Colonel John Graham (24 April 177813 March 1821) was a British soldier and administrator best known for founding the settlement of

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. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana ...

in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a 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 it united with t ...

in 1812. Grahamstown went on to become a military, administrative, judicial and educational centre for its surrounding region.

Family origins

Graham was born in Dundee,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. He was the second son of Robert Graham, the last laird of the demesne of

Fintry Fintry is a small riverside village in Stirlingshire, central Scotland. Landscape The village of Fintry sits on the strath of the Endrick Water in a valley between the Campsie Fells and the Fintry Hills. The name Fintry is said to have deri ...

and 12th representative of the Grahams of Fintry in Forfarshire, Scotland. Later in life, John became the thirteenth representative of the Fintry Grahams following the death of his elder brother in 1799 and his father in 1816. At the age of 16, Graham was commissioned in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

, joining the

90th Regiment of Foot The 90th Perthshire Light Infantry was a Scottish light infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1794. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 26th (Cameronian) Regiment of Foot to form the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in 188 ...

, which had been raised in 1794 by his kinsman, Thomas Graham of Balgowan (later Lord Lynedoch). Two expeditions to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in the late-1790s were followed by an appointment as '' aide-de-camp'' to the

Earl of Chatham Earl of Chatham, of Chatham in the County of Kent, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1766 for William Pitt the Elder on his appointment as Lord Privy Seal, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Pitt, of Burto ...

, who Graham served in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. After three years on Guernsey with his regiment, Graham was sent to

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1803 and became assistant quartermaster-general. In January 1806, Graham was promoted to the rank of Major in the

93rd Regiment of Foot The 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a Line Infantry Regiment of the British Army, raised in 1799. Under the Childers Reforms, it amalgamated with the 91st (Argyllshire Highlanders) Regiment of Foot to form the Argyll and Suthe ...

, in which capacity he took part in the

Battle of Blaauwberg The Battle of Blaauwberg, also known as the Battle of Cape Town, fought near Cape Town on Wednesday 8 January 1806, was a small but significant military engagement. After a British victory, peace was made under the Treaty Tree in Woodstock. ...

, under which the Dutch Cape Colony was annexed by the British Crown. Rapid promotion to Lieutenant Colonel led to him being given charge of the Cape Regiment, based at Wynberg, which Graham trained as

light infantry Light infantry refers to certain types of lightly equipped infantry throughout history. They have a more mobile or fluid function than other types of infantry, such as heavy infantry or line infantry. Historically, light infantry often fought ...

capable of delivering outstanding performance in wooded terrain.

The founding of Grahamstown

In 1811, Graham was sent with the Cape Regiment and

Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this are ...

auxiliaries from

Swellendam Swellendam is the fifth oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, and Paarl), a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them ...

Graaff-Reinet Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province. It is also the sixth-oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the ...

and

Uitenhage Uitenhage ( ; ), officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port E ...

to undertake the task which was to define his military career: clearing around 20,000

Xhosa people The Xhosa people, or 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 ethnic group whose traditional homeland is primarily t ...

led by Ndlambe ka Rharhabe. The Xhosa had settled in the Zuurveld (later called Albany), a district between the Bushman's and

Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

rivers, which lay beyond the

's frontiers. The Zuurveld was mistakenly assumed by the colonial government to be part of the colony as they misread the frontier laid down by Governor

Joachim van Plettenberg Baron Joachim Ammena van Plettenberg (8 March 1739, Leeuwarden, Netherlands – 18 August 1793, Zwolle, Netherlands) was the governor of the Cape of Good Hope from 11 August 1771 to 14 February 1785. Plettenberg was presiding governor after ...

in 1778. The campaign to clear the Xhosa residents from the Eastern frontier was defined by Graham's plan to use "a proper degree of terror". During the campaign, scorched earth tactics, including the burning of Xhosa farms were used to clear them from the Eastern frontier. By 1812 Graham's task was complete, and so on the deserted loan farm De Rietfontein, he established Graham’s Town as Zuurveld's central military post, with a string of linked forts along the Fish River. The same year he returned to Britain on leave of absence then accompanied his cousin Thomas to the

as his '' aide-de-camp'' and private military secretary. Graham died in Wynberg on 13 March 1821. He was buried in the Somerset Road Cemetery. This was the principal graveyard in Cape Town until 1886. Before the levelling of the Somerset Road Cemetery and building started on the site in about 1922, a number of inscribed stones were lifted from their graves and deposited at the Woltemade cemetery at Maitland which had been opened as Cape Town’s principal graveyard in 1886. His tombstone lies there today and a window was erected to his memory in St Saviour’s Church, Claremont, in about 1931. In 1912, a monument was erected in High Street, Grahamstown, on the site of the thorn tree where Graham had made the decision to establish the settlement.

Family

On 24July 1812, Graham married Johanna Catharina Cloete (1790-1843), a descendant of Jacob Klute (or Cloete) of Westerford, the first permanent settler at the Cape. Along with three daughters (Johanna-Catharina, Elizabeth-Margaret and Isabella-Ann), the couple had a son, Robert, who became civil commissioner of Albany.

Descendants

Of Graham's grandsons, two were knighted, one as Secretary of Law of the Cape Colony, the other Judge President of the Eastern Districts Court in Grahamstown.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, John 1778 births 1821 deaths 93rd Regiment of Foot officers Cameronians officers History of South Africa Military personnel from Dundee People from Makhanda, Eastern Cape British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars