Shipping Cape 16 Dec 1837: miscellaneous ships and masters

South African Commercial Advertiser 16 Dec 1837

Mole's Genealogy Blog Top Ten

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More on Anglo-Boer War Ancestors
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-on-anglo-boer-war-ancestors.html

19th c German Immigrants in South Africa
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-19th-c-german-immigrants-in-south.html

Pruning the Family Tree
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/07/pruning-family-tree.html

Passenger Lists as a Primary Source
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/06/passenger-lists-as-primary-source-in-sa.html

Your Ancestor in the South African Constabulary
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/your-ancestor-in-south-african.html

Identifying Uniforms in Photographs
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/03/identifying-uniforms-in-photographs.html

Passengers to Natal 1865
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/06/passengers-to-natal-1865.html

19th c Immigration to South Africa
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/05/19th-c-immigration-to-south-africa.html

Caithness at Eling, Marchwood and Totton
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/caithness-at-eling-marchwood-and-totton.html

Mariners: The First Rung of the Ladder
molegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/mariners-first-rung-of-ladder-2.html

A mariner's widow at Totton 1826-1889 1

When James Caithness died suddenly of an asthma attack in 1826, his widow Ann, aged 30, was expecting their fifth child (Charles). The four older children were James Ramsay b 1815, George b 1818 (1817 on his Master's 'ticket'), Mary Ann b 1820 and William b 1824. 

It was a dire situation for any woman but Ann rose to the challenge, making successful application for her two eldest boys to attend the Royal Hospital School, Greenwich, to be trained as mariners and receive an education. 

Ann Caithness, widowed in 1826: number of children 'Four and more per accouchement', i.e. she was then pregnant with her fifth child.This document is among her son James's application papers for the Royal Hospital, Greenwich

Map shows Totton, Eling (and its mill), Redbridge, Millbrook and Marchwood

The first ten, even twenty, years of Ann's widowhood must have been extremely difficult. Whether she would have continued to receive James's naval pension of 20 pounds a year has yet to be established. By 1841 William, then 17, was working as a servant in Redbridge, in the parish of Millbrook, a small village in South Stoneham union. (The entry was hidden under the surname Kaithness.) His mother, aged 45, was living on her own in Totton. Charles was nearby, a baker’s apprentice at 15.

St Mary's, Southampton

James Ramsay had married Elizabeth Watson Ridges at St Mary’s, Southampton, in March 1838 and not long afterwards had left England for the Cape Colony. Mary Ann had gone there, too, on a visit to her uncle, James Scorey, and this led to her meeting William Bell whom she married in Port Elizabeth in June 1838. She was never to return home to Hampshire. 

George was pursuing his career in the mercantile marine, serving as an apprentice, seaman and mate during the decade 1830-1840. Charles was a journeyman baker by the late 1850s and, in keeping with the family's maritime associations, became a ship’s baker; he was with the Peninsular and Oriental line by 1861. They were all making their way and forging their own lives.

There’s a rumour that William visited South Africa in 1853 but documentary evidence of this is lacking. In March 1851 he was with his mother in Millbrook village, working as a labourer. Nothing changed by 1861, other than their ages: Ann was then sixty-five and William thirty-five. It was the last Census in which he would be listed. 

Ann and William at Mousehole, Millbrook, Hampshire: 1861 Census

It’s all very well tracing ancestors using the Census: the entries do provide milestones to hang their story on, giving some indication of where they lived, who was in the household and their occupations, but the important years between could remain invisible history unless other extant records are covered. The possibilities are endless: vestry minutes, churchwardens’ accounts, settlement papers, monumental inscriptions, apprentice bindings, muster rolls, poll books and many more sources.

Equally vital – and just as fascinating - is background and contextual research: the setting in which the ancestors found themselves, their social scene, their neighbourhood, external influences such as economics, politics, epidemics and wars – even the weather – in fact everything that affected their lives, bringing us a closer understanding of their circumstances, actions and experiences. This makes the difference between a grayscale picture and one in glorious colour.

Eling Riverside Walk

To be continued 

Middies and loblollys: Royal Navy

Portrait of a young midshipman, early 19th c

Midshipmen, ‘middies’, or ‘young gentlemen’, were officer cadets, usually drawn from middle to upper echelons of British society and with ‘good family’ and some education behind them.

Like less privileged sailors they started their naval careers at a very early age - 9 was not uncommon - and learned navigation and other branches of seamanship while serving at sea. The term midshipman derived from the area on board ship, ‘amidships’. By the Napoleonic era (1793-1815) a midshipman would have served at least three years as a volunteer or able seaman, or as an officer’s servant. After that he would take the examination for lieutenant which theoretically would make him eligible for promotion. However, patronage was an important factor: a good patron could make all the difference to a young gentleman’s progress in the navy.*

Though advantaged in comparison with the ordinary sailor the middies learnt the ropes in a harsh school, the general conditions and the horrors of combat soon eclipsing any romantic ideas they may have had about the navy, its heroes, glorious victories and prize money.

This world is well-presented in the Hornblower series of films based on the works of C S Forester and also in Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World, from the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian. The events depicted also provide a glimpse of conditions for ordinary ratings who hauled ropes and manned guns and for the able seamen who did the essential work aloft.

Going aloft

If James Caithness began his career as a powder monkey he may have graduated to loblolly boy, assisting the ship’s surgeon by performing various gruesome tasks such as cleaning up after operations. With time and experience, given that he survived, he would rise to AB (Able Seaman).

Sailor 1799: James Caithness probably wore
a similar outfit

Uniform Royal Navy 18th c
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

*  for more on patronage and promotion see www.thedearsurprise.com/?p=1314

**  www.royalnavy.mod.uk/About-the-Royal-Navy/Organisation/Life-in-the-Royal-Navy/History/Historic-Periods/1660-1815

Souvenir Saturday: Caithness at Cracknore Hard

James Caithness the Ferryman

Cracknore Hard 1831 (etching by David Charles Read)

A fine view of the ferry station at Cracknore Hard in Southampton estuary on the south bank of the River Test. From here the ferry would take passengers to West Quay, Southampton.

On 20 August 1815 at the baptism of his son James (Ramsey), James Caithness snr’s occupation is given as ‘waterman’ and his place of abode as Cracknore Hard. By 1820 when his daughter Mary Ann is baptized – like her elder brothers James and George (1818) at St Mary’s Church, Eling, Hampshire – James snr is ‘ferryman’. 

The coastal landscape at Cracknore Hard at that time would have looked much as shown in this etching. James was then an experienced mariner having served on various ships before being discharged from the Royal Navy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Shockingly, he had also been a prisoner of war in France for nine years.

After surviving for nearly a decade enduring dreadful privations, if contemporary accounts are to be believed, James must have found a welcome sanctuary in the expansive, peaceful stretches of the estuary and the comforts of home and family.

Southampton Water   1831 (etching by David Charles Read)

           

A spacious impression of Southampton Water by the same artist. No doubt James Caithness was familiar with this vista. The broad horizon and low-lying land- and waterscape is reminiscent of Holland. It's also similar to the area alongside the Solway Firth, Cumberland, where William Bell (Mary Ann Caithness's husband-to-be) was learning to be a mariner at the beginning of the second decade of the 19th c.

The Book of Trades or Library of Useful Arts 1811 offers the following:

Watermen are such as row in boats and ply for fares on various rivers. A waterman requires but little to enable him to begin his business, viz. a boat, a pair of oars and a long pole with an iron point and hook at the lower end, the whole of which is not more than twenty pounds. The use of the pole is to push off the boat from land; the hook at one end enables him to draw his boat to shore, or close to another boat.

Acknowledgement:
Tom Sheldon 

Caithness, James Ernest (1839-1902) 1

Is it a mariner’s life for me?

James Ernest Caithness was born at No.7 George Row, Bermondsey (just south of the River Thames) on 17 May 1839. His father James Ramsey Caithness (1815-60), a Master Mariner, and mother Elizabeth Watson nee Ridges (1815-51) had married the previous year in Southampton.  James had been both born & baptised as James Edward but decided he preferred the middle name Ernest at some point during his life.

There was a strong maritime tradition in his family. His grandfather James Caithness had seen action whilst serving in the Royal Navy against the French in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. His father James Ramsey and his uncle George had received their education at the Lower School of the Royal Hospital Greenwich and joined the Merchant Service rather than the Royal Navy.

The Royal Hospital, Greenwich

James Ramsey Caithness decided to settle in South Africa and in the early 1840’s brought his wife and the young son James Ernest out to join him. They were to have five more children, born in either Cape Town or Port Elizabeth, before his wife Elizabeth Watson died in early 1851. He remarried by the end of the year.

Young James Ernest was to witness the harsh realities of a mariner’s life. His father James Ramsey had his fair share of accidents – through no fault of his own. The worst incident perhaps was in 1855 when one of James Ernest’s brothers, likely to have been Alfred Douglas, was killed during a fire on board the ‘Flying Dragon’ whilst his father was in command (the same ship had also caught fire the previous year under Captain Carter off Simon’s Bay).  James Ramsey Caithness himself died in 1860 ‘after a long and painful illness’ aged 44.

Family oral tradition mentions that James Ernest tried his hand at sheep farming in South Africa. Life at home was apparently hard. His mother and father had died and his widowed step-mother had five step-children and three of her own children to support. James Ernest Caithness disappears for a while and next shows up at his wedding in London in 1877. His life has taken a new direction – Eureka!

Guest Post by Tom Sheldon, 2 x great grandson of James Ernest Caithness

Photo portrait by kind permission of June B-R

Souvenir Saturday: Caithness Scorey 1814

St Mary's Church, Totton, Eling, Hampshire
James Caithness snr. (1786-1826)
married Ann Scorey (1796-1889) here
on 30 June 1814

                                  
Acknowledgement:
Photograph by Peter Hay

St Mary the Virgin is the oldest of the churches in the Totton area. Several years ago during the reordering of the church excavations, part of a Celtic cross dating back to the 9th (possibly the 6th) century was found. The site of St Mary's has been a place of Christian worship since that date.

Today the church stands on the hill looking out over the bay to the container port on the Southampton side of Millbrook. On this side, not far away is the expanse and beauty of the New Forest. St Mary's finds itself at a threshold between the industry of Southampton and the quiet of the forest. Within the tension of both lies the possibility of both old and new.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totton_and_Eling

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.

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'.