Sarah Hornblow
1820 Settler in the Eastern Cape  of South Africa


In 1820 a group of  British settlers went to colonise the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
They had no idea of the enormity of the task they were undertaking or the difficulties that would confront them.

SARAH HORNBLOW was one of those 4,000 pioneers who became the 1820 Settlers  in
the Eastern Cape of to South Africa  

Sarah Hornblow  (My three times great grandmother) was born in Braintree in rural Essex in about 1789.
She & her 11 siblings  were born to the REVEREND  JOHN HORNBLOW  the Particular Baptist Minister of Braintree in Essex and his wife Elizabeth Young  . 

Sarah seems to have been a resilient & determined  woman who made 4 marriages and had 11 children. 
She died 100 years to the day, before her 3 times great granddaughter was born on 2 Nov 1943.

Her first husband was George Moore and as far it is possible to be certain they were
 married by banns  on 17 June  1810  at St Martins in Fields in Westminster - 

Sarah & George Moore lived in East Street Colchester where he had work as a Porter & there they had three children


A death notice found in FMP in 2018 has a John Moore born 1811 , buried age 44 on 8 Feb 1855 in Church St Mary The Virgin BOCKING Essex
A further search 20 years later  discovered that his grandmother Elizabeth Hornblow nee Young had twin siblings- Mary & John Young born 1756 . as did his mother & thus it might be concluded that John Colton Moore could have been a twin to one of his sisters.  


In 1816 Sarah married for the second time.  On 29 January 1816,  she married John Cadle, a grocer & tallow merchant of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. She married using  her married name of Moore but calling herself a spinster of the parish of Deptford, which struck me as odd.
She was either Sarah Hornblow, spinster or Sarah Moore, widow, she could not be Sarah Moore, spinster. 

 
This marriage was witnessed by Ebenezer Hornblow,  probably her older brother  and her younger sister Hannah Hornblow .   

Marriage of  daughter Sarah Georgiana Moore in Stepney  to Augustus Stephen Jeffery Pomery  on  September 16th 1838  ( retrieved by AJP in 1998)
Their 1st child and only daughter Georgiana Augusta Pomery born  8 Sept 1839  & married  Dr George Shearer in West Derby Liverpool in 1868. 

Early on in my researches I wondered about this second marriage when I could find nothing to indicate George had died. However when her daughter Sarah Georgiana' got married in 1838 in Stepney it is clear that her father George Moore was present at the wedding, - occupation a corn merchant.  Note - If he was dead he would be recorded as such .
She took only Mary the eldest of her 3 Moore children, with her to South Africa  yet both those children are mentioned in her Will of 1843 so she clearly never forgot them.. The daughter she left behind was my 2x great grandmother Sarah Georiana Moore.
 When I found her marriage entry at Deptford in 1816, where she is recorded as Sarah Moore spinster of the parish. ,these 3 things together seem to me to be clear evidence that the Cadle marriage was indeed bigamous. 

Bigamy was not uncommon, and divorce was very uncommon, unless you were exceedingly rich. The Old Bailey records are full of people who did it but got caught.
If a marriage failed , for whatever reason,  there was little an ordinary person could do but settle for an unhappy life or move away in order to 'move on.'

1841 census shows  a George & a Caroline Moore living  in Mile End Terrace, Stepney, London & Middlesex, in a

multi occupancy dwelling,  George Moore, b 1791 , a ships steward & Caroline Moore b 1801 age 40 - whether this is George father of the bride & Caroline Maria Moore , witness to the 1838 wedding,, here is no way of knowing.

Deptford 1816

It was the discovery that when  Sarah & John Cadle went to South Africa in 1820 they took only Mary Moore and the first 3 Cadleof the 6 children which  settled my opinion regarding bigamy.
However because  this was  before the 1st census of 1841 I have not yet  discovered  what happened to the other two Moore children in the time between their mother departure in 1819 and  daughter Sarah Georgiana's marriage in 1837.   
Leaving behind 2 of her children seemed odd I have wondered if this was possibly a punitive act by her abandoned husband George Moore who at that time was legally able to prevent her from having custody of any of her children.  
Her 2nd daughter  Sarah G Moore later Pomeroy, my great great grandmother and her brother John Colton Moore were not dead , they are mentioned in their mother's will in 1843  - so where were they?. 

To this day I do not know ;  1998 - 2025 and still looking  & thus far I have been unable to find confirm the death for George Moore who was a witness to his daughter Sarah's marriage in 1838, but it is a common name. 

In 1819 times were very hard in England with  huge rises in prices , particularly in the price of corn, and a great deal of unemployment caused by  the Industrial Revolution and soldiers returning at the end of  a long war against the French  and seeking work. This  resulted in unemployment in the countryside as the balance between town and country tipped towards towns. Many were forced to abandon their healthy subsistent way of life in the countryside  for employment in towns & factories, with overcrowded housing & smoking chimneys, for a different kind of poverty. 


In 1819 John Cadle applied to join the British Government sponsored scheme,  now called the 1820 Settlers. After being rejected initially , they were accepted as part of the Howard Party, Party 21 on the Colonial Departments list.

They boarded their ship the ‘Ocean’ at Deptford in mid November 1819 as party of William Howard's Party. 

In 1820 Sarah & John her second husband, and their children, left the safety of their life in England
for a hazardous existence in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

John Cadle and his new wife Sarah went to live in High Wycombe and over the next few years more children were born.

Elizabeth Cadle  in 10th Feb 1817

William  Cadle  in 9th August 1818 

John Henry Cadle in 14th October 1819

1st Jan 1820 the family with Mary Moore , Sarah 1st child, sailed to South Africa
where more children were born at Salem Hills of the Eastern Cape.

 Henry Carpenter Cadle born  6 Oct 1821 

Henrietta Catherine Cadle 03 Nov 1822  and lastly came  

George Ellis Cadle 02 Jun 1824 a posthumuos child born after his father's tragic death.


HMS Ocean

The winter of 1819 . It was a period of mini 'Ice Age' and the weather was at sub zero temperature. The Thames was froze over  so that  ‘Ocean’ and 10 other immigrant ships were icebound  in London for 3 weeks.

They eventually departed Deptford on the Thames on 13 December 1819  when the weather warmed somewhat, only to hit foul weather when they came out of the Thmas at Gravesend and into the Channel. They sheltered in the Downs off Deal on Kent coast, a sheltered patch of waters between the notorious Goodwin Sands and the coast at Deal. until the weather improved.

The Downs is a broad anchorage which lies off Deal, enclosed by the Kentish coast to the west, and the Goodwin Sands to the east.


Once the storm was passed on 18th December they had a shipboard service of thanksgiving,  made repairs and on Christmas day, they sailed again. When they reached the Solent at Portsmouth they anchored for a few days to take on final supplies. During this time another storm brewed up and ‘Ocean’ broke her moorings and  the winds drove her into another immigrant ship, the ‘Northampton’ . Some damage resulted but the ships carpenters were able to make quick repairs.  

On January 1st 1820, they sailed for Torbay where they stopped again before leaving finally on January 2nd 1820 . Two hundred and six immigrants crowded onto the decks to watch their homeland disappear over the horizon.

It took 10 weeks and 2 days of varied weather, calm days, tropical storms with mountainous seas.


During the voyage  they dropped anchor in Portuguese island of Porto Praya in the Cape Verdi Islands .  Whilst in that port the ship was fired upon by night by the fort on shore. They had been mistaken for pirates. They were unhurt although the ship was damaged. They continued on to Cape town where they stopped a few days before continuing on the Algoa Bay , where Port Elizabeth now stands but then was no more than a single small fort and a few huts.

Almost 11 weeks later , on Monday 15 April, they arrived in Algoa Bay and after the ship's hold was cleared of Settlers’ luggage – the Settlers disembarked  before the crew set about cleaning up the ship and washing the decks.

Everything was taken ashore on flat-bottomed boats, called Government Flats, which hauled on ropes between the ship and the shore by the native men who came from far and wide to find employment.  Sheds had been built to protect the Settlers equipment from the weather and it was a walk of 1 km across the sand dunes to reach the tents, which had been pitched.

The Cadles and their four children were in Party 21, led by William Howard of Blucher Street, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It was Howard that  went ashore first to arrange the disembarkation of his Party and to commission tents and wagons. He was told that they had been given land on the Blaauwkranz River SE of Grahamstown.  

On landing Howard commented that ‘ Like ancient patricians they were dwelling in tents, surrounded by a strange land and facing peril, they knew not what.’   The payment of the first instalment of money due to them but this was withheld for some inexplicable reason.

Three days later , on the  18th April 1820,  Ninety-six Ox wagons left Algoa Bay taking six days to reach the Grahamstown area, with many complaining at the high price the Boer put on this wagon service.

The first day’s travel was through sandy flats, scrub land with very little grass, windswept dunes with a scatter of wind bent trees where the brush was so thick that they had to attack it with pickaxes and hatchets.  Aloes were abundant extraordinary sculptural plants like some strange dull green bird with tufted heads rising above the surrounding vegetation. By twilight of the first day, they had crossed the Swartkop River, which they found overflowing with fish, crossing at a wide shallow ford near the tidal mouth of the river.The next day they crossed the dry river bed of the Coega River and although they were some distance from the sea they were amazed to find a great pile of oyster shells a sign of earlier times. The next river was the Sunday River a rock steep sided riverbed that suggested a mighty torrent had flowed there at some time. They found little water in it and crossed unhindered and dry footed. 

The journey was slow and tortuous, from the continuously creaking wagons, they saw scrawny trees and umbrella like shrubs, it was a landscape of reddened hills, coloured with ochre, dull grey and green, dotted with Candelabra Euphorbia of stunning symmetry but at night jackals bayed , hyenas howled and lions roared  -a frightening experience to a group on people who knew little or nothing about what to expect.

The tiny settlement of Grahams Town had some ten dwellings and a fort, Fort England  and they reached it after six days.  The Carlisle Party reached their destination first, then the Morgan party and finally Howard Party.
The valley the Howard Party were given to settle was flanked by steep hills where the natives were said to be more dangerous than the wild beasts. The Settlers were appalled by the stony ground they were faced with, and as they gathered wood to build a ring of protective fires around their encampment the spirit of adventure was stirred in them as the activity diminished their anxieties.
They called it Salem Hills.

In the weeks that followed the men and boys set about chopping down trees to build their temporary homes as the women and girls gathered reeds and grasses for thatching and saplings to build the walls onto which they build wattle and then daubed with clay. They rounded up the stray cattle they found left by the departing Boers, not just for the milk, butter and cheese but also for the dung that they mixed with water to make the floors to these first houses.  They built cooking sheds in front of their houses with a chimney, their crofts not having chimneys,  devising clay ovens out of anthills that had been emptied by ant eaters.
After a while the first wattle and daub crofts were replaced with 2 storied gable ended houses of stone or brick and thatch and the gardens were fenced. Many of the fields were ditched and hedged.


A circular arrived telling them that all wood grass and water was common property and that no claims for trespass would be allowed. They were also informed that to travel into Grahamstown they would need passes, travel permits that kept them anchored in their lands very effectively.

Everyone including the children older than an infant, were set to work. However it was not what they had been led to believe the life would be like and it was not long before some of the skilled tradesmen applied for colonial permits to leave their farm land and go else where to set up in their given trade. Temporary Governor Sir Rufane Donkin issued a proclamation that no indentured workmen would be released except by permission of the head of their Party.

John Cadle was extremely enterprising. Being a lover of horses he immediately set up a racetrack, and by 1823, he was running a public bar.  In that year he was also awarded the contract for a road-building scheme to bring a road from Grahamstown to Kowie River as strange construction award for a tallow merchant. During this time Sarah produced  two more children, Henry Carpenter Cadle born 6 Oct 1821 at Salem Hills  SA, Henrietta Catherine Cadle  born 2rd Nov 1822
Before his tragic early death John Cadle started up a race track and was still running in 1838 as Cadell Hills but I have been unable to discover much more about it or even find a footprint on the map where is once was.

This image  of the racetrack was kindly sent to me 2020 by John McConnachie  in Grahamstown -  

Does  John Cadle features in it ?


This  modern image is the Grahamstown Riding Club, just north of the town, the most likely place that  the Race Track was located and then,  in time , lost .


The years that followed were difficult to put it kindly. It was unbelievably hard ; they endured three years of blighted harvests, the wheat got rust,  the maize got caterpillars, the cabbages got infested with lice; the beans and other vegetables were scorched to ruin by hot winds. The result was that the Settlers were in a dreadful state. Their clothes and their spirits were in tatters. Thousands were destitute and were forced to use rice bags or animal skins to replace their threadbare clothing. They were reduced to dull eyed numb brained beggary, scrabbling to find sufficient to eat.


The Governor, Lord Charles Somerset,   returned to the Colony and in a year undid much of the good done by his deputy Sir Rufane Donkin. He had ignored their plight and made no effort to help them although they complained and complained. Finally, they circumvented Somerset and secretly sent word to London. A Commission of Enquiry was formed to investigate the complaints of the Settlers, which included non- repayment to their deposit money. Governor Lord Charles Somerset meanwhile made a list of ‘obnoxious individuals’ including the Albany Radicals. A resolution to their problems seemed insight but then dissenter struck  for the Settlers in the Albany region.


On 11 Oct 1823 after 10 days of torrential rain with all the low lying ground a quagmire, John Cadle set out to see what had become of his road-building project.  He easily crossed the Braauwkranz River at the drift near his house in the morning but when he returned in the evening, it had become a raging torrent.  In attempting to cross it on foot, he slipped and was drowned in the torrent in sight of their house. 

To compound her misery  her eldest daughter Mary Catherine Moore also died,of what in not recorded but fevers and snake bites took a toll of the settlers children. It was scarcely a month after her husband had died so tragically , and to make matters even more difficult , Sarah realised she was pregnant again. 

Eight months later a posthumous son , George Ellis , was born 2 June 1824 at Salem Hills.


The widowed Sarah was in a desperate situation with six children to care for, so with the guidance of William Howard she drafted a plea for financial assistance.

24th October 1823, ,she wrote

Salem’s Hill, near Grahams Town 

“That your memorialist on whom the maintenance and support of six orphan children have devolved, by the sudden and awful death of my late husband, who was unfortunately drowned in attempting to pass a river while overflowing its banks, as the effects of the late rain in the afternoon of Saturday the 4th instant,) begs leave to present her case to your notice and commiseration; and she feels degree of confidence that her appeal to your well-known humanity, under such circumstances of sorrow, will not be in vain, especially if you are pleased to take into your serious consideration the state of pregnancy in which she is unfortunately left: and therefore , placed as she is in a situation so gloomy and afflicted, she prays that you will grant her some pecuniary assistance under her present difficulties and for which(however small the amount) your memorialist, as in duty bound,

 Will ever pray etc Sarah Cadle.

The next year ,1824,  began with blight and caterpillars on the crops. Game had become scarce, even the great herds of springbok were diminished. With the Governor and his minions ignoring their plight the settlers secretly sent a letter to London and on 4th February two commissioner for the Enquiry arrived. There was wild rejoicing with candles in windows and guns fired into the air which had rather dire consequences, when the local authority figure, Landdrost Rivers over-reacted and called out the troops.

The commissioners, without hesitation recommended that the Settlers be allowed to own more land and to have farms of adequate size and that passes were to be abolished. They could travel freely and follow whatever trade or craft they wished. William Howard set up the first school in the colony The Yellow House.

Around this time Sarah allowed one of her children, John Henry Cadle age 5 years old, to be adopted by her childless friends John and Elizabeth Lance.  The widowed Sarah had control of John’s property but nine months after she had pleaded for assistance she still had received no help. 500 rix- dollars (1 rix-dollar was about 1 shilling and 6 pence) had been allocated to her but for some reason the local authorities simply dishonoured the bills when they were presented. The Society for the Relief of Distressed Settlers was able to help her out with a small loan of 50 rix-dollars. In January 1825, Sarah finally benefited from the relief funds.

 On February 5th 1825 at St Georges church in Grahams Town  the Reverend Ireland officiated and. Sarah made her 3rd marriage, This time to another of the settler, the widowed carpenter James Thomas who had a little daughter
    She sold the Cadle lands, the village plot to John Niland and moved to Grahamstown on 8th November 1825. In the following  2 years she produced two more children, a blind son and a daughter, before this 3rd husband James Thomas  by then working as a shipwright  died in and accident in 1827

The family had moved to Port Elizabeth after James Thomas death and Sarah was encumbered with eight children, including a stepdaughter,

    Her fourth marriage was made in December 1827 to Charles Gurney a Kentishman with a fishing boat and a history of smuggling. After being caught and fined  he became a respectable citizen and went on to become Market Master in PortElizabeth.

Sarahs Children 


In November 1835, her son William Cadle ,who was seventeen, got into a lot of trouble.  With a group of friends, he was persuaded into make counterfeit coins using mercurial ointment  with which they washed copper farthings making them resemble shillings. They were charged with fraud and sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour.

Her son Henry Cadle and his wife Hannah became proprietors of Cadle Hotel and his son later went on to run Cadle Hotel with his wife.

(This is now incorporated  into Woodridge Preparatory School at Thornhill.)


 Her daughters Elizabeth and Harrietta Cadle married and moved to Natal.

Her son George Ellis Cadle age 12 disappeared in 1837 from the family home in Port Elizabeth and was later found to have gone off with a Voorterkker Party to Natal where he later married a Dutch girl and settled at Greytown to farm.

Sarah Hornblow died on November 3rd 1843 just 100 year to the day before her great great great grand-daughter (AJP), was born in Surrey.


 Cape Frontier Times  1843 October - December  

Obituary DIED at Port Elizabeth on the 3rd inst, after a protracted illness, Sarah, wife of Mr. Chas. GURNEY, Market-master, deeply regretted by numerous relatives and friends.


We have her Will transcribed and her death notice, although neither reveal anything very interesting except that Charles Gurney ( husband 4) the reformed smugglers was Market Master in Port Elizabeth

 The Settlers  had an incredibly difficult time of it from the day they set foot on their ships in the Thames, when they were met with freezing weather and then gales until they finally their lives, several years later after 1825, when things began to get a little easier.
In the Eastern Cape of South Africa the 1820 Settler are well known and revered as the foundation of the English speaking society.

•••

Her son John Colton Moore and daughter Sarah Georgiana Moore,  remained in England but their whereabouts  between 1816 & 1838 remains a mystery to some degree. It seems to me they were most likely in the care of their father George Moore.


Her English daughter Sarah Georgiana Moore  was married in Stepney in 1838 to Augustus Stephen Jeffrey POMERY, Son of Richard Pomery from Werrington in Cornwall and Issot Webber from West Teignmouth. 

Sarah Georgiana's  father George Moore was present at her wedding in 1838 and this was my first clue that led me to suspect her second marriage might have been bigamous. On the marriage certificate her father's occupation was given as corn merchant. 

From this marriage came seven children the eldest and only daughter was my great grandmother Georgiana Pomeroy who married Dr George Shearer of Liverpool. 


see Annie's Story page on Pomeroy Twigs ,

 Richard Pomery and his son Augustus both worked for East India Docks Company, as did at least one of the grandsons sons James Augustus Pomeroy.

Sarah Hornblow Moore’s first son was John Cotton Moore.  He seems to have remained in Essex and we believe we have traced him to Mistley where he worked variously as a sail maker and an agent of East India Company which is a thread that runs through this part of the family.  He married and had a family of at least 10 children.



the information on the web site is largely verifiable on line  ; this researcher does her best to be accurate
  2023
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