rondebosch and St Paul’s.

Joseph, with his third wife Julia NELTHORPE had seven children and all of them seem to spend at least some time in South Africa, if not living (and dying) here.  Laura (b1948-d1927) had an estate file in Cape Town although dying unmarried in Exmouth, Devon.  Charles and Williams died as described on the grave at St Paul’s, Rondebosch.  The third son, Arthur was manager of Cape of Good Hope Bank in East London when he decided to head off to the same goldfields that took his brother’s life.  Arthur NIGHTINGALE died 23 March 1884 ‘between Delagoa Bay and Lydenburg’ as his death notice puts it.  He was unmarried.  His Death notice was only filed nearly a year later in February 1885.  It was completed by sister Florence Julia NIGHTINGALE who later married John DALLAMORE and had three children.  

The only son of Joseph and Julia to marry and have off-spring, was Walter Maxwell NIGHTINGALE (b1855-d1921).  After farming in Natal, he went to Kenya.  One daughter married a HULETT, one son farmed in Kenya after his father’s death and the youngest daughter married and moved to the USA.  Walter Maxwell NIGHTINGALE was awarded a MBE.  These initial appear on many of his records but I am not sure whether it was for his war service in East Africa during WW1 (he must have been over 60 years old) or for colonial service in Kenya – his name does not appear in my searches of MBE recipients in London Gazettes where the awards would appear.

That only leaves the youngest child, Frederick Joseph NIGHTINGALE which I managed to find in Alexis Creek, British Columbia, Canada.  When he died in 1897, his probate was carried out in London and he left £45 to his sister Laura.  I found him listed as a rancher in Chilcoten County but no mention in the Canadian Census of 1891.

Bibliography
Books

  1. Baines, Thomas. The Gold Regions of Eastern Southern Africa. Port Elizabeth: J. W. C. MacKay, 1877
  2. Simeon, J. A. Advice and Instructions for the prevention and cure of fever, which is prevalent in the Low Districts of the Transvaal, in Delagoa Bay, and East Africa. Port Elizabeth: B. G. Lennon, 1890
  3. The SA Archaeological Society, W. Cape Branch. Tombstones & Transcripts: St Paul’s, Rondebosch 19th Century Churchyard. Plumstead: My Shelf Publishing, 2007.

Websites

  1. Ancestry Website.  Accessed 23 Oct 2020 http://www.Ancestry.co.uk
  2. De Klerk, J. S. The Heritage Portal: Visiting the Historic St Paul’s Church and Graveyard.  Accessed 23 Oct 2020.  http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/visiting-historic-st-pauls-anglican-church-and-churchyard
  3. Family Search Website. Accessed 23 Oct 2020. https://www.familysearch.org/en/
  4. Find my past Website. Accessed 23 Oct 2020. https://www.findmypast.co.uk/
  5. National Archives and Record Service Website. Accessed 23 Oct 2020. http://www.national.archives.gov.za/
  6. Ross and the Discovery that Mosquitoes Transmit Malaria Parasites on CDC website.  Accessed 23 Oct 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/ross.html  
  1. http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/visiting-historic-st-pauls-anglican-church-and-churchyard [↩]
  2. Simeon, Advice, 7 [↩]
  3. Abbreviated from https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/ross.html [↩]

St Paul’s Graveyard: Data still needing to be found.

I’ve been re-reading the introduction to Tombstones & Transcripts: St Paul’s, Rondebosch 19th Century Churchyard. ((The South African Archaeological Society: W. Cape Branch: Cape Town 2007)) and realise that who is buried in the grave and where still requires a lot of research.

The Rev. Michael Bester while still Churchwarden of St Paul, had begun this work with his excellent report from the documentation he found which included:

  1. ‘Copy of an Old Plan of St. Paul’s Churchyard’, St. Paul’s Record, June 1928 and September 1928 (see appendix). 
  2. Supplementary ‘List of Names’, St. Paul’s Record, September 1928.
  3. A list of names drawn up by W Trollip in 1927 and accessioned in the State Archives (Cape Division), Roeland Street, Cape Town.  Mr Trollip was the honorary secretary of the churchyard committee.
  4. Margaret Cairns, ‘St. Paul’s Churchyard, Rondebosch’, Familia no. 3 of 1978 (Journal of the Genealogical Society of South Africa).
  5. Cemetery Archives for St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Rondebosch, Ref 16 G32, Vol 16, of which we obtained a printed copy from the State Archives to guide our on-site research.
  6. Minutes of meetings of the Vestry held on 29 November and 22 December 1858.

I am sure there are some more source which have perhaps been unconsciously hidden among church papers in the Parish Office.  For example, I remember seeing an attaché case with some early Graveyard data carefully stored in it.  I also remember coming across a printed receipt book specially for receipting payment for Purchased Graves.  There were only a few stubs used in the book but maybe there are other books or may these few used stubs could add information.

Basically, what I’m saying is that among ALL the junk stored in cupboards and safes there are some absolute treasures and maybe someone (? me) needs to go through them, cataloguing them and storing them in special spots in the hall or church where they will be safe for the future.

Marriage and Divorce at the Cape

Introduction
Have you ever thought why the colonial authorities of the Cape required that the information from all the marriages at the Cape had to be forwarded to them?  Why not also collect birth information from the church’s baptisms records?  Agreed, they did collect Death Notices which us genealogists are thankful for, but these tended to be those with Wills and Estates and not all the Cape Colony citizens who died.

Baptisms
The collection of Baptism records – as happened with the Bishops’ Transcripts1 in the UK – would have been a way of keeping a record of births here in the Cape.  We do need to compare the administration/demographic differences between the Cape and England and Wales.  In England they have what is called the National Church or Established Church i.e. the Church of England (CE).  They had initially the sole right to baptise, marry and bury the dead – the famous BMDs, us genealogists thrive on.  At the Cape after the British occupation in 1806 and even after 1814 when it became a solely British Colony, the majority of the population did not belong to the CE – in fact besides a few Colonial Chaplains there were no CE bishops or ministers here.  The majority of people belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, and through the slaves and their descendants, those freed and still in chains, there were also many followers of the Islamic faith.  We also must not forget the indigenous people who might not belong to any of the typical faiths encountered by the Colonial administration and thus “Baptism” would be a poor way of registering births in the Colony.

That no Established Church was recognised by law here at the Cape was proved by certain court cases that occurred, in particular Long vs The Lord Bishop of Cape Town which went through numerous levels of the justice system right up to an appeal to the Privy Council in London whose ruling was that all churches were voluntary organisations and therefore could not be used by the state to carry out its role and functions and vice versa.2 In relation to Baptism this was confirmed in 1902 when the Cape Supreme Court ruled in a case which asked the Court to rule that St George’s Cathedral alter an entry for Baptism in its register.  Justice Buchanan, in his judgement stressed that, as the baptismal register was not a public register (this is what the applicant had pleaded), the court should not make an order to amend records kept by the Church. 3.  The church was a voluntary organisation and its records were for members only, so what was written in the Baptismal Register was not for use by state authorities.4  

Marriage and Divorce
However, in the Cape Colony all the marriages were collected and stored by the State/Colonial authorities from well before compulsory registration of BMDs were introduced 1895.  In the Introduction I asked why.  One of the reasons perhaps, was that marriage was a contract between consenting individuals and it was on these ‘contracts’ that the morals of society rested.  As the old Anglican Prayer Book (SABP) marriage service says it is not to be entered into ‘unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly’ but ‘discreetly, soberly, and in the fear of God.’5  If marriage, in the parlance of the time, was seen as the bedrock of a moral society then records of marriage were needed to prove that, for example,  a child was born in wedlock, that on the death of a parent any minor children could, if necessary, be cared for by the state and that a married partner could not marry another, until death or divorce from the former partner was ensured.

As with Baptism and the Bishop Transcripts, in the England and Wales Marriage was also viewed as a “Church matter”.  But this was not the case with Roman-Dutch common law where secular marriages were permitted.  Here at the Cape this was allowed under the short Batavian Rule between 1803-18066 but with the return of the British it was once again made a religious (i.e. Christian) event.  In some of the ordinances between 1823-1826 it became permissible for slaves to marry – if they were Christians – but not many took up this privilege.  In fact, more married under Muslim rites, which had no legality in the eyes of law.7

Civil Marriage Registers were again allowed at the Cape from 1839.  In the UK this was from 1836 – in anticipation of the Civil Registration of BMDs in 1837.  It was, however, the Church that carried out most of the marriages in both places.  Once again in the UK where the majority were in the CE this presented less of a problem than in the Cape where there were many Christian denominations.  Strict procedures were required to ensure the legality of marriages and thus the legitimacy of the offspring.  Without this there could be succession and the right to property issues.  For example, in 1886 just 53 Christian ministers of the ‘mainline’ churches appeared on the Civil Service List (that is to say acknowledged ‘Marriage Officers’).  However, in Cape Town’s General Directory there were 364 people listed as Christian ministers, which under British Common Law were allowed to be marriage officers.  That means that 311 ministers exercised the function of marriage officers who were wholly unknown to government8.  In 1908 Acting Chief Justice Buchanan even stated that “I think it is time the Legislature took up this important matter and placed the marriage laws on a better footing than that upon which they are founded at present”.9

Malherbe in his article asks concerning all those ministers who were unknown as ministers and yet operated as marriage officers: “What, then, of enforcement of the legal requirements such as banns, parental rights over minors, or proofs respecting degrees of consanguinity?”  He acknowledges that race and class were factors and shows that the general view was that with respect to ‘natives and half castes in town’, surely it was ‘undesirable to allow their union by a catechist, evangelist, or local preacher’.  It was argued that Parliament should legislate so that the clergy – like doctors, land surveyors, attorneys – be required to register in order to serve as marriage officers.  It had tried to do so a decade earlier but complications cited by churchmen had persuaded it to drop the measure.8  In fact it was only in the 1960s that ministers of religion had to undergo an examination on the marriage act in operation at that time and be licensed to marry couples.  Thus, it became the government that gave permission for a minister of religion to be a marriage officer and not the Church.  With the coming of same-sex marriage, an additional examination was required and many churches forbade their ministers from taking this additional qualification on the threat of dismissal.

Into this marriage discussion which was based on quasi-religious and moral grounds, there came an interesting legal conundrum.  Although the British took possession of the Cape in 1806, they did not change the legal system from Roman-Dutch Law to the British Common Law.  Within the British Empire only the Cape Colony (and later South Africa), Ceylon and Guyana retained Roman-Dutch Law.   This happened in spite of the gradual ‘Anglicisation’ of the justice system and its judges and advocates here at the Cape.  As most of the judges appointed and advocates called to the bar were trained at the UK bar – the Inner and Middle Temples, they had little experience of Roman Dutch Law unless they specifically went to the Netherlands to train at universities there or studied the legal tomes on Roman Dutch Law most of which were still in Latin or Dutch.

One of the Common Law issues the Courts at the Cape had to face was that of divorce.  I have always been surprised at the number of divorces there seems to be here in the Cape and post -1910 in South Africa generally.  The number seemed to be much large than in the UK, especially when we compare the size of population.  I have not researched this statistically but it just seems that there are so many divorce records on NAAIRS compared with divorce records found on Ancestry and Findmypast.  This might simply be because NAAIRS has an index to all the CSC [Cape Supreme Court] folders online which includes all the divorce cases.  Watching ‘Who do you think you are’, in particular the episode on comedian Vic Reed, they found that his grandfather was a bigamist and the comment was made that it was quite common before the 1930s because a divorce was so complex and expensive.  What happened was that the majority who could not afford the divorce process simply left their marriage partner and most probably married another, thus committing bigamy.  In the UK until a year or so ago, any divorce had to have blame appropriated to one of the partners.  In the 19th Century the only blame allowed was adultery and once again this was viewed as a Church matter.

The British-trained Counsels and Judges had trouble with divorce cases as they had less experience in them.  To them dissolving a marriage was seen as destroying a pillar ‘on which civilised society rests’.10   Cape judges recruited in Britain were uncomfortable with the Roman-Dutch law’s admission of malicious desertion as ground for divorce. Vertrees Malherbe in his paper tells of a case from 1853 where Johannes le Roes sued Anna Wiehahn for restitution of conjugal rights – the mandatory first step in divorce proceedings – after she ‘unlawfully and maliciously deserted’ him, alleging his violence and threats to her life.  Justice Musgrave (who in the case) supported the finding for Anna Wiehahn also lamented: ‘I have often expressed myself very strongly against the facility which is given to married persons in this country to obtain a divorce for malicious desertion.’  Musgrave wished the new Cape parliament might place the law of divorce ‘on a more satisfactory footing’.  Malherbe rather sarcastically adds that a “satisfactory footing” would allow a judicial separation but preserved an unhappy couple’s marriage.  In Britain in the 19th Century there was a divorce called in Latin a divorce mensa et thoro11 which designated a divorce which was really akin to a separation granted by an ecclesiastical court whereby a husband and wife are not legally obligated to live together, but their marriage had not been dissolved.  The Roman-Dutch tradition offered a full legal separation available through courts of law and not through the Church.12

While all this might sound a lot like what the courts offer today in divorce trials, in practice this was not always the case.  In 1843, after two years of marriage, a certain Henry Farmer of Cape Town left Elizabeth van Wielligh and went to England.  Shortly after, she having no means to support herself entered into what the husband later called ‘a criminal connexion’ with Frederick Watson whom she married, ‘representing herself as a widow’.  When Farmer returned (1852) he secured a divorce, citing her adultery.  A judge asked if, in granting such divorces, the court had been faithful to the ‘principles of morality and public policy by which it guides itself’.  Justice Bell – another ready critic of Cape Roman-Dutch law – echoed concerns respecting ‘persons of that rank of life’.  Such judgments reflected the court’s deep consciousness of social hierarchy – above and beyond the assessment of ‘rank, social position, and education’ deemed appropriate when awarding damages.  Judges regretted the ‘monstrous’ local provision allowing plaintiffs as much as a third of a century in which to seek a remedy.  The court’s concern was not, however, for persons thus consigned to a marital limbo. Contemplating Mrs Farmer, Bell observed:
… it is good English as well as Dutch law that a woman compelled by her husband to live apart from him, must return to those moral restraints which she was obliged before marriage to impose upon herself, and is not entitled to justify by his conduct, the prostitution of her person and mind …

Among the arguments put forward by the lawyers included that the total neglect by the husband of the wife would be no bar to his right to divorce if she should commit adultery during his neglect of her.  Justice Bell in his comments on a case like this seemed to think that sexual morality was more important than Mrs Farmer’s predicament where she was abandoned and indigent.  She should have reverted to maiden-like chastity.   Justice Bell’s dictum that Cape law allow malicious desertion as a reason for divorce was simply ‘sin and confusion to society’. 

The law also required that plaintiffs seeking a divorce were ‘pure’ not only when the suit commenced, but during the whole course of the proceedings.  If they were themselves adulterers, or committed adultery while suing a spouse for that offence, the case was simply dismissed.  One wonders if the court investigated Mr Farmer’s behaviour while apart from his wife? Nothing to that effect was recorded in the case file.  There is a case a century later, the law still unchanged, which resulted in the absurd situation where two adults both of whom had committed adultery were denied divorce and had to remain bound to each other as punishment for their misbehaviour.

Conclusion
Why did the Cape keep records of marriages from such an early date?  The Christian sexual moral teaching stresses the need to control who married whom and what happened to the products (children) of that marriage.  Who was doing the marriages (ministers of religion), although also important, seemed to be less controlled.  Following Roman-Dutch Law, the courts at the Cape were more involved in this area of common law than in the United Kingdom. 

The following of Roman-Dutch Law also led to a more acceptance of divorce as a legal rather than an ecclesiastical matter.  This was perhaps aggravated by the fact that the population at the Cape were so litigious.  Looking at the CSC files on NAAIRS there seem to be a lot of civil cases where one person is suing another for many reasons besides divorce or bad debt.  Perhaps the ease with which cases could be brought to court and the ‘malignant desertion’ cause being allowed for divorce, made the number of divorces appear larger per size of the population than in the UK.
—————————-
References used:
Van Staden, J. H. Church Law as a Isu Sui Generis in South Africa: A Reformed Perspective (Bloemfontein: University of the Free State, unpublished PhD Thesis, 2014)

Malherbe, Vertrees C. “Family law and ‘the great moral public interests’ in Victorian Cape Town, c.1850-1902” Kronos vol.36 n.1 Cape Town Nov. 2010

Anon. A Book of Common Prayer Authorised for use in South Africa (OUP & SPCK: Cape Town, 1954) The Marriage Ceremony.

From webpage: http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/day_gray.html downloaded 15 Sept 2020

  1. The Bishop’s Transcripts are copies of the entries in a parish register and were made by the churchwarden or minister. They were sent to the Diocesan Registry each year and are part of the diocesan records. These transcripts were required from 1597.  Once civil registration of births, marriages and deaths started in 1837, the bishop’s transcripts became less important and many parishes stopped keeping them. [↩]
  2. http://anglicanhistory.org/africa/day_gray.html downloaded 15 Sept 2020 [↩]
  3. J. H. Van Staden, Church Law as a Isu Sui Generis in South Africa: A Reformed Perspective (Bloemfontein: University of the Free State, unpublished PhD Thesis, 2014), p. 116 [↩]
  4. Having said that the DHA were willing to take certified copies of Baptism Register Entries when 16 year-olds were applying for ID documents around the time of the 1994 Elections and the Birth Registrations could not be located or if they had never been registered. [↩]
  5. A Book of Common Prayer Authorised for use in South Africa (OUP & SPCK: Cape Town, 1954) The Marriage Ceremony, p140. [↩]
  6. Malherbe, Vertrees C. “Family law and ‘the great moral public interests’ in Victorian Cape Town, c.1850-1902” Kronos vol.36 n.1 Cape Town Nov. 2010. [↩]
  7. Derek Pratt, The Anglican Church’s Mission to the Muslims in the Western Cape (Grahamstown: Rhodes University, unpublished Masters Thesis, 1997) p.34 also Yusuf da Costa & Achmat Davids, Pages from Cape Muslim History (Pietermartizburg: Shuter & Shooter, 1994) p. 57. [↩]
  8. Malherbe, op cit p.12 [↩] [↩]
  9. Van Staden, op cit p. 116 [↩]
  10. Malherbe Op cit p.9 quoting from J. Buchanan, ed, Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope as reported by the Hon. William Menzies Esq., 3 vols (Cape Town, 1870-1903). [↩]
  11. From table and bed, but more commonly translated as “from bed and board.” [↩]
  12. Malherbe, Op cit p.9 & 10 [↩]

The Toll of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, among Anglicans in Rondebosch.

The Burial Register of St Paul’s, Rondebosch for the year 1918 makes fascinating reading. Particualrly interesting is the period in October when the second wave of infections of the so-called Spanish Flu caused havoc in South Africa.

Although Apartheid legislation – especially the Group Areas Act (GAA), was not yet legally part of the South African way of life, society was most definitely divided, usually economically but, in truth, that meant racially because of the poverty among the people of colour. In Cape Town that meant the so-called ‘Coloured’ or Mixed Race population. These people were descended from various sources. They were descendants of the original population from around the Western Cape (San and Khoi people), the descendants of slaves brought to the Cape during the previous two centuries, and the descendants of mixed-race marriages. Having traditionally held lowly paid jobs and without any opportunity to improve themselves through education, the ‘Coloured’ people were frequently forced to live on the edges of the towns and cities. In attempts to improve the health and sanitation of the city, they had been moved to suburbs well away from the White colonial settlers.

Rondebosch in 1918 (in fact up to the introduction of the GAA in 1950 and forced removals in the 1960s), was a very mixed community with pockets of large houses of the wealthy property owners and small cottages where the servants lived.

The Parish of St Paul’s, Rondebosch at that time consisted of the Parish Church (St Paul’s on the Main Road to Simon’s Town) and four Chapelries. The chapels were St Thomas’s near Rondebosch Common, St Mark’s in Athlone which was called at various times, West London or Milner, St George’s in Rylands (later the church moved to what is now known as Silvertown) and St James, Black River (the area immediately below where Red Cross Children’s Hospital is now).

The Parish graveyard at St Paul’s had been shut in the 1880s and that at St Thomas in the early years of the 20th Century, however a piece of land had been donated near where Garlandale High School is today and this became known as Black River Cemetery and in the burial Register the initials “B.C.” next to an entry meant that the burial had occurred at Black River Cemetery. Because of where it was situated, most (if not all) of the burials at Black River Cemetery were of ‘Coloured’ people and usually members of St Paul’s Parish worshipping at the Chapelries. Other burials were at Maitland Cemetery. In 1918 there was not crematorium in Cape Town.

A careful examination of the burial register shows a strange phenomenon of two batches of burial entries for October 1918. Instead of each entry being in date order, the first batch covered the period from 7 Oct to 24 Oct 1918 and entered by the Rector, the Rev. John Brooke. No racial classification was required in the burial and the baptism registers. This was only required in the Marriage Register where the minister became a quasi-government official carrying out the marriage for the state. Other Civil Registrations (Births and Deaths) were done through official government channels so church records registers for these did not require racial classifications. Therefore it is hard to know which of the burials done in this first batch of entries were of White people and which were ‘Coloured’ people who lived near the Parish Church in what would later (in the 1960s) be a White area of Rondebosch.

1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic in Rondebosch Parish

First Batch of BurialsSecond Batch of Burials
No. of Burials28153
< 15 years of age347
Between 15 and 45 years of age2295
> 45 years of age311
Average age 29y 4m23y 6m
Males1780
Females1173
Days in period when funerals held13 of 17 days16 of 17 days
Average number of funerals per day29
Largest number of funerals per day6 on 10 Oct
6 on 11 Oct		18 on 12 Oct
20 on 13 Oct
16 on 14 Oct


The Second Batch of entries in the Parish Burial Register were from 5 Oct to 21 Oct 1918. These burials were carried out by the curate, the Rev. T. L. Floyd, who had responsibility for St Marks, St George’s and St James. (St Thomas’s fell under the Rector, whose rectory was right next door.)

Conclusion
Over five times more ‘Coloured’ people living in West London (Athlone) died and were buried in the first three weeks of October 1918.

Of the total of 178 people, 50 were younger than 15 years – 47 of whom came from West London. What must be borne in mind is that poverty with malnutrition and poor housing made the young ‘Coloured’ children more vulnerable to disease. Of the 178 people, only 14 were older than 45 years. Seven percent of West London deaths in the older category and 10 percent from the Parish Church (most probably White).

The balance (117 people) were in the working age of 15 -45 years. In the West London (‘Coloured’) community this made 62% of those buried. In White or Parish Church area this made up 78% of those buried.

As far as Gender breakdown goes, in the West London there was hardly any difference, which is interesting to think about (male 80, female 73, ratio 1.09). In the parish church the number of male to female death is more stark (male 17, female 11, ratio 1.54). Researchers say that younger males in the working age group (15y to 45y), because they met others at work, were more susceptible to being infected. This explains why, in the White community, more males than females succumbed. All I can suggestion at the similar number of deaths in West London is that poverty malnutrition and over-crowded housing has no gender-awareness.

Throughout the COVID19 pandemic we were told how the elderly were more vulnerable, which is different the Spanish Flu of 1918.

1918 Flu Epidemic: St Paul’s, Rondebosch’s Response

The following extracts come from S. Paul’s Record, November 1918 Edition.

The Rector’s Letter
My Dear Friends and Parishioners,
Only one has occupied our minds during the past month, and that is epidemic of “Spanish Influenza.” Unseen, but swift as the wind, it swept over the whole country, and has left behind it such a legacy of sorrow that this beautiful month of Spring will always be remembered as the Black October of 1918. Everything had to give way before it. The arrangement of “Our Day”, so splendidly organised and copiously advertised, went to pieces. Business was brought almost to a standstill. Every home was affected by it. In most cases the servants were the first to be taken ill, and either went home or had to be nursed by their employers, while the housework had to be done by members of the family, who soon fell victims themselves to this treacherous sickness. The ordinary work of the parish ceased, and all the energies of those who were well and could be spared from their homes were devoted to the work of tending the sick, feeding the hungry, trying to save the dying. or helping the bereaved to bury their dead.

I am deeply grateful to all those who worked so splendidly in Rondebosch and on the Flats, and helped to save many lives by providing them with proper nourishment and giving them valuable advice and attention. At a time when it was possible for the clergy to visit only the most urgent cases, it was a very great relief to them to know that the bodily needs of all the poorer people were being attended to daily, either at the various depots or at the house of the sick. As you will see from the list of burials at the end of this issue, the mortality in this parish has been terrible, especially among the poorer parishioners. At Black River no less than five of one family died in a week. One of our old coloured parishioners of Rondebosch, Alfred Adams lost two sons, a daughter, and a son-in-law, one of the sons and the daughter being married and leaving behind several young children. The verger at S. Paul’s lost a son of 15, and the verger of S. Thomas’s a daughter of 20. One of the saddest deaths was that of choir boy of S. Paul’s, Jack Andrews, at the age of ten years. On behalf of the parish I wish to convey to the bereaved parents, in each of the above cases, our heart-felt sympathy. It is difficult express adequately our sympathy for Mr and Mrs Roper in their great sorrow. Their eldest daughter seemed to be going on well, when collapse came suddenly, and in a few hours she was called to her eternal rest. The shock to her family was accentuated, too, by the fact that she died at a time when help was unobtainable from those who ordinarily arrange the details of a burial. May God in His infinite mercy help and comfort her sorrowing family and those thousands who have been plunged into mourning by this terrible visitation.

I am sorry to have to refer to finance in this letter, but I am afraid that I must do so, as the parish has been reduced to a very serious position by the epidemic. During October the Church collections have been about a quarter of the average for a month, for the Sunday congregations were the smallest on record. The Mission Schools have been closed, and so no school fees have come in. And as the parents pay by the week, and only then if their children have been to school that week, the school fees that ought to come in during October are irretrievably lost. But the teachers’ salaries must, of course, be paid in full, as usual. And the income for the General Purposes Fund during October will be very small, as many of the collectors and subscribers have been ill, and home expenses have been heavy. The consequence is that in order to pay stipends, salaries, and other current expenses, the Churchwardens have been compelled to overdraw to the extent of £75. We must somehow make this amount good before the end of the year, as well as pay the next two months’ expenses. I would therefore make an earnest appeal to all who were absent from Church during October to bring with them, next time they are able to attend the House of God, the offerings that they would have made each Sunday if they had been in church. And I would suggest that all who have been spared an attack of this treacherous sickness, and those who have safely recovered their health, should endeavour to make a worthy thanksgiving to Almighty God for His “late mercies vouchsafed unto them.”

I am your faithful friend and Rector

J.C.H. Brooke
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Notes on the Epidemic [Also from St Paul’s Record. November 1918]

As soon as it was realised that a large number of the poorer parishioners were ill with “Spanish Influenza”, Mrs Currey, of “Welgelegen” very kindly sent a large quantity of milk daily to the Rectory for distribution. The demand soon began to exceed the supply, even though the latter was supplemented from another source. Just in time the public depot at the Town Hall was opened and put in working order with wonderful promptitude and the milk from “Welgelegen” was sent elsewhere to those who needed it. Mrs Cripps and her band of helpers lost no time in making Rondebosch Town Hall a centre of relief and a blessing to the neighbourhood. Medicines, soup, and milk for the sick, and food for the families thrown out of employment or rendered destitute and helpless by sickness, were served daily to very large number of applicants, The suburb was divided into districts, and all the houses of the poor were visited daily by ladies, who brought nourishment and medicine to those who were unable to send for them, and who gave valuable help and advice to the sick and those of their friends who were nursing them. Scarcely any poor were able to secure the services of a doctor, though, when the seriousness of the situation was realised, Dr Parson and Dr Galpin, who years ago retired from practice, kindly turned out and attended all whom they had time to see. Even so, in the first ten days of the epidemic many poor people died without comfort of seeing a doctor. At first the City Corporation provided for only one Relief Depot in this parish, at the Town Hall, and so some of the ladies of the parish, Mrs Cronwright, Mrs Peters, and Mrs Nimmo Brown, with the help of other parishioners, opened a depot for Black River at the Klipfontein Hall (formerly a slaughter-house, now kindly lent to us by the Imperial Cold Storage Co. for parish purposes). Almost as soon as it was opened, the City Hall authorities made themselves responsible for all the expenses incurred in connection with its maintenance .

Meanwhile the state of things at Milner (i.e. West London) was most serious, and Mr Floyd made urgent representations to the authorities. As soon, therefore, as Mr Sawkins had completed his arrangements for the Rondebosch Town Hall, he paid a visit to Milner with Mr Floyd. The Wesleyan Church building, being central and near the hard road, was chosen as the most suitable place for a depot, and the Wesleyan authorities very kindly at once agreed to lend it, and gave every facility to the workers. Miss Hall, Miss Parson, and Miss Syfret, soon established a soup kitchen there, with medicines, etc., for all applicants. Mr Floyd was given authority by the City Corporation to issue bread, meat, and other necessaries to those who were in urgent need. Both at the Black River and Milner, and later at Welcome Estate, he organised a committee of coloured men and women to visit from house to house in their district. He selected the most respected and reliable persons for this purpose, those who knew the coloured people and could best judge their needs.

From further down the Flats came reports of sickness, helplessness, and destitution, and on the second Sunday in October Mr Floyd was able to establish another depot at Welcome Estate some five or six miles from Rondebosch Town Hall. The Black River Depot being in full running order, Mrs Peters and Mrs Nimmo Brown were able to leave it in Mrs Cronwright’s hand, and they transferred their energies to organizing and carrying on the Welcome Estate Depot. In this they were devotedly assisted by Mr Nimmo Brown. This served the people at Rylands Estate and for miles around, food, etc., being carried on foot or by the motor-car to people as far as ten miles down the Cape Flats.

This work could not have been carried on if Mr Hartford of “Elwyngor”, Silwood Road, had not been so thoughtful and kind as to place his motor-car entirely at the disposal of the workers. Every day they were taken to their depot and brought back by car, and incidentally Mr Hartford’s car relieved the Rector and Mr Floyd of some their longer bicycle rides to Maitland Cemeteries and down the Flats. The Rector is also very grateful to Mr L. Spilhaus for taking him on a round of visits one night after a long and tiring day on his bicycle.

When anyone in this parish dies without having been attended by a doctor in his last days the body has to be removed to Wynberg for a post-mortem examination by the District Surgeon. By October 7th this rule has been suspended, as more than half of them who were dying of pneumonia had not been able to see a doctor’s attention. Mr Floyd was appointed a Registrar of Deaths in those districts, and from early in the morning his house and the Rectory were besieged by those wanting burial orders, coffins and graves. From October 7th it was especially impossible for the poorer people to get a coffin from undertakers and even some of those who are well-to-do found themselves in the same dreadful situation. The City Corporation realised the position of this just in time, and placed large orders with firms who employed carpenters. The Rector made representations to our local City Councillor, Mr Sawkins, who immediately got a dozen coffins from the City Hall, and saw that a sufficient supply was sent daily to the Rondebosch Town Hall and the Relief Depot at West London. These are gruesome details, but they help one to realise what an extraordinary time we have been passing through.

The Cemetery at Black River was originally secured for the Church people of that Mission Station, and by them it was fenced in and put in order. Since then, as the Flat became populated, it was thrown open to Church people in our other mission stations at Milner and Rylands Estate. This epidemic, however, produced a sudden congestion at the Maitland Cemetery Office in Capetown. It was besieged to such an extent that sometimes it took hours for the bereaved to get into the office and purchase a grave. And even then, when the funeral at last arrived at Maitland No.3 (the cemetery of the poor), there was more congestion and a long delay before anyone could be found to point out which was the right grave. Accordingly the Rector and Mr Floyd decided to suspend the rule limiting the right of burial in Black Cemetery to Church people who lived on the Flats, and it was thrown open to people of all denomination in the parish. Several additional gravediggers were engaged with orders to dig graves all day long. At 5 o’clock each day the funerals began, when Mr Floyd had finished his work at the Depots. When possible after his return from Maitland, the Rector went to assist him at Black River Cemetery.

Over 150 burials took place there in three weeks where the monthly average is about six or seven. This little cemetery has been rapidly filling up, and we shall have to endeavour to enlarge it by securing some of the adjacent vacant ground. A glance at the list of burials at the end of this issue will show that it makes an interesting, if terribly sad “barometer” of the epidemic.