I want to tell you about a discovery I made when I was looking for a marriage on the Mormon site www.familysearch.org I was using the Cape Marriage Index. For those who don’t know it, it is an index of all the marriage that took place in the Cape Colony and later Cape Province.
Although these indexes seem to start very early on under the DEIC, from 1839 they seem more formal. From that point on, the minister who conducted marriage services had to forward to the Cape Colonial Government information on all the marriages they conducted. Basically, the bride, groom, two witnesses and the minister signed the Church’s Marriage register and then filled in and signed another register which had the strange name of ‘Duplicate Original’ and this page was sent to the government.
I presume, and by the look of the similarity in the hand writing, once a month some poor clerk would have to capture the information and write it up in the index book. As I was paging through the index for 1895, I started thinking about the poor clerk whose job it was to do this. I started trying to work out how he would go about it. That just shows my personality. I am always curious to know how anything works.
Imagine a pile of marriage certificates from all over the Cape Colony – from Port St Johns to Calvinia including the big cities of Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. First, they needed to be sorted in date order, then each given a unique number for that year. This was written on each certificate. Then they would be sorted in alphabetical order according to the first letter of the surname of groom, The clerk would enter the following into the index. The groom’s surname, his initials, the bride’s surname and initials, the date of the marriage, the unique certificate number and the district the marriage took place in. Then the clerk would have to flip over to the page of first letter of the bride’s name and enter the whole thing again, this time placing the bride’s name first then the groom’s. All the time being as accurate as possible.
Goodness this must have been so boring! I’m not being sexist when I say it is a known fact that women are must better at doing this sort of repetitive task than men but in the 1890s, were there any female civil service clerks? Looking at marriages of that time all the brides had no occupation given in the ‘Occupation’ column – their occupation was in home. In the USA in `1890s only 19% of office workers were female.
And then I thought, hang on! There were no ball point pens until after the second world war, so were these entries written with fountain pens? Although they had been invented in 1830s, the general use of fountain pens only started in 1880s and 1890s. So, it was most probably written with a dip pen. If we look at some pages we can see how bored those clerks were becoming by the untidiness of the entries.
As I said at the beginning, I was paging through the “O” pages of the index looking for an Opperman who married a Bosman in Kimberley some where between 1891 and 1897 when I turned over the page and saw this.
This fascinated me to such an extent that I had to stop my searching and think about what I saw. I had presumed that in the 1890s all clerks were male – most women didn’t work outside of the home. So, was this drawing done by a young male clerk, dreaming about what his future wife would wear on their honeymoon? Or was this a progressive female clerk describing to her female workmates her new bathing costume or tennis dress? The mind boggles!
Seeing this drawing made me re-think about these busy clerks (male or female) and realised just how like us they were one hundred and thirty-one years ago, getting bored and doodling in the open space on the page.
But more importantly I want to say a big THANK YOU to them all.
This article first appeared in the Cape town Family History Society Newsletter, December 2021.
As one goes through Baptism, Marriage and Burial registers one comes across names that are connected with some other historical event than the one you were looking for. In between the SMITHs, the JONESs and other common names suddenly a name pops up and with it, some interesting connections.
The other day I was paging through the 1849-1937 St Francis, Simon’s Town Burial Register looking for a specific name when my eye was distracted by this entry:
St Francis, Simon’s Town Burial Register entry for Dr James Moyes Deas, M.D.
James Moyes Deas M.D. Convict Ship Neptune October 1st 1849 35 years The Rev Edward Judge, MA Colonial Chaplain
This entry has at least four things that perhaps deserve more attention. 1
Convict Ship Neptune
The first thing that did attract my attention was ‘Convict Ship Neptune’. I first came across this ship when I was at school over 50 years ago! We had an Afrikaans setwork book dealing with the attempt to land convicts at the Cape. My Afrikaans was appalling then, so besides the name ‘Neptune’, I remember nothing about the book! More recently I seem to remember someone talking at the Cape Town Family History Society (CTFHS) meeting about Sir Robert Stanford who had supported the ‘Neptune’ by providing fresh produce for the feeding of the convicts (and crew) which the British government were hoping to disembark in the Cape Colony.
Once again, some questions arose in my mind. Never mind the story of the Neptune (I will deal with that below), I was curious why the British Government were trying make the Cape a penal colony? I found a fascinating doctoral thesis by John Marincowitz submitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London in 1985. His thesis looked at labour and production in the rural areas of the Cape Colony, particularly the wheat growing region, in the 19th Century. His opening chapter tells of the growing tensions between ex-slaves who sought to reduce their dependency on farm wages and the farmers who sought measures to ensure they remained as wage-labourers (or as Dr Marincowitz, using Marxist terminology, called them ‘proletarianization of the ex-slaves’)2 This tension culminated in the years 1848 to 1853 when the Colony hovered on the brink of civil war.
The Need for Convict Labour at the Cape? Many of the town-dwelling merchants such as John Bardwell Ebden, were keen that British labourers should be encouraged to come to the Cape. Most Farmer saw these as being too expensive to pay when compared to ‘the cheaper and more malleable’ black labourers. Some attempts were made by the Cape Legislative Council to have aided immigration from the UK. Esme Bull lists in the appendices of her book, Aided Immigration from Britain to South Africa: 1857-67, those who came under this initial scheme between 1848 and 1851.
Sir Harry Smith proposed to the British parliament that British labourers be imported to the Cape but the British Parliament changed ‘labourer’ to ‘convicts.’ This created an uproar at the Cape with a large number of objections from people across a wide spectrum. They thought a large number of criminals would create instability as the rural areas had few policemen. As Marincowitz puts it so succinctly ‘Employers at the Cape did not want convicts: they wanted labourers; in the mind of the British ruling class there was little distinction.’3 It turned out that the prisoners that were planned to be sent to the Cape were not common criminals or as Earl Grey said: ‘not the refuse of English gaols’4 but political offenders mainly from Ireland many of whom had risen up against the English landowners as a result of the potato famine. Being political offenders rather than common criminal didn’t help to change attitudes at the Cape. The Cape had experienced two politically active Irish seamen, James Hooper and Michael Kelly, together with the slave Louis from Mauritius and Muslim slave Abraham van die Kaap who had fermented a protest march of slaves in Cape Town in 1808.
But it wasn’t just the labour shortage that led to convicts being sent to the Cape. Magistrates in the Ireland were sentencing more and more people to be transported. In 1846 six hundred and ninety-seven offenders had been transported but two years later in 1848 the number had risen to two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three. As Lord Grey told parliament: ‘the parishes throw their burden on the counties, the counties upon the nation and the nation is forging schemes to throw it upon the colonies’.5
Thus, the Neptune filled with 282 prisoners6 and 55 crew was ‘throw upon the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope’. She arrived in Simon’s Bay on 19 Sep 1849.
Even before it arrived at the Cape a mass meeting was held on the 5 Apr 1849 where a crowd of 5,000 formed the Anti-Convict League. The League was headed by John Bardwell Ebden, Hamilton Ross, Hercules C. Jarvis, H. E. Rutherford and Dr. James Adamson, all well-known settlers at the Cape. They launched a vigorous campaign to boycott supplying the ship or dealings with any of the convicts that might be landed. A large number of people in the Colony signed in agreement. However, there were a few local businessmen who did not sign and they supplied the ship with provisions while it waited for a total of five months in Simon’s Bay. These few who had not signed the petition found that local shops would not serve them and they could buy no foodstuffs for themselves.
A Thomas Bowler water-colour of the protest meeting. It must have been a windy, wintery day. The orange arrow points to the smoke from the smoke-stack going horizontally towards the S.E. It must have been a gale-force North-Wester as the blue arrow shows the driving rain. Yet there was still a massive crowd.
Among these people was Robert Stanford – more about him below. A brief search for him on Google produced a few Irish sites who praise this Irish-born man for his humanitarian support of the convicts and crew of the Neptune by selling produce to the ship. Stanford was later awarded a knighthood, by the same British government who had arrested those Irishmen on the Neptune for fighting for their political freedom, so was it not as a support of the Irish independence struggle that Stanford supported the Neptune. I also found a history of the Neptune crisis on a wine estate website. This wine estate is on the estate, Kleinrivier Valley which was the estate originally owned by Robert Stanford. On their website is an interesting comment:‘…the colonists believed [those on board the Neptune] to be convicts and would not stand for this and declared that anyone associated with the ship or its occupants would no longer be supplied with any provisions or services. Thus, when the “convict” ship Neptune arrived its passengers, who were ordinary Irish men, were kept at sea for five months.’
This statement opens up some interesting ethical discussion points. Firstly, two things needed to confirmed. Were all the convicts Irish and secondly, can they be called ‘ordinary Irish men’?
The Australian website https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/neptune/1849 lists by the name all those who were on the Neptune off Simon’s Town and later sent on to Van Diemen’s Land. It lists where the people were convicted. This shows that of the 306 passengers or convicts, 46 were convicted in English, Welsh and Scottish courts as well as 9 military personnel convicted by Court Martial in such diverse places as Malta, Athlone, Barbados, Belfast Barracks, Gibraltar, Salford Barracks, and St Johns Newfoundland. Some of these (Athlone and Belfast Barracks perhaps) might have an Irish connection but certainly the majority of the forty-six people were convicted for criminal activity. There were 192 Irish ‘convicts’ many of whom had turned to crime because of the infamous ‘Great Potato Famine’ of 1848.7 André Morkel summarises the situation very well when he wrote on the Morkel family website:
In April 1849 the Privy Council in London decided to make the Cape Colony another convict settlement, similar to those in Australia. The third Earl Grey, Colonial Secretary, intended to send a special class of convicts to the Cape. They were Irish peasants who had been driven to crime ((My emphasis)) by the famine of 1845. They were also towards the end of their sentences and the idea was that they could obtain a ‘conditional pardon’ to settle as ‘free exiles’ at the Cape, provided they did not return to Ireland, England or Scotland. Earl Grey sent a letter to the Governor at the Cape asking to ascertain the feelings of the colonists regarding this special category of convicts. Due to a misunderstanding, the Neptune arrived unannounced before the sailing vessel with Grey’s letter landed at the Cape. The ship also had the famous Irish rebel and activist, John Mitchel on board. In his book, Jail Journal, Mitchel is eloquent and scathing about the treatment of the Irish and the transportation system.
Although one can sympathise with these Irish men who, through hunger, turned to crime but they were still arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced for transportation as convicts.
One of the convicts transported on the Neptune was Michael Morton (Moreton on the list of convicts). His Australian descendants have written a short history of the Moreton family. Two brothers – John who had been transported earlier for an attempted assassination of Theophilus Roe 8 and Michael who had stolen a cow. The writers of the story suggested that many cow-stealers were given a short sentence but maybe Michael Moreton was hoping to join his brother in Van Dieman’s Land. Perhaps at the trial, the judge passed a harsh sentence because of Michael’s brother, John Morton’s connection to the Young Irelanders protest group. However, to call the people onboard the Neptune, ‘ordinary Irish men’ is, I think, stretching it a bit.
Sir Robert Stanford
Stanford originally supported the blockade of the Neptune but he finally relented to a plea from the government at the Cape, after a visit from the Derry-born Attorney-General, William Porter, to offer assistance. This, Stanford believed, would bring “timely assistance” and thus “open rebellion and civil war would be averted”. He was given the option of providing supplies or a state of martial law would be declared and the provisions would be taken by force. Duty-bound to comply, Stanford complied with the Governor’s request but was not seen as a hero in the eyes of the colonists. They regarded his actions as treason and ostracised Stanford and his whole family. Stanford and others who provided help were persecuted, banks refused to do business with them, their children were expelled from school and the servants left their farms. The persecutions continued even when Stanford’s youngest daughter fell ill and the doctor refused to even see her, let alone treat her. Tragically this resulted in her death. Desperate, Robert Stanford travelled to England to plead his case and ask for compensation for his losses. His plea resulted in him being knighted and he received £5,000 for his return to the Cape. Upon his arrival, he discovered his farms were in ruins and had been stripped, some even sold by the people he left in charge. His farm Kleine Riviers Valley was sold for a pittance to a Phillipus de Bruyn at auction. Reduced to poverty and defeated by life, Sir Robert Stanford returned to England, where he passed away in Manchester at the age of 70. On 30 September 1857, De Bruyn sold the first plot of the new village he decided to call Stanford.
By February 1850, Earl Grey realised a resolution could not be reached and he ordered that the Neptune continue on its voyage to Van Dieman’s Land (the name used by Europeans for the island that was renamed Tasmania, in 1856). In London, Lord Adderley pleaded the Cape Colony’s case and this led to the Imperial Government changing their mind and the Neptune was sent on its way to Tasmania. In gratitude, the main street of Cape Town, Heerengracht, was renamed Adderley Street.
In his memoir (later published as Jail Journal) John Mitchel wryly remarked about the stand-off in Cape Town: “So the contest is over, and the colonists may now proceed about their peaceful business. Long may they sleep in peace without bolt or lock on their hospitable doors!”9
One of the good things to come out of this event was that the British Parliament asked the governor, Sir Harry Smith, to report whether the Cape was ready for self-government. This was granted in 1854 with a liberal constitution.
James Moyes Deas M.D The medical officer on the Neptune was the Royal Navy surgeon, Dr James Moyes Deas. He died 29 Sep 1849 at the Naval Hospital, Simon’s Town and was buried 1 Oct 1849 in the old Seaforth Cemetery. His age in the burial register is given as 35 years but on the tombstone in the Seaforth Cemetery it states 37 and this matches his Baptism record. An Ancestry online family tree has a comment next to his death:
Surgeon, RN. He was the surgeon on board the Convict Ship, Neptune, which was prevented from docking in Simon’s Town due to protest. The stress of the situation led to his having what appears to have been a “nervous reaction”, which led to his death.[2]
James Moyes Deas Grave in the old Seaforth Cemetery, Simon’s Town
The source for this entry in the online family tree was the Royal Naval Officers Service Index which states only his name and appointment date to the Neptune as 16 Jan 1849. No mention is made of his death or “nervous reaction” in this record. The Neptune had arrived in Simon’s Bay on 19 Sep 1849 and within ten days Dr Deas had died.
James Moyes Deas was born on 11 Nov 1811 in Falkland Parish, Fifeshire where he was baptised on 16 Nov 1811. His parents were Francis Deas and Margaret born Moyes. James’s father, Francis Deas was Provost[3] of Falkland. His mother Margaret Moyes had connections with slave-owning Moyes family from The Hermitage, St Elizabeth, Jamaica, a coffee plantation and they were paid compensation after the emancipation of slaves.
James Moyes Deas had two brothers who appear in the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography. They are Sir George Deas (Lord Deas) 1804-1887 who was a judge, and Sir David Deas (1807-1877) who, like his brother James, was a Naval Surgeon. He fought in the Crimea War and was awarded a knight hood. Sir David Deas had gone to Edinburgh High School and trained as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh, so probably this was the same route James Moyes Deas took as well.
The Naval part of the cemetery is well looked after as this falls under the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The eGGSA database of cemeteries has 211 names of persons buried there. The Dutch Reformed section was where many Boer Prisoner-of-War who died in the two camps at Simon’s Town were buried. Besides the individual graves there are numerous monuments and memorials to sailors who died at sea or while on patrol up and down the African coast while their ships were based at Simon’s Town
The Colonial Chaplain Rev Canon Edward (Conduitt) Judge, MA. Bishop Gray called for a Synod to establish a Church of the Province of South Africa. In the eyes of the courts this was seen to be a church separate from the Church of England. This caused much dissent and schism. In 1861 St Francis, Simon’s Town representatives attended the Synod and joined the Church of the Province of South Africa. However, as it can be seen, the priest at St Francis continued to sign the register as ‘Colonial Chaplain’. This seemed to continue right until the 1890s. It would be interesting to know when the Cape Government ceased to pay Colonial Chaplains. Was the continued use of the title by priests a protest against Gray or merely habit they failed to stop?
The Rev Edward Judge
The Rev Edward Judge
Born: London in 1801, the son of Joseph Judge, of the London Custom House.
Educated: St Paul’s, London; and at Gonville and Caius (admitted pensioner, 12 January 1820), and Trinity (migrated, 11 May 1820; matriculated, Michaelmas 1820; Scholar, 1823; BA, 1824; MA, 1825) Colleges, Cambridge.
Ordained: Deacon, 7 November 1824, by the Bishop of Ely for the Bishop of London, and Priest, in the Reformed Church, Cape Town on 9 September 1832, by the Bishop of Calcutta, the Rt. Revd Daniel Wilson, under special commission for the Bishop of London. (One of the first two Anglican priests ever ordained in Africa.)
Career: Arrived at the Cape, 2 May 1825. Committee member, South African Infirmary Fund, and the Philanthropic Society for aiding deserving slaves and slave children to purchase their freedom (established 1828). Professor of Classics, South African College, 1829-1830. Resigned from the South African College “in consequence of a resolution of the Council not to allow religious instruction”, August 1830. Founded his own private grammar school in Cape Town, 1830.
Provisional Chaplain of Wynberg (1832-1834);
Colonial Chaplain of Rondebosch (1834-1840);
Colonial Chaplain of Simon’s Town (1840-1874), all in Cape Colony.
Priest-in-charge (later Rector) of St. Frances’, Simon’s Town (licensed by the Bishop, the Rt. Revd Robert Gray, 2 August 1848; served until 1874), and Canon of St. George’s Cathedral (1852-1875), both in the diocese of Cape Town.
Fell ill, May 1852, and sailed for England on leave, June, 1852, returning to the Cape in November 1853. Attended the first synod of the diocese of Cape Town, January 1857.
Died: Simon’s Town, on 6 January 1875.“His history is written in the hearts of many and many a Cape family. What the present great educational enthusiasm of the Cape owes to him it might be hard to apportion exactly, but we are inclined to call him ‘the Alfred’ of it. At all events, with that calm, quiet resolution so characteristic of him, he strove hard to give to the Cape boys of nearly fifty years ago the same refined and liberal education which he had received and so highly prized himself. His sweet temper, sportive humour, never failed him to the end” (The Cape Argus, quoted in The Church News).
CONCLUSION A chance spotting of ‘Convict ship, Neptune’ in the burial register of the parish of St Francis Simon’s Town resulted in further research into the area of labour shortage at the Cape in 1840s; the attempt by the Colonial Secretary and the British parliament to make the Cape Colony a penal settlement; the varied response of the people at the Cape; the death of the medical officer or surgeon on board the Neptune and his family, and a brief look at the Rev Edward Judge, the Colonial Chaplain. This research has opened a desire in me to visit the Seaforth Cemetery again (last I visited it was in 1970s) as well as a huge growth in and respect for the people of the Cape in the 1840s and 1850s.
A. Convict Ship Neptune B. Dr Deas himself C. Date of Death – Comparison between date of death and date of burial and why Neptune still in Simon’s Bay? D. Colonial Chaplain. [↩]
John Marincowitz, Rural Production and Labour in the Western Cape, 1838 to 1888, With Special Reference to the Wheat Growing Districts. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis SOAS, University of London, 1985 quote from the Abstract. [↩]
There is some variance in the numbers found at different websites. An Australia convict site lists 306 ‘passengers’ https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/neptune/1849. However, The Irish Times says 18 died at sea before arriving at the Cape [↩]
All the nice girls love a sailor! So goes the old song and we all hear about sailors having a girl in every port. This became very real to me when I researched a marriage in Simon’s Town for an overseas client. With the fascinating information I gathered I did a presentation at the Cape Town Family History Society in January 2020, just before lock-down. As the CTFHS is now using ZOOM for its meetings, I thought I might as well make a video of that January 2020 talk. So here it is https://youtu.be/AaloL9b8niM
My mother had a Kate Greenaway Birthday Book with a fancy green suede cover. It was a birthday gift from Elsebeth TAIT in 1921 when my mother was 6 years old. In the book are seventy three names written up next to their birthdays. She must started filling in her friends’ birthdays quite early on and some handwriting is very ‘youthful’ but she kept it going and I can see her hand writing change to what I remember it as an adult. My sister also added a few names I noticed! Obviously no birth year is given and in many occasions the name is merely ‘Mrs Robertson’ or ‘Auntie Olga’ or just initials like ‘S. M. Stuart’ which makes it hard to find out who these people were and how they fitted into my mother’s life. some have “R.U.C.” behind them which means she knew them at Rhodes University or ‘Rhodes University College’ as it was know when she attended it in 1931-1934. I’m going to list all the names and their birthdays. If anyone recognises them as their ancestors do add a comment or contact me via email and we can compare notes.
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
Baines, Thomas. The Gold Regions of Eastern Southern Africa. Port Elizabeth: J. W. C. MacKay, 1877
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
The SA Archaeological Society, W. Cape Branch. Tombstones & Transcripts: St Paul’s, Rondebosch 19th Century Churchyard. Plumstead: My Shelf Publishing, 2007.
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:
‘Copy of an Old Plan of St. Paul’s Churchyard’, St. Paul’s Record, June 1928 and September 1928 (see appendix).
Supplementary ‘List of Names’, St. Paul’s Record, September 1928.
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.
Margaret Cairns, ‘St. Paul’s Churchyard, Rondebosch’, Familia no. 3 of 1978 (Journal of the Genealogical Society of South Africa).
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.
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.
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.
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. [↩]
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 [↩]
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. [↩]
A Book of Common Prayer Authorised for use in South Africa (OUP & SPCK: Cape Town, 1954) The Marriage Ceremony, p140. [↩]
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. [↩]
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. [↩]
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). [↩]
From table and bed, but more commonly translated as “from bed and board.” [↩]
