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Humphrey Osmond, an Addo pioneer
Johnny Briggs of Good Hope Farm, Selborne, wrote the following article on Humphrey
Osmond, an Addo pioneer.
Humphrey
Osmond
The
First World War ended in 1918 and many soldiers returning to England found
little or no prospects of jobs. The British economy had been on a war footing
and all the factories were geared to the war effort. An intriguing and exciting
option for healthy, adventurous young men home from the war front was to go out
to the Colonies and start a new life in far-away places with strange sounding
names. Many emigrated to New Zealand, Australia, Canada and to South Africa and
the Rhodesia’s. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, transport rider, author, mining magnate
and influential politician, had bought Amanzi Estate near Uitenhage and
developed an interest in growing citrus fruit for export. He was convinced that
the lower Sundays River Valley was an ideal locality to start an agriculturally
based Settlement scheme. The soil was deep and fertile, and the Sundays River
running through the valley flowed regularly, fed by an enormous catchment area.
Sir Percy formed the Sundays River Land Settlement Company, which purchased a
stock farm in the Addo area from a Mr. C. Holland, including his big old farm
house originally called Commando House, later The Homestead, now owned by
Thursten Whittle. The Government was
persuaded to fund the construction of Lake Mentz to store Sundays River Water
for irrigation purposes. The bush in the Addo area was cleared by huge steam
traction engines and surveyed by Charles van Breda into farm holdings of
approximately 12 hectares. An irrigation canal distribution system was begun,
and an office was opened in London to advertise the potential of the scheme and
recruit young ex-soldiers and war veterans to take options on the land and
begin a new life in Addo. A property of 12 hectares was to the English mind a
fair holding, and prospects looked good.
Sir
Percy Fitzpatrick needed a man good and true to act as Secretary of the Sundays
River Settlement Company. He was a partner in the Corner House, the most
successful mining and finance house in the British Empire. A colleague and
friend, Arthur James Wright, was his valued secretary. Wright had completed a
secretarial Diploma in London, where he was taught the new “Short Hand Writing”,
a subject in which he excelled. When Sir Percy discovered this outstanding
ability he made Wright take down the whole of “Jock of the Bushveld” in
shorthand. Jimmy Wright had for some years been friendly with an astute young
lawyer called Humphrey Osmond, a clever man with a straight eye and a firm
handshake. At the beginning of the Boer War they had both joined the London
Yeomanry and sailed for South Africa on the same ship. A lifelong friendship
began and continued through the First World War when they joined the Imperial
Light Horse regiment, along with Sir Percy’s son Alan. They served together in
the campaigns against the German African Colonies. So Jimmy Wright had no
hesitation in recommending Humphrey Osmond to Sir Percy, for the Job of
secretary of the Settlement Company. It turned out to be a good choice as there
was to be a lot of litigation between the Sundays River Scheme and the
Government, so Humphrey’s legal background stood him in good stead.
Humphrey Osmond was born in 1883 on the
Caribbean Island of Jamaica. His father held the rank of Commodore in the
British Royal Navy and was based in Jamaica. He decided to retire there as he enjoyed
the climate, so he bought a house high on the hills above Kingston town. His
wife was Scottish with flaming red hair, an accomplished horse woman, and very
involved in social life on the island. They had 4 sons and 3 daughters,
Humphrey being the youngest by far. He was cared for by a Jamaican nanny called
Nana Bey, and had a private tutor with a cruel habit of picking him up by his
long golden curls and beating him. Humphrey’s elder brother George, home
unexpectedly on vacation, witnessed this and had the tutor dismissed forthwith.
Humphrey’s father died when he was about 2 years old. At the age of 10 his
mother decided that he should be educated in England. She wrote to a Captain
Jellicoe a close friend of her late husband. They had served in the Royal Navy
together. Captain Jellicoe owned a couple of Banana Packets, small cargo ships
used to transport bananas from the West Indies to Britain. His son
incidentally, later became Admiral Lord Jellicoe who distinguished himself at
the battle of Jutland in World War One. Captain Jellicoe agreed to take
Humphrey with him to England where he stayed with his Aunts, one of whom had a
son Humphrey’s age. They went to junior school together and became good
friends. Later on, Humphrey was sent to boarding school in London, the Bluecoat
School for all sons of Naval Officers, so called because the boys all wore blue
jackets. His holidays were spent with another friend of his late father’s, the
Rev. Nightingale who lived with his family in a large manse on the country.
Humphrey’s older brother Charles also went to the Bluecoat school, they were
both sponsored by the retired Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, under whom their
father had served while in the Royal Navy. Charles went to Heidelberg University
in Germany, a popular university in those old Victorian times. He eventually
bought a farm in the Sundays River Settlement Scheme.
Humphrey
finished school just as the Boer War began in South Africa in 1899. He
immediately joined up, at barely 17, the youngest trooper in his regiment, the
London Yeomanry, and set sail for the Cape Colony, along with Jimmy Wright. His
adventurous spirit soon involved him in skirmishes with the Boer enemy. On
patrol one day his platoon observed a group of Boer horsemen at the foot of the
koppie. Humphrey, mounted on a fast horse, volunteered to ride out to
reconnoitre. He reached a thicket of reeds growing between him and the Boers,
who fired a shot at him as he entered the thicket, causing his horse to bolt.
He sent his hat skimming over the reeds to confuse the Boers while he crawled
in another direction around the koppie and came up behind them, capturing 7 of
them before his platoon rode up to help. He was mentioned in one of Lord
Kitchener’s dispatches of 8th March 1903 “for the single-handed
capture of 7 armed Boers in the Langberg on 11th January.” He was a
19year old corporal when the war ended in 1902.
After
the Boer War ended Humphrey went to see his mother, who had returned to England
with her two daughters, in frail health and not expected to live long. He never
saw her again. On his return to South Africa he was articled to a Mr. Phillips,
who knew the Osmond family, of the firm Mawby, Phillips (and later Osmond) in
Krugersdorp. It so happened that Mawby’s sister Fanny married George Palmer of
the farm “Cranemere” in the Pearston District, and their Grandson Maurice, in
due course, married Humphrey’s daughter, Sita. While doing his articles in
Krugersdorp, Humphrey stayed at a boarding house run by a Widow, Mrs. Brown.
Her husband, a gold reef mine manager, had been killed in a mine accident.
While showing a group of VIPs around he took them underground. The lift cage
was full, so he rode down the shaft on the cage roof, against all the mine
safety rules. A falling rock hit him, killing him instantly. Mrs. Brown had a
daughter, Mabel, who was sent to boarding school at Oakford Priory in Natal at
the age of 11. Shortly after, the Boer War began, Natal was cut off from the
Transvaal, and Mrs. Brown lost contact with her daughter for the 2-year
duration of the war. A couple of years later Humphrey, a lad of 22, still
studying law and living in Mrs. Brown’s boarding house, went on holiday to
Natal. He took a parcel with him to Mabel from her mother. She, a pretty 16
year old in matric promptly stole his heart, but they had to wait some years
till Humphrey finished his law exams before marrying. Mrs. Brown subsequently
re-married and had another daughter Lily, who married Neville van Breda, Mark’s
grandfather.
World
War I, called by some the Great War, started in 1914 and Humphrey rejoined the
Imperial Light Horse. Serving first in German East Africa, formally Tanganyika
now Tanzania, then in German West Africa, formerly South West Africa now
Namibia. They were important theatres of war because the British High Command
was afraid the German colonies would combine with the Portuguese across Africa
and push southwards toward the fabulously rich gold and diamond mines in South
Africa. Humphrey, promoted to Captain, was often in the presence of General
Jannie Smuts commanding the West Africa campaign and many were the stories he
could tell. Unfortunately his military career came to an abrupt end when he was
seriously wounded in the stomach while riding out to draw the fire of a German
sniper so that he would reveal his position, and he ended up in hospital where
he nearly died. Friends thought him a gonner. Alan Fitzpatrick, Sir Percy
Fitzpatrick’s son and Jimmy Wright were with him during much of these
campaigns.
After
the war Humphrey became a partner in the Law Firm of Mawby, Phillips &
Osmond in Krugersdorp and soon made a name for himself as a competent young
advocate, but his war experiences had left him very nervy and drained. Being of
a sensitive nature, he did not enjoy the cut and thrust of the legal
profession, especially the many divorce cases that seemed to land on his desk.
So when Sir Percy, on their mutual friend Jimmy Wirght’s advice, offered him
the job of secretary in the Sundays River Settlement Company, he readily
accepted.
Humphrey
and Mabel and their small children arrived in Addo during 1919 and took up
residence in Commando House, the old Holland farmstead now known as the
Homestead. A company office was set up in a square thatched rondavel in the
garden. The old house had a large dining room and Mabel had to entertain many
dignitaries to luncheon brought by Sir Percy to Addo to view the Settlement
Scheme. Life was not easy for the young housewife, with water scarce, untrained
domestic help and fresh foodstuffs and vegetables difficult to obtain. There
were several thatched rondavels in the yard, and as the young English settlers
arrived, eager but un-acclimatized and un-used to local conditions, Mabel
housed them as best she could in the rondavels until they were able to move
onto their own properties. The land had been cleared and the ground left loose,
so whenever the wind blew the dust was appalling. Sand had had to be shoveled
off the verandah floor. Some old-timers felt that this destruction of the
natural bush affected the climate and caused awful droughts that were to
follow. Mabel had of course grown up in her mother’s boarding house in
Krugersdorp, so she must have had some considerable catering experience to fall
back on and cope with the wave of settlers arriving at the beginning of 1920.
Humphrey acquired the farm Hern, now owned by Bob Hewitt, the first property to
be registered. Building commenced on the gabled family house, which took nearly
a year to complete due to a shortage of building materials. His brother Charles
bought the farm next door.
Groups
of settlers started arriving in numbers towards the end of 1919, many straight
from England and shattered by their appalling experiences in the trenches and
battlefields. They were initially terribly disappointed with Addo, expecting a
green fertile valley with water flowing instead of the drought, heat and dusty
conditions that met them. The promised Lake Mentz storage dam was still some 2
years from completion. Humphrey Osmond, on site in Addo, took the brunt of the
storm of criticism and abuse leveled at the Settlements Company. Sir Percy,
battling with ill health and financial problems of his own at the time, was
frequently absent from meetings and left much of the company business to
Humphrey. He had to shield Sir Percy from the ire of the disillusioned settlers.
These were difficult times for Humphrey, who had become the scapegoat for all
that was wrong. But he remained intensely loyal to Sir Percy, who held him in
the highest regards as a man of integrity and conviction.
Humphrey had a London matric and a law degree
from the Transvaal, which for some reason did not allow him to practice law in
the old Cape Colony. He was often asked to advise on legal matters but was not
able to charge a fee. Many people paid him in kind. At the end of 1920 the
DeBeers diamond company bought a large tract of land, some 1250 acres in the
Barkley Bridge area as a contribution to and support of the Settlement scheme
rather than a business enterprise. Humphrey handled the legal side of the
transaction and they rewarded him with a trip to Kimberley and a grand tour of
the mines. He never took payment for his services.
During
1921 the Sundays River Settlements Company started running into financial
difficulties to an extent due to insufficient capital from the start. Both
Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit had spoken enthusiastically about helping finance
settlement schemes involving young men from England, by using large sums of
money controlled by them in their capacity as Life Governors of DeBeers diamond
mines. But neither Rhodes who died in 1902 nor Beit who died in 1906 left any
instruction to their trustees to assist such schemes. Had Rhodes lived longer,
he would have been in his late sixties by the time the Settlement company was
formed, and one wonders, to what extent he would have helped the scheme, given
his interest in immigration, and his access to vast sums of money. Beit’s
partner in the Corner House, Julius Wernher, also a Life Governor of DeBeers,
used some of these funds to assist Sir Percy in his personal capacity in
recognition of his political successes, but he died in 1912 before the
Settlement Scheme was mooted. He had a very high regard for Sir Percy, and
might well have assisted financially. Drought and delays in the construction of
Lake Mentz further exacerbated the financial situation, with settlers unable to
meet their commitments to the Company. In March 1921 Col. Deneys Reitz,
Minister of Lands in the Cape Parliament, visited Addo settlement scheme.
Humphrey took him on a tour of inspection, and tried to impress on him the need
for the Land Bank to recognize the irrigation potential of the Valley and give
assistance to farmers.
In
late 1921 another crisis occurred. General J.J. Byron had been appointed
Managing Director of the company the year before. He appeared to be a wise
choice, but it proved to be a disastrous move. He soon fell out of favour with
the settlers, who found him autocratic and without sympathy or understanding.
They did not need somebody barking orders at them. Then Byron, at a board
meeting of co-directors, at which Sir Percy was absent, tried, in accordance
with the Clause of Article of Association which disqualified directors who were
continually absent form meetings, to attempt a coup d’etat. This would have
ousted Sir Percy from him position of President of the company. The attempt
failed and Byron was summarily dismissed on 29th December 1921, but
he sued the company for wrongful dismissal and loss of salary. This matter
finally went before the Supreme Court in Grahamstown in 1923, and despite
Humphrey’s heroic efforts on behalf of the company, the verdict went against it
and Byron was awarded a large sum of money with costs. He was a Member of
Parliament at the time, and the resulting adverse publicity did much to
discredit the company, which went into liquidation toward the end of 1923. The
Sundays River Settlements Bill was passed by Parliament in 1925, whereby the
government was authorized to take over the assets of the company from the
liquidators. Humphrey retired to his farm “Hern” in the Selborne district.
The
Osmond’s had four daughters and a son Peter, born on 18th February
1921. Sir Percy, a regular visitor to Hern on his way from Amanzi to M’fuleni
farm, his Dunbrody property, brought Humphrey an Oak seedling to plant in the
front garden of Hern to mark the birth of his son. This seedling has grown into
one of the biggest Oak trees in the Valley. Peter Osmond was a year older than
Peter Bunton was and a year younger than his brother John Bunton. They spent
their school holidays riding their horses between Elim farm and Hern and
getting up to the usual schoolboy mischief. The two Peters went to St Andrew’s
Prep school together in 1931, where Peter Osmond, a strapping youngster, was
nicknamed “Bull” because of his rambunctious play on the rugby field. They went
to St Andrew’s College in 1935, Peter Osmond to Mullins House. They both did
well academically and on the sports field. Peter Bunton has the warmest
memories of Humphrey and Mabel Osmond, who he regarded as wonderful people. He
treasures the close association he had with the family. He tells of Humphrey’s
great love of horses, how well he cared for them, and how his whole citrus crop
was taken to the Co-op by horse-drawn trolleys. Humphrey had a D2 caterpillar
tractor on the farm for heavy work such as discing, leveling and banking, but
as much work as possible was done by his horses. In those days fertilizer did
not come in a plastic bag, they were not even invented, and most of the farmers
had manure pits – a long excavation with sloping ends, covered by some sort of
roof, and filled with bedding such as weeds, old straw etc. There were
haystacks on either side for the feed. The horses lived in these pits in warmth
and comfort, the bedding well trampled, and the accumulated manure dug out from
time to time with pitchforks and carted into the orchards. Humphrey’s horses
were always kept in excellent condition. All the farm gates were attractively
made of bamboo cut from a clump on the farm, with a high-end pole attached to
the gatepost and a wire slanting down to the outer end of the gate to hold it
off the ground. Being fair complexioned, Humphrey always wore a solar-topi, or sun
helmet during the summer, which he would remove and tuck under his arm whenever
he walked in the shade. One of his old farm workers, called Lion, told me that
because of this habit he was given the Xhosa name, which meant “he who walks
with his hat under his arm.”
Humphrey
always was a great optimist and worked exceedingly hard on his farm. The soil
was heavy and the present deep-ploughing facility would have made things much
easier for him. His aim in life at this time was to make Hern a productive farm
for his son Peter, whom he adored. He was able to increase his acreage by
acquiring an adjoining property owned by Jimmy Wright, as well as another
property nearby. When his son Peter, a major in the British Army with a
Military Cross decoration at the very young age of 24 was killed in action in
Italy in 1944 his purpose in life received a mortal blow and the Osmond family
was devastated. Their daughter Sita Palmer tells of the wonderful comfort Peter
Bunton was to Humphrey and Mabel at this time. He and their Peter had been very
close, growing up together. Peter Bunton suffered his own personal loss when
his brother John was killed, and then his friend Peter Osmond. These tragedies
drew him even closer to the Osmond family and he was a great comfort and
companion to Humphrey and Mabel in their old age. Some years after Humphrey
sold his farm and retired to a house in Port Elizabeth. He died in 1953. An
honest, intelligent and dignified gentleman, Humphrey was greatly respected by
all who knew him.
Peter
Osmond left school as World War II started at the end of 1939. He was with the
3rd South African Armoured Car division in Abyssinia and the Western
Desert in North Africa. He was promoted to Captain at the age of 22 and was
prominent in the relief of Tobruk in 1941. He was mentioned in dispatches.
Later, after a month’s home leave he was seconded to the British Army, the
Imperial Army Recce Regiment. He was promoted to major. He was severely wounded
at Gemmono in Northern Italy and died on 7th September 1944. His
colonel wrote that he was the finest soldier he had met in all his years of
soldiering. Peter Bunton believes that many facets of Valley life would have
been enriched had he returned to the farm after the war. He would no doubt have
become a keen Polo player with his well-schooled string of ponies kept in
excellent condition with the help of his father Humphrey’s long experience with
horses.
By
Johnny Briggs
September
2000
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