GSSAThe 1820 Settler Correspondence
 as preserved in the National Archives, Kew
 and edited by Sue Mackay

Additonal Information

This is pre 1820 information mainly taken from actual images of UK parish registers and other primary sources which I have personally researched. Further information about the settlers and their families once they reached the Cape can be found at https://www.1820settlers.com/

Sue Mackay

MONTGOMERY, John - Extra Data

Written by Sue Mackay.

 

John MONTGOMERY tried to join BUTLER's party at the last minute (Mrs. BUTLER was a relation of his mother's), but when Captain BUTLER refused to take him, John MONTGOMERY went on board the Fanny and arranged to work his passage to the Cape. (see his reminiscences below)

 

Tombstone says he was born in Dublin on 12 August 1803. His mother was Mary PARK. His baptism was NOT that of the 16th May 1803 in St.Mary's, Cork, listed in many online trees. Not only was this a Roman Catholic baptism, and John MONTGOMERY was a Protestant, but it took place before John's birth on the 12th August!!

 

Eastern Province Herald 11 July 1854

DIED, at the house of her Son in Burgher’s Dorp, on the 4th July, 1854, after a short confinement to her chamber, Mary Park MONTGOMERY, widow, aged 92 years and 6 months. The deceased was born on her father’s estate, Ephraim Park, Brahsheen, County of Wicklow, Ireland. She came to this Colony in the year 1832, and was noted for her industry and Christianity, and was a member of the Wesleyan Society for a long time, and is much regretted by her family and friends. She was fully conscious in her last moments, and died in perfect tranquillity.
Burgher’s Dorp. 7th July, 1854.

 

"The Reminiscences of John Montgomery" ed A. Giffard (Capetown, A.A. Balkema 1981) are taken from The Friend of the Orange Free State and Bloemfontein Gazette, 4.12.1868; suppl. 11.12.1868; 7, 14 and 21.1.1869; suppl. 4.2.1869; 25.2.1869; 4, 11 and 18.3.1869; 1, 15, 22 and 29.7.1869; 5 and 12.8.1869; 4 and 25.11.1869; 30.12.1869; 13.1.1870; suppl. 20.1.1870; 27.1.1870; 3, 10, 24 and 31.3.1870; 7.4.1870; 16.6.1870; 14.7.1870.

These extracts have been transcribed as far as possible from online scans and are incuded in the extracts from the Friend here.

 

Obituary in The Friend of the Orange Free State and Bloemfontein Gazette: 27 June 1878

Another of the small surviving band of British Settlers of 1820 has been gathered to his fathers amid the natural grief of his kith and kin, and the sincere sorrow of a very large circle of friends and acquaintances. John MONTGOMERY, the Founder of Burghersdorp (as the deceased with pardonable pride styled himself) departed this life serenely, after a few hours' illness, at Brandfort, in the district of Bloemfontein, on the afternoon of the 19th inst, at the patriarchal age of 75. .......

The subject of this memoir was born in Dublin on August 12 1803, and came out with the British Settlers, in 1820, at which period he was a stripling of seventeen summers, and immediately set about seeking his own fortune in the land of his adoption.......

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