Chasing Rainbows

We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

From Nelson Mandela’s Inauguration Speech, 1994

It’s a little over 20 years since Nelson Mandela first called South Africa a Rainbow Nation – a term that has variously been embraced and denigrated as surface window dressing, depending upon where in the spectrum one is located. As is usually the case with these things, the different viewpoints each have something pertinent to say, and two decades on from the euphoria of those first landmark elections, it’s clear that achieving human dignity for all is a far greater and more complex challenge than the marketeers and advertisers would have us believe.

The rainbow is a potent symbol though and I found myself pondering this as I digested discoveries I was making about my ancestors and their location in the broader South African and Zimbabwean historical tapestry. While they were not the main architects of colonisation, they did climb aboard the bandwagon, or should one say, wooden sailing ship and ox wagon – and trying to understand those times and who they were has become an important part of understanding myself and my role in the future of this country and that of my children.

At the end of the first family history piece I wrote, Sea-Change, I said I hoped that it would be the start of a conversation and it certainly has been that. Other relatives have added comments and gotten in touch from all over the world and that has been wonderful – thank you for that!

I have had contact with my mum’s first cousins John Reid-Rowland and Joe Landsberg – who have both done family narratives, each in a different way, with some aims in common and some reflective of their own journeys in life. John is what I would call the keeper of our family history, he has been tinkering away at it for years, collecting a huge amount of information, photos and artifacts, and I really value our email chats trying to figure out the bits that still remain mysterious.

Joe is an internationally recognised expert in forestry who moved to Australia years ago and wrote memoirs as a way for his children to understand a time and place long gone. He was able to shed light on a family relic and story I mentioned previously. With him I appreciate being able to exercise my peculiar biological / genetical way of looking at the world and human history and get feedback and reflections from someone with both the family perspective and academic rigour. He also passed onto me another family book done by cousin Sue Phillips’ husband Rowan for their kids – which was beautifully illustrated, reflective of his artistic flair.

A cousin of my generation, Pen Sylvester, was inspired to do some detective work of her own and managed to uncover new information about our ancestors in Germany, which has at the same time been illuminating and deepened some of the mystery.

All of this, including further research I’ve done myself, has revealed the most complete picture we’ve had so far. Some of things I wrote before weren’t quite right – but this is how history works I guess. You draw from a range of sources, from historical records to good old family hearsay and supposition, and try to figure out a narrative that is essentially accurate, given what you know at the time. Each iteration goes through a further sea-change and this is my latest attempt. There’s a great deal of information, so I’m going to try and cover the main beats and then focus on specific people and stories in the future.

Towards the end of June I visited the Cape Archives to look up references relating to my great-great grandfather William Augustine Hampson, the “gambler with an itching foot” who married my great-great grandmother, Christina Knobel, a German settler who had come over with her family as a one-year old baby, and grew up in German Village, King William’s Town. It was sobering but illuminating stuff. His death certificate revealed that he did not leave Mafikeng (now Mahikeng) following the famous siege during the Anglo-Boer War and died there on the 16^th of January 1901. The siege took place from October 1899 till May 1900, so he survived around 7 more months before his death at the age of 48. No cause of death is listed, though in notes I made talking to my grandmother as a teenager I have that the siege experience broke his health and “??? appendicitis.” Though there were other stressful circumstances that probably contributed too.

The imprint that Will Hampson left behind in historical records is a trail of debt and insolvency from King William’s Town to Umtata (now Mthatha) to Mafikeng. There’s a mortgage bond taken out in Christina’s name for a property in Umtata in 1885, with a note relating to debts that needed to be paid. An insolvency in King William’s Town in 1889 in which the main creditor is a liquor supplier suggests there was some sort of alcohol business. I’m not clear on exactly where they were at the time. Family stories talk about them being in Joburg at the start of the Gold Rush (and having the first brick house in the area), so perhaps they just kept pushing north – leaving debts behind that became legal matters at various stages.

Then the mother of insolvencies in Mafikeng dated 1898: there is so much paperwork for this one it is bound into its own book, instead of together with other records as was the case with the others. I didn’t manage to go through all of it as I ran out of time, but got the gist. Will’s property and business effects were being auctioned – there was a copy of a circular and newspaper notice to this effect, and then court records that say the person who bought everything at auction couldn’t come up with the money and Christina was allowed to buy it back at the sale price. So it seems the family were able to hang on to things that way.

Then, the most mysterious record of all: a court case from 1902, after Will’s death, against my great-grandmother Mary Agnes (Mollie) Hampson, who was 20 years at the time and “carrying on business through … WA Hampson & Co”, who was being sued for 250 pounds. There’s reference to William Francis D’Urban Jackson who acted as her representative and a summons which the Sheriff tried to serve, with a handwritten note on the back. The handwriting is impossible – but you can make out the words “the premises lately occupied by the defendant have … been burnt and she appears to have no property whatsoever.”

The next record we have of the Hampsons is in my great-grandfather John Reid-Rowland’s (who I’ll refer to as JRR to avoid confusion with cousin John, his grandson) memoirs in 1903, when he meets his future wife, Mollie Hampson, “a well-known singer in Bulawayo.” So it seems there was one last push north to escape financial difficulty – and Mollie was fortunate to meet a driven man, literally seeking his fortune via the the Rhodesian Railways and later the tobacco industry, who was deeply involved in the development of what became Rhodesia*.

(*I’m calling places by the colonial names that they were known as at the time, as this is a history of people in that cultural headspace in this moment in history, and an effort to try and understand that drive. However, that is not to say that I am ignoring the history or stories of the indigenous people: the first step for me is understanding my own family story, from their perspective, as honestly as possible, and then integrating that with other perspectives for a more holistic view.)

Correspondence with cousin John, who is far better at deciphering the archaic writing than I, revealed a bit more. William D’Urban Jackson was Mollie’s older sister Julia’s husband – so it seems after Will’s death the family were continuing to try and make a living through his business somehow. The Jacksons later wound up in what is now Hwange, where Julia died of cerebral malaria, leaving behind 11 children. Dorothy was the eldest and raised her younger siblings.

Julia Hampson Jackson and children, 1910

L to R Monica, Josephine and Christina Hampson, Felix Jackson, Bulawayo 1912

So the journey of the Hampson family from Mafikeng to Bulawayo may have been a bit more dramatic than anyone realised. We haven’t yet been able to solve the puzzle of how they got up there and exactly when – but John recalls how the family would always say Mollie came up by ox-wagon and 50 years later she and his grandfather went to England on the Comet, the world’s first jet airliner.

He also has the most extraordinary photographs of their early life in Bulawayo – the fresh immediacy is quite breathtaking. My Gran Norie would always tell me how she was born in a mud hut on Kensington Farm in Plumtree in 1910, and there is indeed a photographic record of that. JRR and Mollie were the first couple to be married in the Catholic cathedral in Bulawayo in 1904 and Mollie’s younger brother Felix was one of the first pupils of St George’s Catholic Boys School. The Reid-Rowlands were stalwarts of the early Catholic Church in Bulawayo and later Salisbury (now Harare) – as the Hampsons had been in South Africa before them.

Kensington Farm Dining Hut, 1910

Reid-Rowland Family, Kensington Farm, Plumtree, 1910

This was further consolidated not long after my visit to the archives when I received an email from cousin Joe. I previously mentioned a story from when the Hampson family were living in Joburg during the Gold Rush, in which it seemed as though a picture of the Virgin Mary had prevented a fire from spreading in the tent in which the children were sleeping, saving their lives. He now has this picture, which was given to him by his mother Patricia, my Gran’s sister, with an envelope attached to the back. He sent me photos of the picture, which is indeed charred, the outside of the envelope and its contents, which I will let speak for themselves:

 

Joe wasn’t sure who had given the picture and explanation to his mother, but correspondence with cousin John revealed that this was most likely Monica Hampson, Mollie’s younger sister, who became Sister Mary Emmanuel OP. He had a note she’d sent him as a teenager and the writing matched. What was so fascinating is that it seems the Hampsons were instrumental in establishing the Catholic Church in the various places they lived, from Umtata to Johannesburg to Mafikeng. Catholic historical records will hopefully reveal more. Pen Sylvester posted a comment and link on Sea-Change to a history of the Little Sisters of Mercy Order in South Africa which mentions the family:

Fr. Ogle was the Parish Priest in Mafikeng. The Sisters went to visit Mafikeng, and with him, they secured a site for the new Convent. On 15th February, 1898, the Sisters arrived in Mafikeng. Rev Fr. Ogle had travelled down the line and escorted them to St. Anthony’s Church, where he celebrated Mass. They were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Hampson for breakfast, and then went to look at the proposed site. …

On June 24th, 1898, the postulants received the habit of the Sisters of Mercy and took the names of Sr. M. Joseph, Sr. M. Patricia and Sr. M. Columba. “Rev. Fr. Ogle performed the ceremony at St. Anthony’s Church, which could not contain all those who came, out of devotion or curiosity. In an eloquent sermon Rev. Fr. Ogle explained the duties of the religious life. The music was supplied by Mr. and Mrs. Hampson and Miss Hampson and Mr. Pat Carroll”.

In my previous piece, I said that Christina Hampson ended life as a nun, died in Nazareth House in Port Elizabeth and was buried in a brown habit. Further research revealed that this isn’t quite accurate: she joined the 3^rd Order of St Francis. This is how they describe themselves on their website:

The Third Order is an “Order” within the Franciscan Family. This ‘family’ includes the First Order Brothers and Sisters, a ‘women’s only’ Second Order called the Community of St Clare – and the Third Order. Unlike the First and Second Order who live a celibate life in their respective communities and who strictly uphold their vow of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, the Third Order comprises people who find the life of Saint Francis attractive, and who feel a call or vocation to live by the principles he lived by.

Third Order members come from all walks of life. We are a dispersed community of women and men, some married, some single, living in our own homes and doing our own jobs. We are a community in that we pray for each other, we meet when we are able, and we encourage one another in living and witnessing to the Christian life. We are a community in that we share the greater calling to follow Jesus in the way of Francis.

The rest of the information Pen sent to me was something of a bombshell. She had been in contact with Barry Knobel who is a descendent of Georg Knobel, Christina’s older half-brother and now lives in the UK. He has traced the Knobel family back to Germany, as far as the 1600s, and was able to send her Christoph Knobel and Juliane Bicht’s marriage records, as well as Christina’s birth certificate. This information is from the Catholic churchbooks of Rotenburg an der Fulda, Hesse, in Germany.

They were married on the 28^th July 1855, three years before sailing for South Africa. I’ll just transcribe the various bits verbatim:

Groom’s name, status, origin, age, denomination and residence:

Johann Christoph Knobel, master carpenter and local citizen, born on October 10, 1816, legitimate son of the late master carpenter Andreas Knobel and his like late wife Anna Martha nee Albrecht, Catholic, widower of the late Anna Martha nee Wisler from Ziegenhain, who died on May 27, 1854.

Bride’s name, status, origin, age, denomination and residence:

Juliana Bicht, single daughter of the former tailor and current municipal clerk Martin Bicht and the single Martha Elizabeth Durer, born on April 19, 1932, Catholic.

So we now know more of their origins – but at the same time, this information raises questions. Christoph is described as a master carpenter, as he is in the emigration papers that Barry Knobel also kindly sent to Pen:

There appears the master carpenter Christoph Knobel and … requests the release from allegiance for himself and his family for the purpose of emigration to Africa.

Various entities raise no objection to his emigrating including the mayor, electorial legal office and the forestry commission office. So he definitely was a carpenter, working in wood. However, in his death records from King William’s Town, he is clearly recorded as a music teacher. I have a list of records that exist at the Amatola Museum in King, which would probably reveal more, but it would mean going there and looking at the hard copies. At the Cape Archives it is possible to examine the local newspaper from that area and time, known as the Kaffrarian Watchman, so that’s on the list of things to do. Perhaps he was a master carpenter and also musician, perhaps even an instrument maker? But this is just a wild guess. The King records also list an advertisement for a piano, though who knows at this stage what that means.

Questions also come up when it comes to Julia’s parents. The most tantalising family legend – and the one that started this whole journey for me – is that we are descended from a woman named Clare de Vere who fled the French Revolution to Bavaria as a small child. The Terrors were from 1793 till 1795, so it did seem to me that Clare was unlikely to be Julia’s mother, as that would make her over 40 when she was born, and I had wondered if we had skipped a generation. Julia’s mother, Martha Durer is clearly German, and she was born in the district of Hesse, north of Bavaria. So the challenge now would be to try and track her parents and see if her mother is indeed French and what her name is, if it is actually Clare de Vere.

This is the name on the family tree that cousin John RR gave to my mum and he got it from a baby book his mother created for him when he was born. So the name has been floating around for a while. My Gran told me Louisa de Vere, but she was quite old by then and she wasn’t really sure about it. I also wondered whether Durer had somehow morphed into de Vere.

But the thing that nags at me is that story about escaping in the dog kennel is so specific: for it to have survived for all these years, with these details, says to me something like that must have happened. It was a chaotic time in European history – the French Revolution was an explosive social upheaval, followed by waves of more upheaval and wars. The power of the Catholic Church was being violently challenged and the nations we now know of modern Europe were painfully being birthed. I don’t understand the period well enough though I’ve been trying to educate myself to try and figure out what was possible. So that’s the next challenge!

These upheavals didn’t end there of course: European power struggles played out in the rest of the world, including Africa, and we are now reaping the whirlwind of those battles and naked scrambles for power and wealth. Just over a century after the French Revolution, the First World War brought blood-letting on an unprecedented scale – and our family was mixed up in that too. Felix Hampson’s name can be found among the young men lost fighting Germans in East Africa – what an irony, with a German mother, who still spoke the language to her children. His nephew Felix Jackson was then lost in the 2^nd World War, in which the eldest Reid-Rowland, Jack, was taken prisoner in Italy, but managed to survive.

Felix and the first St George’s class

A lot more detail exists about all the Hampsons and the Reid-Rowlands, especially as JRR, who was a public man (Rowland Square in Harare is named after him). Like all families, we have had our joys and tragedies. I haven’t written a chronological story with every scrap of information, that is a project for another day, and I’m still gathering things together. For me, it’s been as much about the process as the revelations, and trying to understand what it means to be human, through the stories of people whose DNA populates my cells and stories and patterns I’ve inherited. We’re a colourful bunch, that’s for sure.

I tried to explain it in correspondence with cousin Joe:

I find family stories stories interesting because the bits that get passed on feel something like genes. Like an impression of something that happened that has continued to live long after those who experienced it have died. Noteworthy and dramatic things, I guess. Just like scraps in a compost heap, most disappear into history, but some survive – if we were being Darwinian about it, we’d say they had some quality that has given them a survival advantage, made them less resistant to the decomposition process.

The picture and the notes are physical manifestations of this – and in a way, that is a miracle. I inherited a story, you inherited something physical. They both persisted because something happened that left an impression in the world. It may only have been in the minds of a family that translated this event within their magical Catholic worldview, but nevertheless, it has persisted: “Our little miracle.”

As a storyteller, they interest me because of this survival quality – this is what great stories are made of. And the more of it I uncover, the more I think it’s a great story. Of course, it’s not just a story, it was the lives of real people – but the exercise of uncovering the impression they left on the world has been fascinating. We can never know their true story, but what has survived tells us something, they were extraordinary in some sense, extraordinary things happened to them, they lived in extraordinary times. It’s an adventure story and a love story, a tragedy in many ways too.

So finding a thread of our family history is interwoven with the historical roots of both modern South Africa and Zimbabwe is really affirming, it allows the broader history to be more personal, gives me an entry point to explain it to my children. There are some sad parts to the story, but there are beautiful parts too – like most lives I guess. The difference is they connect us to key events and historical waves, both in Europe and Africa. The constant battle of survival – that’s a universal story everyone can understand – but we can only really understand it if we take the long view.

I’ve worked in all kinds of areas in all parts of South Africa and interviewed many people. I’ve also edited hundreds of hours of interviews, which has given me this great perspective of the commonalities of all families, no matter their culture, circumstances or education. My two most recent projects have focused on young South Africans, the so-called Born Free generation – and that’s given me a perspective of the impact democracy has had and where the younger generation is at.

We have all these commonalities, but are still very divided. How did we white South Africans come to be here and what can we learn about being human from this story? I see South Africa’s true riches not to be the land, or the gold, but our human diversity. I’ve seen some extraordinary new shoots among the younger generation. We can take history and use it as a stick to beat each other with or we can use it as a means to understand humanity and ourselves.

As I was pondering the lives of Christina and Will Hampson – how they adventured their way north as Will tried to find his fortune and failed in each place they went till he died, I suspect, a broken man, I wrote in my journal, without thinking, that they were “chasing rainbows across South Africa.” It struck me that we are a nation of rainbow chasers – the waves of colonisers who came seeking their fortune, no matter the cost, have modern contemporaries in both the South African and continental African migrants who risk everything for a better life. Joburg exploded up from the gold deposits beneath the ground and that relentless pursuit for riches continues to this day.

There’s the cliché of the rainbow colours making white light – but this is alchemy at its purest. What an amazing symbol to have for a country. Yet we’ve been so distracted by trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we’ve missed our true richness. There’s no pot of gold because the rainbow has no end. Trying to find the pot of gold is a fool’s errand – true wealth is in the light, in the alchemy. Great diversity is where evolutionary jumps happen. And South Africa is one of the most diverse places on the planet, indigenous people mixed with a multitude of others who were drawn by dreams of the rainbow’s end, escaping persecution or whatever their reasons were. The potential for something powerful and new to emerge is high.

A young filmmaking friend I was chatting to about this the other day is Xhosa and he told me that 5 generations back he has a German ancestor. Thousands of people immigrated at that time, but it isn’t out of the realms of possibility that we are distantly related. That potential exists among all the peoples of South Africa – and if you go far enough back, we are all from here. Some stayed, some left, and some returned again. The future I hope for my children is one in which we can honour and heal the pain of the past and celebrate our connections. We can only do that by telling our stories and I hope this one, in some small way, can be part of that.