FORT FREDERICK PE; GRAHAMSTOWN MILITARY HEADQUARTERS; FORT ENGLAND AND LOMBARDS POST.

FORT FREDERICK; GRAHAMSTOWN AND FRONTIER WARS


Below is some history of the Frontier wars.  Grahamstown  is known as Frontier  Country.  It is also known as the  "City of Saints".   This is nothing to do with the Godly Nature of the citizens.  Early in the 1800's the workmen required tools and submitted a request to their  headquarters.  The response came back that they should purchase tools locally.  To this the reply from the workmen was that "There is no Vice  in Grahamstown"  and hence the title "City of Saints"

Grahamstown forts posts and signal stations THE FRONTIER FORTS,  POSTS AND SIGNAL STATIONS Fort Frederick, Port Elizabeth FORT FREDERICK – Algoa Bay The advantages of Algoa Bay as landing place for the defence of the country up to Graaff-Reinet was realised during the first British Occupation.  In the immense frontier district of Graaff-Reinet that had been established by the Dutch in 1786, the burghers were beginning to exercise that freedom of speech and independence of action which had been spread by the ideals of the French Revolution.  The Black tribes,  pushed southwards by aggressive Zulu impis, had found a sparsely populated land with occasional herds of sleek cattle and flocks of lazy sheep, unprotected by any communal kraals, in fact wealth and inyama spread out for the taking. The English arriving in 1795, inherited both the incipient rebellion of the Graaff-Reinet burghers and the warlike raids of a strange Black land-hungry people. The Blockhouse.  Major-General Francis Dundas, Acting-Governor of the Cape, placed General Vandeleur in command of 200 dragoons and disciplined Hottentots with orders to establish a military post at Algoa Bay.  A prefabricated wooden blockhouse was built in Cape Town and sent round in pieces on board the Camel to Algoa Bay where it arrived in August 1799 with artificers to erect it.  It was placed near the beach so as to command both the fort over the Baakens River and the landing place on the shore.  It was capable of housing sixty men and was armed with two three-pounders mounted on a flat square roof. The Fort.  On the hill behind the blockhouse, a second blockhouse was erected surrounded by a massive, square stone redoubt.  This was named Fort Frederick in honour of the Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.  It is said that this was the first piece of ‘substantial and permanent building ever erected in the Eastern Province’ and it is still in existence today. The Fort commands a fine view of the whole of Algoa Bay.  Its walls are eighty feet long and nine feet high, the wide arched entrance with double gate being situated on the western side.  Inside the fort was a powder magazine capable of holding 2,000 lbs of gunpowder and to the left of the entrance was a small guardhouse.  Inside the wall was a raised platform for patrol duty and defence.  The heavy armament consisted of eight twelve-pounders and the full complement of the garrison was 350 men, most of whom were housed in barracks near the fort and the first blockhouse. The Batavian Government.  In 1803, the Batavian Government took over the Cape by treaty from the British and in 1804, the new district of Uitenhage was created.  And so the development of a civilian centre around Fort Frederick was for a time delayed although it apparently remained the military headquarters. The Second British Occupation.  This took place in 1806 when Britain’s line of communication with the Far East was being threatened by the ambitious plans of the new French regime and the decline of the Batavian Government. MILITARY HEADQUARTERS AT GRAHAMSTOWN The Fish River Frontier, as seen from a loophole in the gun tower, Trompetter’s Drift. By 1811, a large body of Xhosa had crossed the Fish River, plundering and burning the homes of the farmers who had retreated to Uitenhage and Algoa Bay with their families and cattle.  In October, Sir John Cradock, the Governor, appointed Col. John Graham to clear the frontier.  This he accomplished by March 1812 and established military headquarters nearer the Fish River. The site he chose was De Rietfontein, a loan farm formerly occupied by Lucas Meyer.  In august, 1812 the Governor decreed that it should also become the seat of the Deputy-Landdrost of Uitenhage and should be called Graham’s Town in testimony of Col. Graham’s achievements.  The East Barracks, built to accommodate the Cape Regiment, were later extended and in 1835 re-named Fort England after Col. Richard England the commanding officer at the time. Fort England, GrahamstownThe First Frontier Posts.  Col. Graham instituted a series of posts from which patrols could guard the drifts across the Fish River.  They were first manned by burghers from George and Swellendam, one of the three commandants being Piet Retief.  These posts were either rehabilitated farmhouses of wattle-and-daub or stone built shelters enclosed by primitive earthen redoubts.  Van Aardt’s Post, near the present Longhope siding, was the furthest north and was the recognised crossing place for communication between White and Black.  Three other posts were the abandoned farm of Conraad Buys; Kranz Drift near the present Pigot Bridge; and Old Kaffir Drift Post which was later called Cawood’s Post.  This was about an hour’s ride from Upper Kaffir Drift Post, established about two year’s later on the heights overlooking the actual drift, and is not to be confused with Lower Kaffir Drift about 3km further down the Fish River and about 13km from the mouth. Lombard’s Post, buildings and walls forming a hexagonal farmyard. Lombard’s  Post. Col. Graham recommended that two additional posts be established.  One was to be at Noutoe, a farm 13km west of Graham’s

Town, formerly belonging to the de Lange family and situated on the road between Bruintjies Hooghte and Uitenhage.  It was soon abandoned and the site later developed as Table Farm by the 1820 Settler Major T.C. White.
The other post was established on the loan place of Commandant Piet Lombard, about 48km west of Fish River Mouth.   A few kilometres south-west of it Theopolis, a London Mission Station for Hottentots, was founded in 1814.  Lombard’s Post was a key point in border raids and frontier wars, particularly later on when the area was taken over by settler Benjamin Keeton.  In 1835 he erected a fortified farm house close to the site of the old post.  The stone buildings of the farm, now called Lombard’s Post, were placed so as to enclose a spacious hexagonal farmyard and the outer walls were loopholed.
During the war of 1850-51 Lombard’s Post saw its last action; Whittles laager was formed near it and the farm buildings were filled with refugees.  From it also a patrol was sent out to quell the rebel Hottentots at Theopolis.