Tracing a Master Mariner 4

George Henry Caithness first appears in South Africa in August 1852 when he is sponsor at the baptism in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, of Charles Chance Caithness, son of Captain James Ramsay Caithness and the latter’s second wife, Eliza (nee Noyle).

Baptism entry, St George's Cathedral register, 29 August 1852: Charles Chance Caithness son of James Ramsay Caithness, Master Mariner, and Eliza. George Henry Caithness's name at right.

Durham Gaol

 

Diet for Class 2 Prisoners, Durham Gaol

Having weathered the storm of bankruptcy proceedings in 1850 and seen the inside of Durham Gaol* – a particularly gloomy and depressing place where conditions were harsh and the staple prison diet was oatmeal porridge – George undoubtedly needed a change of scene, as well as employment.

It makes sense that he chose the Cape Colony since his elder brother James was established there as a merchant captain. Not that James was having an easy time of it: he had lost his first wife, leaving him with six children to rear, remarried in 1851 and in the same year lost his ship Diadem.**

Still, James would have had good contacts in the colonial maritime community and George had plenty of experience behind him as well as having acquired his official Master’s Certificate. By 1857 he was trading between Port Natal and the island of Mauritius (Isle de France) as master of the 100 ton schooner Pet.

The connection between Natal and Mauritius had been strong since the 1840s. Then with the burgeoning sugar industry in Natal in the 1850s, coupled with a downturn in sugar production on that island, several Mauritians moved to Natal to start plantations on the coast. Among these was James Renault Sanders later a leader in Natal sugar and founder of the well-known Tongaat family.

The earliest mention of George and the Pet occurs in Lloyd's List, 30 September 1857 where the schooner is reported as having 'cleared outwards September 29' from Port Natal.

George's regular sailing schedule can be tracked through the press, for example:

Arrived at Natal 22 June 1858 ‘Pet’ (schooner) 100 t , G Caithness, from Mauritius.

In the following extracts, all referring to the Pet with Caithness as master, the date of publication is shown first:

11 March 1858. At Natal 24 Dec 1857, from London.  Left 13 Jan 1858 for Mauritius.

29 March 1858. At Mauritius 6 Feb 1858 from Natal.

24 June 1858. At Natal 8 April 1858. Put back for Mauritius with loss of chain plates. ***

15 July 1858. At Mauritius 10 May 1858. From Natal. And sailed 19 June on her return.

30 Dec 1858. At Table Bay 10th Nov 1858. For Natal.

George's schedule leaves a convenient gap for his marriage at Durban, Natal, to Leopoltina Jones nee Knapp on 19 July 1858.

Marriage entry St Paul's, Durban: George Caithness and Leopoltina Jones born Knapp
29 July 1858. George's occupation is given as 'Captain Merchant Service'.
A strange signature from George: perhaps he was nervous. He is described as 'widower' so presumably his first wife Caroline had died prior to this date though no record of the event has been found.

Durban in 1857

*  http://community.dur.ac.uk/4schools/Crime/Durhamprison2.htm

** http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/mariners-caithness-ships-and-family.html

*** Chain plates were essential: the shrouds, pieces of standing rigging which hold the mast up from side to side, connect at the top of the mast and terminate at the bottom ends at the chain plates which are tied into the hull. The loss of chain plates would have been good reason for George to put back for Mauritius.

Acknowledgement

Tom Sheldon

Sugar and Natal: the Pioneers - Morewood

For decades prior to white settlement in Natal, there was an indigenous variety of sugar cane which grew wild and was known to the Zulus as imphe. It was chewable and sweet, but its sugar content wasn't found by settlers to be high enough to make its cultivation commercially viable. There was also umoba, an imported strain of true sugarcane: in 1837 the traveller Nathaniel Isaacs mentions both these plants. In 1858, Michael Jeffels, a planter and miller at Isipingo, stated that to his certain knowledge sugarcane was growing in the area of the Isipingo River at the time of Shaka's war with Faku in 1828.

EDMUND MOREWOOD

Morewood, regarded as the founding father of the sugar industry in Natal, made a very early visit to this area in 1833, before spending time in Australia, New Zealand and Mauritius. He returned to Natal in 1838, after the Battle of Blood River, when British military forces had been temporarily withdrawn and the flag of the Voortrekker Republic of Natalia had been hoisted at the port. Morewood was on good terms with the Voortrekkers and was one of the men chosen to visit the Zulu King, Mpande, in the hopes of making a peace treaty. In 1840 Morewood was appointed Harbour Master and Commissioner of Customs under the Republican government, and it was in this capacity that he became involved in the events of 1842 when the vessels Conch and Southampton brought reinforcements to assist in raising the siege of a British force at what is now the Old Fort, Durban. William Bell, Captain of the Conch, remarked that Morewood, on being rowed out to the schooner, accompanied by the Voortrekkers' Military Secretary, was astonished to find the Conch's lower deck bristling with grenadiers 'as thick as bees'. According to Bell's Narrative, Morewood 'had sufficient power of speech left to say he was a friend of the English, but at the same time I could see that he was much embarrassed by the position he had placed himself in ...' and it truly was a difficult situation for an Englishman in the employ of the Trekkers.

Morewood's farm, Compensation, in 1852

However, Morewood remained in Natal and though the British authorities retained some understandable suspicions as to his allegiance, he quickly adjusted to the new British regime and began to pursue his interest in sugar cultivation.

In November 1847 the first plant cane was brought to Natal from Mauritius on the Sarah Bell, by the Milner brothers. It's thought that this cane, or a portion of it, was imported for Morewood. He began planting towards the end of 1847 or early in 1848. At that time he was employed as manager of the Natal Cotton Company on the Umhloti River, but he resigned his position in July 1849 to focus on growing sugar on his property, Compensation.

According to John Robinson's Notes on Natal written in 1870:

... before 1850 agriculture in this colony was confined to the growth of a little wheat by the Boers, and of a fair quantity of maize by the natives. Cotton culture ... had been attempted at New Germany (by the Bergtheil Settlers) ... a few coffee bushes were bearing berries in the garden of a private householder of Durban, and a small patch of sugarcane was being planted by Mr Morewood at Compensation.' Arrowroot (to a value of £31) was the first agricultural product to be exported from Natal, in 1853, but the following year the export record showed a new export - Sugar, £2. 

It was a small beginning, but of great significance. After that date, sugar was exported every year in increasing quantities, and, as Morewood had predicted, it became the 'staple article of Natal'. 

A young man named George Lamond who arrived in Durban in June 1850 on the Byrne ship Unicorn, joined Morewood at Compensation and later wrote that he found the estate under the management of 'a surveyor named George Jackson, with some half-a-dozen ploughmen (plus native labour). We had six acres under cane ... When I left in 1854 we had more than 100 acres of cane ready for crushing. In 1851 I helped to make and eat the first sugar manufactured in Natal ... The ploughmen were Randal, South, Coward, Dykes and an apprentice named Moore, son of a Gloucester parson, and a grand old Dutch gardener named van Versfeld'. Late in 1850, Morewood constructed a simple mill, which would be used to crush his first cane crop.

Morewood, a man of apparently boundless energy, was also involved in immigration as agent in Natal for the Justina, which arrived in November 1850 under a private scheme arranged by George Murdoch and Capt Richard Pelly. Among the passengers were Thomas and Lewis Reynolds who would become leading figures in the sugar industry. The ship also brought £5 000 worth of merchandise for sale in South Africa: this venture had been arranged by Morewood's brother, J.J. Morewood, then residing in London.