The Strachan family came to Natal from Campbeltown on the Null of Kintyre in Scotland, Thomas Strachan being born there on 29th January 1838 and Donald Strachan the 22nd May 1840. Donald Strachan was only ten when their parents, Robert and Mary Strachan brought them to Natal under the infamous Byrne Scheme - aimed at settling the new British territorial claim of Natal. The family, who came across on the "Unicorn" was granted 60 acres of land in the Illovo district but found it unsuitable for farming or became a victim of Byrne's bankruptcy in 1850.
They settled in Durban where Robert Strachan, their father, was killed on 2nd February 1852 in a building accident.
By 1858 the boys had raised enough capital through other means to open a trading store near their farm Clydesdale at the Drift (later Umzimkulu) just across the Umzimkulu river in Nomansland. The evolving town that arose around the Strachan store had many names in the 1800s. It was originally called "Madonela" by the Africans who settled there in the late 1850s to be near the new trading post; Madonela meaning "the place of Donald". It was later called Clydesdale, the name of the Strachan's farm on maps published in the 1880s, - until finally being named Umzimkulu after the river in the late 1800s.
The origins of the name "Umzimkulu" river are cemented in Zulu tradition. "Umzi" means kraal or home, and "omkhulu" means which is big. The home the Zulus referred to was the river - not a home as you would perceive it. Legend has it that the river was given this name because in 1823 it swelled to such a point that the Zulus could not pursue the Bhacas who were fleeing King Shaka's feared army. One of the Zulu warriors said, while gazing across the fast moving stretch of water that had stopped their pursuit, "Umuzi Ubumkhulu" (the kraal -of water- has been great) and so the river became known as Umzimkulu - the great river.
Image right: Strachan and Co letterhead with transcript of newspaper article on the death of Thomas Strachan
(original document in the Balson Holdings Family Trust collection)
At the time the boys established their trading business in 1858 Donald was only eighteen years old and Thomas twenty. By the time the Griquas arrived in Nomansland in 1862 the boys' trading operation had become well established and accepted by the natives in the district.
Trade blossomed over the next ten years despite a major handicap - the need to barter without coinage and the great distances to markets to trade goods created a growing hurdle for the young boys and other traders in the area. Their income was supplemented when Donald Strachan was honoured with being the only white Magistrate appointed by the Griquas.
