This post needs work by someone who knows what they’re on about. This is almost as confusing as the Bible’s begats. Advice: If your name is John, name your son Basil. Or Cyril. Or Percy. Anyway, here goes with what I’ve got:
Our distant cousin Hugh Bland has been doing some wonderful detective work sniffing out the Bland family history. He’s of the Blands that trekked north, to the lowveld and on to Southern Rhodesia (if it was called that yet?), leaving their cousins behind on a farm at Oliviershoek on the Natal-Free State boundary. Maybe on a farm called Oliviershoek.
Today Hugh found the grave of Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland.
Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland was born in 1799 in England. His parents were Reverend John Francis Bland (born 1764 Fordham, Cambridgeshire died 1807) and Elizabeth Adams (born Dunfermline, Scotland. He arrived at the Cape in 1825 on the good ship Nautilus, under the care of the ship’s captain, a Mr Tripe. The voyage cost his family £42.
He got a job on a wine farm, in the Drakenstein area of Stellenbosch, met his future wife Cecelia there (du Plessis?), married her, packed their belongings in a Cape cart and trekked to Mossel Bay. They found land on the Gourits river and settled there. Their first son, John Francis Adam, was born in 1836, followed by eight more children. John the eldest then married Petronella Johanna ‘Nellie’ de Villiers and had a son, John Francis Adam II. He and Nellie left for inland while the baby JFA the second was just a few months old. They headed for Colesberg, Bloemfontein, Winburg and on to Harrismith, where they settled ‘in a house not far from the centre of town’ – 13 Stuart Street, maybe?
Back in Mossel Bay, Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland (JBA) became mayor and the main street was called Bland Street. Maybe it still is? He died in 1861. His grave is now hidden in thick bush on a farm in the Wydersrivier district near Riversdal.
When Hugh Bland visited die Kaap ca.2010 the farmer very kindly took him to the gravesite. Hugh says you can still read the inscription on the gravestone – it’s indistinct, but there’s no doubt that it’s JBA’s grave. He says it was “quite a moment” for him – JBA was buried there 156 yrs ago and Hugh wondered when a Bland last stood at that grave.
Hugh put two proteas – which it looks like he skoffel’d out nearby? – on the grave; then laid his shadow down next to his great-great-great grandfather and took this pic:
Valuable memorabilia from Hugh:
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The Harrismith Branch of the Blands:
Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland had a daughter, Annie Emmett Bland, who married Louis Botha, Boer war general who became the first President of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
He also had a son John Francis Adam Bland (JFA), born in 1836.
This JFA I later trekked inland ca.1861 to Harrismith in the Orange River Colony with a small baby – John Francis Adam Bland the Second – JFA II. This started ‘our branch’ of the Blands, The Vrystaat Blands. One of them – I must try and find out who – would end up as a prisoner of war in Ceylon for doing the right thing and fighting for his new homeland against the invading, thieving, plundering British in the Boer war of 1899-1902.
John Francis Adam Bland II married Mary Caskie, who became the beloved Granny Bland of Harrismith. They had five sons of whom our grandfather Frank was the oldest, again: John Francis Adam; JFA III.
Hugh found out that JFA the First died on 10 September 1891 aged 55, and is buried in the lost, dusty, verlate metropolis of Senekal, Vrystaat. In Harrismith Granny Bland buried her husband JFA II and four of her five boys, including JFA III. As Sheila said, ‘What a tragic life.’ Poor Granny Bland! She loved her namesake grandaughter Mary, our Mom, and she lived long enough to know us, her great grandkids before she died in 1959. So in that she was Lucky Granny Bland! We knew Bunty, the only child who outlived her, very well. He died in 1974 and joined his father JFA II, his mother, and his four brothers in the propvol family grave in Harrismith.
JFA III married Annie Watson Bain – our lovely granny Annie Bland. Known as just Annie. They farmed racehorses and clean fingernails on the farm Nuwejaarsvlei on the Nuwejaarspruit outside Harrismith on the road to Witsieshoek, towards the Drakensberg. He died in 1943 while my Mom Mary was still at school. Pat was nursing in the Boksburg-Benoni hospital. Pat also died at age 49 in 1974. Mom Mary then looked after Annie until she died aged ninety in 1983. Mom Mary is still alive and well. She turned ninety in September 2018 (update, 95 in 2023). Nuwejaarsvlei was later submerged under Tugela river water pumped up the Drakensberg to fill the new Sterkfontein dam. Drowning vleis is environmental destruction, BTW!!! Grrrr!
(I’m hoping sister Sheila will fact-check me here! Also that cousin Hugh will tell us what happened to the misguided Bland branch that didn’t stay in the Vrystaat, but got lost and ended up in Zimbabwe. They lived near Oliviershoek for a while before trekking on. Hugh tells tales of transport riding, ox wagons, meeting Percy Fitzpatrick, farming in Rhodesia and other exaggerations . . . you know how historians are).
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Must add:
A Bland grave pic – Harrismith cemetery
Annie’s oldest daughter Pat Bland – married Bill Cowie, and had two daughters Frankie & Gemma; Bill worked in Blyvooruitsig on the gold mine; We visited them once, and would see them on their way to their wonderful Wild Coast fishing trips. They called Blyvooruitsig ‘Blayfore or Blayfaw,‘ and pronounced Gert as though it didn’t have an ‘r.’
Mary Bland second and youngest daughter – married Pieter Swanepoel in Harrismith in 1951.
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Bland might sound bland, but hey, the surname is thought to derive from Old English (ge)bland meaning ‘storm’, or ‘commotion.’ Don’t use dictionaries that say, ‘dull, flavorless, or just plain ‘blah.’ Rather use the Merriam-Webster that says it means ‘smooth and soothing in manner or quality;’ or use vocabulary.com that says it means ‘alluring;’ or try ‘flattering’ from the Bland Family History on ancestry.com; That’s better. A new motto for the coat of arms, maybe? Blands ain’t bland.
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Some of the information on Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland first coming to the Cape I got from Sheila’s book And Not To Yield about Susan Bland. Susan was born in Harrismith, had a brother Willie, married a Theo Allison and lived seven miles outside Harrismith – west, I think, near Sarclet? – farming ostriches for a while.
And Not To Yield by Penelope Matthews, Watermark Press – ISBN 978-0-620-58162-2
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Mom’s more contemporary assessment of her Bland, the Eastern Vrystaat Nuwejaarsvlei branch of the Bland Clan:
She didn’t know her dear Dad Frank’s father – he died rather young. He farmed on Nuwejaarsvlei and sent his son Frank to Michaelhouse. After high school Frank went straight back to the farm, he didn’t do any further studying or training. Mom thinks her grandfather must have had some money, as he built his wife a rather lovely house in town while still on the farm – 11 or 9 Stuart Street. After Frank lost the farm (maybe because as Annie once told me reproachfully when she saw me covered in mud one Christmas morning at 95 Stuart Street, “You know, I never once saw Frank with dirty fingernails!” I loved and admired my gran Annie but I just knew that day that what me and Sheila and Jemma had done in getting covered in mud at the Kakspruit down Hector Street past the du Plessis’ house that Christmas morning was not a bad thing. We washed off in the horse trough and made it to church that morning, I’m sure looking like spotless sweet little angels. JC and FC both would have nodded approvingly, methinks. I’m sure we got presents later that day, so there’s some proof that the Religion of Father Christmas is an understanding, forgiving one.
Frank lost the farm – too many racehorses and too few sheep? – and he and Annie, older sis Pat and Mom moved to town into Granny Bland’s home. Frank bought a filling station in Warden Street in town. When he died – early like his father before him – Annie surprised traditionally-minded people in town by carrying on with the Central Service Station. It was near the corner of Retief Street; later she moved it half a block nearer to the Town Hall, to Caskie Corner, probably the prime spot in town, on the corner of Southey Street. In time she rented spaces to the Flamingo Restaurant and Platberg Bottle Store. Between the Flamingo and the VC Cafe in Southey Street was the ramp up to her workshop, where At Truscott fixed cars for her.
Granny Bland was a Caskie. Maybe she owned Caskie Corner? I asked Mom Mary and she thinks her gran Mary Caskie Bland may well have. And that would be how Annie could move her Caltex filling station and garage to the best corner in town from half a block down Warden Street – and later how Mom Mary could move the bottle store next door to it from round the corner in Southey Street.
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Vrystaat Confessions 