Toposcope

Editorial

2021-10-04T14:53:45+00:00

New Local Publications

2021-10-04T17:07:17+00:00

Local Publications:

Children of Hope / Sandra Rowoldt Shell
Nottinghamshire: Settlers and Locations in the Eastern Cape of Good Hope / Rob Smith
1820 Settlers and other early British Settlers to the Cape Colony / edited by John Wilmot
Cock tales on the Kowie / Sue Laburn Gordon in association with Ed Cock

Editorial Policy

2021-10-04T17:01:24+00:00

Visit to Southwell and Kariega Baptist Church 20 May 2021

2021-10-04T16:03:00+00:00

On Thursday 20 May, 43 members set off from the Port Alfred Civic Centre at 9 am sharp to visit the old school and St James church in Southwell, where Moira Stirk kindly addressed us. This was followed by a visit to the historic Baptist Church in Kariega, where we were addressed by Hubert Webber, whose family has long been connected with the area.

From their Southwell to ours

2021-10-04T16:12:29+00:00

Rob Smith of Southwell, Notts, England first happened upon the link between Nottinghamshire and our Ndlambe area while researching the history of the County House of Correction in the Notts Archives. Intrigued by the story of the Southwell 1820 settlement, he visited S Africa in 2016, meeting the Stirks of Southwell and some LAHS members.

Farewell to Sally Poole

2021-10-04T16:17:08+00:00

Obituary: Graham Dickason (1936-2020)

2021-10-04T16:21:02+00:00

Graham was born in Johannesburg in 1936, attended Jeppe Boys High, worked in Foreign Audit, Rhodesia Railways, Bulawayo (1954-1957) and then went to London (1957-1960) where he worked for a private merchant bank. On his return he became PA to the Mining Director and an Investment Analyst at JCI (1960-1967). He was General Manager of MPF Investment, the mining industry pension fund (1967-1998) and was Chairman and co-founder of City Lodge Hotels, 1985-1994.

Obituary: Merwynne Twentyman Jones

2021-10-04T16:27:24+00:00

One of this area’s most enthusiastic amateur genealogists and historians was lost to us when Merwynne Twentyman Jones died peacefully at Damant Lodge on 10 February 2021, aged 85.

A member remembers

2021-10-04T16:32:15+00:00

Rolfe Matthews, an Honorary Member of LAHS, joined the Society on his retirement in 1997 and now lives in Bathurst. He is probably a descendant of William Matthews, the 1820 Settler who settled at Salem and was its schoolmaster, but Rolfe feels this lineage has not been properly confirmed. However, behind the church in Salem is a graveyard where a lady called 'Min' is buried. “Aunt Min was my Dad’s aunt and I think I still remember her,” says Rolfe. It seems too coincidental that the famous teacher Matthews and his wife are buried there, too.

A brief history of the Xhosa Chiefs and King represented on cairns on Toposcope Monument, Bathurst

2021-10-04T16:36:21+00:00

A brief history of the Xhosa Chiefs and King represented on cairns on Toposcope Monument, Bathurst

The Bathurst Powder Magazine Project

2021-10-04T16:42:06+00:00

Bicentennial Commemoration at Seven Fountains

2021-10-04T16:45:06+00:00

On 27 September 2020, along with representatives of local farming families and wellwishers, we were drawn to this Church to celebrate perhaps the only public settler Bicentennial Commemoration that took place in 2020, the year of Covid pandemic and lockdown. The event had been planned and organised by Graham Dickason, a direct descendant of widower Robert Dickason of the 1820 Latham Party.

William John Burchell, multi-skilled polymath

2021-10-04T16:48:53+00:00

Two hundred and ten years ago, 29-year-old William John Burchell stepped on to the wooden jetty near Cape Town's Castle and immediately started planning his journey of scientific exploration of southern Africa. This would take four years, mostly by ox-wagon, and cover 7000km. On 19 June 1811, he departed Cape Town '’with a mind free from prejudice'’ and “solely for the purpose of acquiring knowledge” …He travelled to about 150 km north of Kuruman, explored the Ky-Gariep (Vaal) River and returned to Cape Town via Graaff-Reinet, the mouth of the Great Fish River, Uitenhage, Mossel Bay and Swellendam...

The bridges over the river Kei

2021-10-04T16:52:41+00:00

The article is the outcome of the author's long-standing interest in the number and variety of bridges that were built within a short section of the Great Kei River at Victoria Drift - in close proximity to the village of Komgha - over a 100-year period. The particular bridges under scrutiny - with their dates of construction - are as follows:

Temporary Military Bridge, 1877 (no longer extant)
Lattice Girder Wagon Bridge, 1879
Timber Railway Bridge, 1905 (only foundations remaining)
Relocated Lattice Girder Railway Bridge, 1948
N2 SANRAL Concrete Bridge, 1977.

Trauma and slavery, Gilo and the soft, subtle shackles of Lovedale

2021-10-04T16:58:01+00:00

A recent study of sixty-four Oromo slave children from the Horn of Africa has provided valuable information of the children’s experiences from capture to the coast. In 1888 a British warship liberated a consignment of Oromo child slaves in the Red Sea and took them to Aden. A year later, a further group of liberated Oromo slave children joined them at a Free Church of Scotland mission at Sheikh Othman, just north of Aden. Two of the missionaries learnt Afaan Oromo (the children’s language), and, with the assistance of three fluent Afaan Oromo speakers, they conducted structured interviews with each child asking for details of their experiences of their first passage i.e. the journey from cradle to the Red Sea coast. When a number of the children died within a short space of time, the missionaries had to find another institution with a healthier climate to prevent further deaths. They decided to ship the Oromo children to the Lovedale Institution in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Erratum

2021-10-04T15:55:32+00:00

Chairman's Report for the year 2020-2021

2021-10-04T15:01:43+00:00

LAHS Committee 2020-2021

2021-10-04T14:58:44+00:00

Front-matter

2021-10-04T14:48:18+00:00