Cape Shipping May 1830 Conch under Cobern, Flamingo under Scorey

This report from the South African Commercial Advertiser shows the Conch arriving at Table Bay under command of Cobern - with the Captain's wife on board as passenger, from Algoa Bay on 15 May. The date of departure from Algoa Bay is given as 29 May which must be an error unless the Conch was into time travel.
The Flamingo date of departure is also dubious, unless like Cobern he was travelling backwards. Interestingly the latter vessel is commanded by Scorey (note error - his initial should be J not F) - who would later become a relative, by marriage, of Captain Bell. There was an intriguing group of Cape mariners operating in coastal waters at this period, all linked either by agent or by personal ties and of course acquainted with one another. A small world which Bell would soon join.

                             Table Bay and shipping: Thomas Bowler (South African Sketches)

Ships and Mariners: 19th c Cape and Natal 1 Bell

‘…those proud ones swaying home
With mainyards backed and bows a cream of foam,
Those bows so lovely-curving, cut so fine,
Those coulters of the many-bubbled brine …’

Masefield’s vision is rose-coloured: seafaring could be a grim business. 

On 2 July 1831, the South African Commercial Advertiser reported a fatal maritime accident which had occurred on the 20 June at Algoa Bay:  

Before the Schooner Conch got under weigh … a brass gun was fired for the purpose of warning the Passengers to embark, when unfortunately the gun burst, and severely wounded the seaman who fired the gun. He was immediately taken on shore, and it was found necessary to amputate one of his legs, but he expired on the following day.

We aren’t told the name of the dead man. 

At this date, Conch was not under the command of Captain William Bell, who only a month earlier had been serving as 2^nd officer on Thorne, which ship went aground near Robben Island on 18 May 1831. From information gathered in Cape press shipping columns it seems likely that Captain Cobern was master of the Conch at the time of the gruesome event described above. Cobern may have held that command since the death, significantly aged only 37, of the wonderfully-named Captain Telemachus Musson ‘late of the Schooner Conch’ on 1 March 1827.* The life of a merchant mariner was erratic, dangerous and frequently short. 

In October 1834, there is reference to Captain A Humble sailing Conch from Knysna to Table Bay. Another name that crops up is T Bosworth. These captains were all operating under the auspices of ship’s agent James Smith and by at least January 1837 William Bell was added to the stable.** 

Conch 1834

Schooners were a favourite type of coasting vessel. Rigged with fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts, they required a comparatively small crew and were thus more economical to run than were square-rigged vessels. Speedy and of low draught, enabling them to enter shallow harbours, schooners carried some passengers but their most important function was transporting a variety of colonial produce. 

Conch was about 100 tons; some sources describe her as a brigantine, though this indicates a square-rigged vessel, which she was not. Her Port of Registry was Cape Town. Her regular Ports of Call were Cape Town, Algoa Bay, Mossel Bay, St. Helena, Knysna, Saldanha Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Simon's Bay, Plettenberg Bay, Breede River, Struys Bay, Port Beaufort, Waterloo Bay. However, under Bell's command she visited Natal more than once, leading to his knowledge of that harbour when his assistance was required during the conflict in 1842. 

Ships were owned and registered in part shares – 64 shares being the customary number, supposedly because ships traditionally had 64 ribs. 

*Possibly Telemachus Giles Musson/Masson b 1781, son of a Chief Mate in the East India Company’s service and the widowed Mrs Maria Musson; East India Company Pensions 1793-1833. Also: KAB MOIC Vol 2/323 Ref 1143 Liquidation and Distribution Account.

** John Owen Smith later took over as ship's agent.

Souvenir Saturday: Bell/Caithness/Scorey

Mary Ann Bell nee Caithness (1820-1899) ca 1860s

Mary Ann Caithness, daughter of James Ramsey Caithness and Ann Scorey, was born at Marchwood, Hampshire, 20 March 1820. She married William Bell at Port Elizabeth 29 June 1838. Their children were Mary Ann Elizabeth Pamela, Douglas William, Ellen Selwyn Sophia (d in infancy), Ellen Harriet, James Colquhoun, Sarah Scott, Sturges Bourne, Eliza Ann, Jessie MacGregor, George John Head, Alfred Thomas Payne, and Alice Millican Bell.

Coastal Ships, Mariners and Visitors: Cape Colony 19th c 2

PORT ELIZABETH IN THE 1830s

Port Elizabeth Algoa Bay by Thomas Baines

Arriving eventually at Algoa Bay after an uncomfortable voyage up the coast from Table Bay, Cornwallis Harris was not favourably impressed with what he found:

‘Algoa Bay is exceedingly open and exposed and the anchorage very insecure. During high winds ships not unfrequently go on shore, a tremendous surf often rendering it dangerous, and at times even impossible, for boats to land. We were fortunate in being able to prevail on the Port Captain to take us ashore in his barge … The town of Port Elizabeth, though rapidly increasing, does not consist of above one hundred and fifty houses.  It is built along the sea-shore on the least eligible site that could have been selected.’ 

In this unpromising spot Cornwallis Harris and party attempted to buy horses to continue their journey inland.

 ‘We understood (these could) be obtained in the adjoining districts in considerable numbers, and of an excellent quality.  It was with inconceivable difficulty, however, that we at length succeeded in procuring two miserable quadrupeds, that appeared to have scarcely sufficient stamina to carry us to Graham’s Town. The recent (Frontier) war having trebled the price of every thing, and of live stock in particular, the demands upon us were exorbitant.’

THE SCOREY AND CAITHNESS FAMILIES

Of greater interest than Cornwallis Harris’s opinion of Port Elizabeth and its available horseflesh is his casual remark, ‘We tarried a week at Mrs. Scorey’s fashionable hotel.’

This hostelry, previously the home of Captain Moresby and said to be the first private house built in Port Elizabeth, was called Markham House. It had changed hands and as a hotel had been run successfully by a lady named Anne Robinson. She had married in 1829 at Port Elizabeth one James Scorey, master of the schooner Flamingo. (Scorey is noted for having put up a flagstaff for the use of the port in 1829.) At the time of Cornwallis Harris’s visit in 1836 Anne was Mrs. Scorey and her inn with its elevated position and riverside garden continued to be popular. The open space in front of the hotel was known to local residents as Scorey’s Place. The hotel was doing well enough for James Scorey to retire from the sea in 1834.

James Scorey was the uncle of Mary Ann Caithness (b 1820). Mary Ann’s mother (confusingly another Ann Scorey, b 1796) had married James Caithness snr (Master Mariner) at Eling, Hampshire in 1814. James Ramsey Caithness jnr. (b 1815) following in his father's footsteps and perhaps encouraged by reports sent ‘home’ by James Scorey, took up residence at the Cape and plied the coastal trade. He became captain of the brig Lady Leith (which met with disaster in 1848). Henry George Caithness commanded at various dates the vessels Louisa and Fame.**

Scorey's Hotel is the large building at left, with
 the gardens in the foreground leading down to the river.

WILLIAM BELL

Part of this close-knit colonial maritime circle was Cumbrian-born William Bell, master of the schooner Conch, who would marry Mary Anne Caithness at Port Elizabeth in June 1838. It is possible that William and Mary Anne, the latter out on a visit from England, met at Scorey’s Hotel and that romance blossomed as the two walked together in the pleasant gardens reaching down to the Baakens River. The name Ann Scorey (i.e. wife of James Scorey) is given as one of the witnesses at the Bell/Caithness wedding. The groom was 31, the bride 18 and they were married by special licence granted by Major General Napier.*

JOHN OWEN SMITH AND GEORGE CATO

William Bell and James Ramsey Caithness had the same ship’s agent, John Owen Smith. And here emerges another familiar name, George Cato, who from 1834 worked as manager for J O Smith. Descended from a Huguenot family who fled to England to escape religious persecution in France in the 17th c, Cato’s father and family had arrived at the Cape in 1826. The sudden death of Cato snr in 1831 (he is said to have been killed by an elephant) meant that George had to become a breadwinner. No doubt this enforced early maturity helped Cato to develop his entrepreneurial skills and other natural abilities which he put to good effect from that time onwards.

Cato became Bell’s lifelong friend, later rising to prominence in Natal as Mayor of Durban in 1850s. During the 1830s Cato was operating for Smith in the salt beef trade and in 1838 sailed the vessel Trek Boer up the east coast carrying goods for trade with the trekkers – Dutch frontier farmers who had left the Cape Colony and established themselves at Port Natal. Although neither Bell nor Cato could foresee future events, they were both to become embroiled in the conflict which would arise at Natal between the trekkers and the British in 1842.

SIGNIFICANCE OF MIDDLE NAMES

Marriage announcement: H G Caithness to Pamela Holt Okes
South African Commercial Advertiser June 15 1839

Local newspaper announcements emphasise the network of family connections so much a feature of colonial life. On 29 July 1839 Mary Ann and William Bell’s first child, a daughter, was christened Mary Ann Elizabeth Pamela Bell at Wynberg, Cape. The officiating minister was the Rev. Holt Okes, whose daughter Pamela had married Henry George Caithness a few weeks earlier.

This useful nugget answers the question of why the middle name Pamela was chosen for the Bell baby. Her other middle name, Elizabeth, was in honour of William Bell’s mother, Elizabeth Millican.

William and Mary Ann would produce a dozen children between 1839 and 1862, the last, Alice Millican Bell, born in Durban when Mary Ann was aged 42. Despite child-bearing and rearing taking up much of her time, Mary Ann is believed to have accompanied her husband on at least one voyage to Rio de Janeiro in the 100 ton schooner Conch.


*George Thomas Napier (1784-1855) Major General in 1837, later knighted, was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the army in the Cape Colony from 1839-1843. The two major events during his period as Governor were the abolition of slavery and the removal of the trekkers from Natal following the conflict of 1842.

** Current research into the Caithness mariners and their precise relationship to each other continues. James Ramsey Caithness had a brother, George, also a mariner, but he couldn't have been sailing in Cape waters until after 1850. Henry George Caithness, however, disappears from Cape records a decade earlier.

Thanks to Anita Caithness for her input on Markham House/Scorey's Hotel. Also to Margaret Harradine for her article 'Port Elizabeth's First Hotel'.

Shipboard diaries for family history

Shipboard diaries, contrary to expectation, can be a disappointing resource for family historians, as passengers were extremely busy either recording their sufferings at sea (their own as well as their fellow travellers’) or completely wrapped up in the novelty of the experience – wind and weather, how much headway the vessel was making (apparently never enough), dolphins, sharks and seabirds spotted en route and crew members or even passengers lost overboard.

Of course, these accounts do give us insight into life on board, its perils and pleasures. If that’s what you’re looking for – a view of the ancestor’s voyage through his eyes, or at least through the eyes of one of his contemporaries – well and good.

All this maritime activity, though, left little leisure for writing about the relatives left behind at home, which would be more use to the inquisitive descendant than reports of  shooting contests held on deck or of larking about throwing message-bottles into the sea. These antics confirm our suspicions that most of the time the passengers were bored to distraction.

A diary written by passengers on a schooner travelling from Glasgow to Port Natal in 1862 reveals that the ship was becalmed for long periods, and was also undermanned. There was much seasickness and when the diarists recovered sufficiently to partake of meals they had to watch fellow passengers throwing up in the dining room – if the nauseous victims didn’t manage to get to the deck rail in time. This can hardly have been conducive to the onlookers’ return of appetite. In the restricted space of such a small vessel, another family (parents with six children) proved irritating company. When not entering comments in their journal, the diarists spent time reading improving literature such as, ironically enough, Milton’s Paradise Lost. There were a couple of catastrophes during the voyage – a damaged topmast which was repaired at sea and a Man Overboard – a seaman, who couldn’t be saved. Despite all, general admiration of the Captain was expressed.

In the remarkable 88 closely-written pages of this diary, almost no mention is made of family members left in Scotland and where names are given references are tantalizingly brief: who can the ‘Janet’ be whose health was drunk in a glass of negus by her relatives on board ship? Naturally, diarists know who they are writing about and usually find it unnecessary to describe the relationship or give a surname, leaving descendants or other readers guessing.

After the foregoing critical appraisal of the value of shipboard diaries in family history research, I must admit that they make enjoyable reading, also that pleasing nuggets of information occasionally emerge. The hunter-traveller-artist Cornwallis Harris, in his Wild Sports of Southern Africa, describes a short coastal trip to Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth) during the 1830s in detail and not without humour:

‘In addition to a mate, a cook [and a] steward, our crew consisted of three men and a boy; our fellow passengers being two adventurers … and a tailor and his wife with nine daughters, some marriageable, some at the breast. This unfortunate family, every member of which was seasick during the entire voyage, located themselves in the steerage, an apartment about eight feet square, ventilated only by the hatchway. The passage up the coast, at that season [July], seldom occupies more than three days, but the fates decreeing that our progress should still be opposed, adverse winds had taken the place of the north-wester, which had been blowing without intermission during the preceding six weeks, and which, had it but continued a day longer, would have wafted us to our destination. The little vessel was usually gunwale under.’

Harris disposes of Port Elizabeth in a short uncomplimentary sentence, remarking that the town was ‘built on the sea-shore on the least eligible site that could have been selected’ but goes on to redeem himself (as far as I’m concerned) by mentioning that he ‘tarried a week at Mrs Scorey’s fashionable hotel’. Mrs Scorey features in my own family history, linked to Mary Ann Caithness who married Captain William Bell; this snippet has led to further discoveries re connections in early Port Elizabeth.

[The Wild Sports of Southern Africa, being the Narrative of an Expedition from the Cape of Good Hope etc by Cornwallis Harris: Full View free on Google books.]

Not many travellers would aspire to writing of their shipboard experiences in verse, but that’s what John Coventry did. An English surgeon, Coventry sailed to Natal from England on the barque Amazon in 1850, later publishing his work Viator, A Poem of a Voyager’s Leisure Hours (London, 1854). The Amazon carried 46 adult passengers and 14 children; they were not government-aided emigrants and this may account for no passenger list having been located so far. Coventry presents an interesting list of items the emigrants considered necessary for their new lives in the Colony, as well as references to their arrival at Natal where the ship was chased out to sea by a storm but later safely landed, after taking on board ‘Port Captain Bell and Archer, the pilot’. (This was George Archer.) Almost the first thing the settlers saw was the wreck of the British Tar lying on the beach, so they must have been relieved that the Amazon, drawing only 11 feet, was able to cross the bar at the harbour entrance without difficulty. Coventry did not settle in Natal but left us an unusual narrative account of his experiences as a traveller in that era.

http://natalia.org.za/Files/6/Natalia%20v6%20article%20p28-%2033%20C.pdf

Other shipboard diaries:

http://jeffangus.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/william-nicolson-diary/   Diary written on the sailing vessel Lord Clarendon in 1862 by William Nicolson, on a voyage to Natal.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk/william/index.html  A journey to South Africa in 1870 by William Pawson.
http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/under-sail-to-natal.html Extracts from various diaries.
http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/voyage-to-natal-south-africa-1850.html William Lister’s voyage in 1850, taken from his Recollections of a Natal Colonist, written ca 1905.