The Story of the Lady Kennaway

Based on Original text by William Grassam Cooper¹

Edited (and with some additions) by Michael Anderson

The document that I am presenting was written in 1935 and at that date two of the sisters of the author were still alive. They were Mrs. W.O. Carter of Cape Town and Mrs. J.W. Vader of King Williams Town, the former being about three years old at the time of the disaster and the latter one year old. It was through Mrs. Vader who turned out to be then a baby Ruth Cooper that I believe I identified the author

 

The Lady Kennaway was a sailing ship, a three-masted, square-rigged barque of 584 tons built of teak in Calcutta in 1817. At first she carried tea to England. Later she transported convicts four times from Britain to Australia. For her final voyage, she was refitted to carry young, female passengers to East London, South Africa. It was part of a plan to marry them to British soldiers and develop the colony. The Lady Kennaway sailed from England on September 5, 1857, carrying 231 emigrants: 153 single women from Ireland, 42 artisans with their wives, and 36 children² _.  This is their story.

In the 1850’s, a number of young British men in the Eastern Cape Province realized they had no prospect of getting married unless they looked to Great Britain. Among the number were a few young Irishmen who told the rest that if the Irish lass’s only knew of the prospects of procuring husbands and comfortable homes in South Africa they would volunteer to emigrate if facilities were available to bring them out. An appeal was made to the Cape government for assistance and this resulted in the home government becoming interested.

 After it had been ascertained that a number of Irish girls were prepared to emigrate the sailing ship the Lady Kennaway, a 584 ton vessel, was chartered and in addition to 150 young Irish women, there were 21 married Englishmen, 33 children and three single men. They sailed from Plymouth on September the 6th 1857. With what mixed feelings these emigrants embarked can only be imagined for they were leaving the homeland behind them for far off South Africa. The voyage of 77 days, although tedious, was a happy one on the whole, and the vessel arrived off East London then called West Bank on November the 23rd 1857. Fortunately the weather was fine for the primitive method of landing demanded a fine day. Sailors manned a rowing boat taking with them a coil of rope which they unfurled as they rode ashore hauling in by it a hawser from the ship. This hawser was used for hauling the surf boats out to land the passengers. It was a great task for, apart from the discomfort, the crossing of the bar was a perilous experience the boats having to be battened down for riding over the bar.

Many of the young men eagerly awaiting the coming of the Lady Kennaway came down from inland some days beforehand as no news of even any approximate date of the ships arrival was available. The landing of the precious cargo took a full day. As my parents had a bullock wagon awaiting their arrival to convey them to King Williams Town, they saw very little of the important meeting of the Irish girls and their prospective husbands but the  bolder young men spotting their fancies set claim at once each to his chosen one. From all accounts these plucky Irish girls made splendid wives. The writer met a number of them years after and they all appeared to have done well. The last of them living, an old lady known as Granny Smith in East London died only a few years ago at over 80 years of age.

Meanwhile, the Lady Kennaway crewless and the captain ashore was at the mercy of the waves, tossing about at anchor. On the third day the South Easter caused her cables to part she was driven onto the rocks and soon broke up. Many residents of the West Bank may still be in possession of some of the relics of the ill fated vessel. Indeed the late W. Symons of King Williams Town donated wreckage which became the front doors of the towns English church. He and his eight children were among the passengers who safely disembarked the ship before it’s demise. His eldest son William J Symons then 17 years of age was said to be a great favorite on board. He was possessed of a good voice and he sang “All of beauty fare thee well” while the white cliffs of Dover were being left behind and brought tears to many eyes.

.

The author maintained that “the crew of the Lady Kennaway, taking advantage of the absence of the captain and the advancing storm, abandoned the ship” but that story is disputed. What happened to them was never fully explained but the author did meet two of them in later years. Here are their stories as the author tells them.

The captain of the Lady Kennaway was a foreigner and apparently very harsh and cruel to his crew who were also were mostly of foreigners. Owing to his treatment they determined to abscond from the vessel at the first opportunity. The day following the landing of the passengers was another perfect day and the skipper went ashore intending to return in the afternoon but it was prevented by come by the coming up of a South Easter storm. The whole crew decided to seize the chance to escape. They constructed rafts of anything suitable aboard and during the night they let themselves down to the mercy of the waves hoping to be washed ashore safely. Whether the majority even reached the shore alive remained a mystery only two many years after we're known to the writer. They never heard of any of their mates being alive or as they explained that for ten to twelve years they had not breathed the word of having absconded for fear of arrest. Here are their stories as they told them to me.

One of them was a Frenchman known as French Charlie who when washed up upon the West Bank made his way inland. Some 10 years later he worked on the East London and Queenstown railway construction and later married a German girl in Frankfort near Kei Road. Some years after was killed at Kei Road by a stack of sleepers falling upon him. He left a widow and five children. He had long since changed his name as had also the 2nd man whom I came across in Pondoland over in the 1890’s.

Arriving at Cars we found the trading station accommodation very crude. I can still see the dining room and kitchen all in one with its smeared floor a yellow wood table and a wooden form on either side, the old trader in a red night-cap sitting on a three legged stool. a Pondo woman with a baby on her back, the cook at the end of the room and candlelight the only the only illumination. The meat prepared by the cook was duly brought along (no tablecloth) a huge dish with steaming “kop-en-pooitjies” (sheepshead and feet) and bean soup. As it was the wintry night the hot dish was welcomed. No vegetables apart from the beans in the dish plus heavy brown bread.

 When dinner was over we got into conversation and Carr asked me how long I had been out from England. He questioned my age when I gave it as he was the man in 1857. He then said to us, “I don't mind letting you know when I arrived in South Africa and how I landed in 1857 but for years after I was afraid of being arrested as a deserter.”

Then having detailed his wonderful experiences he was amazed at my being able to give him the ship's name. When he had told me us the whole crew absconded leaving the ship on rafts etcetera in the dead of night, I said, “Yes and the ship's name was the Lady Kennaway and you say you were the steward. What about all those Irish girls on board?”

The poor old fellow was wild with excitement. He remembered my parents quite well with their children. His vivid story of how he was washed up on a sand pit near Bat’s Cave was most thrilling. To his raft was lashed a small box containing some clothes and a few ships biscuits. Exhausted as he was he was he strained every nerve to pull the raft out of the water up onto the sandbank in the darkness. Unfastening the box he found his clothes saturated and the biscuits a pulp.

Wet through himself he stripped in the bushes and after ringing out his clothes hung them out to dry, then he scraped together dead leaves and lay down but could not sleep. At last day dawned. How thankful he was for the sunrise but the dread of wild animals, savages and starvation came upon him. For some time he roamed the Bush and was delighted to come across a small stream of water. Returning to his clothes he took the pulped ship's biscuits to the stream for they were uneatable until he had soaked them in fresh water.

He spent the day in the bush and towards evening after packing his clothes in a box he ventured out into the open field hoping to find a house of some sort. After several hours of vain search and encountering many obstacles, he decided to rest in the first cover of bush. He slept from share exhaustion but awoke long before daylight. Still fearing arrest he waited until the afternoon before moving on. At last that evening he saw a light and made for it to find it was a farmhouse where he was met at the garden gate by a German farmer. He told the man that he was a wrecked sailor and begged something to eat and shelter for the night. The granting of his request cheered him up and next morning he pleaded for any kind of work the farmer could give him to do the good-natured farmer gave him employment and was pleased with the extra farm hand. After working for about a month he decided to move further inland calling it farms on the way and finding jobs here and there he ultimately landed in the Transkei where he worked for traders and gained a knowledge of native trading. In the course of several years he managed to secure a small station of his own at the time I met him in Pondoland he possessed 3 trading stations. This old trader passed away about 12 years ago.

 

Editors note. So ends the story as, I believe, William Grassam Cooper wrote it. It was a tale told in his own words. William was born 2 years after his parents arrived in what was then known as Kaffraria. His parents and their two young girls were a part of the passengers aboard the Lady Kennaway, as was the progenitor of the Symons family in South Africa, William Symons, along with his eight children.

This all came about as part of my genealogical research into the Symons family when I was given a 7 page photocopy of a typewritten story written in 1935. The author of that document was not given but from it’s content and some detective work I deduced it was written by William Grassam Cooper (Wikitree ID Cooper-26328) who was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 9 January 1849. His two sisters were children aboard the Lady Kennaway and it was through his sister, Ruth Cooper who married John Widdicombe Varder, that I made the connection. The story was related in the first person in places, third person in others so I tried to rationalize it to be consistent. My edits (in Italics) hopefully retain the spirit and accuracy of the account while making the story easier to follow.

A sad note is that while I have been able to identify the entire Cooper family including all the children born in King Williams Town after 1857, I have had no definitive luck with the Symons family. I have (possibly) found a sister Chartt who apparently died before William left for Kaffraria , and five other kids listed in the Appendix including William James (mentioned in the story) and Robert . Two more probably born after 1851 are not known.  Anyone with more information! Please let me know. Also sad was to find out that William’s wife, Mary died before he emigrated, an event which may have prompted him to take this bold step.

One final note, it is believed that all the Irish girls aboard found husbands and some even returned to England with their soldier husbands as did Susan Jane Keegan, who was born in 1838 in Rathdrum in County Wicklow in Ireland. It is she who is the subject of the Blog by Igulston referred to. Worth a read.

 

References:

1. Wives for Kaffrarian setters. Typed 7 page document given to me by Merryl Symons. Author not given.
2. Blog : GREAT GRANDMOTHER AND LADY KENNAWAY Posted on Dec. 2, 2014 by lgulston . https://lgulston.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/great-grandmother-and-lady-kennaway/
3. Many and various Familysearch records, including
4. The one that solved the Id of the author, his sister Ruth Cooper https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G247-W17

 Appendix

William Symons Family

according to Census Records

In 1841 census:

William Symons born 1815, died in King Williams Town, about 1885 (Head of household)

Mary Symons born 1815, died 1854 so probably was not there in 1857 (Wife probably Mary Jane Dobson)

Chartt Symons born 1839 is the only child present on the 1841 census but does not appear on the 1851 census.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQTY-HMY

In 1851 census:

William James is 10 born 1841

John Martin is 9 born 1842

Henry T is 7 born 1844

Mary j is 4 born 1847

James is 1 born 1850

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SG52-SF5

Born after the 1851 census,

Robert born 1853

That’s a total of six kids alive in 1853, while eight are said to have been with William when he arrived on West Bank in 1857, so two kids are missing from this record!

There is some indication that William may have remarried after Mary died but these records are inconclusive.