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GSSA
The 1820 Settler Correspondence
 as preserved in the National Archives, Kew
 and edited by Sue Mackay

Additonal Information

This is pre 1820 information mainly taken from actual images of UK parish registers and other primary sources which I have personally researched. Further information about the settlers and their families once they reached the Cape can be found at https://www.1820settlers.com/

Sue Mackay

SMITH, William - Extra Data

Written by Sue Mackay on .

 

Leader of William SMITH's party. Brother of John Josiah SMITH and Elizabeth COMFIELD (nee SMITH) of the same party.

 

Death Notice (Cape Archives) says he was born in Bedfordshire ca 1792, son of William and Maria SMITH of Bedford. However, the Death Notice of his brother John Josiah says that the mother's name was Elizabeth, and the middle name of William SMITH's eldest son was Bensted, so it seems certain that the parents were William SMITH and Elizabeth BENSTED.

 

Family Search

 

Hemblington, Nofolk, Archdeacon's Transcripts

William SMITH of this parish, a bachelor, and Elizabeth BENSTED of the same parish, spinster, were married in this church by banns on this nineteenth day of October 1787

William SMITH

Elizabeth BENSTED (X)

Witnesses: Tristram HARPER (X) and Richard GOWAR (X)

 

South Walsham, St.Mary, Norfolk

Elizabeth daughter of William and Elizabeth SMITH (late BENSTED spinster) was baptised March 30th 1789

 

Grahamstown Journal 29 November 1859

DIED at Grahamstown on the 25th instant, Mr. William SMITH, Land Surveyor, aged 66 years. Mr. SMITH was born in the town of Bedford, England. In his early career he followed the sea as a profession and made many voyages to the East and West Indied and China. In 1819 he happened to be in England when the Government was sending out emigrants to the Cape, and he was induced to collect and head a party, and come ut to this country, in which he has resided ever since.........

 

FreeREG

 

Possible baptism for William.

William son of William and Elizabeth SMITH baptised 25 April 1792 in St.Peter, Dunstable.

 

 

 

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