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

Grahamstown Makhanda, formerly known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 75,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Gqeberha and southwest of East London. It is the largest town in the Makana Local Mun ...

in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), 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. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

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 Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

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

demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land subinfeudation, sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. ...

Fintry Fintry is a small riverside village in Stirlingshire, central Scotland. It is located south-west of Stirling and around north of Glasgow. Landscape The village of Fintry sits by the Endrick Water in a strath between the Campsie Fells and the ...

and 12th representative of the Grahams of Fintry in

Forfarshire Angus (; ) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agriculture and fishing. Global pharmaceuticals ...

, 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 Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

, joining the 90th Regiment of Foot, which had been raised in 1794 by his kinsman,

Thomas Graham Thomas Graham may refer to: Politicians and diplomats *Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch (1748–1843), British politician and soldier * Thomas Graham Jr. (diplomat) (born 1933), nuclear expert and senior U.S. diplomat *Sir Thomas Graham (barriste ...

of Balgowan (later Lord Lynedoch). Two expeditions to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

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 of Viscount Pitt, of Burton ...

, who Graham served in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. After three years on

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

with his regiment, Graham was sent to

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

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

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

in the 93rd Regiment of Foot, in which capacity he took part in the

Battle of Blaauwberg The Battle of Blaauwberg (also known as the Battle of Cape Town) was a successful British amphibious operation during the War of the Third Coalition which lasted from 8–18 January 1806 and resulted in the capture of the Dutch Cape Colony. Af ...

, 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 ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-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 the Dutch ...

auxiliaries from

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

Graaff-Reinet Graaff-Reinet (; Xhosa: eRhafu) is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province and the fourth oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The to ...

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 El ...

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

Xhosa people The Xhosa people ( , ; ) are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group that migrated over centuries into Southern Africa eventually settling in South Africa. They are the second largest ethnic group in South Africa and are native speakers of the Xho ...

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

Fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

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 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 A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...

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 "Graham's Tree", the ''

Mimosa ''Mimosa'' is a genus of about 600 species of herbs and shrubs, in the mimosoid clade of the legume family Fabaceae. Species are native to the Americas, from North Dakota to northern Argentina, and to eastern Africa (Tanzania, Mozambique, and ...

'' 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 named 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 Cape Colony military personnel Military personnel from Dundee People from Makhanda, Eastern Cape Military personnel from the Eastern Cape British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars