Grahamstown, Bathurst and Kasouga, South Africa 26 Nov - 1 Dec 07

In search of Angela's 1820 Settler ancestors

29 November 2007. Visit to St. John's Church in Bathurst guided by a local historian Merwynne Jones came to meet us at the Pig’n Whistle and we drove to St. John’s Church. The door is generally locked to protect the church from vandalism but Merwynne had the key. Inside, we discovered that Angela's great-great-great-grandfather Walter Currie (another 1820 settler) played a dominant role in the financing of the construction of the church and there was a plaque on the wall in his honour. The church wasn’t only used as a place of prayer, but also as a refuge during the Kaffir Wars. (or Frontier Wars, as they are called these days).
Merwynne also showed us an overgrown plot of land just a stone’s throw from the church. This was where the Curries lived in the 19th century until their house was struck by lightening and burnt down, killing one of their children.
After that we drove to Kasouga on the coast just west of Port Alfred, where we stayed in Andrew and Pamela Bowker’s guest house for the next three days. The skies looked rather threatening but we managed to go for a short walk on the beach with Pam and several dogs in her charge before the rain started.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Butler's Riverside Restaurant, Port Alfred’s best restaurant, with SA Mooney owner Patrick Hanly and his wife Janis who helps him run the dealership. Patrick has done quite a lot of long distance flying himself and was interested to learn about our own adventures.

30 November 2007. It was a rainy day in Kasouga and a good opportunity to work on our web pages. In the early afternoon, Flemming drove Angela into Port Alfred to see a doctor. She had been bitten by a spider, either at Tharfield or in Bathurst, and the bite was looking rather ugly. While she was at the doctor’s, Flemming drove to back to Bathurst to purchase a couple of old books on 1820 settlers that he had located there through the Internet.
Back at the Bowkers’, we met Angela's second cousin once removed Jeff Currie, who also lives in Kasouga. He used to run Kasouga farm, and now helps his son Walter who has taken it over.
Pamela and Andrew Bowker invited us to dinner that evening. This was the first time we actually met Andrew. It was thrilling to meet two long lost relatives on the same day and quite extraordinary that descendants of both sides of Angela’s ancestors should be living so close to each other these days. It was Angela’s great-grandmother, Ina Florence Currie who was the daughter of Henry Currie and Nelly Bowker. Andrew had more Bowker memorabilia to show us including a painting of his grandfather Thomas Bourchier Bowker (the founder of the 1820 Settlers Monument near Grahamstown) and another sculpture by Ivan Mitford-Barberton. Andrew lent us his copy of “The Bowkers of Tharfield” that Ivan and his brother Raymond had written in the 1940s. We had consulted another copy of this rare book at Albany Museum and were keen to do some more research from it for Flemming’s genealogy website.

1 December 2007. We joined the Christmas lunch of the 1820 Settlers Association at St Andrew's College in Grahamstown where several of Angela’s ancestors were educated. There we met for the second time the curator of Albany History Museum, Fleur Way-Jones. It was the first time we met the museum’s genealogist William Jervois, who had been absent on the day we visited it. The reason for his absence was that he drove all the way to Port Elizabeth and back that day to pick up certificates for Angela, her mother and brothers, certifying that they are descendants from 1820 Settler Miles Bowker.
In the afternoon, we visited Angela Mitford-Barberton, the wife of the late Roland Mitford-Barberton (Ivan’s son). Roland had carried on the work of his father and done a lot of recent Bowker genealogy research before he died a few years ago. Angela and Roland had several children and it is their daughter Laurel, who lives in Stellenbosch, who has the electronic copy of her father’s work. We arranged to meet up with Laurel on our return to the Cape Town area.

Thanks to: Tom, Chris and Jan Webb, Fleur Way-Jones, William Jervois, Andrew and Pam Bowker, Angela Mitford-Barberton and Patrick and Janis Hanly.