The Bourchier and Bowker Pages

Discovering the ancestry of the South African Bowkers, and the English Bourchiers

Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa



 

Notes:
When it was visited by James Backhouse in December 1838 he wrote the following:



“On approaching Grahams Town, we were struck with the uninviting appearance of its site, which is in a naked country, at the foot of a low, rocky, sandstone ridge … The present town consists of a few streets, one of which is spacious, and serves as a market-place.

The streets are regularly laid out; and the houses are neat, and white, or yellow. The inhabitants are about 4,000, almost exclusively English. There are places of worship belonging to the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Independents. Adjacent to the town there are kraals or villages of Fingoes and Khoikhoi.”

Thomas Baines visited the town in March 1848 and reported that: “… we entered the town by New Street which seemed, by far, more prolific of canteens and … retail stores, than of private dwellings … (Graham’s Town) contained at the time of my arrival a population of six thousand persons, of whom one-fourth were coloured, and houses to the number of seven hundred and fifty. Its principal streets cross each other at right angles, and at their point of intersection is placed the English Church, a plain Gothic building…”

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Latitude: -33.3117, Longitude: 26.5318



Birth

Matches 1 to 4 of 4

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Birth    Person ID 
1 Bowker, Bourchier  Abt Feb 1845Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1467
2 Bowker, Captain David Bourchier   I1473
3 Bowker, Thomas Bourchier Hon. Dr. LLB., M.P.  28 Sep 1889Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1469
4 Stirk, Ethel Patricia Southey  20 Aug 1927Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1471

Death

Matches 1 to 4 of 4

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Death    Person ID 
1 Atherstone, John Frederick Korsten  8 May 1894Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1023
2 Barber, Frederick William  2 Jan 1892Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1022
3 Bowker, Bourchier  24 May 1891Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1467
4 Stirk, Ethel Patricia Southey  14 Feb 1993Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa I1471

Marriage

Matches 1 to 2 of 2

   Family    Marriage    Family ID 
1 /   1 Jun 1826Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa F493
2 Bowker / Hallier  19 Apr 1888Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa F635

MARL: Marriage Licence

Matches 1 to 2 of 2

   Family    MARL: Marriage Licence    Family ID 
1 /   2 Mar 1826Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa F493
2 /   1 Jun 1826Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa F493