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• Notes on Wedderburn Settlers
• Mandela's speech re-dedication of the 1820 Grahamstown Settlers Monument, 1996
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The following history of the early Wedderburns in South Africa was compiled by George Richard Wedderburn (1866-1948), grandson of the George Wedderburn who lost his life in the Frontier Wars in 1851.

GRW Introduction

GRW Chapter 2

GRW Chapter 3

GRW Chapter 4

GRW Chapter 5

GRW Chapter 6

GRW Chapter 7

CHAPTER ONE

On a cold bleak winter’s morning on 14 January 1820, a large crowd had gathered at the old Docks at Liverpool to bid adieu to some 600 emigrants who had already boarded the three vessels, Stentor, John and Albury, which had been berthed there for several weeks and where the necessary preparations had taken place prior to their sailing away to the distant shores of South Africa whither the emigrants were to be conveyed as a result of a scheme that was decided upon by the British Government in view of the distress and unemployment then prevailing, consequently upon the depression following the Napoleonic Wars.

The scheme was heartily taken up and something like 4,000 souls altogether were selected from various parts of the United Kingdom and, in due course, as before stated, we find some 600 of them leaving Liverpool on this great adventure where many of them were destined to permanently establish themselves and become a great and prominent factor in the future development of South Africa and who would hereafter become renowned in the pages of that country’s history as the British Settlers of 1820.

Capt. Harris of the Stentor had made such provision as was possible in those days with his small craft of 600 tons berthing for the 281 passengers, who would necessarily occupy all the accommodation he could possibly afford with the limited amount of space at his disposal.

Among the number of emigrants leaving their native land on the occasion referred to above, was Christopher Wedderburn, with his wife and family and it would, no doubt, be a great grief to them to sever the ties that held them so dearly to the numerous members of their families whom they were parting from, never to see again.

He had disposed of his business at 70 Liverpool Street, Manchester, owing to the depression and was a man of some means, as will be shown later. It was his health however which was principally the deciding factor in his leaving the old country, with its damp climate in the North of England for the dry and bracing climate of South Eastern Africa. He had been in indifferent health for some time and this was causing his family great anxiety, so it was decided to throw in their lot in the great adventure upon which we find them embarking on this historic winter morning.

Christopher Wedderburn was 48 years of age when he left England, having been born on 12 February 1772. He has been described as a square built man of good proportions and of medium height, slightly bald with iron grey hair, which he wore rather long as was the fashion at that time. He was the son of John and Ann (born Hodson) Wedderburn, who resided, at the time of his birth, in Cumberland, where they owned a considerable amount of property in the neighbourhood of Ennerdale Water, but later moved to Ulverston in North Lancashire, where the family remained for very many years. Their eldest son, William, became an officer in the Indian Army. Alexander, the second son, emigrated to Jamaica and became a sugar planter and was reported to have become very wealthy, while John and Adam remained in Ulverston in business there. Christopher went into commercial life, as before mentioned, in Manchester, where he met and married Ann Quail, a daughter of John and Ann Quail of Liverpool, who had previously come over from the Isle of Man and had settled down with their large family, purchasing a house, No. 12 in Prices Street, Cleveland Square. During their residence in Manchester, Christopher and Ann Wedderburn had five children: two sons, William and George, and three daughters, Ann, Esther and Elizabeth, all of whom accompanied their parents on the historic voyage to South Africa.

Ann Quail, before her marriage to Christopher Wedderburn, was one of five children, her two brothers being John and Thomas, and two sisters, Esther and Elizabeth, and she was described as having a very charming personality with ruddy complexion, dark brown hair and slightly aquiline nose and a sweet and kindly temperament.  She was born on 17 March 1778 and married on 25 August 1799, so that, on the time of her embarkation to South Africa, she was 42 years of age.

And it was thus we find the whole family gathered on the deck of the good ship Stentor on that memorable morning in January 1820 when Capt. Harris weighed anchor and unfurled her main sails to the breeze amid the cheers and farewells of those assembled on the wharf. And there the pilot comes aboard and they are off, moving slowly through the maze of traffic down the broad bosom of the Mersey, thence, after dropping the pilot, they head for the mighty expanse of the Irish Sea and southward within sight of the Welsh coast, down the British Channel, out into the broad Atlantic Ocean, on whose vast area they were destined to spend something like three months, before reaching the Cape.