British Railway Constructor: Natal, circa 1883~90

[Catherine Wait]

Groom Not sure if you want to make this a separate thread: Your g/uncle(?) Charles Howell was definitely working on the railways in South Africa.  Surety for A Howell F 28 married arriving on the "Anglian" 6/2/1890 is given as C H Howell NGR Durban. NGR - Natal Government Railways.

A quick search didn't reveal when Charles arrives in SA, let me know if you have a date.

Regards
Catherine

[groom]

Thanks Catherine - I've added that to my old thread so that I don't hi-jack John's thread

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=318784.0

[JohnG_Swansea]

Hi JohnG, Sorry about the link that didn't work,   ..  ..  ..  Quite a big Snip, Snip  ..  ..  ..  ..

However, in having a look around the internet for you, I have found the answer to my own question.   The following is an extract from "Mol's Genealogy Blog"

"Railway workers of varying levels of skill were imported from Britain specifically for the development of the Natal rail network. The selected lists below show contingents of platelayers* ‘engaged by the Crown Agents for service on Natal Government Railways’ and brought out, most with their families, in 1885 on these and other vessels. The date shown is that of arrival at Natal and where not otherwise stated all were accompanied by wives and in some cases, children.
Another bigish Snip, Snip  ..  ..  ..
Regards
Catherine

Catherine: I was intrigued with the words (now) in red ink and have spent some time trying to find the original quotation so as to read the rest of the item, with the intention of tracking down and searching through the arrivals lists looking for any lists relating to arrivals in Durban for the early weeks of 1884, to see if I can find mention of Benjamin David & Flora POPE.

Would it be possible for you to provide the full address of the quotation?

I now follow-on with a rather longer shot!  Do you by any chance have knowledge of the whereabouts of the arrivals lists mentioned in the quotation.  My researches here in the UK indicate that UK passenger lists (outgoing) were not commenced until 1890, some six or seven years after BDP left these shores and my success rate for finding documents in the South African (Natal) system(s) is best left without comment!

Groom:  Thank you for the polite consideration in not hi-jacking the original direction of this thread.

JohnG_Swansea

[Catherine Wait]

Hi JohnG,

1.  The link for the 1880's railway workers to Natal is https://molegenealogy.blogspot.co.za/search?q=1885+railways.  I have asked for their research source as I would very much like to follow up on that.  I did check for any Pope's without success.  However:.....

2.  As your arrival dates and information seemed sound, I never double checked that until now.  I seem to have found some conflicting info.  As you have found out searching records in SA is not easy, but one of the worth while sites is www.eggsa.org.  They have transcribed some of the shipping lists, the following extract is from the site - arriving on the "SS Spartan" 22/2/1884 is the following

"Surety Name   Immigrant Name   Sex   Age   Marital Status   Trade   
  information
 
Wolff Sam, Estcourt    POPE, B.D.    M    Adult    Married    Stone mason and wife     
                              POPE, F.A.    F    Adult    Married    "          

The link to this search on eggsa didn't work, so you will have to do the search yourself - from the home page, right hand side under eggsa library, click on passanger list project then on the passenger list project page on the left click on search passenger lists.  Leave port as all and simply search for surname "Pope".  Scroll down to you find B D Pope and click on the button "B D Pope in context of the list" and you will get all arrivals for that ship and the shipping route etc.

So, if this is your B D Pope and wife F Pope, then they came out under surety of Sam Wolff of Estcourt.  My thoughts are:  As a stone mason, there would be work building bridges for the railways and if my memory is correct, there are stone bridges on the line in the Estcourt area, or, there are numerous stone buildings in the town and Sam Wolff was a builder who needed a accomplished mason and the railways happened a bit later.  The railway got to Estcourt in 1885.

Going back to comment 1. above.  If we can find records in Natal Archives in Pietermaritzburg (HELP any archivists in PMB) I can request the files and go and photograph the relevant info, however this could take months to accomplish or never !!! I'll keep a list of names of railway workers and try and look them all up. Groom:  If you are still following this thread, I'll keep your research in mind as well.

Regards
Catherine

[JohnG_Swansea]

Catherine: What a 'Game Changer' of a reply! 

I along with my wife have two rather busy days ahead of us, with Grandparent duties.  I will not have sufficient calm-time available to give your reply the attention it deserves until the evenings of both days, it is almost certain that I will not post again until, purhaps, Thursday.

In the meanwhile I am sending you a PM which I hope you will find of interest.

JohnG.

[3sillydogs]

Hi,

Here is the link to the baptism of Edward Benjamin on Family Search, unfortunately amongst as yet unindexed records, scroll down to the second page of the image it's the first entry.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GTWB-XXX?i=53&wc=SFVZ-82C%3A44975801%2C51425101%2C51677701%2C51677702&cc=1468076

Sorry it's so long.

Can't seem to find Emily's but will have a look elsewhere.

Sue

[Catherine Wait]

Hi Sue + JohnG, On the baptism of Edward Benjamin his mother Flora has a second name Ang??? and BDP's occupation is contractor to NGR. Slowly the answers unfold!!!

Catherine

[3sillydogs]

Can't seem to find Emily's.  She doesn't appear on the Howick register for the time, nor any of the towns around Estcourt.  It is possible of course that those images have not been put online as yet.  She may have been baptised somewhere else entirely as well.

Looks like Flora's second name could be Augusta

Sue

[JohnG_Swansea]

Hi Readers one and all:

Catherine: Firstly to post #15 above, I can confirm that Flora had the additional name of Augusta, which I now realise I failed to show in my opening post.

Thank you for your comprehensive reply #12, I have now worked through your guidance on the arrival of 'BD & F' at Durban and having seen the results myself, I am content to believe these entries are indeed the two Pope's that Ruth already holds a significant amount of information on, that has been passed down to the oldest child since the time of Emily Laura.  Sufficient to say that I have captured the source of this new information for inclusion in the ever growing document that is being assembled for the benefit of those that follow us.  Although currently there is little interest being shown by 'our two'!  Having said that, when I was their ages I hadn't realised the significance of family history.

your reply included:
>> Scroll down to you find B D Pope and click on the button "B D Pope in context of the list" and you will get all arrivals for that ship and the shipping route etc.
Whilst we could see that SS Spartan arrived at Durban on 22 February 1884, we did not see a route nor a port of departure.  We are still working on identifying the PoD.

As is so often the case by answering one question another arises, in this case the subject of a 'surety'.  As this is the first occasion that our family history has led us 'offshore' we are uncertain what event Sam Wolff of Estcourt was supplying surety against.  Is there amongst your knowledge base any indication of the Why's and Wherefores' of 'Surety' in this instance?

This offshore investigation is turning out to be quite intriguing.

Thank you again, JohnG_Swansea