Dashper X Files #30
"Dashper voyages around the world"
Earnest Edwin Dashper (b: 1871) and his older brother Francis Gilbert Dashper (b: 1862) travelled to South Africa on 21st January, 1897 - a journey of 65 days aboard the Norham Castle ship. They are listed under occupation as 'Prospector', which might indicate they were looking for diamonds or gold. We know that Earnest stayed and settled in South Africa and married Margaret McNair on 4/1/1904 (see Dashper Xfiles #29) but what became of his brother Francis?
Xfiles Update (posted by Peter Taylor from UK on 8/2/2007)
As you may know, Algoa Bay was the original name for the town of Port
Elizabeth. I was a little puzzled as to what sort of prospecting your ancestors
were hoping to do there, because the southern Cape Colony (as it was then),
was never known for precious metal or mineral deposits. The gold rush of
the 1880's and 1890's took place in the Johannesburg and then later, the
Eastern Transvaal areas, 800 and 1000 miles, respectively to the north. That
would have made the ports of Durban, or Delagoa Bay (now Maputo, Mozambique)
more logical destination ports. The rush for diamonds, at about the same
time, at Kimberley, was in the Northern Cape Colony, about 700 miles to the
north.
The only gold mine that I know of that was in the southern Cape Colony was near a town called Knysna, roughly half way along the coast between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. This mine was unsuccessful, and was soon abandoned.