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 South African Commercial Advertiser (1826-1851) |
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 South African Commercial Advertiser (1826-1840)
| Date transcribed | 2009-00-00 | | Transcribed by | Sue McKay - Marianne Mansfield | | Comment | Sue McKay has kindly authorized us to publish her transcriptions of Family History-related data from the Announcements in the South African Commercial Advertiser. This is because they include very many references to personnel in the service of The East India Company en route to or from India or on furlough in S. Africa, which offered a more temperate climate. Also included are many officers and soldiers of the British Army regiments who may well have served in India shortly before or after serving in South Africa. |
| | Publication Date | 30 May 1835 | | | Event Date | May 1835 | | | First Name(s) | T.C. | | | Surname | WHITE | | | Full Entry | Saturday 30 May 1835: DEATH OF MAJOR WHITE: We have now to record an event of the most painful character, and which will not be read by anyone acquainted with the individual to whom it relates, without exciting the most painful and distressing emotions; we allude to the death of Mr. T.C. WHITE, Major in the Graham�s Town Volunteers, and Assistant Quarter Master General to the Burgher Force. The particulars of this melancholy event is detailed in a communication now before us: �On the evening of the 13th Col. SMITH encamped on the Bashee, 75 miles from the Kei. On the 14th a party was left under Capt. ROSS on the east bank of the Bashee, the Col. Going on 20 miles to the Kocha to take cattle. Major WHITE was left at the camp with a party under the command of Capt. ROSS. After breakfast he proposed to Mr. ANDREWS (Col. SMITH�s secretary) to proceed to the top of a hill, about two miles from the camp, observing �we may have an adventure as well as Col. SMITH, and I wish to get an important addition to my manuscripts.� Mr. A pointed out to him that there were many Caffers on the heights all around them � still the Major persisted in going. The men were posted at different points of observation, and had not been long there when they heard a noise, ran up, and saw the Major � who had been looking down a precipice � fall, pierced with an assegai through the back, and a dozen Caffers rushing on the corporal from the bushes and long grass. The three men fired and ran down the hill. Shortly after ten of the Cape Corps went to remove the bodies and saw the horses carried off by the Caffers; they also took Major WHITE�s hat, coat, instruments, map &c. His body, pierced with many wounds on the head, loins and back, was brought down and buried under a retired bush, out of sight of the Caffers on the heights on the west of the Bashee. The loss of Major WHITE, one of the most active and intelligent men of the colony, cannot be sufficiently deplored.�Such are the circumstances which led to the untimely fate of an individual whose premature death must be considered as a severe and trying public calamity. The deceased was no ordinary man. To talents of a high class he possessed the nicest sense of honour, a perfect independency of mind, and the most inflexible integrity. He had an intellect of no common grasp; hence he was never at a loss for resources under the most disheartening circumstances, and it was impossible to know him without discovering that he possessed an indomitable spirit which no opposition could subdue � no difficulties discourage. But however much the public who knew him may deplore his fate, it is in the interchange of private friendship that his loss will be most acutely felt. With the most open candid disposition he possessed the warmest attachment to his friends. He had a heart ever ready to sympathise with them; whilst he was ever on the alert to cheer them to useful and commendable exertions. As a practical farmer, and as the grand promoter of every undertaking which could add to the comforts of the inhabitants and promote their general prosperity � this part of the colony has lost in him one of its most valuable members. Viewed either as a private member of the community or as a public character, it may be truly said that in his the state of colonial affairs on the frontier, and on the subject of emigration in general. He was examined at considerable length by the Parliamentary Committee, the information afforded by him being recorded among the public documents of that day. Previous to his return to this colony he visited the Continent of Europe, and whilst there was indefatigable in his inquiries on subjects of importance to his future pursuits as an emigrant to a new country. At this time he collected those various species of wheat which have been so successfully cultivated on this frontier, and is now distinguished by the appellation of �White�s Wheat�. On his return he became the purchaser of an extensive farm, a few miles NW of Graham�s Town, and which, from a barren arid desert, he has brought to the condition of one of the most fertile and valuable spots in this part of the colony. His garden and vineyard, his extensive dams and lakes of water, where nothing but sterility formerly reigned; his flocks of fine woolled sheep and his agricultural labours in general have long been the admiration of the surrounding country, and have attracted much attention from visitors and strangers. He was an officer of distinguished merit in the army, having received his education at the military college at Marlo[w]; and at a very early period highly distinguished himself as a mathematician, an acute reasoner, and an able draftsman. In 1816 he was employed by the home government in a military survey of the island of Guadeloupe, which he completed in the first style of excellence; but he had quitted the army for more peaceful occupations until called again into the field by the present daring invasion of the colony. Major WHITE was a masterly surveyor, and it is expected that he must have left among his papers sketches of the Caffer country of great interest and valuedeath the District of Albany has sustained an irreparable loss.
Major WHITE came to the colony among the early Settlers of 1820, but shortly afterwards returned to England, where he afforded the government much useful information on.
| | | Reference ( National Archives - Kew) | CO53/3 |
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