Bailies Party of 1820 Settlers - M.D. Nash

This book puts Eastern Cape history in a new perspective. Its characters are not just the 1820 settlers themselves, but the British politicians and demagogues who influenced the 1819 scheme of emigration to the Cape of Good Hope, and the handful of colonial officials who were faced with the formidable task of implementing it.

Mrs Nash has examined the class distinctions and political divisions within the Albany settlement, and challenges the traditional view of the settlers struggle against the tyranny of colonial authority. She offers instead the bold suggestion that Albany politics between 1820 and 1825 centred upon a clash between two opposing interest groups among the settlers themselves: the would-be landed gentry of the Eastern Cape and the emergent entrepreneurs.

This conflict was a reflection of significant differences in the organisation of the various emigrant parties. She illustrates her argument with a detailed analysis of one of the largest of the settler parties. Eighty-four men and their families, drawn mostly from the diversified middle ranks of English society, sailed in the emigrant ship Chapman under the nominal leadership of John Bailie.

Many of their names have become a familiar part of South African history: Chase, Godlonton, Stringfellow, Biddulph, Hoole, Ford, Hockly, Gray, Marillier and Hewson, as well as that of John Bailie himself. Recruited in London and organised on a basis of mutual co-operation, the party quarrelled and split before even reaching the Cape.

Mrs Nash has followed the fortunes of all the individual members after its official dissolution, and has provided a full biographical appendix, based on an unusually wide range of primary sources, that will be a valuable reference tool for future researchers.