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General Notes: Henry Edward TROLLOP was one of the pioneers of the diamonds fields at Kimberley in 1871/2, and had a claim adjacent to that of Cecil John Rhodes, who later bought Henry's Claim. That kind of life was not for Henry, who, although of a literary and poetic turn of mind, was essentially a husbandman who loved the soil. He was never happier than when working in his lands or orchards or gardens, tending his vines and vegetables, and laying the foundations of the beautiful homesteads which bear his imprint. He wroked hard, even to dam-building, with wheel-barrows and old "Willem" to help him, and could turn his hand to almost anything - masonry, harness-making, mule training, woodwork. He was very keen on walking, 25 miles a day being no outstanding feat. But Sunday was a day set aside for religious obervance, when, without fail, he attended service. Circa 1881, he gave financial assistance for the building of the first Wesleyan Church in Hofmeyr, raising money by means, inter alia, of springbok hunts on his farm, at which his "guests" had to pay £1 for a day's shooting on "Blaauskop" which he had bought from van der Vyver.
In about 1885, he went to New ENgland, Griqualand East, to seek pastures new.
Accompanying him was Willie Greaves, also from the Doornberg vicinity. Their destination was 225 miles from their familiar haunts, and one can imagine that they set out with much trepidation, even though they had heard stories about the beauty and fertility of this 'promised land', where yellow-wood trees grew 150 feet high: there was no water shortage; the rivers were never dry; thatching grew four feet high in the vleis, and the grass so thick that the soil could not be seen.
What they did not know was that the grass was sour as vinegar, and the soil was poor for agriculture.
The TROLLOPS set out in two wagons (one which carried their farm implements, tools and furniture), but they had gone only one mile when a dissel-boom broke. Henry had to take two of the natives and return to the old house at "Fern Rocks", where he pulled out one of the stinkwood beans from the wagon house, and this he shaped into a new dissel-boom. Mishap no 2 happened at Steyndburg, where they lost one of their oxen. At Indwe, they met up with one of the New England farmers, whose wagon-load of wool, which had landed with both left-hand wheels in the road-side potholes, capsizing the wagon and its 24 bales of wool, which had rolled 500 yards down the hillside. True to the traditions of the road, the TROLLOP family helped him to right his wagon, and retrieve his wool, sympathising with him on the bad state of the so-called roads.
Eventually the family arrived at the home of the DUGMORE family, "Crowlands" near Ugie. It was decided that Henry should farm the lower portion of the large DUGMORE farm, as an experiment. So he quickly erected a crude three-roomed thatched roofed shack, with a kitchen. It had three minute windows, and a stable-door, made out of yellow-wwod. It was here that Ethelbert Overton, the youngest of the family, was born.
There were several Eastern Province families which had been lured to this "Garden of Eden", among them the families HULLEY, LAKE, WEBSTER, MARSH, BOUSTARD, WHITTAKER, BODLEY and HART. The nearest railhead was QUeenstown, 125 miles away, so these families had to be practically self-supporting. For firewood, the yellow-wood trees were chopped down, and through a system of barter, one yellow-wood plank would be exchanged for one sheep.
Life must have been precarious, for crops did badly in that poor soil which Henry had soon ploughed on the bank of the river.
However, the community needed a church, and with the help of the other families, another 'chapel in the woods' was built, but this time is was built of stone and timber and is still standing, and in use. Mr. Henry Dugmore, Rev. Lennard, and Henry Trollop were the preachers.
The community now needed a school, and this was built of wood and iron, and could accommodate about 40 children. The teacher was Mr. James Clark, a very highly qualified University man, and it is not recorded what he thought of his half-starved, motley crowd of pupils! Then came tragedy in the form of red-water, which affected the young stock -and this was followed by a dismal and complete crop failure. By now, thoroughly disillusioned, the TROLLOPS decided to return to the old haunts, taking with them, in a tent wagon, all the yellow-wood planks they could load. With the jolting on the bad roads, these planks would creep towards the back, until they needed to have a red flag tied to them, so far were they protruding fromthe back of the wagon. The journey back, via Queenstown, took almost a month. The planks were traded for food, but both families were is a parlous state, financially. Henry's brother-in-law, John COLLETT, came to his aid with a suggestion that he live at "Fern Rocks" to right himself; while Willie Greaves's father-in-law allowed him to live at Zoetfontein. THis meant that Henry had to return to Griqualand East to dispose of what crops there were, collect the other wagon and the depleted herd of cattle, and, with a minimum of Native help, get back to familiar terrain, through Queenstown again, and Tarkastad and Vlekpoort, to the Fish River basin.
At this time, "Fern Rocks" farm was divided into three portions - Doornberg Hoek, Tipperary, and Fern Rocks - and when Henry and his family settled down once more into the old familiar house again, life took on an even tenor. This house was not built of sods, but of cut stone and red bricks embellished with a cut-out key pattern. In front was a large square water-tank, built of stone with a cemented floor. The house had a lovely view - to the East was Doornberg and the Cradock range - while at the back was that iron-stone fossil-filled kopje which was the delight of the youngsters.
Fern Rocks fossils are world-famous, according to Mr. Rubidge of Graff-Reinet, who has a marvellous collection. Geoligists tell us that the first layer of rock was sedimentary and in this layer small animals called Procolophon died and were fossilised. Millions of years later, by eruptionis, this layer was forced up into iron-stone kopjes, bones of the fossils were burnt up by the heat, and only the impresssion remains in the stone. Molteno is the onloy other spot where these Procolophon fossils are found.
In this year of 1887, after the two disastrous years spent in Griqualand East, Hebry, at age of 35, had to start life anew. Several of Daniel's children had been born at Fern Rocks between the years 1871/1880, and now this happy environment was to become the growing-up home of the family of Daniel's younger brother, Henry, who in the next eight years certainly did "right himself".
With his intense realisation of the advantages of a good education, Henry established a school at Fern Rocks, with William HUTTON as tutor, and to this school came, on horseback, or by buggy, his nephews and noeces from Doornberg and WHiteridge, and here were found - 70 years later - scraps of slate and slate pencils used by those grandchildren of Settler Joseph Junior. One wonders whether Henry himself did not often take a hand in the ENglish classics held by
Mr. HUTTON, and declaim to the youngsters, Longfellow's "Psalm of LIfe", or Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", or excerpts from Shakespeare -all firm favourites of his.
Mr. J.M.P. BOWKER considered Henry 'no mean mason' and this was evidenced by the weir he built just below the Doornberg house, to conserve the flood waters of Thebus river. In this mammoth task, involving the placing of huge rocks in a strategic position in the river bed, and cementing the while structure, we can but guess that he was helped by his uncle, settler Jacob, who was a mason, and who died at the house of Henry's father.
There must have been much reciprocal visiting at this time between the three TROLLOP homes - Fern Rocks, Doornberg and Whiteridge - as it is recorded that Jessie (Henry's eldest daughter) often came back to Fern Rocks laden with fruit from Doornberg, and that the children of one family would go for music lessons to the home of another family. The entire TROLLOP family mourned when, in 1895, Doornberg was sold to the BOWKER family, but, by this time, Henry had bought the farm "Jan Blaauskop", a few miles upstream from Doornberg, from a Mr. van der Vyver, who had bought it from a Mr. van der Berg.
A Mr. Slimmert was the original owner of the enormous tract of land, from "Jan Blaauskop" to "Temple Farm", and on this he ran ten thousand sheep. The old kraals are still discernible. He sold "Temple Farm" to a Mr. Sloan and "Jan Blaauskop" to Mr. van der Berg. At this time, on the latter farm, there existed an old house, built about 1820, whose roof was blown off in a mighty gale, which also uprooted willow trees on the banks of the oldest dam, and cast them holus bolus, into the river. When Henry bought "Jan Blaauskop" (which he renamed "Beaconsfield") there was a beautiful old double-storied house on the farm with an enormous drawing-room (in which all Henry's children and grand-children were wont to gather at Christmas), a dining-room (which boasted a billiard table), off which led the bedroom of Henry and Helen, and in which Helen had a wardrobe-tidy with pockets full of various sweets, particularly acid drops. These sweets she would hand out to her grandchildren for good behaviour, but cuffs were also dealt to naughty ones like her grandchildren, Doris, who, one day, produced Helen's specs, broken at the bridge, with the childish explanation, "Me break him neck right off". On the ground floor were also the kitchen and the larder, where candles and soap were home-made, as well as the guests' bedroom, and an outside bedroom for 'the Boys'. Upstairs were an enormous bedroom for 'the Girls' and another bedroom, as well as the spacious balcony (where biltong was hung across wire ropes to dry, before being packed away in snow-white pillow cases), and a loft on eother side of the balcony, which became the favourite playrooms of the younger generation, until, in the dark-hay-filled recesses, snakes were found. This enormpus, spacious old house was very dear to Henry's children and grandchildren, who packed the place when they all fore-gathered there for the Christmas holidays, and who must have been a sore trial to Henry, for they would tease Blackrock (his proze ostrich) into chasing them through aloe-and-barbed-wire fences ( to the detriment of their clothes), hunt and horrify him by their habit of walking across the top of the new railway bridge over the river.
At Christmas time, it was the custom for the "Highlands" family to visit at "Beaconsfield", while at New Year the visit was reciprocated, and how they were all bedded down is a nystery; but these were very happy family gatherings, with many pranks, and much hilarity among young and older ones. Henry faithfully recorded, in four volumes of his diary, all the daily happenings (unfortunately only one of these volumes is still extant), and these reveal snatches of his well-loved poetry, which must have consoled him during his frequent spells of soul-sickness and depression, for he was a sensitive, aesthetic man who was deeply affected by any upsets in his daily routine. His diary tells us too, of the building of another weir in the Thebus river, which was unfortunately washed away in 1906.
On 9/6/1902, he bought, from a Mr. Swanepoel, the farm "Kareefontein" of 752 morgen, for the princely sum of £800. Later he had the new house built, and was criticised for his extravangance, for, as well as an enormous living-room and the usual kitchen, bathroom and larder, it boasted no less than seven other rooms which could be used as bedrooms - though, in actual fact, one of these was used as an office, and another as a parlour. Tommy Torr, who now owns "Beaconsfield", has taken nothing from the original layout of this house, but has added and improved and altered, to make this one of the show houses of the vicinity.
When his son, Bertie, married, Henry went to live at "Grasbult" where he planted beefwood trees, and built a small house for himself. Later, that part of the farm was bought by Mr. van Breda, and henry spent his declining years at "Beaconsfield". Helen had died, 28/2/1914, aged 69 years 9 months, and when Henry himself died 4/10/1940, he was buried alongside his dear wife in the farm cemetery at Beaconsfield. Their graves are conscientiously tended by Tommy and Peggy Torr, who have also, lovingly, over the years, added to the value and attractions of this beautiful old farm, which embraced Waterlea as well.
All his children, with the exception of Bertie, were baptised at Doornberg.
Noted events in his life were:
1. Education: Grahamstown, Albany District, Cape Colony, Southern Africa. Henry Edward attended Shaw College, Grahamstown, where in 1869, the Honorary Robert Godlonton presented him with a silver medal 'in recognition of his diligence in the study of his classics'. This medal, earned by Henry when he was 17 years old, is in the possession of his grandson, Howard RAINE.
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