How Thornhill got its name
A RATHER large area of land along the R67 (Port Alfred side), known to all as Thornhill, has its roots way back in 1820.
English settler Christopher Thornhill was made head of a party of his own, comprising 16 men, including two of his nephews, Adam Gilfillan and Philip Camm.
His labourers signed an agreement similar to Wait’s, binding them to six years of service at a daily wage equivalent to the value of half a bushel of wheat.
Working hours were to be from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, and each man would be entitled to “a suitable habitation” and half an acre of garden ground.
Three of Thornhill’s party deserted before the Zoroaster sailed, but a late replacement, William Stokes, boarded the ship while she was detained in the Downs awaiting a favourable wind.
The Zoroaster left the Downs on February 12 1820, and reached Simon’s Bay on April 30. Here her charter terminated, and the settlers were transhipped to the Albury for the voyage to Algoa Bay, which they reached on May 15.
Thornhill was granted a plot of land at Algoa Bay for the erection of a prefabricated wooden house, which he had brought with him, as its size made it difficult to transport to his location in Albany.
Thornhill’s party, described by one of the colonial officials as “the best regulated of any yet landed here”, was located between the Kowie and Rufane Rivers, and the location was named Thornhill.
Lieutenant William Gilfillan (half-pay, late 60th Regiment), a brother of Adam Gilfillan (nephew of Christopher Thornhill), also lived at Thornhill after his marriage to Christopher Thornhill’s daughter Ann.
William Gilfillan did not, as is popularly supposed, emigrate with Thornhill’s party; he landed in Cape Town from the Importer brig in March 1820, and applied for a grant of land by virtue of his seven years’ army service at the Cape.
(The Lower Albany Chronicles – Part 1)