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

pre 1820 Settler Correspondence before emigration

ALL the 1819 correspondence from CO48/41 through CO48/46 has been transcribed whether or not the writers emigrated to the Cape. Those written by people who did become settlers, as listed in "The Settler Handbook" by M.D. Nash (Chameleon Press 1987), are labelled 1820 Settler and the names of actual settlers in the text appear in red.

CHAMBERLAIN, Thomas

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/42, 172

Leicester, 16th Aug 1819

My Lord,

The liberty I take in troubling your Lordship with this I hope your goodness will induce you to excuse and to give orders that I may have a satisfactory and speedy answer to the following query. Viz I am a Pensioner of the Royal Hospital of Greenwich, aged 36, of a sound constitution and not in any way disabled from labor by wounds, Government having been pleased to give encouragement to those who are willing to go as settlers to His Majesty's Colony at the Cape of Good Hope, considering from my age that I may have it in my pour to make a settlement in the colony to the advantage of my family, I will esteem it a favour if your Lordship will inform me if I can receive my Pension in the Colony (or if not if I can have any remuneration in lieu of it before I embark, these queries being satisfactorily answered) I am ready at any time to pay the deposit money for myself and family, agreeable to regulations, allong with other nine of my friends here who wish to embark in the same cause. Your Lordship's answer will greatly oblige.

Your Lordship's most obedient humble servant

Thomas CHAMBERLAIN

Late Serj. Royal Marines

Brook Street

Leicester

  • Hits: 5204