1820 Settler Departed 13 Jan 1820 Liverpool, Lancashire, England George Smith's party on the "Stentor"

Description: in Military Action, 8th Frontier War (1850 - 1853) [War of Mlanjeni]

Married Mary; "George Wedderburn prospered and Lindale became famous for its cheese and butter. But a few years later he had his skull crushed by a 'kaffir' with the butt of a musket and died 8 months later.

(Information obtained from Mr. Amm in Cape Town; "From Assegai Over the Hills" by F.C. Metrowich)

"Died, at the residence of his Brother in Graham's Town, on the 17th instant, [9.1851] Mr. George Wedderburn, aged 42 years, after lingering in great suffering for eight months from the effects of severe wounds received in a conflict with Kaffirs a short distance from Salem. Deceased bore his acute and protracted sufferings with the patience and hope of the Christian. He has left a wife and family of young children to deplore their irreparable loss." -------------------- George Wedderburn was known as a “doughty and fearless frontier fighter”, and showed “conspicuous dash and daring in the 1846 Frontier War”. He was seriously injured in 1851 (fully described in Metrowich’s book “Frontier Flames”) when taking four Xhosas suspected of being spies from Seven Fountains to Salem. The four guards, including George, stopped for a smoke break (although George was a non-smoker!) and with their “trusty double barrelled muzzle-loaders across their saddle bows” they were taken unawares by the prisoners who had had their bonds loosened. George’s horse threw him in the confusion, but he kept his gun, and shot one of the assailants, only to be hit on the head by another with the stock of a gun. He was taken to Salem, but never fully recovered. He died on 26 September 1851, and was buried in the old cemetery at Grahamstown. These early Wedderburns were keen Freemasons in Grahamstown. George’s only son James Hamilton Wedderburn, who, lost his inheritance of the farm Lindale, actually received payment in the form of a present from his mother, with which he purchased two span of oxen. The Amms purchased the farm from George’s widow sometime between 1861-1871...