Saul Solomon – Statesman, printer and newspaper proprietor. Born in St. Helena on the 25th May 1817, he was of Jewish parents, Joseph and Hannah Solomon, of Kent who joined Joseph’s brother Saul, who was the leading merchant in the then flourishing island of St. Helena. Saul Solomon died in Kilcreggan (Scotland) on the 16th October 1892.

Young Saul was sent to England in 1822 to be educated with his elder brother Henry, under the care of a Jewish schoolmaster. (In later life he joined the Congregational Church, but did not sever all ties with the Jewish faith.) When the South African College was inaugurated in Cape Town in 1829, Saul, who had returned from Europe, was sent to Cape Town to become one of the college’s first students, and he was the principal prizeman at the first public examination.

His parents’ circumstances obliging him to end his formal education in 1831, he was apprenticed to the bookseller and printer George Greig. Saul rose to a partnership and about 1847, with his brother Henry, who had also been employed by Greig, acquired the proprietorship of the firm, since then called Saul Solomon & Co. The brothers printed the Government Gazette and, from its foundation in 1857, the Cape Argus, of which Saul became owner in 1863. For many years he did the bulk of all printing work at the Cape.

Saul Solomon played a leading part in the commer­cial progress of the Colony and accelerated the move­ment for the construction of the Cape Town docks and breakwater. In his day he was reproached for having been chiefly instrumental in ‘originating the railways, the docks and the telegraphs’. He played a great part in the Anti-Convict Agitation of 1849 and was among the founders of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Company, the Cape of Good Hope Gas Company, the Cape of Good Hope Savings Bank, and the Equitable Fire Office.

In 1854 Solomon was elected to represent Cape Town in the first Cape parliament, and he remained the member for Cape Town for 28 years. He declared himself opposed to ‘all legislation tending to introduce distinctions either of class, colour or creed’. From the first he became a leading figure in the House of Assembly, although he was so short that he had to stand on a footstool when addressing Parliament. His trunk was of normal size, but his legs were distorted and very short, as a result of inadequate treatment for rheumatic fever, followed by rickets, when he was a child. He could walk, but had to be assisted when boarding a cab. In one of his rare public references to his disability he said he had `the aspirations and passions of a man in the frame of a child’.

Solomon played a major part in securing responsible government for the Colony and when in 1872 it was achieved he was invited to form the first ministry, but declined because his physical handicap would have precluded much traveling, which he regarded as essential for a prime minister.

As early as 1854 he expressed himself in favor of an ultimate federation in South Africa. His Voluntary Bill to abolish State aid to churches and thus to extend equality of treatment to all religious denominations, first introduced in 1854 and repeatedly rejected over many years, was carried in 1875. He assiduously opposed unjust treatment of Natives and successfully opposed the sepa­ratist movement that emanated from the Eastern Province. Although he never took office, he was said to have made and unmade ministries. In Parliament he was the bench-mate of ‘Onze Jan’ Hofmeyr and evidently influenced him. ‘I believe that it would have been hardly possible’ , wrote Anthony Trollope, ‘to pass any measure of importance through the Cape legislature to which Solomon offered a strenuous opposition’; and the historian Froude found Solomon to be ‘the one politician at the Cape who never had an object in view except what he believed to be right and just’. In 1883 he retired from Parliament on account of ill health, and in 1888 went to live at Bedford in England, later in a village on Clydeside. His personal letters were presented to the South African Library by his 92-year old daughter Daisy in December 1972.

When Saul Solomon was 56 years of age, he married the 29-year-old Georgiana Margaret Thomson from Abbotsford, Scotland, who had taught in Liverpool until she was persuaded, in 1873, by Dr. Charles Murray of Edinburgh to accept the post of principal of the newly founded Good Hope Seminary in Cape Town. She married Solomon the next year. A highly intelligent woman, she was a fine public speaker and after her husband’s death, took part in the women’s suffrage movement in England and, with her youngest daughter, was rewarded with a month in Holloway prison.
The plight of Boer families ruined by the war in South Africa brought her back to further the interests of Boer women and children in the Transvaal in 1904. She wrote eloquent articles ap­pealing for funds and founded the Suid-Afrikaanse Vrouefederasie, which is still in existence. Mrs. Solomon died at Eastbourne on 24 June 1933. Of the Solomons’ five children, Margaret (Maggie) was drowned at the age of five; George died as a child; Saul became a judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court; W. E. Gladstone, who entered the Indian civil service, became a Cape landscape and portrait painter and wrote his father’s biography; and Daisy Dorothea, who did not marry, played a prominent part in women’s organisations in England.

P113L. W.E.G. Solomon: Saul Solomon, the member for Cape Town (1948); John Noble: South Africa past and present (1877); R.W. Murray: South African reminiscences (1904); P.A. Molteno: The life and times of Sir John Charles Molteno (1900); Ralph Kilpin: The romance of a colonial parliament (1930).

Source: SESA (Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa) Electronic Copyright Ancestry24

The story of Saul Solomon

Born on the Island of St Helena, 25 May 1817 and died in Kilcreggan, Scotland, 16 October 1892, printer, newspaper proprietor and Cape parliamentary leader, Saul was the second son of Joseph Solomon, a member of a Jewish family living in Kent, England. Joseph’s elder brother had established himself on the flourishing island of St Helena, where he became the leading merchant, high sheriff, and consul for France and Holland. There his brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, and subsequently his sister’s son, Nathaniel Isaacs, joined him. Joseph was married on the island to Hannah Moss, to whom he had been engaged in England. His two elder sons, Henry and Saul, were sent, at the ages of five and four respectively, to their grandmother in England, where they were initiated into the covenant of Abraham by the chief rabbi, Dr Solomon Herschell, and taught by an orthodox schoolmaster in Ramsgate.

When they returned to their parents on St Helena it was found that both boys had been suffering from ill-health and, as a consequence, it is supposed, of defective treatment, their lower limbs had ceased to grow. Both were dwarfed, and Saul remained so short that throughout his parliamentary career he was obliged to stand on a stool when he addressed the house. His torso was normal, however, and his head massive and high-domed.

On St Helena the two boys attended the English East India company’s school, but family tradition has it that in 1829 Saul was sent to Cape Town and enrolled in the newly established South African college. His name does not appear, however, in the official examination lists until 1831. In that year the family settled in Cape Town, and circumstances obliged Saul’s parents to end his formal education.

He was apprenticed to George Greig, printer and bookseller, his brother Henry becoming Greig’s bookkeeper. On 7 September 1834 Greig sponsored Henry’s baptism at St George’s (Anglican) church, but there is no record of Saul’s ever having been baptized. Saul and Henry, as well as their brothers and sisters, were influenced by the Rev. Dr John Philip and afterwards became members of the Congregational Church. There is evidence that Saul’s sympathy with the religion of his fathers was not altogether alienated; for in 1849 he subscribed to the fund for establishing the first synagogue at the Cape and in 1856 he helped to bring from England the Rev. Joel Rabinowitz, a Jewish minister with whom he maintained an intimate friendship for over thirty years. These facts are not without significance in view of his persistent efforts, over a period of twenty years, to have the Cape parliament pass the so-called Voluntary bill.

Saul rose rapidly in Greig’s printing business, in time becoming manager and subsequently acquiring a partnership in the firm. In 1847 he and Henry took over the business, which became Saul Solomon & Co. They printed the Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette, and from its foundation in 1857 by Darnell and Murray, the Cape Argus, as well as their own commercial paper, the Cape Mercantile Advertiser. In 1863 Saul became the proprietor of the Cape Argus and directed its policy forthwith. By that time he had become a public figure and a power in the Cape parliament.

When, in 1854, the Cape Colony was granted representative government, Saul was elected a member of the first legislative assembly, being one of the members for Cape Town. This he continued to be for the next twenty-eight years, consistently adhering to those principles which he had laid down as his political creed in his reply to the original requisition inviting him to stand in the first election. He announced himself ‘a liberal in politics and a Voluntary in religion’, and wrote: ‘I shall consider it a sacred duty to give my decided opposition to all legislation tending to introduce distinctions either of class, colour or creed’.

From the first he became a prominent figure in the assembly. He was the leader of the ‘Westerners’, successfully resisting a demand for the ‘separation’ of the eastern from the western Cape. When, in 1864, parliament met (for the only time) at Grahamstown, he defended the representative constitution, moving a series of resolutions (which were unanimously carried), protesting against the arbitrary action of the imperial government and censuring the governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse. Saul. played a prominent part, equally with William Porter and John Charles Molteno, in securing responsible government for the colony, and when, in 1872, it was achieved, these three were in turn invited to form the first ministry. Porter’s ill-health precluded him from taking office and Saul declined to form a ministry in the absence of Porter.

According to his son and biographer, his motive for refusal was his difficulty, physically handicapped as he was, in freely travelling about the country in the primitive conditions of those days. He held that a prime minister, in particular, should be known to the people and acquainted with every part of the country. But he declined also the office of speaker. In fact, he preferred the freedom of an independent member, able to advance or attack any policy according to his principles. His influence in parliament was none the less for his refusal to take office.

Throughout the years of Molteno’s ministry Saul lent his powerful support to the government on many occasions. ‘I believe’, wrote the visiting English novelist Anthony Trollope in 1878, ‘that it would have been nearly impossible to pass any measure of importance through the Cape Legislature to which he offered a strenuous opposition’. His Voluntary bill, to abolish state aid to churches and thus extend equality of treatment to all religious denominations, was introduced in the first parliament in 1854. It was rejected, and came up year after year, until it was eventually passed in 1875.

From his youth Saul had been stigmatized by his opponents as a ‘negrophile’, but he bore the pejorative description like a badge of honour and determinedly opposed any legislation that might result in what he held to be unjust treatment of the natives of the country. A measure carried through in the face of strong opposition was his bill for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases act in 1872, a valuable social reform. He was also an early and ardent advocate of a South African federation, seeing in the future a United States of South Africa. Ever an assiduous reader of blue-books and ready with precise information, with facts and figures and relevant evidence to back up his arguments, Saul was a clear, fluent and persuasive speaker.

Outside parliament he was active in the initiation and support of numerous enterprises for the economic welfare of the rapidly developing colony and the mother city that he represented. As an original member of the Table Bay harbour board, and through the powerful advocacy of his newspaper, the Cape Argus, he accelerated the early construction of the docks and the breakwater in Table bay. He was a founder and the chairman of the Mutual Life Assurance company, of the Inland Transport company (originated by himself about 1870 for conveying goods and passengers to the diamond-fields), a director of the Cape of Good Hope Gas company and of the Cape of Good Hope Savings Bank society. In addition to his commercial undertakings he was a member of the committee of the S.A.P.L.; a distinguished alumnus of the South African college, he donated prizes to it annually, and for nine years served on the college council.

In 1874 he married Georgina Margaret Thomson, the first principal of the Good Hope seminary, who survived him until 1933. Of the children, notable are Saul Solomon (1875-1960), judge of the supreme court, Daisy Dorothea Solomon, a leader in women’s social and political organizations in England, and W. E. Gladstone Solomon (1880-1965), painter, writer on Indian art and principal of the Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay.

In 1883 failing health obliged Saul to retire from public life and go to England; he returned to the Cape in 1885 ‘greatly improved in health and spirits’, only to find that his business, which had been left in the hands of two relatives, had been ill-managed and was on the verge of bankruptcy. His intensive attempts to rehabilitate his firm led to a further breakdown in health. Suffering from stone in the bladder, a painful malady from which he never recovered, he embarked for England with his family in 1888. Four years later he died in the Clydeside village of Kilcreggan, where his family had taken a villa.

In the houses of parliament, Cape Town, there is a portrait in oils by W. H. Schröder and also a sculptured bust presented by his widow and unveiled in 1894. The Africana museum, Johannesburg, has a pencil sketch by W. A. Watton (1877) and there is a portrait in the album collection of the S.A.P.L.

Source: Dictionary of South African Biography

Images: National Archives of South Africa

First Bishop of Cape Townby E. Hermitage Day London: SPCK, 1930. 32 pp.

A few days before the Christmas of 1848 a travelling-waggon drew up before the inn at Stellenbosch, thirty miles from Cape Town. Its body was dented and roughly patched, its wheels tied up with ropes; the baggage which it contained was worn into holes. From it there stepped a clergyman in a battered hat and rent boots. The first Bishop of Cape Town had returned from the first Visitation of his diocese. It had been a new experience for an Anglican bishop to swim rivers, to put his shoulders to the waggon-wheel, to pitch tents and hew wood and groom the horses. About that time an English writer had pointed the contrast between the Roman Catholic Dr. Griffiths, Vicar Apostolic of the London district, and the Anglican bishops of that day: “A very pleasing, venerable, episcopal-looking man, very like any other bishop save that none of ours would touch a carpet-bag with his little finger.” But Robert Gray was a founder of a new tradition of episcopal life and work. With the old tradition he was perfectly familiar; he had gone up to Oxford in the year that his father was consecrated to the See of Bristol. The Bishop of Bristol was a man of character and courage; he had gone calmly to service in the cathedral while the rioters of 1831 were in possession of the city, and a few hours later his palace was burned to the ground. Throughout his life Robert Gray showed an equal calmness and courage, and he had continual need of it.

His youth and early manhood were gravely hampered by ill-health. But he was an unwearying student, and though he could take no honours at Oxford, he learned much there and from continental travel. He was ordained in 1833, and in the following year became vicar of Whitworth, co. Durham, spending himself unreservedly on a difficult and scattered parish, yet finding time for eight hours a day of reading and writing. The rise of the Oxford Movement, and the publication of the “Tracts for the Times,” confirmed him in the theological and historical position at which he had arrived independently, and in the ideals of parochial work which he had set before himself.

In 1845 he was collated by the Bishop of Durham, who had formed a high opinion of Mr. Gray’s work, to the vicarage of Stockton-on-Tees, and to an honorary canonry in the cathedral church. Eighteen months later he was offered the See of Cape Town, one of those which the munificence of Miss (afterwards Baroness) Burdett-Coutts had founded. He had already done good service for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; the missionary spirit was strong within him; and he replied to the Archbishop of Canterbury that to decline the offer would seem to him a shrinking from the call of God, and that he readily and cheerfully placed himself at the disposal of the Church. He was consecrated on St. Peter’s Day, 1847, together with the first Bishops of Melbourne (Perry), Adelaide (Short), and Newcastle, N.S.W. (Tyrrell). Months of arduous work on behalf of the new diocese preceded his sailing at the end of the year.

There had been a suggestion that the new see should be placed at Grahamstown, where the English population was relatively stronger. In Cape Town the feeble congregations of the English Church were nominally under the oversight of the Bishop of Calcutta, and successive prelates had landed on their way to India to perform a few episcopal acts. The few clergymen of the Colony were colonial chaplains; none of them lived in Cape Town. The Church of St. George, Cape Town, had been built under the authority of an Ordinance, by shareholders of whom some were Jews and others atheists; its foundation-stone | had been laid with no more than Masonic ceremonial; those who rented its pews heard from its pulpit denunciations of the doctrines of the Church. Churchmen were far outnumbered by the Dutch Reformed Church, and by contending sects representing several divisions of English and Scottish Protestantism. The Bishop was undismayed. He began at once to plan for the future.

Robert Gray was then but thirty-nine. But on the young shoulders was an old head. The letters written during the first six months in South Africa show how quickly and surely he mastered the facts, the conditions, the problems of the work that lay before him. They would have daunted at the outset any man of less courage and faith. The diocese stretched for six hundred miles from west to east; it was necessary to organize the whole work from one corner of the vast area. There was then, and for fifteen years afterwards, not a mile of railway track in the Colony; the roads were mere tracks, possible only to horses and slowly moving ox-waggons. Over the 277,000 square miles of territory were dotted isolated families and little groups of Churchpeople, whom the Church had almost wholly neglected. Many of them had clung to the tradition of Churchmanship in spite of every discouragement; no sooner had the Bishop arrived than he began to receive piteous appeals for priests, and promises to build little churches and schools if only they could be served. The Bishop reckoned that fifty priests would be none too many to meet the most pressing needs; he had but seventeen, few of them his own choice, some unsatisfactory. In Kaffraria there were more than five thousand troops without a single chaplain; in Natal eight hundred settlers with no clergyman within two hundred miles of them. Beyond the scattered Churchpeople, who were the first care, lay an almost untouched mission-field. In and about Cape Town was a great number of Mohammedans, in part the descendants of the Malays whom the Dutch had brought from their East Indian Colonies, in part liberated African slaves; and even settlers were found to be lapsing to Islam. Large groups of coloured people, Eurafricans of mixed race, were found in and about the towns and villages. The native tribes, as yet unsubdued by arms, and constituting a continual menace to the more distant parts of the Colony, had only been touched here and there by Christian missionaries, Moravian, Rhenish, Wesleyan, and French; and of these some had lost their first zeal and become little more than traders, grown rich by trafficking with the natives.

So much of the problem the Bishop had realized before he set out on his first Visitation. Everything relating to religion, he said, whether in the Church or out of it, was in confusion and disorder. There were encouragements in face of all difficulties. The Bishop found the Government well disposed to his work, and willing to make considerable grants to it. He bought for his residence the old estate of Protea, of three hundred acres, five miles from the centre of Cape Town, and his successors in the see have had good reason to admire his foresight. Protea, soon to be renamed Bishopscourt, had been the farm of van Riebeek, the first Dutch Governor of the Cape. It lies on a lower slope of Table Mountain, deep in woodland, watered by a stream, surrounded now by one of the most beautiful gardens in all South Africa. Here, in the roomy old house, the Bishop found occasional quiet for himself and room for the many visitors who came and went on the business of the diocese. Here, in the first months of his residence, he was already training men for Holy Orders; the old slave-quarters became a school. Here the first plans were made for missions to the Mohammedans and the heathen, for educational foundations, for the planting of clergy at strategic points, for the raising of St. George’s Church, now become the cathedral, from its low estate.

The first winter was coming to its end when the Bishop set out on his first Visitation. His Journal records from point to point of the five months’ trek the discovery of little groups of English Churchpeople, of kindly English hosts in lonely homesteads where services could be held, and Communion given, and Baptism and Confirmation administered. At Port Elizabeth, after travelling nine hundred miles, he found the first English church he had seen since leaving Cape Town. There were little schools to be visited, and sites to be chosen for churches, for which Mrs. Gray at Protea was making plans and working-drawings, with a skill which we can admire even today. Everywhere the Bishop found a welcome from some who rejoiced that at long last they had the oversight of a Father in God.

Yet there are sad things also set down in the Journal or recorded in private letters home. The colonial chaplains were without pastoral or missionary zeal; “they have no opportunities of seeing one another, and stirring up one another to their duties, and sink in consequence into dull, apathetic officials.” There were not a few quarrels to be composed; and everywhere the Bishop saw the grievous consequences of long neglect, in the lapsing of Churchpeople to the sects or to indifference. Yet, wearied though he was with rough travel and coarse fare, weighed down with anxiety about the financing of so great a work as the organization of the diocese promised to be, the Bishop could write with great cheerfulness, and thank God for the consolations of the journey. If in one place he found a lady who said that in thirty-eight years she had seen no minister of her own Church, he found there also a little congregation of Church-people who had met every Sunday to read the Church service together; without ministry and without sacraments they had yet maintained the spirit of common worship.

The Bishop reached home just before Christmas. He had travelled three thousand miles, confirmed nine hundred persons, and ordained one or two to the sacred ministry. He had judged for himself the greatness of the task, and with an equal courage had planned the doing of it. He trusted the Church at home to see that he was not left without men and means to meet the expectations and hopes his visit had everywhere aroused.

That toilsome journey was but the first of many; visitation succeeded visitation at short intervals. St. Helena lay then within the Diocese of Cape Town, and he had to go there, to minister to a small flock, to compose quarrels, to do something for the thousands of liberated slaves landed on the island. It was something that on his frequent voyages to England he was able to get time for reading and thought, for in South Africa his time was continuously occupied with urgent affairs. The shaping of the diocese was a tremendous task. He wanted men, but not always the men whom the Colonial Office, or even the Church in England, was anxious to send out to him. “There can be no greater mistake,” he writes, ” than to suppose that inferior men will do for this Colony. The clergy are, and will continue to be, one hundred to two hundred miles from each other, and must be such as can be left to act alone, and be fair representatives of the English Church in the presence of very respectable Dutch ministers.” He found that for want of such men laymen of education and intelligence were everywhere resorting to the ministrations of the Dutch Reformed Church and Wesleyans and Independents. Cares of all kinds, temporal and spiritual, crowded in upon him, for there were few to whom he could delegate even the simpler parts of his work. He looked back to the quiet pastoral work of a parish priest in England as the happiest lot on earth.

Almost every letter of that time speaks of the all but overwhelming weight of anxiety and work, yet also of the confidence and perfect peace of the mind that is stayed on God. Troubles within the Church were matched by jealousies and suspicions without; almost every newspaper attacked the work of the awakening Church. Echoes of ecclesiastical strife in England reached South Africa, and encouraged little knots of malcontents. Anglo-Indians on holiday, members of strange sects, were busy in opposition, leaving trouble when they went back to India.

But another Visitation assured him of quiet progress and consolidation in distant parts of the diocese. Within two years the number of the clergy had increased from fourteen to forty-two, and some of them were men whom he had himself taught and ordained. He had found that Churchmen were far more in number than he had thought at first. More than twenty churches were being built. A collegiate school, destined to grow to great things, and today the leading public school in South Africa, was coming to the birth. In one respect the task might seem to be eased; the Bishop found men whom he could trust as his lieutenants, one by one. But the happy result of their work was a development which laid fresh burdens upon the Bishop.

In 1850 the Bishop was in Natal. A year before there had been no English clergyman to serve the needs of the large and increasing white immigrant population and of the hundred thousand Zulus lately added to the Colony, though there were foreign missionaries owning no allegiance to the Government and opposed on principle to the Church. The return to Cape Colony, over mountains pronounced to be all but impassable, was full of dangers, and through a land devastated by the Kaffir wars. The Bishop thought less of the perils than of the problem which his journey had disclosed, that of nearly a million heathen within the diocese whom the Church, alone among the twenty religious bodies in South Africa, had not begun to evangelize. In letter after letter he wrote with characteristic humility of his desire that “some really able man” should take his place, while he himself went into Natal to start mission-work there. He was oppressed with the sense of his own unfitness. Yet the bare record of fact shows that everywhere the Church within the Colony was in a far different state from that in which he had found it two years before; its whole work was being consolidated, organized, inspired with a new energy.

Already, within three years of its foundation, the diocese called for division. A visit to England secured the stipends, and on St. Andrew’s Day, 1853, John Armstrong and John William Colenso were consecrated to the new Sees of Grahamstown and Natal. The former, a man of apostolic faith and courage, was to die after less than three years of devoted work; the latter was grievously to disappoint Gray’s trust in him.

From the first the Bishop had planned the canonical organization of the Church in South Africa. All his action had been taken in a firm belief in the Church as the Body of Christ, spiritually independent of the State. The troubles of the Church in England had confirmed his belief and his resolve. He delayed before summoning a Synod of the diocese, for he had expected that the Imperial Parliament would pass some Act which would give legal effect and validity to the acts of such a Synod, but he had no doubt that without any such legislation its acts would have canonical force. In 1856 the Secretary of State for the Colonies had intimated to the Governor-General of Canada that the Government had abandoned the idea of any Imperial legislation which might seem to interfere with the legislature of Canada, and had expressed his conviction that the Church ought herself to proceed to make her own rules for the management of Church affairs, through representative bodies. The suggestion had already been acted upon in Canada, and the Bishop of Cape Town announced that he would summon a Synod. Its general principles had received the assent of the clergy and laity four years earlier The Synod was to determine nothing without the assent of the three orders; none but communicants could be delegates for the laity, all bona fide members of the Church having a voice in their election; the standards of faith and doctrine contained in the Prayer Book and Articles were to be regarded as outside the range of the Synod’s authority.

The Synod met in January, 1857. The interest, even the external opposition, which it aroused was proof of the new life stirring in the Church, which ten years before had been treated as if it had no real existence. There was free and intelligent debate on many subjects; and the Synod provided for ecclesiastical courts, the appointment of bishops and of parish priests, and the tenure of Church property. During a visit to England in the following year the Bishop gained from the Government the assurance that no difficulty would be raised about the consecration of missionary bishops for work beyond the British Dominions. That made possible the consecration in Cape Town Cathedral, on January 1, 1861, of Charles Frederick Mackenzie for work on the Zambesi, the beginning of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa.

But the Bishop was now faced by troubles of a new kind, beside that care of all the churches which came upon him daily. Five parishes in the diocese had resisted the holding of the Synod in 1857, refusing to send lay delegates. To a second Synod in 1861 the vicar of Mowbray again refused to come, or to give notice of it to his parishioners. He had been a colonial chaplain, in deacon’s orders, before the Bishop came to the Colony, but had been ordained priest by him, and had taken the oath of canonical obedience. He defended his attitude towards the Synod by alleging that those who had taken part in the Synod of 1857 had ” seceded from the English Church.” The Bishop saw that a principle was at stake, and that he must act. He held a Court, his five assessors were unanimous in thinking that contumacy should not go unpunished, and Mr. Long was suspended for three months, though–by the Bishop’s charity–without loss of stipend. Mr. Long applied to the Supreme Court for an interdict to restrain the Bishop from disturbing him in his church. The Bishop was his own counsel, defending his action so clearly and cogently that judgment was given in his favour. But Mr. Long appealed to the Privy Council, the judgment was upset, and Mr. Long was reinstated. In several particulars the judgment was contrary to fact; for example, the Court alleged that the assessors in the Bishop’s Court had been three clergymen chosen by himself and sharing his opinions; they were in fact five chosen by the Synod, and Mr. Long had been asked whether he objected to any of them. But time has amply vindicated the Bishop’s action. The judgment of the Privy Council, with many another affecting the Church, has passed into the limbo of things forgotten; synodical government has now for two generations assured to the Church in South Africa the freedom by which she lives.

But troubles far graver were to come. The actions and words of the Bishop of Natal had from the first been an anxiety; his “fine, generous, bold and noble character,” as Bishop Gray described it, had shown itself wanting in caution and judgment. By 1861 he had thrown over the Church’s doctrine of the priesthood and the sacraments, denying that Holy Communion con-veyed any gift which a Christian could not obtain for himself at any time. Recourse was had to the Church in England. The Provincial Synod of Canterbury condemned Colenso’s work on the Pentateuch as “involving errors of the gravest and most dangerous character.” The English and Irish bishops, with such colonial bishops as were then in England, were summoned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to a solemn conference. As a result, Colenso was inhibited from officiating in most of the English dioceses and forty-one bishops joined in calling upon him to resign his see, expressing their opinion that proceedings should be taken against him. It may be reasonably contended that since no proceedings had been taken, they seemed to prejudge the case. But their action at least showed that they would approve and support the Metropolitan of the South African Province in citing the Bishop of Natal before him.

Complicated questions arose as to the Letters Patent which gave Bishop Gray jurisdiction in the Colony, a jurisdiction disputed by Colenso. The Bishop of Cape Town fell back on his claim to spiritual jurisdiction as a Metropolitan, whatever the fate of the challenged Letters Patent might be. To safeguard his action he summoned all the members of his Provincial Synod to sit as his assessors in his Court, Court and Synod thus being made to consist of the same persons. The Bishop of Natal was charged with impugning the doctrines, amongst others, of Atonement, Justification, Regeneration, Inspiration of Holy Scripture, the grace of the Sacraments and the Hypostatic Union, and also with depraving the Book of Common Prayer. The Court found Colenso guilty of the charges; the Provincial Synod approved the judgment and sentence of the Metropolitan, and sentence of deprivation was pronounced. The Synod also decreed that if the Bishop of Natal should presume to act as a bishop within any part of the Province of Cape Town after his deprivation and before restoration, he would be ipso facto excommunicate, and that sentence of excommunication must be solemnly pronounced against him. The sentence was pronounced in December, 1865. Bishop Gray had throughout acted with so great a forbearance as even to incur criticism from his brethren in England. When the first Lambeth Conference met in 1867 fifty-five of the eighty bishops present declared their acceptance of the sentence pronounced on Dr. Colenso by the Metropolitan of South Africa and his suffragans as being spiritually a valid sentence.

The vacant diocese of Natal was filled by the consecration of W. K. Macrorie, with the title of Bishop of Pietermaritzburg. Colenso still maintained a tiny schism, in which he was abetted by the British naval and military authorities, who forbade the forces in Natal to acknowledge the Bishop of Pietermaritzburg. He succeeded in getting judgments in the Natal courts confirming him in the possession of the endowments of the see and of Church property in Natal, hindering for many years its use by the Church of the Province. But the great majority of clergy and laity were faithful; the schism dwindled and died. Today time has healed the old wounds; the great Colenso case which once convulsed Church and State is now but dull matter for the historian.

The effect of the two cases of Long and Colenso was to destroy the whole basis of the Royal supremacy on which the Crown lawyers had at first attempted to build up the colonial establishment. “Lord Westbury, with that clear precision of language for which he was famous, indicated the lawyers’ line of retreat: ‘The Church of England, in places where there is no Church established by law, is in the same position with any other religious body, in no better but in no worse position, and the members may adopt rules for enforcing discipline within their own body.’”

Looking back, we see that the Church of England and the English Courts were on their trial during those troublous years, rather than the Church in South Africa. The judgments in ecclesiastical cases were at that time likely to be judgments of policy rather than of law, as Chief Baron Kelly admitted. The manifest inequity of the judgment in the Natal property case, in which the Court assigned to Colenso the property which Bishop Gray had himself bought and vested in himself, had shown the Bishop that the less Churchmen had to do with the State Courts the better chance they might have of justice. Nothing would induce him again to appear before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The Bishop’s work was done. He had lived to see the Church in South Africa constituted, built up, secured against State interference. Twenty-five years of incessant labours and anxiety had taken their toll of his strength. Long and arduous visitations of the vast territory severely tried him; nor could he recuperate his strength when at home, for his time was wholly occupied in the affairs of the diocese. Finance had been always a heavy burden. Protracted law-suits had brought him infinite sadness; that they issued in the triumphant vindication of the Church’s rights could not wholly compensate him for the physical and mental strain of those harassing years. There had been frequent journeys to England, where his time was filled with work, of other kinds but no less laborious. In 1871 Mrs. Gray died, the constant companion of his travels, the untiring amanuensis and accountant, the skilful designer of churches, the brightness and stay of his home life at Bishops-court. He worked on for a year in loneliness, though with many encouragements from signs of progress in all that he had so wisely planned. The end came swiftly. A fall from his horse, little heeded at the moment, brought a sudden collapse. On September i, 1872, the great Bishop passed to his rest and his reward. The people of Cape Town knew what manner of man had been among them; to the burial at Claremont there came five thousand mourners, of every rank and grade, of many creeds.

The achievement of Bishop Gray has parallels in the work of other pioneer bishops overseas, but in its extent and its quality it remains unsurpassed. The Church in South Africa owes its freedom, its unity, its vitality, its extension, mainly to his wisdom and foresight. Scarcely any plan that he made for it has had to be abandoned. It has steadily pursued its way along the lines that he traced for it. The formation of the Diocese of George so recently as 1911 was only the carrying out of Bishop Gray’s intention half a century before; it had been delayed only by the alienation of the Church property in Natal. The alienation had necessitated the diversion to Natal of funds destined for the new See of George; when the Church’s property was restored to her by one of the last acts of the Natal Parliament before the Union of South Africa, the See of George was founded.

The Bishop’s memorial at Claremont speaks of him as having ” with unceasing energy and in simple faith built up under God the Church of this Province.” It is natural to regard that as the most important part of his work. He had seen the foundation of the Dioceses of St. Helena, Grahamstown, Natal, Bloemfontein, and Zululand; he was at the time of his death planning the formation of a diocese for the Transvaal. He had organized the Province so wisely that the first provisions of its constitution have been modified only in small details. Under that constitution the Church has lived a free, wholesome life. But the diocese was never neglected for the Province. The consolidation of old centres of work, the foundation of new, the delimitation of parishes, the provision of churches, schools, men, means, equipment generally, were normal parts of a work which went on unceasingly. In addition, the Bishop founded at the Cape institutions which served all South Africa. Among the first was Zonne-bloem, now within the city of Cape Town, then a country estate on the slope of Table Mountain, overlooking the Bay. There natives were to be instructed side by side with whites, not only in letters but in crafts and industries; and from Zonnebloem a native ministry was expected to issue in course of time. Zonnebloem has a fine record of varied work; if it has not fulfilled all expectations it is largely because conditions have changed, and work which it was founded to do has been transferred to other centres.

Education was one of the Bishop’s first concerns; he was no sooner settled at Protea than he himself began to teach. The old slave-quarters there saw the beginnings of the school which has grow into the Diocesan College, colloquially known as “Bishop’s.” Before a year was out the Bishop had bought an estate of fifty acres at Rondebosch, nearer Cape Town, and moved the school there. The need for itsoon outran the accommodation; from the moment of its inception to the present day the school has taken a foremost share in the education of South African boys, and has set a standard for emulation by others. The provision of schools for girls was in the nature of things a work less easy for the Bishop to plan. But in the last years of his episcopate St. Cyprian’s was founded, to become no less renowned than ” Bishop’s.” It had long been in his thoughts, the undertaking had been pressed upon him from several quarters, but only in 1871 was it found practicable to begin work. St. Cyprian’s was to be a diocesan work. It was fortunate in its first head; it took at once a leading place. In later years continuity has been assured by placing it under the care of the All Saints Sisters, and it has done immense service to South African womanhood. The lessons that have been learned there have borne good fruit in lonely homesteads on the Karoo, and in the town and country life of the Cape.

It was natural that the Bishop should hope for the work of religious communities in South Africa, and ardently desire their aid in his immense task. The Synod of 1865 asked the Bishop to invite some English sisterhood to establish a branch house for penitentiary work. Three years later the Bishop founded St. George’s Home, Cape Town, not as a daughter-house of an English foundation, though Clewer was greatly interested in it, but as an independent house. The members of the Society were not under vows, but lived together under a light rule, rather as deaconesses than sisters. Their house near the cathedral became at once the centre of women’s work in the diocese; they undertook many activities besides that which had been their first aim, including the nursing in the city hospital. It accomplished valuable work, but its constitution was too slight to give it the stability of a community, and it yielded place to branch houses of English sisterhoods as they found it possible to extend their work to South Africa. There are now many of these in the Province, besides the indigenous Communities of the Resurrection at Grahamstown and St. John the Divine in Natal. For their work St. George’s Home had prepared the way, by overcoming prejudices and suspicions, initiating work, and bringing the Church to realize that the work of religious communities is indispensable in regions where the Church must for centuries to come be largely missionary.

The foundation of sisterhoods had in England long preceded the revival of the religious life for men. But before the Bishop died the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, had given promise of stability, under its founder Father Benson, and the Bishop was in correspondence with Father Benson during the last year of his life, in the hope that the Fathers might come to South Africa. It was at that time impossible for the little community to send out a colony. It was then but five years old, it had already some obligations to America, and was looking forward to an Indian house. But Father Benson looked forward to a time when a South African house might also be possible, though he did not think that it would be for some time to come. That plan also has been accomplished. Father Benson kept South Africa in mind. Not many years passed before he was able to fulfil the Bishop’s hope. The Society’s house in the slums of Cape Town, with its many dependencies for native work, and the mission station of St. Cuthbert’s in the Transkei, have given invaluable service to the Province, not only in the mission-work for which the Fathers have been directly responsible, but in the maintenance of spiritual life among the clergy, the communities, and layfolk.

To look for the secret of great achievement is to find it in character. Robert Gray was one in whom, by the grace of God, those three elements which von Hugel has insisted to be necessary to ripeness and fullness of Christian living were held in balance. The intellectual element, the institutional element, the mystical element were evident and proportionate in him. He would have been the last man to claim for himself any high degree of scholarship. But he read constantly and deeply in all subjects which concerned his office and work, and was wise in judgment. So he was able to bring to bear on that institutional work by which he is best remembered the fruit of the Church’s experience throughout the ages, the wisdom of her theologians and canonists and moralists. But the intellectual and the institutional were in him related at every point to the mystical. Love of God, and of souls to be brought to God through His Church, was the driving force of all his action.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic was his simple humility. The pagan poet might reply to his royal patron:

It is as thou hast heard; in one short life I, Cleon, have effected all those things Thou wonderingly dost enumerate.

The Bishop, looking back over a work at which others marvelled, would only think “so little done, so much remains to do.” Again and again his private letters bear witness to his distrust of himself, his sense of inadequacy to his post and his opportunities. Some who looked on at the ecclesiastical conflicts into which he was forced judged hastily that he was an overbearing man, eager to have his way and impose his ideas, at whatever cost to others. They little knew at how great a cost to himself he maintained orthodoxy and discipline and vindicated the Church’s right; how he suffered with those on whom he was compelled to pass judgment. If here and there a concise letter seems to be wanting in sympathy, it was because he himself had long ago made the sacrifices which now he asked from others, calling them to duties which he had not declined. His heart was full of tenderness to all; it showed itself in his compassion to the sick and oppressed, his kindness to children and animals.

He longed for more time for study and prayer. He seemed to himself at times to be leading merely a busy, secularized life. Yet on a long day’s journey he records with thankfulness that he had been able to maintain almost uninterrupted communion with God. At Bishopscourt he would rise at five, to get time for prayer before the business of the day began. For the work once begun would not cease till nightfall, if then. The age was one which set a high standard of duty; the Bishop never fell below the highest. If he scorned delights and lived laborious days, duty, not fame, was his spur. Exercise was very necessary, to him; he found it in walking and riding about his diocese. For long hours in every day that he spent at home he was chained to his desk. Letter-writing was ever a burden to him; but that could not be guessed from his correspondence, which, whether it related to public or private affairs, was admirably full and clear. A bishop today can dictate to a typist much of his routine correspondence; Bishop Gray lived before such aid, nor perhaps would he have condescended to it. We may think that he was somewhat too conscientious; we are content to scribble “S.P.G.,” the Bishop always wrote it in full, “the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.” History is the gainer by his toil; we have in his letters and journals a record of the development of the Church in South Africa, its trials and conflicts, the conditions in which it worked, the state of the country, which constitutes as ample material for the historian as exists in any Church of a Dominion.

When the Bishop died the S.P.G., moved to a warmth of expression unwonted at that time recorded its estimate of the service which he had given to the Church. “The seat of the foremost prelate in the British Colonies is left vacant He has laid down the burden of a work the greatness and completeness of which can hardly be over-estimated. . . . Robert Gray was con secrated Bishop of Cape Town in 1847 There was then in South Africa no Church organization fourteen isolated clergymen ministered to scattered congregations. In the quarterof a century which has since elapsed a vast ecclesiastical province has been created. There are now in South Africa six dioceses. At the Provincial Synod of 1870 five of these were announced as integral parts of the Province, being complete with synodical, parochial, and missionary organizations, administered by one hundred and twenty-seven clergymen, besides lay teachers The Society would record solemnly its thankfulness to God for those great talents, the use of which was so long granted to the Church. His single minded devotion of himself and his substance to the work of God, his eminent administrative ability, his zeal which never flagged, his considerate tenderness in dealing with others, his undaunted courage in grappling with unexpected obstacles in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel, will live in the records of the African Church as the qualities of her founder, and will secure for him a place in history as one of the most distinguished in that band of missionary Bishops by whose labours in this generation the borders of the Church have been so widely extended.”

No survey of Bishop Gray’s work would be complete which left out of account its reaction upon the Church in England. There the Church went in subservience to the State, in dread of the Privy Council. At any moment she might be the sport and the secret scorn of cynical statesmen, and at times she seemed merely to echo their opinions; if a Colonial Secretary presumed to decide whether or not a bishop was necessary to a new mission, an archbishop would be found arguing that it was un-scriptural for a bishop to head one. Bishop Gray’s assertion of the Church’s independence and of her inherent powers encouraged all in England who were combining to resist the intrusion of the civil power into the spiritual affairs of the Church. His action made men ask themselves whether the Church was the Body of Christ, or merely a department of the State, maintained, as Newman had said, rather as a support to civil society than for the unseen and spiritual blessings which are its true and proper gifts. South Africa showed England not only that the Church could exist independently of the State, but that independence was necessary to her life.

Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging

(Farmers’ Protection Society)

In 1878 a section of the Afrikaans-speaking farmers of the Cape resolved to form an organisation for the purpose of ‘watching over the interests of the farmers of this Colony, and protecting the same’. It arose, in the first place, from opposition to an excise duty imposed on liquor by the Cape parliament in 1878. Later aims of the association were: ‘to endeavour to have all those with an interest in farming registered as parliamentary voters, and to watch against the abuse of the franchise’. J. H. Hofmeyr (‘Onze Jan’) was its leader and its first representative in the Legislative Assembly. On 24 May 1883 the organisation merged with the Afrikaner Bond under a new name: Afrikanerbond en Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging.

Boer Generals in Europe

During the Second Anglo-Boer War 30,000 farm houses were destroyed, and in addition 21 villages (Ermelo, Bethal, Carolina, Amsterdam, Amersfoort, Piet Retief, Paulpietersburg, Dullstroom, Roossenekal, Bloemhof, Schweizer-Reneke, Harte beestfontein, Geysdorp and Wolmaransstad in the Transvaal; Vredefort, Villiers, Parys, Lindley, Bothaville, Ventersburg and Vrede – the last mentioned partly – in the Orange Free State). In extensive areas not a single animal was to be seen. In the Free State , for instance, only 700,000 out of approximately 8,000,000 sheep remained and one tenth of the cattle. The speedy reconstruction of the former Republics was a pressing necessity. In terms of Article 10 of the Treaty of Vereeniging £3,000,000 was granted for this purpose and in addition loans at 3% (without interest for two years). This amount was considered to be totally inadequate by the representatives of the Boer people at Vereeniging, and a head committee (M. T. Steyn, Schalk Burger, Louis Botha, C. R. de Wet, J. H. de la Rey and the Revs. A. P. Kriel and J. D. Kestell) was elected on 31 May to collect further funds. Generals Botha, De Wet and De la Rey were sent to Europe for this purpose. After cordial receptions in Cape Town, Paarl and Stellenbosch they left for England on 5 Aug. 1902. Huge crowds welcomed them in London, and they were presented to King Edward VII. On the Continent they were likewise enthusiastically cheered by thousands of people. (The Hague 20 Aug., Amsterdam11 Sept., Antwerp 19 Sept., Rotterdam 22 Sept., Groningen 27 Sept., Middelburg 30 Sept., Brussels 10 Oct., Paris 13 Oct., Berlin 17 Oct.). In a letter to Joseph Chamberlain dated 23 Aug. they requested an interview to discuss, inter alia, the following matters: full amnesty for rebels; annual grants for widows and orphans; compensation for losses caused by British troops; payment of the war debts of the Republics. At the interview on 5 Sept. Chamberlain stated that if he should accede to these requests a new agreement with the Republics would have to be drawn up and that could not be done. Thereupon the Generals published on as Sept. ‘An Appeal to the Civilised World’ in which they asked for further assistance to alleviate the dire distress. The result was most disappointing. Up to Jan. 1903 the ‘Appeal’ brought in only £116,810. This was possibly due to the unwillingness of the nations to continue assisting the Boers, who were now British subjects, and to the fact that Chamberlain had announced in Parliament on 5 Nov. that the Government would grant further loans if necessary. De Wet returned to South Africa on 1 November, Botha and De la Rey on 13 December.

Boer Prisoners of War – Camps

Generals De Wet, De la Rey and Botha, Germany, 1902

The approximately 27,000 Boer prisoners and exiles in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) were distributed far and wide throughout the world. They can be divided into three categories: prisoners of war, ‘undesirables’ and internees. Prisoners of war consisted exclusively of burghers captured while under arms. ‘Undesirables’ were men and women of the Cape Colony who sympathised with the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics at war with Britain and who were therefore considered undesirable by the British. The internees were burghers and their families who had withdrawn across the frontier to Lourenço Marques at Komatipoort before the advancing British forces and had finally arrived in Portugal, where they were interned.

Prisoners of war were detained in South Africa in camps in Cape Town (Green Point) and at Simonstown (Bellevue), and some in prisons in the Cape Colony and Natal; in the Bermudas on Darrell’s, Tucker’s, Morgan’s, Burtt’s and Hawkins’ Islands; on St. Helena in the Broadbottom and Deadwood camps, and the recalcitrants in Fort Knoll; in India at Umballa, Amritsar, Sialkot, Bellary, Trichinopoly, Shahjahanpur, Ahmednagar, Kaity-Nilgris, Kakool and Bhim-Tal; and on Ceylon in Camp Diyatalawa and a few smaller camps at Ragama, Hambatota, Urugasmanhandiya and Mt. Lavinia (the hospital camp). The internees were kept in Portugal at Caldas da Rainha, Peniche and Alcobaqa. The ‘undesirables’, most of them from the Cape districts of Cradock, Middelburg, Graaf Reinet, Somerset East, Bedford and Aberdeen, were exiled to Port Alfred on the coast near Grahamstown.

In the Bermudas, on St. Helena and in South Africa quarters consisted chiefly of tents and shanties patched together from tin plate, corrugated iron sheeting, and sacking, and in India and Ceylon mostly of large sheds of corrugated iron sheeting, bamboo and reeds. The exiles, whose ages varied between y and 82 years, occupied themselves in various fields, such as church activities, cultural and educational works, sports, trade, and even printing, and nearly all of them to a greater or lesser extent took part in the making of curios.

The exiles in Ceylon and on St. Helena were the most active in printing. Using an old Eagle hand press purchased from the Ceylonese, the prisoners of war in Ceylon printed the newspaper De Strever, organ of the Christelijke Streversvereniging (Christian Endeavour Society), which appeared from Saturday, 19 Dec. 1901, to Saturday, 16 July 1902. Other newspapers, which they published, mostly printed by roneo, were De Prikkeldraad, De Krygsgevangene, Diyatalawa Dum-Dum and Diyatalawa Camp Lyre. Newspapers issued on St. Helena were De Krygsgevangene (The Captive) and Kampkruimels.

The range of the trade conducted among the prisoners of war is evident from the numerous advertisements in their newspapers. There were cafes, bakeries, confectioners, tailors, bootmakers, photographers, stamp dealers, general dealers and dealers in curios. An advertisement by R. A. T. van der Merwe, later a member of the Union Parliament, reads in translation:

Roelof v.d. Merwe, Shop No. 12, takes orders for men’s clothing. Has stocks of all requirements.

Another, by C. T. van Schalkwyk, later a Commandant and M.E.C., may be roughly translated as follows:

Here in Kerneels van Schalkwyk’s cafe a Boer
Be he rich or be he poor
For money so little its spending not felt
Can have his tummy press tight on his belt.

In religious matters the exiles in overseas camps devoted their efforts in the first place to the establishment of churches. In most of the camps building material was practically unprocurable, with the result that most of the church buildings were patched together out of corrugated iron sheets, pieces of tin, sacks, reeds and bamboo. Pulpits were constructed from planks, pieces of timber, etc. There were a number of clergymen and students of theology among the prisoners; with them in the forefront and with the help of others who had gone to the camps for this purpose, congregations were founded and church councils were elected. From these developed Christian Endeavour Societies, choirs, Sunday-school classes for the many youngsters between 9 and 16 years of age, and finally catechism classes for older youths. Many a young man was accepted as a member of the Church and confirmed while in exile. Attention was also given to mission work, and funds were collected by means of concerts, sports gatherings, etc. Many of the prisoners died in exile, and the burial services as well as the care of the graves and cemeteries were attended to by their own churches.

In the cemetery of Diyatalawa 131 lie buried, and on St. Helena 146; in the Bermudas and in India a considerable number also lie buried. Through the years the Diyatalawa cemetery has been maintained in good order by the Ceylonese. Boer prisoners of war in the Bermudas were buried on Long Island. The graves themselves are neglected and overgrown with vegetation, but the obelisk erected in the cemetery on the insistence of the returning prisoners after the conclusion of peace is still in fairly good condition. It is a simple sandstone needle on a pedestal of Bermuda stone. The names of those buried in the cemetery and those who had died at sea on the voyage to Bermuda are engraved on all four sides of the pedestal.

Boer Prisoners of War with their handwork

Cultural activities covered a number of fields. At first debating societies were formed, and from these there developed bands, choirs and dramatic groups; theatrical, choral and other musical performances were given, festive occasions such as Christmas, New Year, Dingaan’s Day (now the Day of the Covenant and the birthdays of Presidents Kruger and Steyn and of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands were celebrated. Judging by the numerous neatly printed programmes, many of the concerts and other performances were of quite a high standard. Celebrating Dingaan’s Day at Ahmednager (India on 16 Dec. 1901 the prisoners reaffirmed the Covenant. Beautifully art-lettered in an illuminated address, the text reads in translation as follows: ‘We confess before the Lord our sin in that we have either so sorely neglected or have failed to observe Dingaan’s Day in accordance with the vow taken by our forefathers, and we this day solemnly promise Him that with His help we with our households will henceforth observe this 16th Day of December always as a Sabbath Day in His honour, and that if He spare our lives and give us and our nation the desired deliverance we shall serve Him to the end of our days …’ This oath was taken by the exiles after a month of preparation and a week of humiliation in Hut No. 7.

Education received special attention and schools were established; bearded burghers and commandants shared the school benches with young boys and youths. The subjects studied were mainly bookkeeping, arithmetic, mathematics and languages, and fellow-exiles served as instructors. It was in these schools that the foundation was laid for many a distinguished career in South Africa, such as those of a later Administrator of the Orange Free State (Comdt. C. T. M. Wilcocks), a number of clergymen, physicians and others who, after returning to their fatherland, attained great prestige and became leading figures in the Church and social and political fields. Literary works were also produced in this atmosphere of religion and culture, such as the well known poem ‘The Searchlight’, by Joubert Reitz:

When the searchlight from the gunboat
Throws its rays upon my tent
Then I think of home and comrades
And the happy days I spent
In the country where I come from
And where all I love are yet.
Then I think of things and places
And of scenes I’ll ne’er forget,
Then a face comes up before me
Which will haunt me to the last
And I think of things that have been And of happy days that’s past;
And only then I realise
How much my freedom meant
When the searchlight from the gunboat Casts its rays upon my tent.

Sports gatherings were frequently arranged and provided days of great enjoyment, when young and old competed on the sports field, while cricket, football, tennis, gymnastics and boxing matches filled many an afternoon or evening. Neatly printed programmes for the gatherings and the more important competitions were usually issued.

Various daring attempts at escape were made, but few were successful. Five exiles – Lourens Steytler, George Steytler, Willie Steyn, Piet Botha and a German named Hausner – who succeeded in swimming out to a Russian ship in the port of Colombo (Ceylon), travelled by a devious route through Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and again Germany, and finally landed at Walvis Bay. One captive on St. Helena attempted to escape by hiding in a large case marked ‘Curios’ and addressed to a fictitious dealer in London. But he was discovered shortly after the ship left port and was returned to St. Helena from Ascension Island. Of those in the Bermudas two succeeded in reaching Europe aboard ships visiting Bermudan ports, while J. L. de Villiers escaped from Trichinopoly disguised as a coolie and made his way to the French possession of Pondicherry, from which he finally reached South Africa again by a roundabout route through Aden, France and the Netherlands. Among the exiles held in Ceylon two brothers named Van Zyl and a German did not return to South Africa, but went to Java, where they developed a flourishing farm enterprise with Friesland cattle. Among those held in the Bermudas a number went to the United States of America, where in some of the states such well-known Boer names as Viljoen and Vercueil are still found.

Repatriation of Boer Prisoners of War

As early as 1901 Lord Milner realised what a stupendous task the resettlement of close on 200,000 Whites involved, among whom were about 50,000 impecunious foreigners, as well as 1000.000 Bantu who, as a result of the Anglo-Boer War, had become torn from their usual way of life and had either been herded together in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps or scattered all over the Orange Free State and the Transvaal as refugees and combatants. These people had to be restored to their shattered homes and their work in order to become self-supporting. Milner wished Britons employed by the Transvaal mines and industries to be repatriated first. This began after the annexation of the Transvaal in 1900. By Feb. 1901 as many as 12,000 had already been repatriated, and by the beginning of 1902 nearly all of them had returned to the Witwatersrand.

To aid the resettlement of former Republican subjects, special Land Boards were set up early in 1902 in both the new colonies. They were also expected to help settle immigrant British farmers. From April 1902 the repatriation sections of the Land Boards were converted into independent departments in order to prepare for the repatriation of the Afrikaner population. The post-war development of the repatriation programme was adumbrated in sections I, II and X of the peace treaty of Vereeniging. In terms of sections I and II all burghers (both ‘Bitter-enders’ and prisoners of war) were required to acknowledge beforehand the British king as their lawful sovereign. Section X read that in each district local repatriation boards would be set up to assist in providing relief and in effecting resettlement. For that the British government would provide £3m as a ‘bounty’ and loans, free of interest for two years, and after that redeemable over three years at 3 %. The wording ‘vrije gift’, as the bounty was termed, gave rise to serious misunderstanding, and the accompanying provision, that proof of war losses could be submitted to the central judicial commission, created the erroneous impression that this bounty was intended to compensate the burghers for these losses. The eventual British interpretation, that the bounty was intended as a contribution toward repatriation, created a great deal of bitterness. Eventually it turned out that there was no question of a bounty, since repatriates were held personally responsible for all costs, the £3m being part of the loan of £35m provided by the British treasury for the new colonies.

After the conclusion of peace two central repatriation boards, one in Pretoria and the other in Bloemfontein, began to function, and 38 local boards were set up in the Transvaal and 23 in the Orange River Colony. The repatriation departments were reformed into huge organisations, each employing more than 1,000 men. The real work of repatriation came under three heads, viz. getting farmers back to their farms with the least delay; supplying them with adequate rations until they could harvest their crops; and providing them with seed, stock and implements to cultivate their lands.

The general discharge of prisoners of war in South Africa began in June 1902. Many overseas prisoners of war, especially those in India, were sceptical about the peace conditions and refused to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. In spite of the efforts of Gen. De la Rey and Comdt. I. W. Ferreira to induce them to return, about 500 of the 900 ‘irreconcilables’ were not to be persuaded until Jan 1904.

In July 1904 the last 4 Transvaalers were discharged from India, but in May 1907 two Free Staters were still there. There were 100 men per district to every shipload, and on their arrival they were first sent to camps at Umbilo and Simonstown, where they were given food and clothing. Those who were self-supporting were allowed to go home. Through judicious selection – land-owning families first and ‘bywoners’ (share-croppers) next – repatriation was made bearable. By the middle of June 1902 almost all the ‘bitter-enders’ had laid down their arms and were allowed to return to their homes, provided they could fend for themselves. In other cases they were allowed, like the prisoners of war, to take up temporary accommodation with their families in concentration camps until they were sent home by the repatriation departments with a month’s supply of free rations, bedding, tents and kitchen utensils.

By Sept. 1902 only the impoverished group was left in the camps. In due course relief works, such as the construction of railway lines and irrigation works, were started to employ them. However, a considerable number of pre-war share-croppers became chronic Poor Whites. Spoilt by their idle mode of existence during the war, many Bantu refused to leave the refugee camps, but when their food rations were stopped they soon returned to the firms to alleviate the labour shortage.

The road to repatriation was strewn with stumbling blocks. Nearly 300,000 ruined people had to be brought back to their shattered homes. Supplies had to be conveyed over thousands of miles of impassable roads and neglected railways, already heavily burdened by the demobilisation of the British army and the transport of supplies to the Rand. Weeks of wrangling preceded the purchase from the military authorities, at exorbitant prices, of inferior foodstuffs and useless animals, many of which died. The organisation was ineffective, and the authority and ditties of the central and local repatriation boards were too vaguely defined, leading to unnecessary duplication. Moreover, the burghers mistrusted the repatriation. By the end of 1902 most of the ‘old’ population had, however, been restored. Unfortunately the long drought which dragged on from 1902 until the end of 1903 made it necessary for many of the repatriation depots to be kept going until 1904, in order to keep the starving supplied on credit. From 1904 conditions gradually began to return to normal, and in 1905 repatriation was complete. A great deal of the £ 14m spent on it had gone into administrative expenses.

Sharp criticism was levelled against the repatriation policy, especially against the incompetence and lack of sympathy among the officials, and financial mismanagement. The composition of the repatriation boards was also suspect. On the other hand, agricultural credit came in with repatriation and prepared the way for the present system of Land Bank loans and co-operative credit. Milner himself considered the repatriation a success, although he conceded that a considerable sum of money had been squandered. Yet it was not the utter failure it has often been represented to have been. Milner deserves praise for his genuine attempt to resettle an impoverished and uprooted agricultural population and to reconstruct an entire economy. The accomplishment of the entire project without serious friction can largely be attributed to the self-restraint and love of order of the erstwhile Republican burghers.

Jan Gysbert Hugo Bosman

Jan Gysbert Hugo BOSMAN (aka Vere Bosman di Ravelli) was born in Piketberg on the 24th February 1882. He took the pseudonym di Ravelli in 1902 in Leipzig, when he began his career as a concert pianist. His father, Izak, was from the Bottelary Bosmans, and his mother Hermina (Miena) BOONZAAIER from Winkelshoek, Piketberg, which was laid out by her grandfather Petrus Johannes BOONZAAIER in 1781. One of his sisters taught him music. After taking his final B.A. examinations at Victoria College in Stellenbosch, he left for London on the 1st October 1899 aboard the Briton. Soon after arriving there, he moved to Leipzig. He performed in public for the first time in November 1902. In 1903 he gave his first concert, in Berlin, playing Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto. This was followed by a tour of Germany which launched his international career and made him the first South African international concert pianist.

In September 1905 he returned to South Africa and gave many concerts across the country. At one stage he tried to study traditional Zulu music. Amongst his friends he counted Gen. Jan SMUTS and Gustav PRELLER. He was particularly fond of old church music. He made important contributions to Die Brandwag (1910 – 1912), writing about music. There wasn’t yet enough appreciation of music in South Africa and he left for Europe on the 28th November 1910 aboard the SS Bulawayo. Travelling with him were the Afrikaans composer Charles NEL and Lionel MEIRING. They settled in Munich where he gave them piano lessons for a while. After getting his concert pianist career going again, WWI brought things to a halt. By then he was in London. When the war ended he had the Spanish flu and went to Locarno, Italy, in 1919 to recuperate. During this time he studied Arabic and Hebrew, and as a result compiled an Arabic-English glossary for the Koran. In 1921 he published a volume of English poems titled In an Italian Mirror.

He resumed his concert pianist career in 1921 in Paris, and retained Sharp’s of England as his sole agents. He made Florence his base after 1932 but lost his house there due to WWII. In February 1956 he returned to South Africa, staying with Maggie LAUBSCHER. He was made an honorary life member of the South African Academy in 1959. In 1964 he published a fable,st Theodore and the crocodile. He died on the 20th May 1967 in Somerset West.

Sydney Richfield

Sydney RICHFIELD was born on the 30th September 1882 in London, England. He learnt to play the violin and piano. In 1902 he immigrated to South Africa, like an elder brother, where he composed several popular Afrikaans songs. His first composition was the Good Hope March, which became popular and was often heard in Cape Town’s bioscopes and theatres. In 1904 he moved to Potchefstroom, where he lived until 1928. He produced operettas, revitalised the town band, and started a music school. He taught the piano, violin, mandoline and music theory. When the Town Hall was opened in 1909, he put on the operetta Paul Jones by Planquette.
In 1913 he married Mary Ann Emily LUCAS (previously married to a PRETORIUS with whom she had three daughters) and shortly afterwards the family left for England. Sydney joined the Royal Flying Corps band as a conductor in 1916. He composed an Air Force march, Ad Astra, in 1917. In 1920 he was demobilized and returned to Potchefstroom, where he started teaching again and formed a town band which played at silent movies in the Lyric Bioscope. After the band broke up in 1922, Sydney took over an amateur ensemble which included the poet Totius. Through this association, he became involved with Afrikaans music. In 1925 when Potchefstroom put on an historical pageant, he composed the Afrikaans music. By now he was also winning medals in eisteddfodau and other competitions. In 1928 he moved to Pretoria and carried on teaching and composing. He led a brass band that played at the Fountains on Sunday afternoons. Amongst his popular compositions were River Mooi, Vegkop, and Die Donker Stroom. Sydney died in Pretoria on the 12th April 1967. One of his wife’s daughters, Paula, became a popular Afrikaans singer.

Eduard Christiaan Pienaar

Eduard Christiaan PIENAAR was born on the 13th December 1882 on the farm Hoëkraal in the Potchefstroom district, the youngest of the seven sons and seven daughters of Abel Jacobus PIENAAR and Sarah Susanna BOSMAN. During the Anglo-Boer War he was part of Gen. Piet CRONJE’s commando. He was taken prisoner at Paardeberg in February 1900 and sent to St. Helena. After his release, he attended Paarl Gymnasium where he matriculated in 1904. In 1907 he graduated from Victoria College in Stellenbosch with a B.A. degree. This was followed by teaching posts in Sutherland and Franschhoek. In 1909 he married Francina Carolina MARAIS from Paarl. They had four sons and three daughters.

In 1911 he became a lecturer in Dutch at Victoria College. At the beginning of 1914, with a government bursary and the support of the Nederlandsche Zuid-Afrikaansche Vereeniging, he went to Holland, taking his wife and three children. He studied Dutch language and literature in Amsterdam and Utrecht, obtaining his doctorate in July 1919, with the thesis, Taal en poësie van die Tweede Afrikaanse Taalbeweging. The family returned to South Africa in 1920 and he became a Professor at Stellenbosch, lecturing in Dutch and Afrikaans.

The promotion of Afrikaans was his life’s passion. He was a founding member of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge and served on various committees such as the Voortrekker Monument committee and the Huguenot Monument committee. It was his idea to have the symbolic ox-wagons around the Voortrekker Monument. He died in Stellenbosch on the 11th June 1949. He was returning from watching a rugby match at Coetzenburg when he had a heart attack outside his home in Die Laan.

Haji Sullaiman Shahmahomed

1882 saw the arrival of Haji Sullaiman SHAHMAHOMED from India. He was a wealthy Muslim educationalist, writer and philanthropist. He settled in Cape Town and married Rahimah, daughter of Imam SALIE, in 1888. He bought two portions of Mariendal Estate, next to the disused Muslim cemetery in Claremont, where he planned to build a mosque and academy. On the 29th June 1911 the foundation stone was laid. In terms of the trust, he appointed the Mayor of Cape Town and the Cape ‘s Civil Commissioner as co-administrators of the academy. This caused resentment among the Muslim community because the appointees were non-Muslim. The Aljamia Mosque was completed but not the academy. In August 1923 he wrote to the University of Cape Town, wanting to found a chair in Islamic Studies and Arabic, and enclosed a Union Government Stock Certificate to the value of £1 000. This trust is still active. He was very involved in the renovations of Shaykh Yusuf’s tomb at Faure in 1927, the Park Road mosque in Wynberg; and the mosque in Claremont. He died in 1927.

Professor Ritchie

William RITCHIE was born on the 12th October 1854 in Peterhead, Scotland. He came to the Cape in 1878 as a lecturer in Classics and English at the Grey Institute, Port Elizabeth. In 1882 the South African College in Cape Town appointed him to the chair of Classics, which he held until his retirement in 1930. When the College became the University of Cape Town in 1918, he became its historian. His history of the South African College appeared in two volumes in the same year. It is a valuable account of higher education in the Cape during the 19th century. He died in Nairobi on the 8th September 1931.

Baines Kloof

Thomas Charles John Bain

Thomas Charles John BAIN (1830 – 1893) completed the Homtini Pass in 1882. The pass was built largely due to the determination of the Hon. Henry BARRINGTON (1808 – 1882), a farmer and owner of the Portland estate near Knysna. Construction on the Seven Passes road from George to Knysna, ending in the Homtini Pass, started in 1867.
Thomas was the son of Andrew Geddes BAIN (1797 – 1864) and Maria Elizabeth VON BACKSTROM. His father was the only child of Alexander BAIN and Jean GEDDES. Andrew came to the Cape in 1816 from Scotland with his uncle Lt.-Col. William GEDDES of the 83rd Regiment. He went on to build eight mountain roads and passes in the Cape. Thomas was his father’s assistant during the construction of Mitchell’s Pass, and eventually built 24 mountain roads and passes. One of the very few passes not built by a BAIN in the 1800s was Montagu Pass (George to Oudtshoorn). It was built by Henry Fancourt WHITE from Australia in 1843 – 1847. Two other passes that were in construction by Thomas in 1882 were the Swartberg Pass (Oudtshoorn to Prince Albert, 1880 – 1888) and Baviaanskloof (Willowmore to Patensie, 1880 – 1890).

Henry Barrington

Portland Manor was built by Henry BARRINGTON, based on the family home Bedkett Hall in Shrivenham, England. Henry was immortalised in Daleen MATTHEE’s novel, Moerbeibos. He was the 10th son of the 5th Viscount BARRINGTON, prebendary of Durham Cathedral and rector of Sedgefield. Henry’s mother was Elizabeth ADAIR, grand-daughter of the Duke of Richmond. Henry took a law degree and was admitted to the Bar. He later joined the diplomatic service and in 1842 was sent to the Cape as legal adviser to the Chief Commissioner of British Kaffraria.

A meeting with Thomas Henry DUTHIE of Belvidere led to him buying the farm Portland from Thomas. Thomas inherited the farm from his father-in-law George REX. Henry returned to England where in 1848 he married Georgiana KNOX who was known as the Belle of Bath. They arrived at Plettenberg Bay aboard a ship laden with their family heirlooms, wedding gifts, furniture and farming equipment. They lived in a cottage while the manor house was built over 16 years. It had eight bedrooms, a library, and a large dining room. Seven children were born to them. In February 1868 the Manor was completely gutted in the forest fire that swept from Swellendam to Humansdorp. Henry rebuilt the manor using yellow wood, stinkwood and blackwood from the estate. He tried his hand, often unsuccessfully, at cattle, sheep and wheat farming in addition to bee keeping, apple and mulberry orchards. He is also credited with building the first sawmill in the area. In 1870 Henry was elected to the Cape Parliament.

He died in 1882 and the estate passed to his eldest son, John, who died unmarried in 1900. His sister Kate inherited the estate. She married Francis NEWDIGATE of Forest Hall, Plettenberg Bay, who was killed in the Anglo-Boer War. Portland Manor remained in their family until 1956, when it was bought from Miss Bunny NEWDIGATE by Seymour FROST. He started a restoration programme and eventually sold the property in 1975 to Miles PRICE-MOOR. In the 1990s the property returned to Henry’s descendants when it was owned by Jacqueline PETRIE, one of his great-grandchildren. During her ownership, Portland Manor became a guest house until it was put up for auction in 2000. It is now owned by Denis and Debbie CORNE who have restored Portland Manor once again.
Sources:
South African Music Encyclopaedia, Vol. 1 & 3; edited by J.P. Malan
Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. II
Honey, silk and cider; by Katherine Newdigate, from Henry’s letters and journals
Timber and tides: the story of Knysna and Plettenberg Bay; by Winifred Tapson
Portland Manor: http://www.portlandmanor.com

St. Helena

The island was discovered and named on 21 May 1502 (St. Helena’s Day) by the Portuguese navigator Joao da Nova on his homeward voyage from India. The Portuguese found it uninhabited and imported livestock, fruit-trees and vegetables. Although they formed no permanent settlement, they left their sick there to be taken home by the next ship. After them the Dutch used it as a victualling station, but they ceased calling there when the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 1652. In the mean time the island had become unable to supply in adequate quantities the wild pigs which at one time these pigs were generally hunted with dogs. Some dogs were accidentally left behind and increased so greatly that they threatened to render the island useless as a victualling station.

This was one of the main arguments presented to the Dutch East India Company in 1649 in favour of the founding of a refreshment station at the Cape.The first Englishman known to have visited St. Helena was Thomas Cavendish, who touched there in June 1588 during his famous voyage round the world. The English East India Company appropriated the island after the departure of the Dutch. In 1659 a small force of troops and others under John Dutton was dispatched to form a settlement. They built a fort which they named after the Duke of York, later James II. During the Company’s rule the island prospered. Homeward-bound vessels anchored in the roadstead at Jamestown, stayed for considerable periods, refitting and revictualling, and business was brisk.

In October 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to St. Helena and lodged at Longwood, 5 1/2 km east of Jamestown, and there he died on 5 May 1821. During this period the island was strongly garrisoned by British troops and a governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, was appointed by the Crown. After Napoleon’s death the East India Company resumed control of the island until 1834, when it was vested in the Crown. The buildings and the grounds which housed Napoleon are French property. When steamers began to be substituted for sailing vessels and the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, St. Helena lost its importance as a port of call. The withdrawal in 1906 of the British garrison seriously affected the prosperity of the inhabitants. During the Second Anglo-Boer War some thousands of Boer prisoners of war were detained on St. Helena, which has also served as a place of exile for chiefs such as Dinuzulu and for the ex-Sultan of Zanzibar. In 1922 the island of Ascension, followed by Tristan da Cunha and the associated islands of Nightingale, Inaccessible and Gough in 1938, became dependencies of St. Helena.

St. Helena has a dozen primary schools, a secondary school, a hospital, a government savings bank, electricity, and a telephone system. There are no local newspapers. It is the seat of an Anglican bishopric established in 1859. The principal crops are New Zealand flax, potatoes and vegetables. Cattle and sheep are raised, and the industries include lace, needlework and woodwork. There is a regular monthly ocean mail service to England and South Africa, and cable connections with all parts of the world. Halley’s Mount commemorates the visit of the astronomer Edmund Halley in 1676-78, the first of a number of scientific men who have done research work on the island.

The island is situated in the South Atlantic Ocean, nearly 3000 km north-west of Cape Town, at 15°55′ S., 5° 42′ W.; rainfall 820 mm in the uplands and 300 mm on the coast. Population (1969): 4829, mostly descendants of White colonists, others of slaves from Africa and Asia. Nearly half the inhabitants live in Jamestown, the port and seat of government. St. Helena is of volcanic origin and its surface is extremely rugged, the highest point, Diana’s Peak, rising to 824 metres. The island is 17 km long from south-west to north-east, 10 km broad, and has an area of 122 sq km, two-thirds of which cannot be cultivated.

Article with kind permission from Nasou Via Afrika

The Catholic history of South Africa is written large upon its coastline. Such names as Cape Cross, Conception Bay, St. Helena Bay, St. Blaize, Santa Cruz, Natal and St. Lucia tell us immediately how very Catholic their origin and development have been. In the second half of the 15th century several expeditions travelled down the west coast, successive explorers going farther south each time. Wherever they landed a stone pillar (padrão) surmounted by a cross was blessed and erected on shore, and we may well surmise that mass was said by a priest who accompanied the ships. A small church was built at Mossel Bay by Joao da Nova in 1501.

Within the next quarter of a century Europe underwent the Reformation. Its effects extended across the seas and little more is heard of Catholicism at the Cape for many years. In 1651 the Dutch settled in Table Bay. They were extremely anti-Catholic, and their hostility was strengthened by the arrival of Huguenot refugees. In 1660 a French bishop, wrecked in Table Bay, was forbidden to say mass on shore. Six Jesuit Fathers landed in 1685 on an astronomical mission, but though they secretly did what they could to attend to the spiritual needs of the few Catholics, they tell us they were not allowed to offer up the Holy Sacrifice on shore and that the Catholics were not allowed to go on board to hear mass.

From 1686 the Catholic Church disappears from the pages of South African history until, on as July 1804, Commissioner-General J. A. de Mist announced religous toleration. The ordinance declared: `All religious societies, which for the furtherance of virtue and good morals worshipped an Almighty Being, are to enjoy in this colony equal protection from the laws’. At once priests came from the Netherlands -Father Joannes Lansink, Jacobus Nelissen and Lambertus Prinsen. A room in the Castle was put at their disposal so that they could say mass for Catholic soldiers. But the following year Sir David Baird ordered the Catholic priests to leave the colony. Ten years passed before another attempt was made to enable them to return.

Lord Charles Somerset informed the Vicar Apostolic of the London district that `all religious denominations are not only tolerated, but entitled to equal privileges in the Colony, according to the fundamental laws of the Batavian Republic, guaranteed to the inhabitants by the capitulation’. But it was two years before negotiations on the admittance of a resident priest at the Cape came to anything. Bishop Edward Slater, a Benedictine, was appointed Vicar Apostolic, but permission for him to reside in Cape Town was refused by the authorities in Downing Street and so his assignment was as Vicar Apostolic of Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived in Cape Town on New Year’s Day 1810, but stayed only three weeks. Leaving Fr. Edward Scully in charge, he continued his journey to Mauritius, never to return. Conditions were such that some of the congregation wished to run the Church on Presbyterian lines. Churchwardens sought to dictate to the priest and to control all business, money and properties. This state of affairs persisted for more than ten years, and in consequence no priest stayed longer than a year or two before leaving in disgust; yet under Scully the foundation-stone of a small church in Harrington Street was laid on 28th October 1822. But the materials used were bad, repairs had to be effected even before the building was completed, and in the torrential storms of 1837 it was almost completely washed away.

On 24th August 1837 Mgr. Patrick Raymund Griffith, an Irish Dominican, was consecrated in Dublin as Bishop of Palaeopolis and Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived in Table Bay on Holy Saturday, 14 April 183 8, along with two other priests, Fathers Burke, O.F.M., and George Corcoran, O.P. Bishop Griffith’s territory stretched from Table Bay to Algoa Bay, from where he journeyed by ox-wagon to Grahamstown, taking seven days. Leaving Burke in charge, Griffith returned to Cape Town on horseback. There were only some 700 Catholics in and around the town, and his funds were meagre. He set up a school, appointing Dr. Aidan Devereux, who had followed him from Ireland, as principal. The barracks in the Castle, where a room had been put at his disposal, would not serve indefinitely as a church, and so he negotiated the purchase of the site on which St. Mary’s Convent and the Bishop’s House stands today, at the foot of Hope Street. All available funds were used in the building of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

On the recommendation of Bishop Griffith, the Holy See subdivided his vast territory. Dr. Devereux was appointed Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern Districts and took up residence at Grahamstown in 1848. Realising the importance of Catholic education, Devereux set out for Europe to obtain nuns for his mission field. At his urging, Pope Pius IX established yet another ecclesiastical division to the north, where Natal was gaining in importance. The care of the new territory was entrusted to the religious congregation of Mary Immaculate, thus ensuring financial support and continuity in personnel. In Paris, Devereux obtained permission for the missionary sisters of the Assumption to come and work in Grahamstown. There Mother Gertrude, familiarly known as ‘Notre Mere’, and her little band of six nuns opened South Africa’s first convent and a school in Jan. 1850. Three Belgian priests accompanied the Bishop and the pioneer nuns, enabling resident priests to be appointed at Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort, and also travelling priests were sent to the outer districts. Fr. Van Cauwelaert went to Graaff-Reinet, Fr. J. J. de Sany to Cradock and Fr. Petrus Hoendervangers undertook the districts of Bedford, Richmond and beyond.

So Catholicism in South Africa at that time meant one bishop and two or three priests in Cape Town, George and Swellendam; a bishop in Grahamstown, and along with him Fr. Thomas Murphy, who a few months later was the first priest to visit Natal. At Fort Beaufort there were 90 Catholics; Fort Hare and Alice had 100 each; King William’s Town, Fort Grey and Fort Peddie 40 each; East London 30. Port Elizabeth, which had begun with only two Catholic families, now had two resident priests and 500 Catholics. At Uitenhage there were 80 Catholics, and in the wide territory served by Fr. Hoendervangers, Somerset East had 70, Richmond 20, Burgersdorp 50, Aliwal North 25, and Colesberg 20. In the garrison town of Bloemfontein, where he settled in 1851, there were about 70 Catholics.
In March 1852 the first band of oblates of Mary Immaculate arrived in Natal under Bishop J. F. Allard, O.M.I. The area entrusted to them stretched from the Great Kei River in the south to Quelimane in the north, and for this vast territory there were only five priests. They began at Pietermaritzburg, and Fr. J. B. Sabon, receiving the sum of £30 from his bishop, was sent to found the mission of Durban. Ten years later the first oblate missionaries crossed the Drakensberg from Pietermaritzburg into Basutoland and were joined in 1864 by the Sisters of the Holy Family, the pioneer nuns among the African people.

When diamonds were found on the Vaal River, the oblate Father Anatole Hidien went from Basutoland to the diggers’ camps round what is now Kimberley. The year 1874 saw the finding of gold at Pilgrim’s Rest, and Fr. Andrew Walshe, O.M.L, was sent there the following year by Bishop Charles Jolivet, O.M.I. (who had succeeded Allard), from Natal. Freedom of Catholic worship was granted in the Transvaal Republic in 1870, and thereafter priests settled at Potchefstroom and Pretoria.

The Catholic Church in South Africa owes much to the vision and zeal of Bishop J. D. Ricards, third Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern vicariate, who, in 1879, brought the Jesuit Fathers, not only to staff his school of St. Aidan’s in Grahamstown, but also to be the pioneers of the faith in Mashonaland. The Dominican sisters of King William’s Town – also brought by Bishop Ricards – joined the Pioneer Column in 1890, and by their devotion to duty and care of the sick have earned an honoured name. To Ricards we also owe the coming of the Trappists under Fr. (later Abbot) Francis Pfanner in 1879. He felt that if any effective missionary work was to be done among the non-European peoples, they would first have to be taught, not merely by word, but by the more effective force of example, the dignity of labour. Today Mariannhill with its cathedral church, round which are grouped many other ecclesiastical and educational buildings, is a show-place of Catholic mission work, and we find the spiritual sons of Francis Pfanner in the dioceses of Mariannhill, Umtata and Bulawayo as well as in countries overseas.

In 1886 a milestone was reached when Pope Leo XIII agreed to Bishop Jolivet’s recommendation and separated the diamond-fields and Basutoland to be a third vicariate under Bishop Anthony Gaughren, O.M.L, making the Transvaal a prefecture under Fr. Odilon Monginoux, O.M.I. About this time also the oblates of St. Francis of Sales began pioneer work in Namaqualand, where within a few decades Bishop Jean-Marie Simon of Pella made the desert blossom forth both materially and spiritually. Meanwhile Fr. Aloysius Schoch, O.M.L, the successor of Fr. Monginoux, was sent as the representative of Church and government to visit Cimbebasia, Windhoek and South-West Africa of today. As a result of his report this territory was also confided to the oblates of Mary Immaculate. Diamonds and gold and all the industrial development which followed brought a great increase in population, with an impetus in the sphere of education. The nuns of the Assumption, who had been the pioneers in 1849, were followed by the Irish Dominican sisters in Cape Town (1863) and Port Elizabeth (1867), by the Holy Family (Loreto) (1864), the pioneers in the Transvaal (1877), Dominican sisters of King William’s Town (also in 1877), including the separate branches at Oakford (1889), Salisbury (1890) and Newcastle (1896), Nazareth sisters (Cape Town) and Holy Cross in Umtata (1883), oblate Sisters of St. Francis (1884) and Precious Blood Sisters (1885). In the last decade of the century the Augustinians (1892), Ursulines (1895), Sisters of Mercy (1897) and Notre Dame in Rhodesia (1899) joined the increasing number of sisterhoods in the work of education, hospitals, and the care of the old and infirm and of orphans. In fifty years the numbers had increased from one congregation of nuns to seventeen. To these must be added the arrival of the Marist Brothers (1867) and the Christian Brothers (1897) for the education of youth.
The outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899 brought a severe set-back in practically all spheres of missionary labour. Apart from the fact that the missionaries, few in number, joined up as army chaplains, and the flow of priests from overseas was interrupted, the general work in town and country was upset. Plans for more intense development came after Union in 1910. The Benedictine Fathers took over the northern part of the Transvaal and the Servite Fathers came to help in Swaziland in 1913. The great majority of priests, brothers and nuns who were then working in South Africa were from oversea countries. So when the First World War broke out in 194, the mission field everywhere suffered and once more the ranks were depleted by the need for army chaplains.

Another important milestone was the establishment of the Apostolic Delegation of Southern Africa on 7th December 1922, and the following day Archbishop Bernard J. Gijlswijk, O.P., was consecrated in Rome. He chose Bloemfontein as the most central place for his residence. New vicariates and prefectures were established, and four new congregations of priests arrived. There was not only expansion, but also an intensification of missionary work. Priests were given the opportunity to learn the native languages and to devote themselves solely to work among non-Europeans. South African priests were trained for work among their own people. Seminaries were set up for the training of European and non-European students, and a son of South Africa was raised to the dignity of the episcopate when David O’Leary, O.M.L, was consecrated as bishop for the Transvaal in September 1925, followed a few months later by Bishop Bernard O’Riley in Cape Town.

During all this time the yearly increase in priests and religious was remarkable. From just over 300 priests in 1921, the number grew to over 4000 by 1936. Religious brothers and nuns doubled to over 4000 during the same period. In Basutoland progress was particularly noticeable. When the first oblates founded a mission there in 1862, they were a long way behind the Protestant missionaries who had established themselves thirty years earlier. Yet today Lesotho is the most fruitful of the Catholic mission fields in Southern Africa. The Canadian oblates took the work under their wing during the early thirties; priests and religious increased enormously; and when in October 1937 the 75th anniversary of the foundation was celebrated at Roma, there were over 3000 communicants each morning during the novena.

In 1962, the Church in Basutoland, which is organised under an archbishop at Maseru and bishops at Leribe and Qacha’s Nek, celebrated its centenary. Archbishop Emanuel Mabathoana, O.M.L, is the great-grandson of Moshesh.
Catholic schools, primary and secondary, throughout South Africa are noted for their examination successes as well as for their moral and character training. As in many countries abroad, Catholics are penalised by having to pay twice for education in most parts of South Africa. Whether it be in the day schools or night classes conducted by the first priests in the Eastern and Western Cape and Natal, or in the first convent schools in the diamond and goldfields, the Church has been the pioneer in education. The Sisterhoods stepped in to meet the need for the care of orphans and the destitute.

Archbishop Gijlswijk’s successor in 1945 was Mgr. H. M. Lucas, S.V.D. Since then several new ecclesiastical territories have been established and new bishops appointed. Since Bishop E. Slater, O.S.B., was consecrated m 1818 there have been (to 1973) 94 bishops in Southern Africa. The transfer of the Apostolic Delegate’s residence from Bloemfontein to Pretoria ensured that he was in immediate touch with the authorities to deal with matters of urgency. Questions of Bantu policy, education, etc. arose frequently and demanded an ever watchful eye. An achievement of Archbishop Lucas’s period was the building in Pretoria of a national seminary for the secular clergy, while a similar one was erected in Natal for African (native) students. The latter has since been moved to Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria.

Archbishop Lucas was succeeded in 1953 by Archbishop C. J. Damiano, followed in 1961 by Archbishop F. McGeough, by Archbishop John Gordon in 1967, and by Archbishop Alfredo Polendrini, who is also pro-nuncio to Lesotho, in 1972. The Roman Catholic population of the Republic, the former Protectorates and South-West Africa was as follows in 1971: White, 165 500; non-White, 1 971488; priests, 1909; brothers, 853; sisters, 6568, from 64 different sisterhoods.

Nine South Africans have been elevated to the espiscopate. By 1971 over 200 sons of South Africa had received the priesthood and over 800 women had entered the religious life. These numbers include Whites, Coloured people and Africans.
Cathedrals
When Bishop P. R. Griffith, O.P., arrived in 1838 as the first resident Roman Catholic bishop in the Cape, he acquired a site at the top of Plein Street – Tanners’ Square – and began the building of St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1841. Completed ten years later, it is the mother church of Catholics in South Africa. (See St. Mary’s Cathedral). In striking contrast, Johannesburg, the City of Gold, was not able to build its cathedral until 1960. The influx of diggers and the subsequent expansion of the town had been so rapid that the need was for a number of small churches rather than a large cathedral. In time a central site was purchased, and the present Cathedral of Christ the King was built in Saratoga Avenue. (See Christ the King, Cathedral of.) In Durban, where the cathedral was built in 1903, commercial buildings have risen round it, and with the Indian market near by, the site has become unfit.

The Union-Castle Line, famed for its lavender hulled liners that sailed between Southampton and South Africa, began as two separate companies – the Union Line and Castle Line.

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In 1853, the Union Steamship Company was founded as the Union Steam Collier to carry coal from South Wales to meet the growing demand in Southampton. It was originally named the Southampton Steam Shipping Company, but later renamed Union Steam Collier Company. The first steamship, the Union, loaded coal in Cardiff in June 1854 but the outbreak of the Crimean War slowed things down. After the war the company was reconstituted as the Union Steamship Company and began chartering its ships.

In 1857 the company was re-registered as Union Line, with Southampton as head office. That same year, the British Admiralty invited tenders for the mail contract to the Cape and Natal. Union Line was awarded the contract with monthly sailings in each direction of not more than 42 days, sailing from Plymouth to Cape Town or Simon’s Town. The five year contract was signed on the 12th September under the name Union-Steam Ship Company Ltd. The first sailing was from Southampton on the 15th September by the Dane.

Union Line built its first ship for the South African run and in October 1860 the Cambrian left Southampton on its maiden voyage. She could carry 60 first class and 40 second class passengers. In September 1871, bound for the cape, she ran out of coal but, under sail, completed the voyage from Southampton in less than 42 days.

By 1863 Donald Currie had built up a fleet of four sailing ships which passed the Cape on the Liverpool-Calcutta run. This company was the Castle Packet Company and was successful until the Suez Canal opened in 1869. By this time, Donald had acquired shares in the Leith, Hull and Hamburg Packet Company where his brother James was manager. The LH & H Packet Co. chartered two ships, Iceland and Gothland, to the Cape & Natal Steam Navigation Co. but this company failed. Donald then used three new Castle steamships intended for the Calcutta run on the Cape run. The ships sailed twice monthly from London with a call at Dartmouth for the mail.

In 1872 the Castle Packet Company took on the Cape run after the collapse of the Cape & Natal Line which had Currie ships on charter. Sailing from London, the ships called at Dartmouth. The service was sold under the banner “The Regular London Line”, later becoming “The Colonial Mail Line” and then “The Castle Mail Packet Company Limited”.

In 1873 Union Line signed a new mail contract including a four weekly service up the east coast of Africa from Cape Town to Zanzibar.
In 1876 the Castle Mail Packet Company Ltd was formed. Later that year, the Colonial Government awarded a joint mail contract. The service to the Cape became weekly by alternating steamers.

In 1882 the Union-Line Athenian became the first ship to use the new Sir Hercules Robinson graving dock at Cape Town. This was constructed of Paarl granite and was named after the Governor of South Africa.

In 1883 the South African Shipping Conference was formed to control the Europe -South / East Africa freight rates. The Conference was dominated by the Union Line and the Castle Mail Packet Company. Fierce rivalry between the two mail companies dominated the route until the merger in 1900. A seven year joint mail contract was signed with the clause that the companies not amalgamate.

In 1887, tickets became interchangeable on the two lines, and in 1888, the mail contract was renewed for five years (with the non-amalgamation clause).

In May 1887 the Dunbar Castle sailed from London with the first consignment of railway equipment to link the Eastern Transvaal with Delagoa Bay. The railway line was opened in 1894.

In 1890 Castle Packet’s new Dunottar Castle sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage. It reduced the voyage to 18 days, and embarkation was switched from Dartmouth to Southampton. She had accommodation for 100 first class, 90 second class, 100 third class and 150 steerage passengers.
In 1890 Union Line’s Norseman and Tyrian, together with Courland and Venice from the Castle Packet Company began shipping supplies for transporting up river to Matebeleland. These materials were used to open up the new country of Rhodesia.

In 1891 Union Line’s Scott left Southampton on her maiden voyage reaching Cape Town in 15½ days with a stop in Madeira. In March 1893 the same ship set a new Cape run record of 14 days, 18 hours – a record which stood for 43 years. It was also in 1891 that the Castle Line replaced its Dartmouth call with one at Southampton. The Union Line now operated 10 steamships and the Castle Mail Packets Co. (renamed in 1881) operated 11 on the mail run. Both companies operated connecting coastal services to Lourenco Marques, Beira and Mauritius.

In 1893, both Union and Castle Lines began a joint cargo service from South Africa to New York. The mail contract was renewed, again with the non-amalgamation clause.
In October 1899 the Anglo-Boer War broke out. Both Union Line and Castle Packet ships ferried troops and supplies to South Africa. In late 1899, a new mail contract was offered but only one company could win the award. This led to the merger proposed by Donald. It was announced in December 1899 and Castle Line took over the fleet. The Union Line livery was black with a white riband around the hull but in 1892 this was changed to a white hull with blue riband and cream-coloured funnels. The Castle ships had a lavender-grey hull with black-topped red funnels, and this was adopted as the livery for the Union-Castle Line.

On the 13th February 1900, shareholders approved the merger. On the 8th March the merged company name was registered – Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company Ltd.
At the time of the merger, the Union Steamship fleet included the:
Arab
Trojan
Spartan
Moor
Mexican
Scot
Gaul
Goth
Greek
Guelph
Norman
Briton
Gascon
Gaika
Goorkka
German
Sabine
Susuehanna
Galeka
Saxon
Galician
Celt (on order)

The Castle Line Mail Packet Company ships included the:
Garth Castle
Hawarden Castle
Norham Castle
Roslin Castle
Pembroke Castle
Dunottar Castle
Doune Castle
Lismore Castle
Tantallon Castle
Harlech Castle
Arundel Castle
Dunvegan Castle
Tintagel Castle
Avondale Castle
Dunolly Castle
Raglan Castle
Carisbrooke Castle
Braemar Castle
Kinfauns Castle
Kildonoan Castle

Sailings from London were stopped, and the completed Celt launched as the Walmer Castle.

On the 10th March 1900, Union Line’s Moor left Southampton for the last time in Union colours. On the 17th March Donald Currie hosted a reception aboard the Dunottar Castle to celebrate the hoisting of the Union-Castle flag for the first time. The Anglo-Boer War resulted in heavy military traffic for Union-Castle Line. Lord ROBERTS and his Chief of Staff, General KITCHENER, travelled to the Cape by Union-Castle.

In 1901 the Tantallon Castle was lost off Robben Island. In 1902, after the war had ended, 15 ships were laid up at Netley in Southampton Water. Nine ships undertook the weekly mail service – Saxon, Briton, Norman, Walmer Castle, Carisbrooke Castle, Dunvegan Castle, Kildonan Castle and Kinfauns Castle.

In 1910, Lord GLADSTONE, the first Governor-General of South Africa, sailed to the Cape aboard the Walmer Castle. The 1900 mail contract was extended until 1912, as the colonies united and the South African Parliament was formed under the Union of South Africa. The Prince of Wales was to sail to Cape Town, to open the new Parliament, aboard the Balmoral Castle – taken over by the Admiralty for the purpose as H.M.S. Balmoral Castle. Shortly before the ship sailed King Edward VII died and the Prince of Wales ascended the throne as H.M. King George V. He was not able to go to Cape Town and his brother, the Duke of Connaught, was sent instead.

In 1911 the Royal Mail Line bought the Union-Castle Company, taking control in April 1912. A new ten year mail contract was signed. The first new ships now bore Welsh names – the Llandovery Castle and the Llanstephan Castle.
In 1914, the Carisbrooke Castle, Norman and Dunvegan Castle were commissioned by the Admiralty – the first as a hospital ship, the latter two as troopships. By the 4th September, 19 of Union-Castle’s 41 ships were on war duty.

By 1915, Union-Castle had 13 ships in service as hospital ships. Some of the ships were lost during WWI:
28 October 1916 – Galeka was hit by a mine.
19 March 1917 – Alnwick Castle was torpedoed and sunk.
26 May 1917 – Dover Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
21 November 1917 – Aros Castle was torpedoed and sunk.
14 February 1918 – Carlisle Castle was torpedoed and sunk
26 February 1918 – Galacian was sunk by a U-boat, whilst renamed the Glenart Castle
12 September 1918 – Galway Castle was sunk by a U-boat, whilst renamed the Rhodesia
27 June 1918 – Llandovery Castle was sunk by a U-boat whilst serving as a hospital ship. 234 lives were lost, making it the fleet’s worst disaster. The Union-Castle War Memorial to those lost is at Cayzer House, Thomas More Street, London.

By October 1919, the Africa service had restarted, and Natal Direct Line had been bought. The weekly mail service resumed after WWI. The intermediate service restarted with the Gloucester Castle, Guildford Castle, Llanstephen Castle and the Norman.

In 1921 the Arundel Castle entered service. It was Union-Castle’s first four funnelled ship and the fleet’s largest ship to date. The Windsor Castle followed in 1922 and the “Round Africa” service was inaugurated.
In 1925 the Norman was withdrawn from service and the Llandovery Castle brought into service, followed by the Llandaff Castle and the Carnarvon Castle in 1926.
In 1927 the Royal Mail Line added the White Star Line. The British Treasury became involved to try and separate Union-Castle Line’s parent company from Royal Mail. By 1932 the Royal Mail group of companies (which included Union-Castle) had run into financial difficulties. Union-Castle came out of this as an independent company. In 1934 Royal Mail was put in liquidation. With heavy government involvement, Union-Castle started rebuilding.

In 1936 the Athlone Castle and the Stirling Castle entered the service. The Stirling Castle beat the record to the Cape set in 1893 by the Scot. A new ten year 14-day mail contract was signed. At this stage only the Stirling Castle and the Athlone Castle could maintain the timetable. The Arundel Castle and Windsor Castle were rebuilt, and the Carnarvon Castle, Winchester Castle and Warwick Castle were re-engined. On the 29th April 1938 the Cape Town Castle entered service. By 1939, the rebuilding programme was complete, but WWII was looming. The Edinburgh Castle became a troopship and the Dunottar Castle served as an armed merchant cruiser. After war was declared, the Carnavon Castle, Dunvegan Castle and Pretoria Castle became armed merchant cruisers.

The following Union-Castle ships were lost during WWII:
4th January 1940 – Rothesay Castle
9th January 1940 – Dunbar Castle hit by a mine and sunk.
28th August 1940 – Dunvegan Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
21st September 1941 – Walmer Castle was bombed and sunk.
12th December 1941 – Dromore Castle was hit by a mined and sunk.
14th February 1942 – Rowallan Castle was bombed by enemy aircraft.
16th July 1942 – Gloucester Castle was sunk by the German cruiser Michel.
4th August 1942 – Richmond Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
14th November 1942 – Warwick Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
30th November 1942 – Llandaff Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
22nd February 1943 – Roxburgh Castle was sunk by a U-boat.
23rd March 1943 – Windsor Castle was sunk by enemy aircraft.
2nd April 1943 – Dundrum Castle exploded and sank in the Red Sea.
During the war Union-Castle ships carried 1.3 million troops, 306 Union-Castle employees were killed, wounded or listed as missing, 62 became prisoners-of-war. The Master of the Rochester Castle, Captain Richard WREN, received the DSO. The Winchester Castle, along with the battleship H.M.S. Ramillies, lead Operation Ironclad at Diego Suarez, and was awarded Battle Honours and her Master, Captain NEWDIGATE the DSC.

By the end of WWII, the Union-Castle passenger fleet consisted of the Cape Town Castle, Athlone Castle, Stirling Castle, Winchester Castle, Carnarvon Castle and the Arundel Castle.

In 1946, South Africa sponsored a scheme for engineers and their families to emigrate from Britain to fill positions in South Africa. These passengers travelled on the Carnarvon Castle, Winchester Castle and the Arundel Castle. The Durban Castle joined the “Round Africa” route.
On the 9th January 1947, the Cape Town Castle departed from Southampton – the first passenger ship carrying post-war mail. Along with the Stirling Castle, the mail service was restored. In May the Llandovery Castle restarted the “Round Africa” passenger service.

In 1948 the Pretoria Castle (later renamed the S.A. Oranje) and the Edinburgh Castle, departed from Southampton on the 22nd July and the 9th December respectively on their maiden voyages in the mail service.
In February 1949 the Dunottar Castle returned to the “Round Africa” service. A rebuilding programme started and 13 new ships were brought in – the Pretoria Castle and the Edinburgh Castle (mail service); the Kenya Castle, Braemar Castle and the Rhodesia Castle (intermediate liners); the Bloemfontein Castle (Round Africa service); the Riebeeck Castle and Rustenburg Castle (refrigerated cargo); Tantallon Castle, Tintagel Castle, Drakensberg Castle, Good Hope Castle and the Kenilworth Castle (general cargo). The Good Hope Castle and the Drakensberg Castle were registered in South Africa

In 1950 the Bloemfontein Castle departed from London on her maiden voyage anti-clockwise “Round Africa”. In 1953 the Pretoria Castle was chosen to be the Union-Castle ship present at the Coronation Review of the Fleet by Queen Elizabeth II at Spithead on the 15th June 1953.
On the 31st December 1955, the Clan Line and Union-Castle Line merged to form British & Commonwealth. The Clan Line contributed 60% of the assets (57 ships) and Union-Castle 40% (42 ships), giving the CAYZER family control of Union-Castle. The routes and livery of each company remained unchanged.

On New Year’s Day 1959 the Pendennis Castle (replacing the Arundel Castle) departed from Southampton on her maiden voyage in the mail service. The Arundel Castle completed her 211th and last voyage from the Cape, sailing for breakers in the Far East. On the 18th August 1960 the Windsor Castle departed from Southampton on her maiden voyage in the mail service, becoming the largest liner to visit Cape Town. The Winchester Castle was withdrawn from service. Also in 1960, an explosion aboard the Cape Town Castle killed the Chief Engineer and seven officers and ratings.

In 1961, the Transvaal Castle (later renamed S.A. Vaal) was launched by Lady CAYZER. In 1962 the “Round Africa” service was closed. The Transvaal Castle departed from Southampton on her maiden voyage on the 18th January 1962. The Carnarvon Castle and Warwick Castle were withdrawn from service, departing Durban for the last time together. The Durban Castle was also withdrawn.
The Southampton Castle was launched on the 20th October 1964 by Princess Alexandra.

The Windsor Castle sailed on the 16th July 1965, accelerating the mail service to provide a Southampton – Cape Town passage in 11 days. The old 4 p.m. Thursday departure was replaced by the 1 p.m. Friday departure, which remained in place for 12 years. The Athlone Castle and the Stirling Castle were withdrawn from service.
The final cycle of weekly sailings saw the mail ships departing from Southampton in the following order: Windsor Castle, Southampton Castle, Edinburgh Castle, S.A.Vaal, Pendennis Castle, Good Hope Castle, S.A. Oranje.
In 1965 Union-Castle took over the charter of the cruise liner Reina del Mar, using her out of Southampton in the summer months mainly to the Mediterranean. In the winter she cruised from South African ports – often to Rio de Janeiro and other South American ports. The Good Hope Castle sailed on her maiden voyage in the mail service on the 14th January 1966.

The UK seamen’s strike in 1966, lasting 46 days, saw 13 British & Commonwealth Group ships laid up in Southampton Docks at the same time. The mail service became a joint operation with the South African Marine Corporation – Safmarine. The Pretoria Castle and the Transvaal Castle were transferred to Safmarine and the South African flag, becoming the S.A. Oranje and the S.A. Vaal, painted in Safmarine colours.

As the De Havilland Comet jet took to the air, mail was changed from sea mail to air mail. The Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet enabled the mass transportation of people by air. In October 1973 British & Commonwealth Shipping Company and Safmarine combined their operations under the name International Liner Services Ltd. On the 29th June 1973 a fire broke out aboard the Good Hope Castle whilst en route from Ascension Island to St. Helena. Passengers were rescued by a passing tanker. The ship was abandoned but did not sink. She re-entered the mail service from Southampton on the 31st May 1974. A world-wide oil crisis resulted in a 10% surcharge on mail ship fares. The Southampton – Cape Town mail service was temporarily slowed from 11 days to 12 days, to conserve bunker oil.
The S.A. Oranje departed from Southampton on the 19th September 1975 for the breakers. It was the start of the phasing out of weekly mail service.

The Edinburgh Castle’s last departure from Southampton (without passengers) was on the 23rd April 1976 for Durban, after which she went to the breakers. The Pendennis Castle was withdrawn after arriving at Southampton on the 14th June.

In 1977 a decision was made to containerise Europe – South Africa services. The company’s flagship, Windsor Castle, left Southampton on her last voyage on the 12th August, arriving back on the 19th September. She was sold for use as a floating hotel in the Middle East. The S.A. Vaal made her final arrival at Southampton on the 10th October. She was rebuilt as the Festivale with Carnival Cruise Lines on the 29th October and eventually scrapped in 2003 in Alang, India. The Good Hope Castle made her last arrival in the mail service at Southampton on the 26th September. On the 30th September, mainly in order to keep the islands of Ascension and St. Helena supplied, she made an additional voyage to the Cape via Zeebrugge, outside the mail service. She was finally withdrawn on return to Southampton on the 8th December. She was sold to Italy ‘s Costa Line as Paola C but was soon broken up. On the 24th October 1977, the Southampton Castle arrived at Southampton on her last mail service. She was sold to Costa Line but soon afterwards went to the breakers.
To keep the Union-Castle name alive, several Clan Line refrigerated ships were given Castle names and were repainted in Union-Castle colours. The last ship to fly the mail pennant for the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company was the Kinpurnie Castle (former Clan Ross). She carried the mail on a voyage from Southampton to Durban calling at the Ascension Islands, St Helena, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London. By 1981 the last of the Clan Line ships were sold. In 1982, International Liner Services Ltd withdrew from shipping after failing to compete against air travel. By 1986 British & Commonwealth had disposed of their last ship.

In 1999, the Union-Castle Line name was revived for a special “Round Africa” sailing on the old route. P & O Line’s Victoria sailed on the 11th December 1999 from Southampton on a millennium cruise with her funnel painted in Union-Castle colours. New Year’s celebrations were held in Cape Town. The Victoria returned to Southampton in February 2000.

In June 2001 the Amerikanis (former Kenya Castle) was scrapped in India, In July 2003 the Big Boat (former Transvaal Castle) was scrapped in India. In August 2004 the Victoria (former Dunottar Castle), was also scrapped in India. The Margarita L. (former Windsor Castle) was then owned by the Greek LATSIS family but in December 2004 this last ship was sold for scrap to Indian scrap merchants, ending the era of the Union-Castle Line.
Ports of Call

Royal Mail Service: from Southampton to Durban, via Madeira, Cape Town, Algoa Bay and East London. Northbound voyages called at Mossel Bay.

Around Africa service (West Coast): from London to London, via Canary Islands, Cape Town, Durban, Delagoa Bay and Suez Canal. Other ports of call were given as East African, Egyptian and Mediterranean ports. They may have included Madeira, Ascension, St. Helena, Lobito Bay, Walvis Bay, Lüderitz Bay, Mossel Bay, Algoa Bay, East London, Beira, Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar, Tanga, Mombasa, Aden, Port Sudan, Naples, Genoa and Marseilles.
Around Africa service (East Coast): from London to London, via Suez Canal, Delagoa Bay, Durban, Cape Town, Lobito Bay, St. Helena, Ascension, Canary Islands and Madeira. Other ports of call may have been the same as the West Coast route.

Intermediate service: from London to Beira or Mombasa, via Canary Islands and Cape Town. Occasionally called at St. Helena and Ascension on northbound voyages. Other ports of call may have included Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth), East London, and Atlantic ports as per the “Around Africa” West Coast service.

Image Captions
“Round Africa” route, from the 1954 Union-Castle brochure
Dunottar Castle
The Union Castle Line Poster
Kinfauns Castle
References
A Trip to South Africa, by James Salter-Whiter, 1892
Ships and South Africa: a maritime chronicle of the Cape, with particular reference to mail and passenger liners, from the early days of steam down to the present ; by Marischal Murray, Oxford University Press 1933
Union-Castle Chronicle: 1853 – 1953, by Marischal Murray; Longmans, Green and Company 1953
Mail ships of the Union Castle Line, by C.J. Harris and Brian D. Ingpen, Fernwood Press, 1994
Union-Castle Line – A Fleet History, by Peter Newall, Carmania Press 1999
Golden Run – A Nostalgic Memoir of the Halcyon Days of the Great Liners to South and East Africa, by Henry Damant, 2006
Merchant Fleet Series. Vol. 18 Union-Castle, by Duncan Haws
Union-Castle Line Staff Register: http://www.unioncastlestaffregister.co.uk
Article researched and written by Anne Lehmkuhl, June 2007

Financier, merchant, civil servant and author. Born in Coventry 2nd July 1758 and died in Cape Town 19th April 1836. He was a cousin of the philanthropist William Wilberforce and he too was greatly interested in the well-being of slaves. He came to the Cape in 1807 and was the founder of the Cape Philanthropic Society. He had a share in the import and export trade, especially with St. Helena and Mauritius, carrying his cargo in his own ships. In 1810  he joined the Cape civil service as Controller of Customs and remained in that position to his death. He became a confidant of Lord Charles Somerset but never a subservient 'yes'-man. Bird had a fair knowledge of law and assisted in drawing up the Colony's game laws. It is claimed that he suggested the name 'St. George's Cathedral' for the first English church in Southern Africa. His memorial can be seen in the church. His comprehensive book, The State of the Cape of Good Hope in 1822, was written anonymously. It covers in detail the system of government at the Cape, the law courts, the burgher senate, registration of slaves, agriculture, trade and the customs of the population. He was highly critical of the way in which such ceremonies as weddings and funerals were conducted. Bird served on several bodies because of his knowledge of finance and management which was rare in such a small community.

The Salvation Army in the Republic of South Africa is an integral part of its international counterpart. It came to South Africa in 1883, when three officers arrived from London. Missionary work among the Bantu, begun in 1888, is now well organised, covering evangelical and social needs, with an increasing development of Bantu leadership. The Salvation Army in South Africa is directed by the territorial commander, and the work comprises both a church institution (with doctrines central to the orthodox Christian faith, and membership based on clearly defined standards of conduct) and a mission to the un-churched and needy, irrespective of race or creed. Almost 400 centres of evangelical work of varying size are maintained by the Salvation Army among Whites, Coloured people and Bantu.

The traditional social work of the Salvation Army is exercised through about 40 institutions of various kinds, for Whites and non-Whites, including hospitals, homes for needy children, hostels, eventide homes, and creches. One institution of special significance is the `retreat' for alcoholics at Muldersvlei, near Paarl. The officers and cadets of the Army in South Africa numbered almost 500 in 1972. They are drawn from all sections of the population. There are two training-colleges, one for White and one for Bantu officers, both on the Witwatersrand. A bilingual periodical is published, named The War Cry – Die Strydkreet.

Salvation Army work on the island of St. Helena and in Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland is also under the control of the headquarters in Johannesburg. The work in Rhodesia is controlled by a separate command from Salisbury. Zambia is also a separate command, with headquarters at Lusaka. In these countries evangelical, educational, medical and social work of some magnitude is undertaken, especially among the African peoples. Training-schools for nurses and secondary schools have been established there.