MANDY
Herald, June 1970
1820 Descendant with a difference.
Settler Grandpa born at sea.
At 63, Mr. Gray MANDY of Port Elizabeth must be one of the youngest grandchildren of an 1820 Settler in the Eastern Cape. For his grandfather was one of the babies born at sea on the way from Britain to South Africa. Mr. MANDY, a well-known Port Elizabeth business manager, could not attend today's 150th anniversary celebrations. He is holidaying in Durban. but the elder brother, Mr. Baden MANDY, will be here for the festivities. During a visit to Port Elizabeth he is standing in for Mr. Gray MANDY as a manager of an accommodation centre during his absence. Before he left, Mr. Gray MANDY and his brother told me about their "baby Settler" grandfather.
LETTER
Their great-grandfather, Mr. John Penny MANDY, was the leader of a party which sailed from the Thames in the Nautilus in December, 1819, reaching Algoa Bay in April the following year. John MANDY and his wife, Mary Anne, left England with two sons, John Wilkinson, aged six and Stephen Day, aged five. Two weeks before the ship reached Cape Town their third son was born. He was named William Nautilus - his second name, of course, being after the vessel.
The letter which John MANDY wrote to his mother in Kent and posted from Cape Town telling of the baby's birth, was presented to the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, but was destroyed in a fire in the 1920's However, Mr. Baden MANDY has a copy of it. This is how his grandfather's birth was announced:
"I have the pleasure to inform you that on the 1st March, Mary Ann was put to bed with a fine boy in latitude 18 degrees, longitude six degrees."
MANY MANDYS
John, who was a carpenter, and Mary Anne settled at Bathurst, where he built the Drostdy. After their home was burnt down during one of the Frontier Wars, they went to the farm Lushington Valley, between Grahamstown and Bathurst. They had five sons after settling in South Africa. Several of their eight children had large families, so there are many MANDY of Settler descent in the Eastern Cape, Mr. Baden MANDY pointed out. John's unmarried brother Joseph also accompanied him on the voyage out. Joseph, a wheelwright, is believed to have gone to Harrismith in the Free State, later with the Voortrekkers - possibly with Louis TRICHARDT or Piet RETIEF.
SPORTSMAN
Mr. Baden MANDY and Mr. Gray MANDY are members of a large and closely knit family. The father, the late Mr. Stephen Day MANDY, of Bathurst, married twice. He had six sons of his first marriage and seven children of his second. On the first half of the family, three brothers are still living. They are Mr. Lawrie MANDY, 84 of Margate, a survivor of Delville Wood and Mr. Douglas MANDY, 77 and Mr. George MANDY, 75, both of Bathurst.
Mr. Baden MANDY, 69 is the eldest of the second half. Since retiring as postmaster of Krugersdorp, he and his wife Corrie, who is of French Huguenot descent, have spent most of their time caravanning. They have been in Knysna for the past year. Mr. Gray MANDY, a former Border sportsman, was manager of a big Port Elizabeth hotel, then managed a club before taking up his present position. His wife, Jo, incidentally, is the granddaughter of the Voortrekker leader Andries Hendrik POTGIETER.
The other three brothers, Mr. Stephen Day MANDY, 68, Mr. Aubrey MANDY, 66 and Mr. Claude MANDY, 61 who were all prominent Eastern Province and Border sportsmen, now live in Durban. The youngest member of the family, 58-year-old Mrs. Mary WARRENDER, lives in Salisbury. The other sister died some years ago. Of the 11 brothers in the two halves of the family, five brothers served in World War I. (The other died before the war) and four survived during World War II - the remaining one, a police detective, being kept back for internal security work.
SOME OF THE HARDSHIPS
Some idea of what the 1820 Settlers endured during their long voyages out in tiny vessels, is given in John Penny MANDY's letters to his mother in England. In one letter, written in January, 1820, he describes the Nautilus disaster in the Downs. After they dropped anchor in the Queen's Channel, a day after leaving Gravesend, "it came on to blow tremendously hard, the sea running mountains high. We could not weigh anchor till Sunday afternoon, when our troubles began, the sea breaking over us in all directions, tables, chairs, boxes, plates and dishes; men, women and children all mixed together, tumbling over one another, and all dreadfully seasick, except myself and SMITH, who was on deck working the ship; I below, basin holder."
CONFUSION
"In the midst of this the sea broke into our cabin windows, dashing glass and frame in, the things that were below rolling and sliding, took to swimming." John MANDY wrote that when the ship struck on the sands all was confusion and dismay - "even the sailors seemed panic struck." After an hour and a half, when a heavy sea set them afloat without much damage, (five or six boats) went to their help. Then followed better days , till they struck another storm, which lasted three days. "The sea was running as high as our masthead, and two of the waves broke over us; the forepart of the ship had three tons of water in, which swamped almost every person in their beds, Joseph was washed out of his cot."
LANDED
In a letter written from Algoa Bay on April 20, 1820, John MANDY said, "I landed on Sunday night to get ready for Mary Anne and the children. When I had got all ready for them, a strong south-east wind set in, and stopped their landing for four days, the surf beating round the shore to a height of ten or twelve feet. They saw me, but could not get at me."
When his wife and children came ashore on the 19th they were "very much frightened, the boats three parts full of water." Things were better on shore. We are now living on the fat of the land, a fowl for 9d. beef 1½ d per lb, milk and eggs in great abundance." But of course, there was a lot of hardship still ahead.....
MARILLIER
EP Herald, 7 Sep 1979
Bathurst granny in 16 km walk by Jill JOUBERT
A redoubtable Bathurst grandmother celebrated her 76th birthday this week by walking 16 kilometres to Port Alfred as a participant in a sponsored walk which will see a fund for the proposed Port Alfred Hospital about R400 richer. She is Mrs. M. MARILLIER who with her sister, Mrs. J. E. TIMM, joined the band of 13 in the big walk. Mrs. TIMM turns 70 soon.
Asked whether they had found it a strain, Mrs. TIMM said, "No, not really. We have no transport and walk wherever we go. But the road was a little rough in places and our feet get a bit sore." Mrs. TIMM wore her regular walking shoes. Her sister wore tackies [sneakers].
She said all 13 walkers finished with a little encouragement. They left Bathurst at 9 am. The front runners got to the Kowie by 11:40 am, beating Mrs. TIMM by a bare five minutes. Mrs. MARILLIER clocked in at noon - just in time for tea and sandwiches at a local tea shop. Cars which had followed the walkers from Bathurst in case of a mishap provided transport back. Each walker was sponsored by friends or relatives at 10 or 20 cents a kilometre.
Asked whether she and her sister had undertaken special training, she said, "Not really, but we both do a good deal of walking. It is 4 kilometres to the post Office and back and we go regularly for recreational walks round and about the village."
The sisters whose maiden name was MANDY, were born in the district and according to Mrs. TIMM, eventually "came back to roost."
Both are farmers' widows and each has her own home. Between them they have 14 children.
McNAUGHTON
Newspaper cuttings from the Eastern Cape.
EP Herald, March 1973
Soldier-cobbler founded big farming family
In the mid-nineteenth century James McNAUGHTON, a newly discharged British infantryman set up shop as a cobbler in Somerset East. Today four generations later, his descendants are one of the largest farming families in the Graaff-Reinet district, controlling some 62,000 hectares of land and 30,000 head of stock.
According to Mr. Jack McNAUGHTON, owner of the farm Green Tree, near Graaff-Reinet, farming is now "an established McNAUGHTON tradition." The family record bears him out. Even those who have left the McNAUGHTON "homestead" area around Graaff-Reinet are still, in the main, farmers - some as far afield as Australia. And today several fifth-generation McNAUGHTONS are well on their way to carrying on the tradition. The man who started it all was the cobbler's son, John, who in the 1820's gave up his career as an hotelier in Graaff-Reinet to work the 4,000-hectare farm Aloe Ridge, which he bought for 25c - then a half-crown - a morgan (,857ha). This farm, the family homestead is now owned by two of John's grandsons, Graham and Jack.
ENLISTED
John's father, James McNAUGHTON was born at Haddington, Gledmuir, in the parish of East Lothian, Scotland, about 1805 - exact date is not known by his descendants. In February 1822, at the age of 17, James enlisted with the first Foot Regiment in Edinburgh. On May 17, 1822, he commenced service with the 75th Foot Regiment on the Isle of Wight, subsequently serving in Gibraltar from June of the same year to January 28, 1824, when the regiment returned to England.
On December 9, 1826, James married Mary HUGHES of Castlebar County, Mayo, Ireland. His two children, John and Susan, were born during the next four years. In 1820 the 75th Regiment was deployed in the Cape of Good Hope, where James arrived with his family on August 24. He was stationed at Grahamstown and saw service on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Province, taking up a station at Fort Beaufort in 1838.
DISCHARGED
On April 30, 1840 he was discharged at his own request. His discharge papers, now in the possession of his family, bear the signature of Major-General George NAPIER. James took his family to Somerset East and opened a cobbler's shop, which he ran until his death. He is buried at the Church of England cemetery at Somerset East.
James' son John married Charlotte Rachel JACKSON, of the farm Essex, near Queenstown, on March, 7 1860. Soon afterwards, he and his bride moved to Graaff-Reinet and bought the Commercial Hotel, which was situated in Church Street, on the site of the present Divisional Council offices. One of the projects which he undertook during his career as hotelier was the establishment of a horse-and-cart post delivery service between Graaff-Reinet and Uitenhage. The hotel prospered and James leased a farm, Orange Grove, north-east of Graaff-Reinet. This was not farmed by him personally, however, but was occupied by his sister Susan and her husband, a Mr. EALES. Around 1870, John sold the hotel and having bought the farm Aloe Ridge, 24 kilometres south of Graaff-Reinet, embarked on full-scale farming. He died just after the Boer War.
John and Charlotte had five sons and four daughters. All the sons married and farmed in the Graaff-Reinet district. One, James however, died of a heart disorder at the age of 30, leaving his farm, Hopewell, to his brother Charles. The other three brothers were Bentley, Archibald and Arthur. The eldest son, Bentley, did not farm immediately but started a general dealer's business in Natal. Success with this enabled him to buy a farm near Graaff-Reinet, Elandskloof. Bentley had two sons, one of whom, Leonard, suffered the same fate as his Uncle James and died of heart failure while still young. Bentley's second son, Haig, is the present owner of Elandskraal, which he has expanded for merino stud breeding.
INHERITED
Haig's sister, Inez is married to Mr. Walter DRIVER of Pretoria, a senior executive at Iscor. Bentley's brother Charles who inherited Hopewell, is believed to be one of the first farmers in South Africa to breed top class merino sheep. His sons Eric and Donald are farming at Hopewell and Blouboskuil. Eric is currently training his son-in-law, Mr. Grant WALLACE as a farmer. Donald has a son and three daughters.
John's third son, Archibald, who farmed on Belmont, also in the Graaff-Reinet district, had four sons and two daughters. Assistance from Archibald, who died in 1961, enabled all of the sons to buy farms of their own. One of these, Malcolm is sheep farming in Western Australia. He has two sons, the eldest of whom is a professional sheep shearer, and a daughter.
Malcolm's brother 'Jack' of Green Trees, is farming in partnership with three of his four sons. The eldest, Henry, serves on the councils of the Graaff-Reinet Soil Conservation Committee and the South African Merino Ram Breeders Association. Malcolm and Jack's brother Graham, farming on Belmont, has five daughters. Graham recently retired from active cricket after some 40 years of involvement with the sport in the Eastern Province and Midlands.
The remaining brother, Edgar, farms on Denek, part of the homestead. He has three daughters. The forth of John's surviving sons, Arthur, originally farmed in the Vryburg district but later moved to Lennoxvale near Graaff-Reinet, where he died in the 1930's. Arthur, who served with distinction in the Boer War, had fours sons and two daughters. His eldest son, John is an attorney in Springs, Transvaal. His sons Roy and Hamilton became respectively an hotel executive and surveyor in the Department of Agricultural and Technical Services at Aliwal North. The forth son, Duncan, is involved in a mining concern in Australia.
Arthur's eldest daughter, Edith, is married to Mr. F.D. PIENAAR, the brother of Jack McNAUGHTON's wife. Mr. & Mrs. PIENAAR farm at Springfontein in the Richmond district. Mrs. PIENAAR served as a nursing sister at Tripoli and in the Middle East during World War II. During the war, John was for some time a prisoner-of-war after being captured in North Africa. Graham, Edgar and Malcolm were captured at Tobruk. All were released unharmed. Jack, Donald and Roy took part in the Italian Campaign.
MILES
Newspaper cuttings from the Eastern Cape.
EP Herald, 14 November 1986
A well-known Queenstown couple, Mr. Errington MILES and his wife, Irene neé BELL celebrated their golden anniversary with a luncheon for their family and old and close friends recently. Both have lived in this area all their lives and they were married in St. Michael's Church on November 4, 1936. They have a daughter Barbara ROSS and two sons, Garry and David.
On the Sunday nearest their anniversary, everyone gathered at the home of Barbara and her husband, David in Livingstone Road, where a huge oak tree overlooking the lawn and pool provided the ideal venue for a delicious buffet prepared by Barbara and daughters-in-law, Dagmar and Ruth.
Among those present were Mrs. MILES' sister and brother-in-law Kay and Jim RYAN and brother Ron BELL from Morgan Bay, as well as brother Norman BELL and his wife, Fay, from Dordrecht. Happily Mr. MILES' brother Donovan was down from the eastern Transvaal at the time, so was also able to attend this happy occasion. Speeches were kept to a minimum, but son-in-law David ROSS proposed the couple's continued food health, to which Mr. MILES briefly replied.
ENDING
When the farm Weltevreden is sold, four generations of Queenstown history will come to an end. Last week, the 1600- hectare home of the PRICE family, who have been farming there since 1905, was put on the market so Rennie PRICE, 25, is the last of his line to live at Weltevreden.
Most of the family - my parents, Norman and Trish, Uncle Lowell, who married Sandra REYNOLDS and elder brother Michael - have moved to Sunlands, and I'm thinking of getting closer to them," says Rennie. His elder sister, Jennifer, is married and lives at Wellington while Andrea is a chartered accountant in Johannesburg.
He occupies the house built by his grandfather, Eldred Charles PRICE, who was born in June 1904 and died in October 1979. Eldred was just 18 months old when Rennie's great-grandfather, Lowell Eldred PRICE, bought the farm in 1905 from the LE ROUX family.
Lowell PRICE had been farming at the family's home farm near Tarkastad - Bower's Hope. - which is still in the possession of Rennie's Uncle Murray, who was a Border cricketer. The family can trace its history to Irishman George PRICE, who came to Grahamstown on May 16, 1806 with the 21st Light Dragoons.
Rennie's grandmother, Mrs. "Bobby" PRICE, who lives with at Weltevreden, was Hope Alison GRANT, the daughter of Colonel James Murray GRANT, who was with the Cape Mounted Rifles and retired to Queenstown. Bobby's sister, Mrs. Pat CARPENTER, and her husband are living in Queenstown.
Eldred PRICE's sister, Mrs. Grace BARROW, is also living in Queenstown. A brother, Llewellyn PRICE, died at the age of 19. No longer will the spacious lawns at Weltevreden echo to the sound of generations of young PRICES playing "test" overs on Sunday afternoon.
MOOLMAN
EP Herald, 27 Aug 1979
Death of disaster veteran
Herald Correspondent.
Somerset East - One of the last survivors of the Blaaukrantz Bridge disaster in 1922, Mr. Fred MOOLMAN, 76, of Stockdale in the Swaerhoek area, died in the Andries Vosloo Hospital yesterday morning following a short illness. Mr. MOOLMAN, a prominent farmer leaves his wife, Mary, two daughters, a son and eight grandchildren.
The funeral service will be held at the All Saints Church, Somerset East on Wednesday afternoon. He will be cremated in Port Elizabeth.
In 1911, Mr. MOOLMAN was travelling with is mother and sister between Grahamstown and Port Alfred when the disaster occurred. He fractured a leg when he fell from the bridge and landed, otherwise unhurt, in the branches of a tree below the bridge. His mother and sister were killed.
MURRAY
EP Herald, 12 Dec 1982
MURRAY Clan senior now 101 years old
Herald Correspondent
The only surviving grandson of the Rev, Andrew MURRAY, Mr. Harold MURRAY, has celebrated his 101st birthday in George - and that makes him the oldest of the MURRAY Clan who are spread all over South Africa.
About a month ago more than 300 MURRAY descendants congregated in Graaff-Reinet, the home town of their famous grand-father, the Rev. Andrew MURRAY, who came to South Africa from Scotland in 1822.
Mr. MURRAY's daughter, Mrs. Kath RIMBAULT, said that at the 1972 family gathering approximately 550 MURRAYs were present. But according to the hand-written family history book that she had, there were well over 800 known MURRAYs in the country.
At both of the last gatherings her father had been the oldest MURRAY descendant. "That's the only reputation I have," Mr. MURRAY said.
Mr. MURRAY did not personally know his grandfather because he was born well after his grandfather's death in 1865. Mr. MURRAY is one of 16 children and although he is the sole surviving grandson, there are still three MURRAY granddaughters, all of whom are younger than big brother Harold. The youngest of the granddaughters is 87.
Mr. MURRAY is a retired attorney from Schweizer Reneke.
