found it and transcribed it, and it was published by the Van Riebeeck Society in two volumes, in 1946 and 1949. Many of Goldswain’s descendants bought a copy but it was read mainly by historians, who found it one of the most important documents to come out of the Eastern Cape. There is a problem with it, however: it is difficult to read. Goldswain’s spelling is sometimes so far from conventional that it is time-consuming to try to decipher the text as one is trying to read, skimming one’s eye along the line. His writing also lacks any form of punctuation – in fact, the hundred thousand or so words form one continuous ‘sentence’, which makes reading it a formidable chore.
I recently transcribed Goldswain’s memoirs word for word, correcting the spelling, punctuating the text, and dividing it into chapters with headings. In the process, I discovered that, grammatically, it was near perfect, although written in the author’s rural Buckinghamshire dialect. What came across was what a wonderful writer he was – a natural storyteller, with variation in the speed with which he dealt with incidents, slowing down for emotional impact, for example, and selecting the most interesting items from his memories. His characterisation and, above all, his humour are a delight. There are no rhetorical flourishes and none of the writing conventions that characterise the educated writers of the time. It is possible that he intended his memoirs for his children and he often addresses the reader directly, using terms like ‘dear reader’. Historians rightly see it as an important account of a significant period in frontier history, but now it is an easy read as well.
The only pieces of female writing that I found apart from Sophia Pigot’s diary are two letters written by Anna Francis to her sister and a friend in Essex, complaining about her life on the frontier. Her writing is heartfelt and, in many ways, her experience can be seen as representative of the lives and feelings of the settler women in general. Francis is so miserable that her accounts are almost funny. That is not to put her down but merely a comment about the way she writes: it’s a lively, over-the-top description of the situation she finds herself in and how she feels about it. She has a beautifully authentic voice that reveals a feisty personality, although there is nothing funny about the experience itself.
I visited Albany recently and saw it through new eyes. Halfway through my work on this book, I sought out some of the places where the story is set. I had limited success, as much of the land has been taken over by holiday resorts and gated game parks, and the rest is mainly private farmland surrounded by fences and ditches. There are very few visible signs of the 4 000 settlers and what they created there.
Grahamstown is full of 1820 settler evidence, however, and there are a few sightseeing attractions around Bathurst. And although Salem is no longer a thriving village, the churches that Hezekiah Sephton’s party built there and their churchyards are lovingly cared for by a local preservation group. There are a few other churches in the open countryside, like the beautiful one built by the Nottingham party at Clumber, surreal in the way that it stands out of the wilderness like a giant wedding cake.
In spite of the limitations, I was thrilled by finds like the faint traces of wagon roads, particularly the main road that crossed the Bushman’s River at Jager’s Drift. I saw now-protected yellowwoods growing – the trees the settlers used to make furniture, and I was made aware of the distances they had to walk if they wanted to go to Grahamstown or Bathurst through terrain that would be difficult for the modern hiker. The highlight for me, though, was to be able to stand on the very spot where my ancestor was deposited and see the original burnt-out Dutch farmhouse that he had seen, realising for the first time what he had got himself into.
I have tried to use narratives that will transport modern readers back in time, right into the Albany of the early 1820s with the challenging climate, the fear and apprehension, the suffering, but also the excitement, the pleasures, the humour and the hope. As I read the words of those long-dead settlers I was taken there and I hope that readers of this book will be too.
Ralph Goldswain
2016
The arrival of the first settler ship, the Chapman, in Table Bay as reported by the Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser. Source: National Library of South Africa: Cape Town Campus
1 Oh Dreadful Seasickness!
Herman Melville, remembering his time as a crew member on transatlantic ships in the 1830s, remarked that after the first week at sea ‘when one put one’s head through the front hatch one could believe that one was placing one’s head into a suddenly opened cesspit’.
Before the 1820 settlers began their lives of extraordinary hardship on the frontier they had to first undergo a two- to three-month endurance test on the high seas. Their voyage turned out to be excellent training for the trials that were going to characterise their first half decade in their new country. Their odyssey, a voyage in twenty-one cramped, wooden vessels tossed about on a vast, lonely and violent ocean, was not easy for them. Disease and physical danger were common, and many settlers died and were buried at sea.
The emigrants were tightly packed on board the ships, with no more than a few square feet of space per person. However, as the British class system operated as powerfully on ships as it did everywhere else in the empire, the ladies and gentlemen – the party leaders and their families, and the gentry – enjoyed privileges that shielded them from the worst effects of sea travel. The rich had been able to commandeer disproportionate amounts of space on their ships, and gentlemen like Major George Pigot brought whatever they liked with them. They loaded sheep, horses – even pigs – and furniture, including pianos, onto their ships. One even brought a prefabricated house. And some, including Pigot, brought a carriage.
But, even so, they were generally subject to the same conditions on board the ships as everyone else. All the passengers suffered the consequences of overcrowding. There were no toilet facilities and little ventilation below deck, so sanitation was an issue. Conditions varied among the vessels, but a foul atmosphere, poor food and insufficient water were common to all of them. The ships pitched and creaked, and huge waves higher than the topmast broke over them; decks were awash, hatches were battened down, people were sick. It was a dismal experience for everyone.
Half a century after the arrival of the settlers at Algoa Bay, William Howard, who had by then completed a career as a respected schoolmaster in the Cape Colony, recalled his eventful voyage aboard the Ocean in one of his many lectures: ‘… small children sobbing or screaming … whilst bored older boys and girls argued or fought.’ Frustrated by the limitations the journey imposed on their activities, youngsters were often a source of great irritation to the adults, and some male passengers were heard to complain that the women did not do enough to keep their children quiet. But one can only pity those harassed mothers as they battled to control their offspring while feeling ill themselves and struggled to prepare meals or breastfeed infants in the cramped deck space, which worked out at about three square metres per person, inclusive of baggage room.
Several passengers made notes in their diaries, or wrote or talked publicly about the voyage during the years following their journeys. They had different interests and different focuses of attention but they all mention the seasickness that kept them and those around them in discomfort for much of the voyage.
Sophia Pigot was the fifteen-year-old daughter of George Pigot, gentleman farmer, ex-army officer and the illegitimate but recognised son of the 1st Baron Pigot, MP and distinguished colonial administrator. Despite the suffering, Sophia diarised in favourable terms her first impressions of her quarters on board the Northampton. Thanks to her father’s influence, his self-assured assumption of privilege and his ability to pay for extra privileges too, she and her sister, Catherine, had their own tiny cabin. ‘Tuesday 14th Dec. Very comfortable indeed,’ she wrote.
During the journey,
