The history of South Africa is complex and I don’t profess to understand much of it, but as I research Mike’s South African ancestry I get to learn some bits that I find fascinating.

I’ve recently being doing some research on Mike’s gt.x3 grandfathers – Michael Wimmer and William Corner – and this led me to read up on an interesting bit of South African history.

Michael and William were two men from very different backgrounds (Europe and South America, respectively), who found themselves colleagues in another country: Africa.

They arrived in southern Africa at the beginning of the 19th century. The region had been settled by Europeans since the middle of the 17th century when the Dutch established a colony.

In the late 17th century the evangelical Missionary Society (later to become the London Missionary Society (LMS)) had begun establishing mission stations in South Africa to spread the Christian word and in that context, Michael Wimmer and William Corner arrived in 1809 and 1811 respectively, having been trained by the LMS and then dispatched to the Cape Colony.

Bethelsdorp, where Michael and William started their work in the Cape Colony, was by all accounts a ramshackle place and home to 600 or so indigenous Khoi khoi people. The missionaries there integrated within this community supporting them against local Boer farmers who it was felt mistreated them. Many of the missionaries, including Michael and William took local wives.

Over time, this put them at odds with local administrators who saw the missionaries as trouble makers. This came to a head in 1817 when a conservative element of the LMS sought to sideline those more liberal missionaries by convening a synod to charge Michael, William and others with illegal and immoral dealings with local women. I discuss this in more detail in some of my other blog posts.

In any event, as a result of political tensions within the LMS both Michael and William found themselves removed to outer regions of the colony: Michael to Steinkopf and – in 1821 – William was dismissed from the LMS altogether.

Whilst Michael settled in Steinkopf and continued his ministry until his death in 1840 at the age of 79, the trajectory of William and his family took a slightly different path.

As I’ve described in another blog post, it looks like William and his family moved from Bethelsdorp, some 750km east of Cape Town near the coastal town of Port Elizabeth, to settle in the northern region between the Orange and Vaal rivers and which was to become the Orange Free State in 1854.

This area was home to a group of people known as Griquas. Griquas were a mixed race people descended from early European settlers and local indigenous people. At around the time that William arrived in the region, there were three distinct Griqua lands: one ruled by a Griqua captain called Cornelius Kok I, with his son (Cornelius Kok II) who was based at the town of Campbell; a second around the town of Griekwastad under the rule of another Griqua captain called Andries Waterboer; and a third around the town of Philippolis established and ruled by Griqua captain Adam Kok II who was the brother of Cornelius Kok II.

Waterboer had the support of the Cape Colony administration, as did Adam Kok II.

We know that William Corner and his family settled in Philippolis where William worked as a teacher and a carpenter. Adam Kok’s son Adam Kok III was educated at Philippolis mission.

We know that one of William’s sons – William Ogilvie Corner – became acquainted with Adam Kok III, later becoming his land agent and marrying his sister, Johanna Kok.

Adam Kok III took over the captaincy of the Philippolis lands after his father’s death in 1835.

In 1857, Cornelius Kok II – in poor health – handed his lands to Adam Kok III.

It is contended that when the Orange Free State was established in 1854, a secret deal between the British and the Boers was drawn up to hand all the Griqua land held by Adam Kok III to the Orange Free State. The Griqua at Philippolis found out about the deal in 1860 and – as a consequence – decided that, rather than accept the consequences of the deal (which would mean losing their land and becoming workers) or, alternatively, fight it, they would simply leave.

In 1861, Adam Kok III surrendered all the Campbell lands to the Orange Free State, and the subsequent few years, after having transferred the land to the Orange Free State, Adam Kok III and several thousand of his people trekked east over the Drakensburg mountains to establish a town which was to become known as Kokstad.

Not long after, a significant event occurred which was to impact the region for many years to come: in 1866 diamonds were discovered in the region of the Orange River. Suddenly ownership of land in the area – and the ability to exploit the resources in the land – becomes important.

The land around the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers is suddenly inundated with speculators, and this land includes land transferred by Adam Kok III to the Orange Free State and the Waterboer lands.

The British, through the Cape Colony, annexed this land by agreement with Waterboer.

The extent of this annexed land was disputed as Waterboer sought to claim land that the Orange Free State owned as a result of the transfer of the Campbell lands held by Adam Kok III.

In 1870, a hearing was held to establish ownership of the disputed land. One of the witnesses called to give evidence was one William Ogilvie Corner as land agent to Adam Kok III and, previously, Cornelius Kok II.

The veracity of his evidence was called into question, although the case for ownership by Adam Kok III was compelling, and the outcome was to the Orange Free State’s benefit with a payment ordered to the state for the annexation.

I’m not sure that William Ogilvie Corner ever benefited from the discovery of diamonds, but he died on the 31st December 1871 near what is now Kimberley. His wife had predeceased him and he left behind a 14 year old son, William and a 20 year old daughter, Wilhelmina. His possessions included some ground, a wagon and oxen, some guns and clothes…