Passengers to Natal on RMS Natal Oct 1875

'Arrival of RMS Natal 28 Mail Bags 58 Passengers. Yesterday at a quarter past two o'clock this steamer arrived at the outer anchorage. She has made exceedingly quick passage, having left Cape Town at noon on 6th inst. Capt Airth (Port Captain) at once proceeded out in the tug which did battle with the waves going across the bar, a heavy sea being on at the time. The mails were landed at a quarter to 4. We are indebted to Capt Gilbert for a report of the voyage. Capt Gilbert has had a splendid run this trip. Having been only 45 hours from Cape Town to Algoa Bay and 53 hours thence to Natal including stoppage at East London.' (Natal Mercury 12.10.1875)

This Natal (not to be confused with the General Screw Co vessel of the same name in the 1850's) was a Union Line coaster. Built in 1866, 618 tons, she was intended for the colonial coastal trade. Despite being described as capable of crossing the bar at Durban in all conditions, she evidently anchored out in the roadstead on her arrival in October 1875.

Natal had the dubious distinction of losing her captain, Ridsdale, when he fell overboard during a voyage to Cape Town. On a more auspicious occasion she carried Sir John Molteno and other notables. In 1873 she inaugurated the Zanzibar Line, sailing to Zanzibar from the Cape.

Arrived 11 October 1875 RMS Natal (took 5 days from the Cape).

Passengers:

ANDERSON Farquharson
ANDERSON Alexander
ANDERSON Charlotte
ANDERSON Margaret Jane
ANDERSON Neil McInnes
ANDERSON Wilhelmina
AUGUR James H
BALENTYNE Anne
BATH Samuel
HOBSON Matilda A
HORN Alexander
LEFEVRE Arthur
METCALF Frank Hardy
METCALF John
METCALF Louisa
METCALF Percy James
MITCHELL Alex Hector
PERFECT (infant)
PERFECT Annie
PERFECT Henry
PERFECT Maria
PERFECT Rebecca
PERFECT Rebecca M A
PERFECT Robert William
PERFECT William
SMALWOOD Thomas
WALLETT Eliza
WALLETT George

Not all passengers are listed by name. Sureties (i.e. providing employment) for some of those on board were Black Baxter & Co. The Anderson family had emigrated from Aberdeen and were to settle at Umzinto on the south coast of Natal. After the death of Farquharson Anderson, his widow Charlotte married William Dixon Smith.

The road to Umzinto, Natal South Coast:
crossing a drift by ox-wagon. There were about 20 rivers
to cross between Durban and Umzinto, a hazardous undertaking.
The lengthy sea voyage was merely the start of the settlers' journey.

.

Intombi Cemetery Memorials, Ladysmith: Anglo-Boer War 1

ANDERSON, Alexander O - Trooper Border Mounted Rifles

d. 29 January 1900 (of enteric fever)

(Stepson of William DIXON SMITH, BMR, also buried at Intombi)

ARKWRIGHT, Cyril - Lieut. 5th R I Lancers

b. 14 March 1874 d at Ntombi 10 Mar 1900 after the Relief of Ladysmith
'For Queen and Country'

ASHE, J W. Trooper, Border Mounted Rifles

d. 13 Feb 1900 (of dysentery)

Photographs: Dixon-Smith

Sugar and Natal: the Pioneers - Joyner

WILLIAM JOYNER

The Feildens were not alone in their losses as a result of the 1856 flood. On the Isipingo Flat, William Joyner's sugar mill machinery was washed away forever.

Joyner came to Natal with his wife Ann and family on the Conquering Hero in June 1850 and lived in Durban for about two years working as a painter and decorator before moving to the Isipingo to farm at his sugar estate named Dingwall. During that time, Richard ('Dick') King, the well-known early colonist, was his neighbour. In 1860 Joyner sold his Isipingo property and moved to a new farm in Alexandra County on the Ifafa River, Ellangowan. By 1863 he had a 6-horse power steam mill in operation. In 1870, John Robinson wrote: 'Mr Joyner ... assisted by his intelligent and industrious sons, has year by year laboured on, until now more than 200 acres of sugarcane stretch round his house and a steam mill smokes under his windows'. Joyner produced sugar made from the indigenous cane, imphe.

His daughter, Clara Joyner Anderson, in her Reminiscences and Memories of Early Durban and its Pioneers*, gives a detailed picture of what life was like for pioneering sugar farmers in Natal, working with primitive equipment and their crop threatened by the elements and other hazards. Joyner at one period prospected for gold and during one of his absences from home a run-away fire threatened his Ellangowan mill. Close neighbours, Aiken and Bazley, came to the rescue of Mrs Joyner who was running the mill alone.

Joyner sold Ellangowan estate in 1868. Eventually it became part of Reynolds Bros Ltd. William Joyner died in East Griqualand in 1886 at the residence of his son, Archibald Scott Keith Joyner. The latter was born 3 Jan 1877; he married Florence Rose Beale and they had two sons and three daughters. Archibald Joyner served in the Natal Royal Rifles 1896-99, transferred to B Squadron, Natal Carbineers 1899; he was a marksman. After the Anglo-Boer War he farmed in the Matatiele district at 'Bon Accord'. In 1916 he was Lieut in 1st Cambridgeshire Regiment serving 16 months in the trenches in France, and was wounded 22 August 1919. He then returned to farming in East Griqualand.

For more on Joyner descendants see:
http://home.global.co.za/~mercon/mercer/James%20Keith%20Joyner.htm

* copies available at Killie Campbell Library, Durban