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- Thomas PHILIPPS was the author of 'Scenes and Occurrences in Albany and Cafferland' and 'Advantages of Emigration to Algoa Bay and Albany'. His letters to relatives in Wales edited by Prof. A. KEPPEL-JONES are published under the title 'Philipps, 1820 Settler'.
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British South Africa
A History of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope from its Conquest 1795 to the Settlement of Albany by the British Emigration of 1819 [A.D. 1795 - 1825]
WITH NOTICES OF SOME OF THE BRITISH SETTLERS OF 1820
BY
COLIN TURING CAMPBELL
[Residient at Graham's Town, 1845-1871]
Phillipps, Thomas, head of a party from Pembrokeshire, Wales ; arrived by the Kennersley Castle. He was a man of opulence, had been a banker at Haverfordwest, and was in middle life. He brought his wife, seven children, and three female servants. His location was towards the coast, with Mr. Greathead and Mr. Southey as immediate neighbours. Here he applied himself to the cultivation of the land, and the erection of his dwelling-house, Mr. George Thompson, who travelled through the Settlement in January, 1821, and again in May, 1823, gives a pleasing description of the progress made by the settlers, their cheerful homes and their anticipations of prosperity. He gives a vignette of Mr. Phillipps's house, "Glendour," at p. 146 vol. ii., and refers to him as one of the leading inhabitants in industry and enterprise. All prospects of future happiness were ruthlessly destroyed by the irruption of the Kafirs in 1835, when his house was consumed by fire, his crops destroyed, and his cattle and other properties carried off.
He was all at once entirely ruined, and thankful that he and his family escaped with their lives to Graham's Town. Adversity followed him through the rest of his life. His eldest son Edward removed to Natal, and there settled. His eldest daughter Catherine married Mr. John Carlisle, and left issue; the next daughter, Charlotte, married Mr. Temple Nourse, and left two sons and two daughters ; Sophie, the third daughter, was the only one who survived her father, and died at Graham's Town, 1892, at the age of eighty four years. Frederick, the second son, married Miss Mary Ann Currie, and was killed by lightning on his farm near Bedford, leaving one son, Edward, and a daughter, who married Mr. Frederick Carlisle. This son Edward left two daughters only, so there is no male representative of the family. Singularly, Edward, walking behind his cart up the Katberg was struck by lightning, and about the same time his sister, travelling by wagon, had a narrow escape, six or eight of the oxen being killed and the wagon also struck. John, the youngest son, died in Cradock in 1852. Mr. Phillipps was a staunch Freemason, and, by his efforts and those of Dr. Peter Campbell and others, obtained a charter from the Grand Lodge of England, granted by H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, K.G., 3rd January, 1828, as the Albany Lodge, No. 817, then 584 in 1832, and in closing up the numbers in 1863 was renumbered 389. The first officers for this Lodge, the oldest but one in all South Africa, the British at Cape Town being the premier, for 1828-29 were—Bro. Thomas Phillips, W.M. ; Bro. R. M. Whitnal, LW. ; Bro. Peter Campbell, S.W. ; Bro. W. E. Smith, Treasurer; Bro. G. F. Stokes, Secretary. Bro. Phillipps was re-elected W.M., 1829-30.
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