The Scots in South Africa by John M. MacKenzie

Author:John M. MacKenzie [MacKenzie, John M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, South, Republic of South Africa, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9780719087837
Google: d7TJyAEACAAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2012-08-15T03:35:18+00:00

Byrne and other settlements

These prospects attracted the attention of an extraordinary traveller and financier called Joseph Charles Byrne (1800–63). Byrne was born in Dublin and, having made money as a stockbroker in Liverpool, travelled widely in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Cape Colony. Throughout these travels he studied migration opportunities and publicised them in his book of Wanderings.11 He had clearly been particularly taken with southern Africa (although some doubt has been cast on whether he travelled as extensively as he claimed), for he followed this with two emigrants’ guides, one to the Cape of Good Hope and one to Natal.12 He was assiduous in publicising his schemes, in lecturing, in placing advertisements, and he even founded an emigration newspaper.13 In the years 1849–50 he was responsible for sending a considerable number of migrants to Natal through his Natal Emigration & Colonisation Company. Byrne’s scheme seemed on the face of it ingenious, though it was criticised by Donald Moodie, the younger brother of the instigator of the Moodie settlement, who was by then a member of the administration in Natal.14 Byrne was to deposit £10 with the commissioners for each migrant he took to Natal, and would receive in return fifty acres of land. But each of his migrants would receive only twenty acres, leaving him thirty in hand. Once he was able to certify that the migrant was settled, he would have his £10 deposit returned. He had to cover the shipping costs and other expenses. Other migration entrepreneurs set out to establish similar schemes, and the publicity ensured that yet more people travelled independently.15 Between 1849 and 1851 almost 5,000 people arrived in Natal (so this migration was roughly equivalent to the 1820 settlement on the Cape frontier). A considerable number of them, probably disproportionate to the relative populations, came from Scotland. Two Byrne ships, the Ina and the Conquering Hero, left from Glasgow.16

But, like so many migration entrepreneurs, Byrne failed to make his activities a commercial success; he was declared bankrupt and left for Australia (after a visit to Natal to attempt to sort out his affairs).17 The reasons for this tell us much about the colony and about the nature of the migration. A great deal of land had already been unproductively alienated, so what was left was relatively poor in quality, had inadequate access to water or was remote in location. So much land was available for the market that Byrne had no hope of selling his surplus acres. Moreover, many of the migrants failed to take up land, but headed for the towns (at this stage mainly Durban and Pietermaritzburg) to seek employment or open businesses there, and a glance at the extraordinary range of occupations represented among them indicates why this should have been so. As with the 1820 settlement, a migration which was supposed to be about land settlement actually attracted people who had little interest in farming. And, as in 1820, the land grants were too small for the environmental conditions, and farms were consequently uneconomic.

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