A majority of the 1820 Settlers remained on their original holdings in the Albany and Bathurst districts, but individual Settlers entered into and promoted every sphere of development in this country and became explorers and leaders in the establishment of townships and trade. Some qualified for important posts in administration and became High Commissioners, Judges, Members of Parliament, Magistrates, Doctors, Commandants and Field Cornets. There were pioneers and traders whose names given to places mark their trail even in Rhodesia; two 1820 Settlers were chosen as candidates for Presidential elections in the Transvaal and O.F.S. They established schools and Mission Stations and built churches. Among their numbers were Ministers of Religion, Missionaries, Authors, Poets, Botanists, Historians, Editors, Architects, Engineers, Scientists and Geologists who left their mark and their records, but their experiences and achievements would be more inspirational if we could gather together, as this book does, more of the threads of their personal family lives, for this is the foundation on which history is built.
The 1820 Settlers brought a way of life and inspiration for human betterment to this country. They were not a force like the ocean which is spent on our beaches; for they came and enshrined themselves as a fundamental part of our population. Their descendants should furnish all possible information to facilitate the building of family trees extending back at least to the time of the arrival of the 1820 Settlers.
As we are in the process of building a nation, it is more necessary than ever before that we should record the annals of human endeavour that are the basic foundations of our nationhood and chronicle the character of the people that made up what today we know as South Africans.