For those who lost part two of Memories of a Grandmother Memories of a grandmother, part the second William returned to England with his regiment, but came out again to settle in South Africa as an independent officer on half-pay. It was during this voyage to the Cape, on the sailing ship Zoroaster that he met his future wife, Anna Maria Thornhill, who was the daughter of an 1820 settler. William Gilfillan and his brother Adam both fell in love with her, and Adam, when his suit was unsuccessful, swore that the would marry the first pretty girl that he should meet when he landed in Cape Town! The pretty girl happened to be a Miss Marais, and she in due course, became Adams wife. Anna Maria Thornhill, Grandmothers mother, was an enterprising and accomplished young woman, having learnt various crafts, including shoe-making. Before leaving England she had studied Hydropathy at Matlock and in her later years was credited with having saved the life of a young man; as he lay dying of jaundice she felf his pulse and remarked that there was life in the young man yet. She wrapped him in wet sheets and covered him with blankets, when the sheets were removed they were quite yellow and the young man began to recover from that day. After their marriage, Grandmothers parents live for a time near Grahamstown, on land which had been alotted to her father under the 1820 Settler Scheme, and with many other endured much at the hands of the hostile Kafirs, who frequently raided their farms, burning their homes and carrying off their cattle and sheep. Her father commanded a company of Levies during the Kafir war of 1835, and was afterwards appoint first Magistrate and Civil Commissioner of the little town of Cradock. He again took the field in the Kafir Wr of 1850, in command of the Cradock Burghers, who went to the relief of the village of Whittlesea, where they acquitted themselves so well that they earned for themselves the name of the Cradock Bricks.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 04:06:36 +0000
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