In the article below, Tony Murray unpacks the career and achievements of Henry Fancourt White. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.
White is one of the less well-documented engineers in South Africa’s history and his early days are a bit of a mystery. According to official sources he was born in Yorkshire in 1811 and arrived in the Cape with his parents in a party of British 1820 settlers. His family were allocated land at Riviersonderend and eventually settled at Assegaaibosch near Port Alfred, but this is not confirmed by settler records. It appears more likely that aged 17 he moved directly from England to Australia to join his ex-convict father. Certainly it was here that he obtained surveying experience and was appointed as Assistant Surveyor by the New South Wales Government. He also began speculating in property, and is credited with planting the first vineyard in the Hastings River wine region. However after a disagreement with a magistrate he was dismissed from his survey post, apparently unfairly, and he sold up and left for the Cape Colony.
He arrived in South Africa in 1843, and applied for a job with the newly constituted Roads Board. Perhaps the Colonial Secretary Montagu (click here to read more), who knew all about unjust Australian authorities, was sympathetic, for despite his record White was appointed as a Roads Inspector in...
