Fort Beaufort, St Johns Anglican Church

Geography and politics.  Both play important roles in economics. To illustrate the obvious, the town of Fort Beaufort was established for this very reason.  Dutch speaking farmers of the late 1700's spent much effort moving away from the impositions of the "Company".  Finding good grazing lands was not always easy and for this reason they ventured further and further away from centres of administration and jurisdiction.


In moving away from the Cape, the dryness of the great Karoo generally forced the trek boers to seek land in the Eastern Cape.  At more or less the same time, in the area we now know as Natal, political machinations of a Zulu nature were afoot.  Waves of tribesmen were to be found fleeing in all directions.  Inevitably the trek boers were to meet the black pastoralists, who too were looking for land.

Meanwhile and in Europe, France was inching towards republicanism.  America had broken from England and the "Company" was in decline.  Fearing French supremacy in the Indies, England started to find value in the Cape.  By the early 1800's the Cape was in English hands and the trek boers were obliged to report to a new administration.

It did not take the English very long to recognize the intractable problems brewing between Boer and Bantu on the Eastern Frontier.  In one of many efforts to solve the dilemma, Lord Charles Somerset introduced the idea of immigration.  In 1820 his plans bore fruit and in that year roughly 4000 English aspirant farmers were disembarked at Algoa Bay.

The town of Fort Beaufort was named in honour of Lord Charles' father, the Earl of Beaufort.  This was a garrison town, established to protect the interests of Boer and Brit alike.  The Anglican church was built for worship and like it's name sake in Wynberg, it too served the military establishment.