Eastern Frontier, Cape of Good Hope, ca 1835

The 1820 Settlers were several groups of

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

colonists from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, settled by the government of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

authorities in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in 1820.

Origins

After the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, Britain experienced a serious unemployment problem. Many of the 1820 Settlers were poor and the Cape government encouraged them to settle in the Eastern Cape in an attempt to strengthen the eastern frontier against the neighbouring

Xhosa people The Xhosa people, or Xhosa language, Xhosa-speaking people (; ) are African people who are direct kinsmen of Tswana people, Sotho people and Twa people, yet are narrowly sub grouped by European as Nguni people, Nguni ethnic group whose traditi ...

s, and to provide a boost to the English-speaking population of South Africa. The settlement policy led to the establishment of

Albany, South Africa Albany, South Africa (also known as Cape Borders, Cape Frontier, Settler Country, and Western Region) was a district in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Grahamstown was traditionally the administrative capital, cultural centre and largest town of th ...

, a centre of the

British diaspora in Africa The British diaspora in Africa is a population group broadly defined as English-speaking white Africans of mainly (but not only) British descent who live in or come from Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority live in South Africa and other Southern A ...

Colonisation

Of the 90,000 applicants, about 4,000 were approved. Many 1820 Settlers initially arrived in the Cape in about 60 different parties between April and June 1820. They were granted farms near the village of

Bathurst, Eastern Cape Bathurst is about inland from Port Alfred, on the R67 road, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, and is named after Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies by Sir Rufane Donkin. Its chief claim to fame ...

, and supplied equipment and food against their deposits, but their lack of agricultural experience led many of them to abandon agriculture and withdraw to Bathurst and other settlements like

Grahamstown Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London, Eastern Cape, East London. Makhanda is the lar ...

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

and

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...

, where they typically reverted to their trades. A group of the 1820 Settlers continued on to

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ...

, then a part of Zululand, home of the

Zulu people Zulu people (; zu, amaZulu) are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated 10–12 million people, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal ...

. At the time, King Shaka ruled the territory with highly trained warriors. Leaders of the Natal settlers requested permission from Shaka to stay on the land. When the king witnessed the settlers' technological advances, permission was granted in return for access to firearm technology. According to genealogist Shelagh O'Byrne Spencer, among 1820 Settlers who moved to Natal were "John Bailie, the founder of East London, and Charles Kestell, after whose son, the Rev. John Daniel Kestell of Anglo-Boer War fame, the Free State town of

Kestell Kestell is a small maize farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. Town 46 km west of Harrismith and east of Bethlehem. The new village was laid out in 1905 on the farms Mooifontein and Driekuil, acquired from Adriaan and J ...

is named". As always, there were exceptions. After 5 months at sea two ships arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from London via Cork, Ireland. Upon feasting their eyes on the promised land, about 200 settlers lay off shore at Simonstown ("Simons Bay") for a week, before being sailed back all the way to Saldanha. From here they were carted to Clanwilliam ("Jan Disselsvlei") and given tiny pieces of land. All but 5 families (Archer, Stone, et al.) were later rescued and moved to the "Eastern Cape". The five remaining families, culturally isolated from the other British Settlers, had to make do and were quickly absorbed by the Dutch/Afrikaans speaking communities. Understandably, some of these English descendants fought against the English in the Anglo Boer wars.

Memorial

They are commemorated in Grahamstown by the

1820 Settlers National Monument The 1820 Settlers National Monument, which honours the contribution to South African society made by the British 1820 Settlers, overlooks Makhanda in the Eastern Cape. It commemorates the Anglo-Africans, as well as the English language, as much a ...

, which opened in 1974. A living monument, it hosts plays, musical performances and cultural events, and is supported by the 1820 Settlers Association which was founded in 1920 by

Sir Walter Stanford Sir Walter Ernest Mortimer Stanford (2 August 1850 – 9 September 1933) was a South African civil servant and politician. Stanford was born in Alice, South Africa, in 1850 and was educated at the Lovedale Mission School. He left school and b ...

and other descendants. It also served as a vehicle "to ttempt toreverse the downward trend of British immigration to South Africa and redress the growing numerical imbalance between Afrikaners and English by bringing British immigrants, particularly ex-servicemen, into the country as settlers."

Notable 1820 Settlers

William Guybon Atherstone William Guybon Atherstone (1814–1898) was a medical practitioner, naturalist and geologist, one of the pioneers of South African geology and a member of the Cape Parliament. Life He arrived in South Africa with his parents as 1820 Settler ...

John Burnet Biddulph John Burnet Biddulph (10 December 1796 Wigginton, Staffordshire – 3 March 1837 Graaff-Reinet) was a South African explorer and trader who arrived with the 1820 Settlers. Midshipman John Biddulph joined Lieutenant John Bailie's party aboard t ...

* Alexander Biggar *

Henry Hare Dugmore Henry Hare Dugmore (1810–1896) was an English missionary, writer and translator. He was born in England to Isaac and Maria Dugmore and baptised in Birmingham on 5 June 1810. The family emigrated when his father was financially ruined after bei ...

George Henry Ford George Henry Ford aka G. H. Ford (20 May 1808 in London – July 1876 in London), was a South African natural history illustrator who joined the British Museum in 1837. He portrayed animals and produced the plates in Sir Andrew Smith's ''Ill ...

Robert Godlonton Robert Godlonton (1794–1884) ("Moral Bob") was an influential politician of the Cape Colony. He was an 1820 Settler, who developed the press of the Eastern Cape and led the Eastern Cape separatist movement as a representative in the Cape's ...

* Jeremiah Goldswain, an uneducated farmer and former sawyer whose idiosyncratic, phonetically-spelt journal provides insight into early 19th century Midlands English pronunciation *

Richard Gush Richard Gush (1789–1858) was an 1820 Settler. Originally from Beer, a village in Devon, England, he settled in Salem, near Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. His parents were Thomas and Mary Gush and his grandparents we ...

Dick King Richard Philip King (1811–1871) was an English trader and colonist at Port Natal, a British trading station in the region now known as KwaZulu-Natal. He is best known for a historic horseback ride in 1842, where he completed a journey of i ...

* Joshua "Emperor" Norton *

Thomas Pringle Thomas Pringle (5 January 1789 – 5 December 1834) was a Scottish writer, poet and abolitionist. Known as the father of South African poetry, he was the first successful English language poet and author to describe South Africa's scenery, nati ...

* Thomas Shone

Notes

References

* *

External links

Grahamstown Foundation and 1820 Settlers National Monument

1820 Settlers Association

1820Settlers.com, a genealogy website
{{Authority control Ships of the 1820 settlers

1820 Settlers The 1820 Settlers were several groups of British colonists from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, settled by the government of the United Kingdom and the Cape Colony authorities in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1820. Origins After th ...

19th century in Africa British Empire British-South African culture History of South Africa