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Research in Other Countries => South Africa => Topic started by: groom on Friday 01 August 08 20:50 BST (UK)
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Hi - you folk are usually good at coming up with answers can you help with this?
A g x2 uncle, Charles Henry Howell ,born 1860 West Ham, is missing from the 1891 census. However his wife Annie Howell appears with their 4 children living with her parents Philip and Louisa Ridge in West Ham. The 3 eldest children were all born in West Ham but the youngest Charles William (10mths)has South Africa BS (British Subject?) as place of birth.
I'm presuming he was born there and then he and his mother returned to England possibly leaving his father out there. The question is why were they there in the first place? The only thing I can find about that time is the gold rush.
Would ordinary working class people really go to seek their fortune? Charles Henry's occuption on the 1881 census is engine smith. If he did go he wasn't very successful as in 1901 he is back in West Ham.
(Poor Charles William died in 1892 aged 2)
Thanks
Jan
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Sorry my mistake its not Charles William it was Robert Allen Howell who was born in South Africa.
Jan
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I have people out there at this time.
They were
Soldiers
Policemen
Gold prospectors
Unknown
All came back within 10 years.
meles
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Hello Jan,
Could Charles Henry have been working on the railway in South Africa ???
An Engine Smith made parts for, and repaired, engines using the tools of a Smith.
I can't see all that many Gold prospectors taking their wives with them on the chance that they'd strike lucky but I can see that someone working on the railways would have been more likely to have been accompanied by his wife as he'd have been getting an income.
No one on the railways, meles ???
Christopher
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Hi possible, but would he have taken his wife with him?
Tried looking at South African births but didn't get far.
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Hi possible, but would he have taken his wife with him?
Tried looking at South African births but didn't get far.
He might have taken his wife if they'd gone there on a scheme encouraging people to live and work in South Africa. I'm not certain if there were such schemes in the late 1800s but there were a reasonable number of people from the UK in SA.
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The three did take their wives.
But railway (or other) engineers would have been in demand.
meles
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This does seem the sensible answer. Anyone know if there are any sites where I can check this?
Thanks
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You are about to enter a whole new world of South African genealogy - rather complex. Try your question on the South African board. There are some very helpful people there.
Good luck!
meles
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...and by the miracle of out mods - you're there!
meles
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Thanks very much - no wonder I keep recommending this site to everyone
Jan
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Very interesting question. At the time you are talking about you could not be born a British subject in the Transvaal or Orange Free State as they were Boer Republics. I am not sure whether children of Britons had any way of being registered with the British Ambassadors in those Republics.
However, the Cape and Natal were under British rule and that including diamond finds at Kimberley.
The gold mining on the Witwatersrand was deep mining and many stationery steam engines were used for lifts and for pumping. But as I say that was in the Transvaal.
However Cecil John Rhodes was engaged in fostering a railway from the Cape to Cairo. So if he followed his trade, he was as Meles says, most likely to have been engaged on the railways.
It is very hard to trace South African births before 1901 in the Cape and 1910 elsewhere.
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Thanks very much. Probably have to leave it there and just be thankful he wasn't a close relative.
Jan
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Hi Jan - one of my ancestors went to South Africa in about 1902/3. He was a railway wagon builder - so presumably that was the work he did when he got there. He took his wife and small children with him to live there.
He lived in Salt River - which is a suburb of Cape Town.
Another interesting thing we found out is that he joined the Cape Field Artillery out there - He wasn't a regular soldier - it was more of a part time militia/TA regiment.
Milly
:)
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Hi everyone who helped
Just to let you know a contact (also a second cousin so many removed!!) has just found Annie Howell (28) Charles Howell (6) Lily Howell (4) and Anne Howell (2) sailing on the SS Anglian from Southampton to Durban, Port Natal, South Africa on 3rd January 1890. No mention of her husband Charles William Howell so he was probably already there. She obviously met up with him as a few months later Robert Allen Howell was born!
Thanks for your help
Janet
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Hi, just to let you know that I am working on the same family tree as you are, Annie Howell was my Great Grandmother. Annie also had a son Timothy who was born in South Africa and died as a child.
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Hi Groom
you could have a look at the Sth Africa Archives records, (NARS)
http://www.national.archives.gov.za/
Daizi
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Hi, Looks like the mention of Timothy can be disregarded as my Mother may have been having a senior moment, however I will be seeing an elderly cousin daughter of Lily Howel ( one of Annie's daughters) at the weekend and will ask her if she know's why they went to S.A
Daisy
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Hi Daisy
Did you get my personal message? It certainly looks as if we are distantly related. If you are interested and want to send me your e-mail by personal message I've got lots of information about Charles's brother Thomas and his parents. Thomas's wife Alice Howell (nee Smith) drowned in the HMS Albion disaster on the Thames.
It will be great if you can find out why they went to South Africa - my bet is to work on the railways, but it might be something more exciting! Hope to hear from you soon.
Janet
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Hi possible, but would he have taken his wife with him?
Tried looking at South African births but didn't get far.
He might have taken his wife if they'd gone there on a scheme encouraging people to live and work in South Africa. I'm not certain if there were such schemes in the late 1800s but there were a reasonable number of people from the UK in SA.
There were "schemes' to encourage people from England and Scotland to go to SA in the late 1800's. My gg grandfather was recruited to join Cecil John Rhodes' dream of British Imperialism and building a railway from Cape to Cairo. CJR didn't anticipate the Matabele Uprising, and so the British SA Company employed men to 'police' the company's assetts and employees in the then Rhodesia. My gg grandfather then joined the railways and stayed in SA because he couldn't face being so seasick again, as he was on the voyage to SA (well, that is family lore :-\ However, he didn't take a wife with him - he met my gg grandmother in Cape Town.
Scatza
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Hi Jan - one of my ancestors went to South Africa in about 1902/3. He was a railway wagon builder - so presumably that was the work he did when he got there. He took his wife and small children with him to live there.
He lived in Salt River - which is a suburb of Cape Town.
Another interesting thing we found out is that he joined the Cape Field Artillery out there - He wasn't a regular soldier - it was more of a part time militia/TA regiment.
Milly
:)
Salt River was the site of Union Carriage - a factory that built rolling stock.
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Thanks Hackstaple, I will look into that
Milly ;D
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Hi, I'm coming into this thread rather late, but I thought I'd relate what I'd come across in my own research that might shed some more light on the OP's family story.
The question is why were they there in the first place? The only thing I can find about that time is the gold rush.
Would ordinary working class people really go to seek their fortune? Charles Henry's occuption on the 1881 census is engine smith.
Though there had been a signifcant number of British settlers arriving in South Africa during the 1800's thanks to some government aided immigration schemes (1820 Settlers in particular), the discovery of first diamonds in Kimberley and then gold in the Transvaal sparked a large immigration into the country.
There would have been a great demand for trades related to mining (fitters, turners, boilermakers, engineers). Two of my great-great grandfathers arrived here in the mid 1890s who had both been factory workers in the UK and came from very much working-class families.
But it wasn't only mining related jobs that enticed people - I have two great-grandfathers who arrived as farmers from Italy and Portugal around 1900 and started a profitable business as fesh produce farmers who supplied the mining villages that sprung up on the Witwatersrand.
So it wasn't so much that these people were 'seeking their fortune' in the way we always see American gold rush pioneers depicted out hunting for that elusive nugget of gold. They simply came over here to do the same kind of work/trade that they had been doing at home, but there were simply more job opportunities, and in a lot of cases better living conditions (the mines built a lot of housing around that time, and the climate in South Africa is a lot milder than most of Europe).
If he did go he wasn't very successful as in 1901 he is back in West Ham.
Given that date, it may have had nothing to with success at all. If he was out working in the gold fields of the Transvaal, he may have been forced to relocate when the second Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899.
I'm presuming he was born there and then he and his mother returned to England possibly leaving his father out there.
I have a great-grandmother who was born in the Transvaal in 1898, but then I find her living back in Norwich (where her parents had come from) in the 1901 census with her siblings and mother, but her father wasn't living with them. Then she returned and lived out the rest of her life in South Africa. This puzzled me for a while, since it seemed odd that they'd returned to the UK without her father, and why had she come back to SA after that?
It was only when I found a compensation claim filed by her father in the National Archives that I realised what had happened. In his letter to the government, my great-great grandfather explained that they had moved here in the mid 1890's and settled in the Transvaal, but when war broke out, they were forced to abandon their home near Johannesburg, and he sent his wife and children back to England, while he stayed and joined the volunteer forces to fight in the war on the side of the British. The compensation claim was filed when the family had all returned home to Johannesburg after the war and found their home looted and damaged. They actually received reimbursement from the British goverment for that.
So in your case, perhaps the family returned to England at the outbreak of the war, but due to financial pressure/discouragement at the war/loss of property, they might simply have decided not to return as many other families did.
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A very interesting story Tygerr. Thanks.
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Thank you Tygerr, that could explain a lot. It would make sense for them to come back if war had broken out.
Jan
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Whilst working on a totally unrelated thread for someone else but also about railways in South Africa, Catherine discovered this for me
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
So at least it is now confirmed that she did join him.
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Doing a bit of Maths I've come up with the following:
In the 1891 UK census taken 3rd April 1891 Robert Allen Howell was 10 months old, so must have been born the end of June 1890 in South Africa.
Annie arrived in SA in January 1890, so unless Robert was very premature she would have been 3 months pregnant at the time. This means that her husband Charles must have left for South Africa on or after September 1889.
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Very good question
My grandmothers brothers by adoption were railway engineers and went out there
I.must check dates they were george and edward HALLIS
Also some of my Great grandmother went on to marry edwin hume BENJAMIN
Who wss born in london but bhas brothers and sisters born either side of hin on SA ...one of his brothers is a similar age so i think.it may be a remarriage .they were jewish and the uncles were freemasons but on ancestry there doesnt seem to be any south afriva section to search documents
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Hi brigidmac - have a look at this thread, the one that reminded me I'd started this post. There are a lot of good links and suggestions in it that might help you.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=787140.0
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Thanks groom wl try a d remember to look when eyes l
Less strained B