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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.

WHEELER, James, 1820 Settler

Written by Sue Mackay on .

National Archives, Kew CO48/46, 310

10 St. John Street

Clerkenwell

My Lord

Having applied at your Lordships office for permission for myself and family to emigrate to the Cape of Good Hope and being informed that I must apply to your Lordship in writing – I have to inform your Lordship that I have been brought up to the Farming business in the County of Wiltshire from an infant – but am now very much reduced in consequence of an accumulating family – and likewise the general distress. My family consists at present of myself a wife and four children under 14 years of age – I have had no employ for a length of time but have many respectable friends which have done a great deal for me, but I cannot expect them to maintain me and my family having already been too troublesome to them – but they are willing to subscribe towards raising the necessary sum required by Government to assist me in the new Colony – if your Lordship will have the goodness to procure me a passage free of expence I can be well recommended for honesty, Industry & Sobriety.

If your Lordship will consider to favor me with an answer I shall be very thankful and subscribe myself your Lordship's most obedient & very Humble Servant.

James WHEELER

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