German Settlers

This article is based on the combined resources of the two authors. Carol Hardijzer has an avid interest in 19th Century photography in South Africa and his research and collection of Carl Bluhm photographs compliments the fairly extensive family research conducted by Margaret Addis, great-great granddaughter of Carl Bluhm, an early photographer based in King Williams Town (Qonce today). Together, they have amassed a significant number of Bluhm’s images, the originals in Hardijzer’s collection, as well as many digital copies of photographs captured by Bluhm, which Addis either extracted from the internet or obtained from various local and international archives, correspondents and local Cape based museums and libraries.

Carl Bluhm (1827 – 1897) – Photograph reproduced from Secure the Shadow

The surname Bluhm was first found in Lower Saxony (Germany), where the name emerged in medieval times as one of the notable families of the Hanover region. From the 13th century the surname was identified with the great social and economic evolution which made this territory a landmark contributor to the development of the German nation. From the 14th century the name was associated with a Patrician family (part of aristocratic lineage) that possessed estates in the Calenberg and Minden region (houseofnames.com).

Whilst various spelling variations of the surname exist, the meaning of...

Below is a short but interesting article about German mercenaries who settled in the Eastern Cape in the 1850s and left behind some fascinating relics. The article appeared in the August 1976 edition of Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

Queen Victoria's Secretary for War, Lord Panmure, recruited German mercenaries to fight in the Crimean War. After the war the mercenaries (known as the British German Legion) were sent with their wives and children as military settlers to British Kaffraria, the area beyond the frontier of the Cape Colony. They arrived at Panmure (now East London) in 1857.

Sir George Grey, Governor of the Cape Colony, persuaded the British Government to agree to a scheme of assisted emigration of Settlers, mostly agriculturists and general labourers, from the Prussian Provinces of the Uckermarck and Pomerania. These German Settlers, who were attracted from European feudalism by the promise of ownership of land and homes of their own, arrived in British Kaffraria in 1858 and 1859.

The families of both the German Legionaires and the German Immigrants suffered great hardship in those early days. At first the German Settlers were provided with tents until they built their settler homes which had sod-walls under thatch without ceilings. Due to the primitive conditions many of the babies and children died of pneumonia and other illnesses. Gardens were cultivated...