Captain George Caithness and the Undersea Volcanic Eruption

Brig in a Storm

Great Balls of Fire

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Thursday 17 November 1845, under the heading ‘Marine Phenomena’, ‘a circumstance of singular interest … similar to what has been experienced by other mariners in various parts of the world.’

Captain Caithness, of the brig Victoria, reports that on the 18^th instant (June) at nine o’clock p.m., a heavy squall took both top-gallant and royal masts over the side; at the same time no appearance of a squall. 

At eleven o’clock called all hands to reef the topsail; then blowing hard at S.S.E. to S.E.  All hands proceeded aloft to reef the main-topsail: in a moment it fell calm, and all hands complained of being so hot, and so much sulphur and dust, they could hardly remain up aloft, and it was worse on deck, the ship at the same time labouring. 

Half a mile from the ship saw three balls of fire come out of the sea; this lasted about ten minutes. Another heavy squall from S.S.E., and then the ship soon ran into the cool atmosphere. The position of the ship, as well as he could judge from observations taken at noon was – latitude 30 deg., 40 min., 56 sec., longitude 13 deg., 44 min., 36 sec., by two chronometers.*

  

Despite the lack of a forename in the news report this was certainly Captain George Caithness (1818-1895). That he was master of the Victoria at the relevant date is confirmed in his Master’s Claim for Certificate of Service. This document, dated September 1850 and listing the vessels in which George served, provides vital details of his career. 

To be continued

* Interpreting the coordinates in the newspaper article as 30° 41’ north and 13° 45’ west as the only logical location, puts the observation about 200 km north east of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco. Google maps show undersea mountains and the Canaries still have a few active volcanos.

Acknowlegements

Tom Sheldon

Peter Hay

Caithness in the Diamond Fields 3

Diamond Digger

The Cape and Natal News of 8 August 1870 concerning members of Slater’s party leaving for the diamond fields gives only the surname Caithness – no forename or title, no mention of ‘Captain’. This could suggest it may not have been George Henry Caithness but his nephew James Ernest Caithness, at that point a fit thirty-year old bachelor and more likely to be setting off for the fields than would a fifty-something mariner such as George Henry.

However, it is certain that Captain Caithness made some trips by steamship from the Cape to England at the height of the diamond rush and that he presented ‘a collection of stones from the diamond diggings’ to the Hartley Institution (the latter became today's Southampton University).

The Cape and Natal News gives an idea of the freight carried by steamers, mentioning the Northam on which Captain Caithness was a passenger in 1872:

‘Diamonds were Trumps at the Cape’ and the same newspaper published some verses – enthusiastic if short on literary merit - by ‘a young Colonist’, entitled ‘Off to the Diamond Diggings’, giving a fair idea of the prevailing mood.

The South African press was full of stories about the diamond fields, who was on their way there, what the conditions were like en route and who had had spectacular finds. There wasn’t quite as much information on the many spectacular failures. 

Suddenly there was a dearth of ‘enterprising young men’ in the settled areas of the Colony: they were all off to the fields, wagons laden with stores and equipment, to rough it in tent-towns on the bare veld. 

Even men who were not so young hoped to make their fortunes, as the report below reveals:

During the year 1870 there poured into the country a stream of fortune-seekers which would be equalled only when gold was found on the Witwatersrand twenty years later.

It was the remarkable discoveries of diamonds and gold which put South Africa on the map and changed the course of its history. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Acknowledgement

Tom Sheldon

Research Resource:

Africana Library Kimberley

Holdings include: early travel and missionaries, Kimberley chronological, Directories and Voters’ Lists, geological and archaeological. Local newspapers from 1870, when diamonds were discovered, until present. 15 000 Photographs depicting the Diamond Fields and its people, mining and the Siege of Kimberley. 760 collections of Manuscripts, dealing with Siege of Kimberley diaries, discovery of diamonds etc. Ephemera: pamphlets, programs, invitation cards, medals, coins etc. South African and Kimberley maps.

http://africanalibrary.co.za/

  

Caithness in the Diamond Fields 2

The Diamond Fields At The Cape

The Hampshire Advertiser, on the alert for any news involving ‘Southamptonians’ and their relatives, reported on 29 Oct 1873 as follows:

Donations to the Museum: The Library and Museum Committee reported that Captain Caithness 'had sent a collection of stones from the diamond diggings' at the Cape.

These offerings are likely to have been uncut stones, as the museum (the Hartley Institution) had an interest in geology. What is less certain is whether Captain Caithness acquired the stones at the diggings himself or came by them indirectly.

Sorting Diamonds

It’s probable that the Captain mentioned was George Henry Caithness, whose career is gradually unfolding as more references emerge.

Shipping companies were involved in a rush of their own, making money on the back of the diamond frenzy. Demand for transport to the Cape was unprecedented and new competitors entered the market. 

For example, Messrs G H Payne and Co of London sent two chartered steamers the Westenhope and Beethoven, intended to be the start of a regular Cape line and advertised in the press with the magic words ‘Direct to the Diamond Fields’:

Unfortunately, the 'magnificent' Westenhope, after delivering passengers at Port Elizabeth for the diamond fields, was totally wrecked at Seal Island.

In May 1867 (the year of the Eureka Diamond discovery) Captain and Mrs Caithness were passengers from the Cape to Southampton on the Union Co. steamship, Cambrian. That this may have been a regular trip for the Caithness couple is indicated by another report dated 21 September 1872 listing them as passengers on the Northam, again to Southampton from the Cape:

The Northam’s cargo manifest included over 2 000 pounds in specie, an unstated amount of gold from the Marabastadt fields, ostrich feathers (highly fashionable), ivory – and ‘nine packages of diamonds.’ Numerous vessels departing the Cape at the height of the diamond frenzy would have carried similar items.

Captain George Henry Caithness was then in his mid-fifties. This seems a little late in life for active pursuit of diamonds in the fields. It’s tempting to imagine that James Ernest Caithness, then a young man of about thirty, might have spent some time at the diggings, passing on some of his finds to his uncle, Captain Caithness, perhaps to sell stones at good London prices during the latter’s trips overseas.

James Ernest’s precise whereabouts during the years after his father’s death in 1860 and James’s marriage in London in 1877 remain conjectural. If he was in South Africa for the start of the diamond rush around 1869/70 he could well have tried his luck at the Cape diggings. 

It may be significant that after his marriage he joined the Calcutta branch of Cooke and Kelvey, who were pearl and diamond merchants, jewellers, gold and silversmiths, watch and clock-makers.

Caithness in the Diamond Fields

Star of South Africa: 47.69 carat
pear-shaped diamond

Diamond fever hit the Cape Colony with the discovery in 1867 of the Eureka diamond, the first found at Hopetown on the edge of the Great Karoo, followed in 1868 by the Star of South Africa, a massive rock which sold for 11 000 pounds – an incredible fortune at the time. 

From then on everyone from far and wide headed for the ‘fields’: the rush was on. It wouldn’t be long before the Cape Government Railways would be founded (1872) and a main line run between the Kimberley diamond fields to Cape Town, directly through Hopetown. 

To begin with, though, getting to Hopetown was a hard 15-hour slog on sandy roads from Port Elizabeth, transporting all the accoutrements required for the diggings. For many, the possibilities of a lucrative trade on the fields outweighed the chances of finding a valuable stone.

The Caithness surname emerges, as it so frequently seems to do, right in the middle of the action. A report from The Port Elizabeth Telegraph was relayed via the Cape and Natal News of 8 August 1870:

The excitement regarding the diamond fields has not lost any of its intensity … This morning Mr Joel Meyers left for the South African El Dorado. He intends opening a trading establishment and takes with him a well assorted stock of such goods as are likely to be most in request at the diggings. Messrs Leslie, Innes and Berry, who accompany him, intend to try their luck with the pick and spade. The Humansdorp party are now here and they also leave today …

The report continues with mention of a Mr E Slater among whose party would be a Caithness:

This tantalising Caithness reference gives scope for digging of a different kind. Who was this and how does he tie up with the Caithness who emerges in 1879 in the Zulu Country? 

To be continued … 

Acknowledgement

Tom Sheldon

Caithness in the Zulu Country 1879

The Hampshire Advertiser of 5 March 1879 reported thus on the preparations being made in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, should the inhabitants of that city be ‘required to go into Laager’ i.e. for their defence against a possible attack by the Zulu army.

Details are given about the various buildings selected to house people and stores, and mention of the signal to be given for people to assemble at these designated places bringing with them sufficient food supplies to last a week. This doom and gloom was hardly reassuring for ‘Southamptonians who have relatives and friends at Pietermaritzburg’ but remember that the disastrous battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Isandlwana: The Aftermath

A 20 000-strong Zulu force had swooped down on and decimated part of Lord Chelmsford’s main British column encamped under the lee of a strangely-shaped mountain in the heart of Zulu territory. 

Court House, Durban ca 1870

Natal’s population had been on tenterhooks since then. Buildings such as the Court House in Durban had been loopholed (gaps made in the exterior walls for the firing of guns) in case of attack.

From a family historian’s point of view, by far the most intriguing portion of the report is the final sentence:

We understand that there is a person named Caithness, a native of Totton, who, together with his family, has been located right in the centre of the Zulu country for some years, and has lived happily among them hitherto, but how they will fare now there is ‘war to the knife’ remains to be seen.

Who could this person be? 

Mary Ann Bell nee Caithness was still living in Durban, Natal, at this date, though her husband Captain William Bell had been dead for a decade. However, the report suggests that the individual is male, and Mary Ann’s progeny were, of course, Bells not Caithnesses.

James Ramsay Caithness the mariner brother of Mary Ann had died in 1860, and he had been Cape-based. What of his children? Could any of them be the Caithness who had been living ‘in the Zulu Country’?

James Ernest Caithness

James Edward Caithness (who later preferred to call himself James Ernest) had left home at some juncture during the years following his father’s death. It’s rumoured that he tried sheep farming, perhaps in South Africa, but it is known for certain that in December 1877 James was in London for a key event – his marriage to Eugenie Sarah Henrietta Westmacott. 

Their eldest child was born in 1878 in Calcutta and it seems that James’s career took off in India. By 1895 he was a senior partner in the Calcutta offices of Cooke and Kelvey, pearl and diamond merchants, watch and clock makers etc. There’s no evidence among these facts to support the idea that he might have been in South Africa in 1879.

Muddying the water is the terminology used in the report. What did ‘right in the centre of the Zulu country’ mean precisely? In Zululand, i.e. to the north of the Tugela River, or in the separate region then known as the Colony of Natal? It’s possible that to someone writing for a Hampshire newspaper in 1879 the distinction wasn’t clear. Had the person really been ‘living among the Zulus’ – which conveys an impression of residence in a rural area such as a missionary or trader might have experienced – or had he been part of a community in or nearby one of the main Natal towns such as Pietermaritzburg or Durban?

The emergence of an unexpected Caithness marriage record gives further pause for thought. 

Marriage entry: Emily Mary Ann Caithness and Herbert Lee Carige
 Durban 12 December 1865

On 12 December 1865, Emily Mary Ann Caithness, daughter of James Ramsey Caithness, and Herbert Lee Carige were married at Christ Church in the parish of Addington, Durban, Natal. The original entry shows the first witness’s signature to be James Caithness. If the illegible middle initial is an ‘E’ (and any handwriting experts reading this are invited to give their opinion) this could be James Ernest/Edward, brother of the bride, presumably giving her away in the absence of their deceased father:

                   
                                                                       

James E might have simply made the trip up from the Cape for the occasion and at that stage, as yet unmarried, he doesn’t fit the newspaper description of a man who was living in the Zulu Country ‘together with his family’. Moreover, James could hardly be called ‘a native of Totton’: he had been born in London prior to his father leaving for South Africa and subsequently their home had been in the Cape. 

More digging is required to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Caithness in the Zulu Country.

Acknowledgement

Tom Sheldon

The Marchioness Was There: King George V's Coronation 1911

There is a reference in the London Gazette to the attendance of Caroline Anne nee Caithness, 4th Marchioness of Ely,  as one of the Dowagers at the Coronation of King George V on 11 June 1911. She would have been part of the magnificent scene in Westminster Abbey pictured above in the painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon.

June 22 1911: King George V and Queen Mary's coronation day dawned, according to the King's diary, 'overcast and cloudy with some showers and a strongish cold breeze.' London newspapers reported concerns that the cool damp weather might mean smaller crowds at the event, but the weather made no apparent difference. By 8 a.m. thousands, carrying umbrellas, packed the stands erected along the procession route.

'During the hours of waiting before the Royal arrivals, the Peers and Peeresses had passed in twos and threes to their allotted seats in the transepts, bearing their coronets in their hands. In the north transept, where the Peeresses were seated, the miniver of their furred capes only partly concealing the crimson of their robes, while diamonds and jewels sparkled on head and bosom, the effect was one of splendid grace and beauty. The Peers faced them in the south transept in the order of their degrees of nobility, Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts and Barons. Above the Peers and Peeresses were the Commons and members of their families. The Bishops who were not taking part in the ceremonial were seated in a double row on the north of the Sacrarium, in their Convocation robes, while the Judges, in their vestments of state, sat in a gallery at the north-east angle; in all a great gathering of eight thousand people, drawn together to do homage to their King. 

Then, amid dead silence, the Royal Processions advanced through the western door of the Abbey. First came the Prince of Wales, a charming figure of boyish stateliness, followed by the little Princess Mary and the other Royal children. Then the Queen, preceded by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his rich cope, and surrounded by her lovely maids of honour, entered the nave. Her gorgeous train, glowing with burnished gold, was borne by the Duchess of Devonshire and her six ladies-in-waiting, a collar of sparkling jewels at her throat. Thousands of eager eyes followed her stately progress. The King's Regalia were now seen ...  His Majesty advanced up the nave with slow and kingly step. In his crimson robe of State and wearing the Collar of the Garter and the Cap of Maintenance he passed through the upstanding people to his Chair of Estate on the south side of the high altar. The Queen had preceded him to her Chair of Estate near the dais. They were supported by their Bishops, the Bishops of Durham and of Bath and Wells on either side of the King, and the Bishops of Oxford and of Peterborough of the Queen. At the altar stood the Archbishop of Canterbury.' 

Later the King wrote in his diary: 'The Service in the Abbey was most beautiful but it was a terrible ordeal. We left Westminster Abbey at 2:15 (having arrived there before 11).'

Coronation Medals of

King George V and Queen Mary

The Marchioness's Will: A Diamond Tiara and Strongbow's Sword

The real Caroline Anne nee Caithness begins to emerge from the shadows as we peruse her will made four years before she died in 1917. 

Among several heirlooms of the Ely family bequeathed to the trustees of the estate are an inscribed silver gilt christening cup engraved with the Viscount’s coronet, the chased silver gilt cup and cover made from the Great Seal of Ireland, a helmet-shaped ewer and various items engraved with the Ely arms.

 The Loftus Cup (Belfast Museum). The inscription reads: 

This cup was made of the Great Seal of Ireland in the year 1593

 Adam Loftus being then Lord Chancellor. He was also Lord Justice in 1582 and 1583 

in which year he built Rathfernan Castle (below).

Adam Loftus

Paintings similarly bequeathed include the portrait of Adam Loftus, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1593, a portrait of Lady Loftus (no detail as to which one) and two small portraits of an Earl and Countess of Ely. A more personal piece of memorabilia linked to Caroline’s yachtsman husband is a two-handled racing cup, ‘Bermuda’.

Her servants named in the will receive a sum of money as well as the equivalent of a year’s wages. Her maid, Maria Rance, receives 700 pounds and there is an amount thoughtfully put in trust for Maria’s son, Ernest. Maria is also left ‘my blue enamel carriage clock and all my furs and wearing apparel except my Coronation robes and my lace’.

That Caroline loved animals is shown by her bequests to charitable institutions such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Home of Rest for Horses, Cricklewood and the Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, Hackbridge. Her own dog, Jock, as well as her pony, mare and donkey are not forgotten, funds being set aside for their suitable housing and keep after her death. The Dover Hospital and the Dover Sailors Home and the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat, London, are also remembered. Dover had associations for the 4^th Marquis, whose residence Kearsney Abbey was in that area.

Specific monetary bequests are made to her brother George John Caithness, her niece Violet Irene Caithness and to her godson, George Henry Wellington Loftus, as well as to other members of the Loftus family. Some items of jewellery are mentioned, such as her pearl necklace to her godchild, Violet, and her three stone diamond ring to her brother George John Caithness. However, her diamond tiara is bequeathed to the trustees ‘to be held and enjoyed … by the lady who shall at my death be entitled to the title of Marchioness of Ely … and on her death successively by the other ladies who shall be entitled to such title for their respective lives’.

Perhaps the most intriguing item bequeathed to the trustees is ‘Strongbow’s Sword’ – Strongbow being the nickname of the almost mythical medieval Earl of Pembroke. For what length of time this heirloom, believed to have belonged to Strongbow, had been in the possession of the Elys is not certain but in 1928 it was used to cut the cake at the wedding of Viscount Loftus and Miss Thea Gronwold.

Trove: The Argus, Melbourne, Victoria 1928

Caroline expressed her wish to be cremated and for her urn to be placed with her husband’s at the Ely family tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. She had been a widow for 28 years.

Acknowledgement:
Tom Sheldon

The Marquis and the Mariner's Daughter 3

Ely Lodge rebuilt

When the 4^th Marquis of Ely died in 1889 almost all his estates in Counties Wexford and Fermanagh passed to his successor in the title. However, these estates were heavily encumbered with debt. The 5^th Marquis was a remote cousin who was declared a bankrupt in 1882 and was still a bankrupt in 1894, thus being debarred from his seat in the House of Lords.

In the Introduction to the Ely Papers (a vast conglomeration of documents held in The National Archives UK) it is commented, perhaps unfairly, that apart from the Irish properties having become impoverished, there was also an obligation to pay 3 000 pounds a year to the 4^th Marquis’s widow (i.e. Lady Caroline Anne) who lived until 1917, ‘the third Ely widow to saddle the estates with a jointure over an unusually long period of time'.

It seems right that Caroline should have been provided for in her husband’s will: he died at the early age of forty, an event nobody could have foreseen. It would be interesting to see the schedules giving details of the 4^th Marquis’s marriage settlement dated 1875. At the time of his accession, his income was 30 000 pounds a year (with ‘great accumulations’). By the date of his death this had practically disappeared. By the twentieth century the succeeding generations lived in other parts of the country and no longer bothered much with the Irish estates.

A quiet street in Winchmore Hill

Caroline in due course set up her own establishment at Eversley Park*, Winchmore Hill, Southgate, where we find her aged 56 in 1901, described as ‘Peeress’ with ‘Means’ and head of a household comprising her sister-in-law, Ada, aged 39, and 7 servants including a Butler, Cook-Housekeeper, a Lady’s Maid (from Paris), two Housemaids, a Kitchen Maid and a Footman.

1901 Census Eversley Park
[click to zoom]

Ten years later much the same lifestyle prevails at Eversley Park, but Ada is replaced by a Lady Companion.

1911 Census Eversley Park
[click to zoom]

As we shall see, Caroline would not forget any of her servants when making her will.

Bells for summoning servants:
shades of Upstairs and Downstairs

*Eversley Park in Green Dragon Lane was built in 1865.

Acknowlegement:

Tom Sheldon

The Marquis and the Mariner's Daughter 2

The marriage entry, 9 December 1875, for Caroline Anne Caithness and John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus gives the groom's residence as Ely Lodge, Enniskillen in the County of Fermanagh, Ireland. 

This house dates back to the 1830s when the 2nd Marquis, lacking a seat in County Fermanagh (they had estates there as well as in County Wexford), built Ely Lodge on a promontory beside Lough Erne. Stone for its construction came from another family home, Castle Hume not far away, which had been demolished. 

'Ely Lodge was a large classical house ...The main front was a five-bay, two storey, stuccoed block with Tuscan pilasters and a central, columned porch. On either side were single-storeyed bowed wings.' This residence lasted for thirty years. In 1870, for a series of possible reasons described as '(1) an unwelcome visit from Queen Victoria, (2) the discovery of the agent's fiddling and (3) the building of a bigger and better house, Ely Lodge was blown up as the climax of the festivities that marked the coming-of-age of the 4th Marquis.'

The proposed new house was never built, probably because the 4th Marquis overspent on rebuilding his other seat, Loftus Hall, County Wexford. However, from his will made in 1884 it seems that the stable block at Ely Lodge was converted to domestic use and became in time the seat of the family until sold in 1947.

Loftus Hall: near Fethard-on-Sea, Co. Wexford, 'a gaunt three-storey mansion of 1871 with rows of plate-glass windows and a parapet, incorporating parts of a previous late 17th c house. The house, (which was built by the 4th Marquis of Ely after he turned 21) stands near the tip of Hook Head, an extremely windswept spot bereft of trees and shelter.' The coastal view above gives an impression of the starkness of the place.

Whether Lady Caroline Anne ever spent any time at either Ely Lodge or Loftus Hall history doesn't relate. If she did, perhaps Kearsney Abbey in the softer countryside of Kent, the 4th Marquis's English residence by the 1880s, was more to her liking.

Acknowledgement:

Tom Sheldon 

The Marquis and the Mariner's Daughter

Lady Caroline Anne

For Caithness family researchers, the importance of the 4th Marquis of Ely rests on his marriage to Caroline Anne Caithness, daughter of George Caithness, which event took place on 9 December 1875 and was announced in the London Standard's Marriages column of Monday 13 December: 

According to an account in an American newspaper (see previous post on this blog) the 4th Marquis had at one time prior to his marriage been in the running as a suitor to Princess Beatrice but this did not eventuate and 'the Marquis was seen no more at court'. 

In fact it appears that the Marquis was rarely seen in England at all, spending most of his time 'abroad' and becoming well-known as 'a yachtsman'. The circumstances of his meeting with Caroline Anne Caithness remain conjecture. As the daughter of a mariner - even a respectable Master Mariner - Caroline was unlikely to have moved in the same circles as the Marquis, yet meet they did and presumably fell in love. 

John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus, Caroline's husband, was the only son of John Henry, 3rd Marquis, and was educated at Harrow and Oxford, succeeding to the marquisate at the age of eight on the death of his father in July 1857. Though the 4th Marquis was described prior to his marriage as 'young, rich and handsome and a favourite at court', by the time he died in 1889 things had changed.

The 'two jointures' mentioned would have been those to the Dowager Marchioness, the 4th Marquis's mother, Jane (who died a year after her son), and to his widow, Caroline Anne. The latter's will shows that Caroline was left fairly well-off. She survived her husband by 28 years, dying in 1917. There is a reference in the London Gazette to her attendance as one of the Dowagers at the coronation of King George V on 11 June 1911, perhaps Caroline's last public appearance.

Kearsney Abbey, Dover, Kent, residence of the 4th Marquis
at the time of his death in 1889

Built by the Dover banker John Minet Fector in 1820-22, Kearsney Abbey was described as 'a charming residence, in extensive grounds, in which the two branches of the Dour unite, forming a lake, in which there are ornamental fountains'. A manor house rather than an Abbey (it had never been a monastic building) materials from the ancient town walls and demolished churches were used in its construction. 

To be continued 

Acknowledgement:

Tom Sheldon