Thora Mildred Allwright

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Family/Spouse: John Cyril Joseph Gordon. John (son of Frank Edward Gordon and Catherina Maria van der Merwe) was born on 3 Jul 1905; died in 1993. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Thora Mildred Theresa Gordon
2. John Oliver Edward Gordon
3. Vincent Peter Joseph Gordon
4. Mary Anne Cathrine Gordon
5. Mary Magdalene Cecilia Gordon
6. Mary Elizabeth Joyce Gordon
7. Michael Anthony Wells Gordon was born on 27 Oct 1957; died on 27 Jul 2010.
8. Angela Maria Theresa Gordon
9. Elizabeth Margaret Mary Gordon
10. Winifred Agnes Kathleen Gordon

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Oliver married Letitia Wells Gunn on 18 Jul 1906. Letitia (daughter of Bernard Gunn and Sarah Ann Marshall) was born on 26 Sep 1884 in Dewetsdorp, Free State, South Africa; died on 5 Nov 1949 in East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa; was buried in Cambridge Cemetery, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Notes:

James was farming at Klipplaat, Queenstown District at the time of his marriage. The date of his Death in the family Bible is stated as the 15 Nov 1927. (DWA) He and his parents migrated to Tweespruit in 1902.

Tweespruit : Bendor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster was ADC to Lord Milner in the Boer War. Lord Milner started the Tweespruit settlement of mostly Scottish settlers. He persuaded Bendor to do something similar in the Westminster area. The Duke brought out ex-servicemen from farms around his estate near Chester. Some farmers and some not. There seems to have been bit of corresponence back and forth with each one before they arrived which is why I dont think your great grandfather intended to settle here.
The settlers arrived between 1905 and about 1908. The agent at the time, Byron preferred to have married men as tenants as he seemed to have quite a bit of trouble with the single men! If they were single they were to come with a sister or mother. There is one quite amusing letter of a chap who assured Byron he would be married by then!
There were 18 or so farms to be settled. Each had been set up with a stone house, fruit trees, water supply etc. Quite a bit more than most settlers arrived to in this country. Some made a go of it and gradually bought their farms from the Duke at reasonable rates and others struggled for one reason or another. A very differant world it was Im sure to what they were used to in green and pleasant England

James married Margaret Ann Edwards on 11 Jul 1878 in Welcome Home farm, Hilton, Queenstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Margaret (daughter of Charles Richard Edwards and Anne Gibbens) was born on 11 Jul 1857 in The Coombs, Upper Blinkwater, Winterberg (nr) Fort Beaufort, Cape of Good Hope; was christened on 15 Nov 1857 in Parish of Winterburg (Anglican) in the Division of Fort Beaufort.; died on 21 Nov 1924 in Glen Makopo, Hobhouse, Free State, South Africa; was buried in Glen Makopo, Hobhouse, Free State, South Africa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Notes:

Margaret Ann Edwards's Grandparents James Edwards from London and Ann Thomas from Kent. had come from England on the ship Aurora under Hezekiah Sephton, as 1820 settlers. James Edwards and his wife and three children left from the farm "Post Retief" in their own wagon to accompany Piet Retief on the Great Trek. They crossed the Drakensberg mountains into Natal in 1837. In Natal James Edwards was one of the party of about sixty men chosen to accompany Piet Retief to Dingaans Kraal.

Their object was to formalise a previous verbal agreement made between Dingaan and Retief whereby Retief's party would be given the right to settle on land South of the Tugela River. James Edwards arrived late at the meeting place of the party on the morning of their departure to Dingaan's Kraal and found that Retief and his party were treacherously murdered at Dingaans Kraal on 6 February 1838. By early May 1838 the Edwards Family were at Port Natal and they left shortly afterwards to return to Post Retief in the Eastern Cape Province. Whether it was the tragic death of their great friend and leader, Piet Retief, which made them decide to return is not known. The journey back took four months and they suffered great hardships on the way.

James Edwards died in 1840 but Ann with her six children continued living on the farm Post Retief. The widow, besides farming, also operated a small water-driven mill for grinding corn to supplement her income. A son of hers, Charles Richard Edwards (1831 - 1904) married Ann Gibbens in 1855. Margaret Edwards who married James Jay Eva Alwright, was a daughter of Charles Richard Edwards and Ann Gibbens.

Margaret and James Jay Eva Allwright and their family "trekked" to the Thaba N'chu area of the Orange Free State late in 1902 and settled down to farming there successfully. In 1920 James and Margaret retired to Ladybrand. They did not stay there long, however and after spending a year on the Diamond Fields went to live with their daughter and her husband on their farm Glen Makopo near Hobhouse. Margaret died there in 1924 and James died while visiting Sam Rudman on his farm "Dawn" near Ladybrand in 1927. Both are buried on Glen Makopo
(D.N.180/20173 and D.N.1658/69).(DWA)

Bernard married Sarah Ann Marshall on 30 May 1882 in Anglican Church, Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa. Sarah (daughter of Benjamin D'Urban Marshall and Eliza Gibbens) was born on 22 Jul 1862; died in 1899. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Notes:

He was the Fifth son of Richard and Mary Allwright. His date of birth is only stated as six years in his Baptism.
Family legend has it that after his Mother's death in about 1842 a childless couple, Mr and Mrs van Niekerk begged James' father, Richard to give James to them to be reared by them as their son on condition that he would be made their Heir. After growing up James married Hannah Eva, a daughter of James Jay Eva, a Baker by trade, who had come to South Africa from Cornwall in Osler's Party of 1820 Settlers in the ship Weymouth. James and Hannah had a son James Jay Eva Allwright born in 1855. The van Niekerks wanted this son to be named "van Niekerk". To this Hannah would not agree. As a result the Allwrights and van Niekerks parted company. The van Niekerks however, gave James and Hannah a wagon and span of oxen in recognition of their services.

According to voters records of 1878 they lived on Graften in Whittlesea. James and Hannah Allwright and their son are recorded in Saul Solomon's Country- Wide Directory of 1883-1884 as living in Cathcart. The Cape Post Office of 1886 lists them as farming on the farm, Crofton, in the Cathcart District.(Ref Port Elizabeth Public Library)

James and Hannah accompanied James Jay Eva Allwright and his family to Thaba Nchu in 1902 and is mentioned as farming on the farm Salisbury with them in 1908 (Orange River Colony Directory of 1908) He predeceased his wife in 1909.
Thaba Nchu: In 1833 a Barolong tribe Moroka II, chief of the Boo-Seleka section of the Barolong tribe, migrated and settled near the mountain of Thaba Nchu. A decade earlier his clan was driven from their land of origin, over the Vaal, by Mzilikazi, and sojourned at Motlhanapitse, in what is now the western Free State . Upon reaching an agreement with King Moshoeshoe I, they settled at Thaba Nchu, where their numbers were augmented by other Barolong scattered by Mzilikazi.
These Batswana people accepted the Voortrekkers as allies, as a consequence of the ongoing Difaqane (tribal wars). The first Voortrekkers to stay here on their northward journeys were Louis Tregardt and Hans van Rensburg. Thaba Nchu subsequently became a safe meeting place for leaders such as Hendrik Potgieter, Piet Uys and Gerrit Maritz.
After Potgieter's trek was attacked and plundered at Vegkop, Moroka II swiftly assisted him with draught oxen and a liberal provision of supplies. The Boer party was also assisted in returning to a refugee camp at Thaba Nchu, named "Moroka's Hoek". The Boer leader held a war council with the Barolong chiefs, Moroka and Tauana, where a Boer-Barolong-Griqua allegiance was formed, which shortly routed Mzilikazi, who then founded the kingdom of Matabeleland. Thaba Nchu was considered a friendly native state of the boer-governed Orange Free State, established in 1854. It however became an insular territory during the Basotho Wars, during which the Basotho were expelled from its vicinity.After Moroka's death his successors quarreled and in 1884 the district of Moroka, as it was then called, was annexed. to the Orange Free State. Its population is largely made up of Tswana and Sotho people. The town was settled in the 1830s and officially established in 1893. The town grew larger following the 1913 Natives' Land Act that stated Thaba Nchu as a homeland for Tswana people.
Originally the district of Moroka, it was de-proclaimed in 1895, when it became a ward of the Bloemfontein district. Later reinstated as the district of Thaba Nchu, it bordered on the districts of Bloemfontein in the west, Brandfort and Winburg in the north, Winburg and Ladybrand in the east, Wepener and Dewetsdorp in the south. In the west and south the border was formed by the Modder River and in the south-east by the Leeu River.
In 1972 parts of the original Thaba Nchu district were incorporated in the adjoining districts of Bloemfontein, Dewetsdorp, Ladybrand and Brandfort. The Excelsior area of the Winburg district was combined with the eastern part of the former Thaba Nchu district to form the Excelsior district. These changes were brought about by the establishment of a homeland for the South Sotho people. The Bantu area was proclaimed a district with the name of Thaba Nchu. and Selosheshe as its principal town. In September 1973 the Moroka Hospital with 336 beds was opened. Old Voortrekker routes and the grave of Moroka have been marked with bronze plaques by the Historical Monuments Commission.
Thaba Nchu is located 60 km east of Bloemfontein. During the apartheid era it fell into the area set aside for the bantustan of Bophuthatswana, nominally ruled by the then President Lucas Mangope. It was then a trading centre. It was, and remains, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Free State, home to various Sun International and other casinos.
Geographical features include the promontories of the Lesotho mountains, suitable for large lands with ample game, wherein a game reserve, the Maria Moroka Game Reserve, has been maintained. A variety of wildlife and bird species are found here, besides a hiking trail, a traditional Tswana site, and amenities for various activities and adventures in the reserve. The reserve has been named after the political town hero Dr. Maria Moroka. Much of the surrounding land is arable, which has been employed for large scale farming of both commercial and domestic nature. The town is also known for the Aran hand-knitted woolen garments made by local craftspeople. (DWA)

James married Hannah Eva on 8 Mar 1855 in Brack Kloof. Hannah (daughter of James Jay Eva, 1820 Settler and Elizabeth Denham, 1820 Settler) was born on 5 Sep 1831; died about 1911; was buried in Salisbury farm, Thaba 'Nchu, Free State, South Africa. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Notes:

Charles was a founder of St Andrews Church in Chilton built in 1873. James and Maria Edwards were married there and Violet May Edwards was christened there.

Charles married Anne Gibbens on 11 Jul 1852 in Winterberg, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Anne (daughter of George Gibbens and Margaret Field) was born on 21 Jan 1827; died on 9 Jul 1908 in Stiutterheim. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• 1820 Lineage: Yes

Benjamin married Eliza Gibbens in 1863. Eliza (daughter of George Gibbens and Margaret Field) was born on 17 Dec 1838. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]