Nicolaas Franciscus Thirion, SV/PROG

Nicolaas Franciscus THIRION 1, 2 was born 3 in 1768 in France. He died 4 on 07/11/1835 in '24 Riviere', Worcester, Cape, South Africa. He married 5 Maria Magdalena Johanna LIEBENBERG on 06/05/1810 in Cape, South Africa.

The first Thirion to come to South Africa was a French Lieutenant on one of two French ships that was in Table Bay (Cape Town) during the Battle of Blaauwberg. That was when the British occupied the Cape Colony for the second time. The gunners and marines on the two ships fought in the side of the Dutch.

One of the French ships was the Napoleon, a French privateer, who was damaged in a skirmish with the vanguard of Genl Baird's fleet, on their way to occupy the Cape colony. She fled to Table Bay, and contributed troops to Genl Janssens, the Dutch commander. When the British attacked on 8 January 1806, the Waldeckers, a German-Hungarian Battalion of mercenaries and the 22nd Infantry Battalion fled. That left a gap in the middle of the Dutch line. The French were on both sides of the gap, and had to fill it. They bore the brunt of the British attack, and lost 110 men, before they had to withdraw with the rest of the Dutch force.

Lieutenant Nicolaas Franciscus Thirion fell sick during the battle, and had to stay behind when the British sent the Dutch and French soldiers back. He thereafter applied to stay on in the Cape Colony. At some stage he fell in love with the daughter of a farmer of German descent, with the surname of Liebenberg. That is where the family name Christiaan Rudolf Jacobus came from. He came from Saargemund, today Sarreguemines in France. He married Maria Magdalena Liebenberg on 6 May 1810 in Swartland, today Malmesbury.
---
Possible baptism