One of the seminal events in the history of the Eastern Cape and ultimately South Africa, was the arrival of the British Settlers in 1820. Notwithstanding their importance and impact upon the trajectory of South Africa, no artefact of that landing is extant.

If an artefact were still surviving, should it not have pride of place at the Bayworld Museum? If such an
artefact is indeed extant, where is it located?

Main picture:  The Chapman’s Bell is housed at the Centurion Bowling Club, Lyttleton Manor Centurion [Photo taken by DF McCleland]

What form should this artefact take?
The first prize would be the first vessel to arrive in Algoa Bay. This was the ship, The Chapman, which arrived on Sunday 9^th April 1820. Given the religious sensibilities of this era, maybe this is why the captain elected to delay the disembarkation of his passengers until the following day: Monday 10^th April. Even if anybody could have had the foresight to preserve the ship, the Chapman was lost in the North Atlantic during a voyage from Quebec in 1853.

Failing that, an object aboard the ship whether it formed part of the ship or, as a  consolation prize, an item borne by a passenger, would be equally significant.

What happens if a part of this ship, for whatever reason, had survived? The question then arises about what it is and where it is located.

The journey of the artefact
This surviving artefact is the ship’s bell which is the property of the Centurion Bowling Club, a section of the Zwartkops Country Club in Pretoria. This bell was donated to the Bowling Section of Zwartkops Country Club by Jan Andries Scholtz (JAS) Collen (born 1939), son of John Morrison Collen (1908 – 1999), son of John Edwin Morrison Collen (died at age 84), son of George Henry Collen (1837 -1933) son William Thomas Collen (12 April 1802 – 21 September 1883).

William Thomas Collen sailed to South Africa on the CHAPMAN, that left Gravesend on 3rd December 1819 and was the first 1820 Settler ship to land at Algoa Bay (now Port Elizabeth) on 9th April 1820. William Thomas Collen (1802 – 1883) was, at the tender age of 18, the first settler to set foot on shore in his new country.

Confusion reigns regarding identity of Collen / Collins
Henry Lovemore’s family and servants formed part of John Bailie’s party which was all set to embark in the Chapman. but shortly before embarkation, probably as late as mid-November, when the transport was due to sail, Henry dropped out because of the imminent birth of his latest child that duly arrived on the 24th November 1819. He had left his decision very late, so late in facr that John Bailie was only able to report his failure to embark when the Chapman anchored off Deal having left Deptford on or about 3 December. Bailie included in his report that he expected the Lovemores, along with others, would follow in the transport, Northampton, due to sail a few days later.

Included under Henry Lovemore, were Henry Belmore, aged 29, a labourer and his wife, Ann 28 with a deposit of £10 and Thomas Collins, 19, labourer, £10. Both these individuals, who sailed with the main party in the Chapman, were waiting to join Henry Lovemore on his arrival at Algoa Bay in July 1820. As such, the inference has to be that he had recruited them as staff for his future farm. A third individual, who was also to join the group on arrival, appears as Serial 47: Thomas Mead, a wheelwright, aged 19. The “Thomas Collins” in the third list has caused some confusion as to his correct identity. No such person travelled as a member of Bailie’s party, but there was a William Thomas Collen who worked for Henry Lovemore and the probability is that he and Thomas Collins were one and the same. The latter’s position as Serial 28 on the list adds support to that belief. There is a Lovemore family story, passed down through the generations, that a “Bill Collins” helped with the running of a second property – Preston on Quagga Flats – which Henry Lovemore was to acquire in 1824, neither of the two sons then being old enough to manage the property. Collen would easily have been changed to Collins in the telling. Collen proved to be an able and dependable person.

A family story has it that on landing at Algoa Bay, Henry Lovemore was met by three men with horses who took him to view a farm or farms. Some accounts say there were only two men, as recorded for example, by Mrs. Jessie Allen in her unpublished Memoirs. There is much truth in the basic story; the men must have been Henry Belmore, William Collen and Thomas Mead who had travelled to the Cape with John Bailie’s party in the transport Chapman and who arrived in Algoa Bay on 9 April. It is a fair assumption that, when Henry Lovemore found himself unable to travel on the Chapman, he gave instructions, and probably cash for expenses, to the three men to search around Algoa Bay for a suitable property with land to farm. The trio, probably under the leadership of Henry Belmore, who was married and who at 29 was 10 years older than the other two men, spent three months reconnoitring the surrounding countryside and making what preparations they could for the arrival of Henry Lovemore and his family. As the arrival of the Sir George Osborne drew near, they would have set about acquiring or reserving a marquee rather than a tent or tents for them to move into.

That Henry Lovemore had given serious thought before leaving London to the staffing of a property is evident from the inclusion of Henry Belmore and Thomas Mead in his own original party to sail in the Chapman, to which William Thomas Collen, alias William Collins, was later added. Soon after arriving in Algoa Bay Henry Lovemore engaged the Filmer brothers, John and Thomas, to work at Bushy Park as sawyers and doubtless to do other tasks, such as outhouse building, carpentry and fitting out living quarters. The Filmers were members of Gush’s division

The opgaaf for 1821 shows that living at Bushy Park were:

There was no shortage of building skills at Bushy Park; Thomas Hickman was a carpenter and a plasterer and the Filmer brothers as sawyers must have known how to select and then cut the right woods so that there would be no future problems with warping beams or rot. The Filmers would have prepared lengths of timber for house-building; it must have been them who found the yellow wood for the floor – as sound and attractive today as when it was laid. Messrs Stow, Turkington and Watson were there to help with digging foundations, bricklaying and semi-skilled work. William Collen may also have been there to help though it is more likely he was occupied with the farm and its animals. With Jonathan Board the others would have formed a useful team. Everyone, including the boys, would have been called upon to help when required with the assembly of materials and the construction work and one imagines the new house was built and occupied in a matter of weeks.

The Zeepaard sinks off Bushy Park
In the early evening of Sunday, 30 March 1823, a wave of excitement must have spread through Bushy Park. A Dutch sailor had appeared on the farm agitated and breathless saying that his ship had struck rocks off the nearby coast and been wrecked. His mission was to summons help and obtain water. Henry Lovemore, his elder sons and doubtless most of the men living on the farm or close by, such as Messrs Hickman, Stow, Turkington and Collen, would have hastened to Sardinia Bay. There, in the failing light, a short distance from the beach, they could make out a ship, partly on its side, stranded and helpless, with a topmast and sails lying across the deck and hull and with tangled rigging everywhere.

The ship, Henry Lovemore would have been told, was the Royal Netherlands frigate Zeepaard (Sea Horse). From her commander, Captain Ari Reyns, Henry Lovemore learnt that about 24 hours ago they had struck the rocks

Quagga Flats
Henry Lovemore set his sight on acquiring a property on Quagga Flats. Having been granted the land and renaming it Preston Park, Henry Lovemore now had to decide what to do with it. It was unfortunate that whilst the application for it was being passed around government offices in Cape Town during 1823 and 1824, William Thomas Collen had decided to leave Lovemore’s employ. He was the best person among the Bushy Park staff most suited to look after it; he was unmarried, had no family responsibilities and he had proved himself to be trustworthy and dependable. In a memorial to the Governor dated 17 June 1823, Collen applied for a colonial pass (he had been issued with one in 1821 but it was in the name of William Collins), saying that he had obtained his discharge from Mr. Bailie’s party and ‘have been for some time working for Mr. Lovemore at Bushy Park as a labourer’. He went on to say that ‘he was at present working as a sawyer at this place’ meaning Port Elizabeth from where the memorial was sent though with no address. The assumption is that Collen had already left Bushy Park by June 1823 but from a later memorial it is known that he went back to Bushy Park for a while. There is a Lovemore family story of a ‘Bill Collins’ who looked after the land at Preston Park until Henry Lovemore’s elder sons were old enough to accept responsibility for the management of it. Collen could easily have become Collin or Collins in the telling. However, it would have been the late 1820s or the early 1830s before either Robert Henry or Henry Robert was old enough to assume responsibility for such a large property being as it was then some distance from the father at Bushy Park but William Collen had left for the second time long before then.

It is known that William Collen was in London in 1827. From an address in Portman Square, he had sent a memorial dated 19 October of that year to William Huskisson who had become Secretary of State for the Colonies. Having explained that he had travelled to the Cape in the settler ship Chapman, landing in Algoa Bay on 10 April 1820, William Collen wrote in his memorial: With a view to a permanent occupation in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, your Memorialist had attached himself to Mr. Henry Lovemore (the proprietor of an extensive estate called Bushy Park, about 10 miles from the Bay, and of another in Quagha’s Flats for the term of three years [Ed.- presumably dating from July 1820, this contract would have ended at about the same time as Collen’s memorial of 1823] at the expiration of which that person [Ed. – Henry Lovemore] was to obtain a grant of land for your Memorialist and to establish him thereon; but in consequence of the loss sustained by the said Mr. Lovemore of the principal part of his personal effects by a calamitous fire your Memorialist’s hopes of assistance through this medium were disappointed; and he, therefore continued on the estate of that individual for a considerable time after the fulfilment of his engagement.

A considerable time could mean anything, and it could be that Collen was taking liberties with the truth, well aware that for the Colonial Department in London any check with the Cape Government would take months. There is no record of Henry Lovemore having applied for land on behalf of Collen, who could – and should have – applied for it in his own name with, perhaps, the support of Henry Lovemore. However, it is possible that Henry Lovemore considered putting Collen in charge of all or part of any land which he received as a land grant following his applications submitted through the memorials sent to the Government If he had received a land grant in the 1820s, as we have seen, Henry Lovemore would have wanted to use it for his own cattle but perhaps allowing Collen to graze some cattle on it.

William Collen’s memorial went on to request ‘by the grace and favour of His Majesty’s Government a grant of land so that he could fix himself permanently’ and Collen spelt out his wish to have an ‘extent of one thousand acres, or thereabouts in some district near the Coast on the Kromme River, and as little distance from Algoa Bay as may be convenient.’ It was a strange submission from one who ought to have known that the Home Government handed over all land matters to the Cape Government, breathtaking in its brazenness and stipulation of extent and position. ‘A thousand acres’ to anyone in Britain, other than the few familiar with conditions in southern Africa, was a large extent of land. Collen concluded his memorial saying that he had ‘returned lately to England … having in the meantime committed his stock of Cattle to the care of Mr. Lovemore’.

An assumption from the above is that Collen remained in Henry Lovemore’s employment for the rest of 1823 (giving up whatever he was doing in Port Elizabeth), continuing to do so throughout 1824 and 1825, and for most of 1826. The opgaaf for 1825 shows the name Thomas Collen as a single man at Bushy Park with no property or livestock and presumably working for Henry Lovemore. Otherwise the opgaaf for 1825 and 1826 do not help.in clarifying Collen’s position and employment in relation to Henry Lovemore. There may well be truth in the family story about a ‘Bill Collins’ and maybe Henry Lovemore stocked Preston Park with cattle some of which may have belonged to William Thomas Collen. Mr. Brian Lovemore (born 1937) of Preston Park and Dubbo, New South Wales, remembers his father Andrew Gerald (1895 – 1979) showing him the remains of a mud hut sited near the old Uitenhage to Graham’s Town road, about 150 metres from the southern boundary of the camp land known as the streep. The hut is believed to have been the one in which ‘Bill Collins’ lived when he was caretaking Preston Park soon after it had been granted to Henry Lovemore. Henry Robert Lovemore, the second son, is also believed to have used the hut before permanent buildings were put up, nearer the water well. Collen, it seems, took his final departure from the Lovemores during 1826 and one wonders if Henry Lovemore had some suitable person at hand to replace him.

Besides the uncertainties of William Collen’s movements and intentions, other events at the end of 1823 and the beginning of 1824 required Henry Lovemore’s attention. Two of them were relatively minor but one was of major family importance.

At this point, William Collen exits the life of the Lovemore family. It is known that Collen had stolen the Chapman’s bell but what never emerges from extant documents and family recollections was whether Collen’s secret had ever been exposed. Despite  living in close proximity to Mead and Belmore it appears that neither was aware of its existence nor perhaps its significance.

Life post the Lovemores
William Collen established himself as a transport rider between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth. Later he began trading inland with the Trekboers. His eldest son, George Henry later settled in the Mashowing district near Vryburg where he started farming.

The ship’s bell from the CHAPMAN was stolen by William Collen and was handed from father to son and thus came into the possession of JAS Collen who decided that instead of gathering dust, it could serve a useful purpose at his bowling club.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The First Settler ship “The Chapman”

Future of this historical piece
I have spoken to the Club Chairman regarding the future of this bell. The only reason why it is in their possession is due to the fact that the owner of the bell was a club member. As such they have no connection with it at all but would nonetheless be unwilling to merely make a donation of the bell as it was their late member’s wish that the club accept it. Notwithstanding that they would willingly exchange it for a bronze bell of similar size which they would use in their pub.

As this bronze bell is of historical importance for the Eastern Cape, I am of the belief that the PE Historical Society or Bayworld should arrange that the offer of exchange is exercised.

Source
While serving in a non-technical role in the production of the Port Elizabeth of Yore, the Technical Editor made a fortuitous discovery by literally stumbling across an article on this bell propping up a pub in Pretoria. Hence, I must credit him for alerting me to the existence of this historic bell.

Sources
The Lovemore Story by Berhard Johnston Privately published by the Lovemore Trust
https://www.eggsa.org/1820-settlers/index.php/post-1820-letters/c-writers-surnamed-c/1451-2011-01-05-11-20-13

Addendum #1

COLLEN, William, 1827
WRITTEN BY SUE MACKAY ON 30 NOVEMBER 1999.

National Archives, Kew, CO48/114, 111

19 October 1827
The Memorial of William COLLEN late of Algoa Bay, residing at no 37 Somerset Street, Portman Square,

Humbly Sheweth,

That your Memorialist left England in November 1819, being then in his 18^th year, on board The Chapman Transport, Capt. MILBANK, and landed at Algoa Bay on the 10^th April following amongst the first Settlers of that part of the African Coast:

That, with a view to a permanent occupation of his time in agricultural and mechanical persuits, Your Memorialist had attached himself to a Mr Henry LOVEMORE( the Proprietor of an extensive estate called Bushey Park, about ten miles from the Bay, and of another on Luangas Flat) for the term of three years; at the expiration of which, that Person was to obtain a Grant of Land for your Memorialist and to establish him thereon : but, in consequence of the loss sustained by the said Mr LOVEMORE of the principal parts of his personal effects by a calamitous Fire, your Memorialist’s papers of Assistance through his medium were disappointed; and he therefore continued on the estate of that Individual for a considerable time after the fulfilment of his engagement:

That Your Memorialist hath more recently employed himself, principally, in journies to and from Grahams Town, Cradock, Somerset, and other districts in the interior of the Colony; in the course of which he has acquired much information useful to a Settler: and, being now most anxious to obtain by the grace and favour of His Majesty’s Government, a Grant of such a competent portion of Land as may enable him to fix himself permanently in that Country, Your Memorialist is returned lately to England, for the purpose of Humbly representing his situation and views ; having, in the mean time, committed his stock of Cattle to the care of the said Mr LOVEMORE:

Your Memorialist therefore humbly prays your favourable consideration of his Case; and that you will be pleased to recommend him to the Grace and Favour of the Crown, for a Grant of Land, to the extent of one thousand acres, or thereabouts, in some district near the coast on the Kromme River, and at as little distance from Algoa Bay as may be convenient.

And your Memorialist shall etc

(signed) William COLLEN

37 Somerset Street

Postman Square

October 19 1827

[note from Colonial Office across bottom: Ans’d verbally 20 Dec that no land was to be had in the quarter for which he applies]

National Archives, Kew, CO48/114, 134

37 Somerset Street, Portman Square

December 22 1827

Sir,

In Conformity to your directions when I had the honour of waiting on you, I take the liberty to acquaint you that my wish on becoming a colonist in the Cape of Good Hope is to possess about one thousand acres of land in as desirable a situation as can be assigned to me by His Majesty’s Government at that Settlement: and, from the experience which I have acquired during a residence of eight years in the colony, I am enabled to express my assurance that, with a due degree of perseverance and the recommendation to the Favour and Indulgence of the Government there, with which you, Sir, may have the goodness to honour me, I will succeed in my undertaking. In the event, however, that, from any unforeseen circumstances my best endeavours should not be followed by success, such failure would be my misfortune, and I could not, in such case presume to have any claim to some liberation from the Colonial Department.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient and very humble Servant

William COLLEN

National Archives, Kew, CO48/114, 136

Dec 24 1827

Mr. COLLEN presents his respects to Mr. HAY and trusts that he will forgive him for saying that in case he should be determine to send the recommendation of his brother Mr William COLLEN to the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope not by his hand, he will be extremely obliged if he will have the goodness to give him a note to identify him on his arrival at the Cape