Captain Benjamin Moodie (1789 - 2 April 1856) was the 10th

Laird Laird () is a Scottish word for minor lord (or landlord) and is a designation that applies to an owner of a large, long-established Scotland, Scottish estate. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a Baronage of ...

of Melsetter who led a party of 200 Scottish immigrants to the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

in 1817, three years before the arrival of the

1820 Settlers The 1820 Settlers were several groups of British colonists from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, settled by the government of the United Kingdom and the Cape Colony authorities in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1820. Origins After th ...

. Moodie served in the Ross and Caithness Militia and returned from the

Napoleonic wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

in 1815 as a

half-pay Half-pay (h.p.) was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service. Past usage United Kingdom In the E ...

officer, and was forced to sell the heavily indebted family estate in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

. In 1817 he led a party of indentured Scottish artisans to settle in the Cape Colony. The first party arrived in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

on 14 June 1817 on the ship ''Brilliant'', followed by a further 50 on the ''Garland'' on 23 August 1817, and a third party on the ''Clyde'' on 24 September 1817. Among the party was

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...

, who became an explorer and big-game hunter, and his brother Donald Moodie. A second brother,

John Moodie John Moodie, Jr. (1859 in Hamilton, Canada West – 8 August, 1944) was a Canadian textile manufacturer, executive, and hobbyist. In 1903, Moodie was founder of the Hamilton Automobile Club (now CAA South Central Ontario), the first organizat ...

, joined him in South Africa in 1819. Benjamin Moodie settled on the farm Groot Vaders Bosch near

Swellendam Swellendam () is the third oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch), a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them buildings of Cape D ...

and later at White Sands, now known as

Witsand Witsand, located in the Western Cape of South Africa, is a small coastal town at the mouth of the Breede River estuary. Often referred to as the Whale Nursery of South Africa, the town attracts a remarkable number of southern right whales between ...

, at the mouth of the

Breede River The Breede River (), also known as Breë River, is a river in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Travelling inland north from the city of Cape Town, the river runs in a west to east direction. The surrounding western mountains formed th ...

. After his wife Margaret died in 1838, he returned to Britain where he married Susan Barnett, returning to the Cape in 1841 with 21 orphan children. In 1892, Benjamin Moodie's grandson Thomas Moodie led a party of mostly Afrikaner farmers to settle in

Rhodesia Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...

, where they established the town of

Melsetter Chimanimani, originally known as Melsetter, is a town in Zimbabwe. Location Chimanimani is a village located in Manicaland Province, in south-eastern Zimbabwe, close to the border with Mozambique. The village lies about , by road, south of Mu ...

, named after the Moodie ancestral home in the Orkney Islands.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moodie, Benjamin Scottish emigrants to South Africa 1789 births 1856 deaths