|
 While Somerset was in England in 1820, Sir Rufane Donkin slashed his
extravagant expenditure. He cut the maintenance on the Governor’s
houses including that of the Round House. He ordered back to barracks
the soldiers Somerset employed for maintenance at Newlands House,
Groote Post and the Round House. He complained about Somerset’s
system of espionage. But worse still, he threatened to whip Somerset’s son,
Henry, who had been superseded as deputy assistant landdrost of
Grahamstown.53 When Lord Charles returned, he was so angry that he
refused to speak to Donkin. Out of spite he did not even send on to
Donkin Lord Bathurst’s written appreciation for his good services - it took
five years to reach Donkin.54 Needless to say, it did not take him long to
undo Donkin’s budgetary cuts,55 especially as he had brought back a new
bride, Lady Mary.
Lady Charles Somerset’s doctor had advised sea air, and indeed Lord
Charles found that at Camps Bay “her health received so much benefit
from her residence there that I was induced to make many improvements
at my own private expense.” That was an unusual gesture on the part of
the extravagant Lord Charles. He put up so many shooting boxes and
other buildings in the Cape for his own benefit that he was reprimanded
by Whitehall. He used the excuse of fierce storms in 1822 to embark on
thorough renovations of his home in Camps Bay. Somerset called them
unavoidable repairs, without defining what these unavoidable repairs
were or how much was at his own ‘private expense’. These repairs drawn
up by Jones involved turning a dilapidated farmhouse into an elegant
Regency villa.56 The roof was rethatched, floors and ceilings of stinkwood
were installed as well as five fireplaces of Robben Island stone and one of
marble, two bathrooms were added and all the seafacing rooms were given
French windows. A verandah ran on three sides of the main wing with
French casements and Venetian louvred shutters to protect the rooms
from the heat of the afternoon sun. Outside the house, slate paving was
laid with kerbed paths; dormer windows were placed at the back for the
servants’ accommodation on the upper level.
Somerset had so much faith in the beneficial effects of Camps Bay that
he wrote to Commissioner J. Bigge in 1824 offering him the use of his
Camps Bay cottage saying that he was sure that the sea air would help heal
Mr Bigge’s left leg which had been injured in a fall from horseback.
 Somerset felt great empathy for Bigge because his own leg had almost
required amputation after a similar fall in Ireland in 1795.
In this house his daughter was born on 21 April 1824.
Lord Charles described the happy event in a letter:58
“Lady Charles... had been about a fortnight at Camps Bay for a change
of air and Georgina and myself had returned to Newlands on Tuesday
evening. Soon after that night an express came to inform me of Lady
Charles being ill. I set off as quick as I could and had the satisfaction to
find all just well over before I got there. The little lady had come into
this strange world nearly five weeks before the appointed time - but both
mother and daughter are now quite well.
Their doctor was a close friend and was credited with saving the life of
one of Somerset’s daughters. An assistant surgeon, Major Barry was short
and red haired with a shrill voice and an argumentative temperament.
Somerset regarded Barry as ‘a prodigy’ and ‘most excellent.’ Their
relationship was questioned in a verse and a poster nailed to a pole on the
Parade in June 1824 that stated that they had been seen embracing. One
rumour was that Somerset himself had employed Oliver the Spy to put up
the poster although it was probably put up by Mr Bishop Burnett of
Grahamstown, an implacable enemy. 59This led to much scandal in the small
community. Lord Charles was whitewashed and exonerated. Dr Barry later
left the Cape becoming a Surgeon-Major and finally Inspector-General of
the British Army Medical Corps. The friendship continued even after Somerset’s return to England. When Dr James Barry learnt that Somerset
was ill, Barry left Mauritius without leave to attend to him in England,
telling the authorities that “I have come home to have my hair cut,” and
stayed there until Somerset’s death.60 After Barry’s death, the doctor was
discovered to have been a woman.
Somerset visited Camps Bay frequently, enjoying the facilities he had
provided for himself there. The undeveloped country in Camps Bay
was full of game and Somerset killed lion and leopard as well
as buck in his sorties from the Round House. Dr Barry
often visited the Round House and took part in these
shoots. A track which was lined with oaks, some of
which remain today, led from the shooting box, the
Round House, to his home, Marine Villa.
The Governor’s beach began to attract
sightseers and picnickers who in the absence of
places of refreshment, would bring along their
own, causing the Colonial Office in 1824 to
prohibit ‘disorderly persons’ from assembling on
the beach. The presence in Camps Bay of the new
baby was probably the reason for this ban, but
apart from a few disorderly midsummer revellers,
access to Camps Bay was so difficult that few
travellers took the trouble to picnic or frolic. When
the British Parliament received reports about problems
of race relations in the colony, a Commission of Inquiry
was sent out in 1823 to investigate. Among the charges they
had to investigate was one of corruption made against Somerset,
who chose to receive them in the less ostentatious Round House. The
complaints levied against him were an indictment of his unpopularity and
extravagance rather than of actual corruption and he was cleared of the
charges. Luxury villas
and apartments in Camps Bay
Somerset became more and more dictatorial and unpopular and things
did not improve when the colonists blamed him when London devalued
the rixdollar. Devaluation “was such a shock for the town’s richest
burgher... that he suffered an attack of acute enteritis.”61 By the time
Somerset returned to England in 1826 to defend himself, the Colony was
suffering from a bad depression as a result of droughts, depreciation,
reduced revenues and bankruptcies.
The British Government decided to sell off the former governor’s
luxurious seaside cottage. It was not suited as a summer residence for a
Governor they decided. The Colonial Secretary reported that Camps Bay
was too windy, it was too out of the way, it was too inconvenient for
visitors, the road there was too narrow and dangerous and as it was cut
out of the side of the mountain, it would be far too expensive to repair and
maintain. All these were valid objections that for a long time to come were
to hinder the development of this area.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced without the prior written consent
of both the publisher and Holiday Rentals in Cape Town
|
