A BRIEF
HISTORY OF THE THESEN
FAMILY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH
KNYSNA AND THE SURROUNDING DISTRICT
The
surname Thesen will be familiar
to many older readers through an association with S.S.Agnar, a passenger and cargo-carrying
steamship which belonged to the Thesen steamship Company and which plied
between Knysna and
Other readers may be more familiar with the name
through the romantic history of the 117-ton two-masted schooner Albatros owned by the
Thesen family and which brought them to
South Africa from Norway in 1869, while some may remember the yacht Albatros II, the Thesen
family centenary entry and winner of the first Cape to Rio Race in 1971.
For
many generations before coming to
Church
records of parish farms, many of which were eventually sold to private owners
are fairly elaborate and “Thesen”
is no exception. The farm was situated on the western side of the River Vormen and was considered to be one of the
best agricultural farms in the district comprising 104 acres of cultivated
land, 106 of grazing, as well as 140 of forest, giving a total of three hundred
and fifty acres in all.
In
the year 1657 the basis for taxation for the farm by the Church was:
six horses, thirty-two head of cattle,
eighteen sheep and four pigs. In 1665 the tithe required was: thirty-two and a
half barrels of mixed grain, and sixty-two and a half barrels of oats.
In
about 1657 private ownership of the farm began together with an association
with the military in that it was providing horses for the cavalry section of
the armed forces. Records for that year also show that the agricultural ground was planted with half a
barrel of wheat, four barrels of barley, one barrel of peas, a quarter of a
barrel of flax, one barrel of rye, thirty barrels of oats and twelve of
potatoes.
Like
other farms in this area “Thesvin” is
very old and may well have been cleared at about the time of the birth of
Christ. There are two grave mounds on the farm both situated on the outskirts
of the home fields, one is about twelve metres in diameter and two metres high
and the second, slightly smaller, about ten metres in diameter and one and a
half metres high. An axe-head of stone with a hole for its wooden handle was
found near these grave sites.
In
1795 a large land-slide is recorded which took a part of the property with it
into the
According
to official records a merchant-shipping firm styled
“A.L.
Thesen and Co.” commenced trading in
The
firm’s expansion was rapid because of world conditions generally at that time
and shipping was particularly favoured due to the repeal of the English
Navigation Act after the Crimean War. The fishing industry around the Baltic
and the North Sea had also been a rapidly expanding business but following on
these times of prosperity, the year 1864 brought with it a serious recession
and in 1868 the town of Stavanger was faced with a slump which resulted in the
collapse of eleven large firms. Amongst these was the well-established and
important firm of A.L. Thesen and Co.
Apart
from the general recession of 1868 the particular reason for the difficulties
of the firm arose from the fact that the partners had made heavy financial
commitments in grain from the
This final disaster came as a severe
blow to the Thesen brothers whose firm had been an institution in the small
town and who had always played an important role in the commercial and social
life of the region and in 1869, Arnt
Another personal tragedy for Arnt
It seems that Arnt
“British
Vice Consulate,
“
“The
bearer of these presents is Mr. A. L. Thesen who intends with his family to
leave this country in order to settle somewhere else. Mr. Thesen has been the holder of the highly
respectable firm A.L. Thesen and Company which was obliged to suspend business
on account of the unfortunate crisis
that took place in Norway this year and which put so many esteemed and wealthy
firms out of position.”
“As
to Mr. Thesen’s conduct he has always been known as an able and highly
respected gentleman who has been trusted with many confidential charges and was until his
departure one of our Municipal Councillors.”
“For
honourable and honest mode of living he deserves the best recommendation, and one may without
disappointment trust him in any capacity where confidence is required. The
citizens of this town will always feel exceedingly happy to learn of Mr.
Thesen being even as respected and
honoured abroad as he was here and sincerely wish he may succeed.”
“Witness my hand and seal of Office”
“Wilh. S. Hansen”
“Office Seal of British Consul for
At
this point, prior to their departure for
Albatros was a ship with an interesting history.
Built in Baltimore U.S.A. of Burma teak, she had been bought by the Thesen
brothers Arnt and Fredrik, on the recommendation of
Mathias Theodore who had surveyed her in San Francisco in 1850. Mathias had
arrived as second officer of a barque from which the three passengers she had
carried as well as the crew, had departed for the
newly discovered Californian gold fields and accordingly his contract was at an
end. Mathias negotiated a price with the agent of Albatros ashore and arranged for the
necessary payment of approximately ten thousand kroner (plus/minus six hundred pounds sterling).
With most able-bodied men in the town having joined the gold
rush of ‘49, and having obtained a cargo with the assistance of his brothers in
Norway, Mathias crewed her with some difficulty and sailed her to China from
whence, after a period in the Eastern seas, he took her to Norway to become
part of the Thesen fleet engaged in the Baltic trade.
Captain M.T. Thesen, although never a
partner in the firm of A.L. Thesen and
Company had as has been mentioned, captained the Albatros for some years, so it was doubly
fortunate that he was now, as part owner and Master, prepared to emigrate with
his brother and sail her to her proposed destination. With him was his son Hans
who was twenty-six years old and also in possession of a Master Mariner’s
ticket. Arnt
On
(In order to estimate the then value of this cargo, it may
be of interest to note that local yellowwood - the only softwood building
timber available - was selling at approximately 3/6d a cubic foot. So this
quantity of 5940 cubic feet of Baltic Deal would have been worth some one
thousand and forty pounds sterling. This may be compared with the price of a
large brick-built, double-storey house in Knysna which was later to cost the
family six hundred pounds sterling).
She also carried with her some of the more personal and
valuable possessions of the family including household silverware, copper and
brassware and several original oil paintings all obviously from their home in
“Arent
On
the reverse side is the maker’s name
“lsaac Wester
in
The
history of this ornate and well preserved sword bequeathed to Hjalmar Harison
(Harry) Thesen - raises some interesting questions concerning its origin and
apparent importance as there is no record of Arnt
On
the 14th August Albatros set sail again for Plymouth in
England in order to embark Ragnvald
Thesen, (Arnt
It
was the end of August when Albatros finally
left
Unfortunately
the ship’s logbook of the journey has been lost - probably in the fire which
destroyed the original Thesen office block in Knysna - and there are no living
memories of the voyage. However Marie Tose (Thesen ) (now aged eighty-five)
remembered her father, Charles Wilhelm Thesen , telling her of his mother’s
reluctance to continue the voyage from Plymouth into the unknown; the
circumstances surrounding this scene must have been moving enough for a
thirteen year old boy to remember for the rest of his life.
Albatros remained in
It
is difficult from a modern perspective to imagine the discomforts and dangers
of an unbroken voyage of seventy-eight days in a small ship, under the
conditions which pertained at sea over a century and a quarter ago.
For
Arnt
The
family had planned their departure and provisioned the ship as only men and
women of vision could have done. The storms of the
But
the human spirit is resilient and for the children too, all was not doom and
disaster of either grim foreboding, weather, privation
or homesickness. There was in all probability, great excitement to be found in
each succeeding day on the ship itself and the warm, blue, unfamiliar ocean
through which they sailed. Flying fish and a following of sea
birds to be fed; whales, dolphins and the changing moods of the ocean.
Games of tag are not restricted to land, nor are practical jokes and the
adventurous antics of adolescent boys.
Landfall
in
This report appeared in a
“Arrivals
“The following vessel arrived in
Albatros from Norway bound for New Zealand with a
cargo of thirty-six standards containing 36,000 pieces of planks and wood; and
as passengers Mr. and Mrs. Thesen and eleven *children and two servants. The
vessel has put into
(Note:
*children included nine family members and two belonging to members of the
crew.)
On
the 24th November began the second leg of her twelve thousand mile journey to
To
finance the heavy costs of repair and with the co-operation of the owners of
the cargo, the timber was sold in
During
this time the Norwegian Consul and his wife in
Over
the next three months the Albatros under the command of Hans Thesen, the
twenty-six year old son of Mathias Theodore, made numerous trips to Knysna and
other ports and it was partly because of Hans’s favourable reports of Knysna
and the area, that the senior members of the family joined the ship on one of
its voyages to Knysna to make a first-hand inspection of the possibilities
there. As a result of this appraisal, it was decided to reconsider the original
In
this year too, the new firm of Thesen and Company was established and launched
with the trustworthy Albatros acting as its foundation but the
partnership between Arnt
Albatros operating out of Knysna did valuable
work as a cargo carrier until 1874 when she was wrecked near
“Our
beloved Albatros has gone.”
Some
years after the wreck of the Albatros various flotsam relics were
discovered by a member of the family in a cottage in the Bredasdorp district
and these, most importantly, her nameplate are to be seen in the Knysna
Maritime Museum.
Here
follows an interesting first-hand record of the wrecking of the Albatros. It was written by Mrs. M.J. Willis of
Knysna in 1934: (she was ten years old at the time of the disaster.)
“The schooner Albatros
commanded by Captain Knud Thomasen left
the Knysna
Heads on
“Besides the crew, there were on
board as passengers, the Captain’s wife and child, a boy of about ten years and
the same age as myself, and my Mother, Mrs. Brant, my younger sister and
myself. To wile away the tedium of waiting for the ship to cross, old
“After clearing the Heads, the Albatros
proceeded on her voyage. I do not remember how many days we were at sea
but at 2 o’clock one morning we were awakened by a grating noise which sounded
to us like a chain running out and our first thoughts were that we had arrived
in Table Bay and the anchor had been let go. We could see that my Mother was in
distress and asking her what was wrong she told us the ship had struck a rock.
The grating noise ceased proving that it was a sunken wreck the ship had struck
because she slid off again and began to settle. The ship’s position was off
“Immediately the ship struck
confusion seemed to prevail on board, the Captain seemed to have lost his head
and the ship began to fill with water.”
“Mother hurriedly put on some
clothes on we children and some on herself and the last thing before leaving
ran down to the cabin to fetch the money she had with her. Two boats were
launched - a lifeboat and a dinghy - and brandy and food put aboard.”
“The mate, a man named Maynard,
and Timothy Melville, the cook, went in the dinghy, whilst all the rest, ourselves included, went in the lifeboat. The boats pulled
off a good distance and by this time it was daylight when we saw the poor old
ship lurch over on her side. It was said that being loaded with wood she did
not sink but washed ashore on L’Aghullas beach. My
father, Thos. Brant, heard the news of the shipwreck before he knew what had
happened to us. Our boat made for
“The sea was rough and almost the whole of the way
the boat was rowed through kelp. It was not a nice journey. We did not catch
sight of the dinghy until nearing the island which it reached before we did.
The landing on the island was safely accomplished and when ashore we found
there were two fishermen there. We heard that the island was inhabited by four
fishermen but the other two were away on another island collecting guano. We
had to remain on
“The next
day we got a conveyance which took us to the nearest railway station from where
we were able to get to our home in
“During our enforced stay on
Albatros had been carrying a cargo of sawn timber
and manufactured wagon components and while this cargo was well insured, the
ship herself was not.
Perhaps
it was this last disaster which hastened Arnt
brother’s firm in
Upon
the death of his father, Charles Thesen, who had been studying business
procedures while working for a firm of hardware importers in
As
time went by, Charles was to reveal an exceptional talent for leadership and
business, which resulted eventually in his being acknowledged as the head of
the firm. From letters in the old letter press books of the 1890's and early
1900's (now in the Cape Archives) it is
clear that the firm and
C.W. Thesen in particular, had wide ranging
interests and explored every and any avenue in the
hope that one or the other might prove to be of benefit to the area or of
profit to the firm.
These
included attempts to get a newspaper established in Knysna (there was one in
George), encouraging a tailor to set up shop in Knysna (to make C.W. Thesen’s suits!), agricultural
experiments, tree growing, hay making, farming, lignite mining, gold prospecting
at Millwood, insurance and a constant badgering of authorities for better
school equipment, roads, a railway and communications in general. C.W. Thesen
even tried to persuade the management of the dynamite factory to come to Knysna
instead of Somerset West.
From
at least one of these, an interesting scientific record has emerged and which
has only recently come to light and been placed in the appropriate scientific
hands. This is a Whale Census which was carried out by the Pilot (Benn) from
the top of the Eastern Head at the request of Thesens with the future of a
possible whaling industry in view.
On
the strength of this record a paper was published in the South African Journal
of Marine Science entitled:
“Whale observations from the Knysna Heads”
by Doctors
P.B. Best and G.J.B. Ross.”
This
record of whale migrations - numbers and species and whether going east or west
- has aroused considerable interest and will prove a valuable tool in terms of
whale conservation.
However,
Hjalmar Thesen carried considerable responsibility, particularly for the
shipping side of the business as the following letter will show. (This letter,
to Pile and Company of London in 1895, reveals the rather endearing trust and
adventurousness of a fairly large transaction in those times):
“There is a probability of our
requiring a small steamer,” and
reference was made to a drawing
in their catalogues, "she would require to
carry 400 tons deadweight
on 11 feet draught. Hatches of 17 feet 6 inches preferred. They must be able to
take logs up to 45 feet long through one of the hatches, with very powerful
winches to lift the heavy logs, one at least to handle seven tons. A double
derrick, with all the latest appliances for quick despatch
of cargo, is needed and must be able to put logs and wood on deck. The ship
must be very strongly built, for rough coast work, to go alongside wharves and
to work 100 ton lighters in open roadstead. ”
An
enquiry is then made as to whether the after hold could be made into cabins for
engineers and mates, so as to allow space amidships for six to twelve
passengers and for the Captain. He goes on:
“Where is the galley? Could
there be a chart room on top of the cabin? Two masts would be preferred, with gaffs
for sailing when the wind is favourable, also appliances aft for towing.
Engines and boilers must be of the very best, with all the latest improvements
and with spare gear. Speed to be about 9 knots on a very small consumption of
coal and to condense water for all purposes. Altogether she must be a useful
and modern cargo boat, specially designed for economical working with quick despatch and taking water ballast.”
Although such fittings were still novelties in large
ocean liners, Thesen and Company included a significant enquiry:
“What is the extra cost if lighted by
electricity.?”
By
the year 1898 the brothers had appointed an agent in
“Mother was 80 years old a couple
of weeks ago, when the Agnar, the
Norwegian ship Thela, and our firm all had their flags
flying. I can see mother is not so strong, and she gets fainting fits every now
and then.”
She
died at the age of eighty-two in 1900 having led a happy if circumscribed life.
She had grown increasingly deaf, yet all the while cherished by her family.
Pedersen
it seems, would have been personally appointed by
Hjalmar during the acquisition of the steamer Agnar for he says of this ship:
“She
still works well and we try to keep her in good order... will you please get me
the price of a water-heating stove, well packed like the one in your bathroom.”
Albatros’
work was continued by her sister ship, the 100 ton schooner Ambulant and then by the 427 ton and first steel vessel, which was the Agnar. Encouraged by the success of the Agnar, Thesens
acquired the considerably larger Ingerid of
708 tons in 1899. Ingerid was followed by the Clara and in 1913 the Thesen Line was expanded by the acquisition of
the 540 ton Karatara.
On
“We have contracted for building
in
The
name first suggested - typical of the Tzitzikama
country - was the Homtini but in the end she was christened Outeniqua. Her actual tonnage was 1019 and she
was the largest vessel of the fleet.
In
1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of World War I, the government under
General Louis Botha commandeered both the Ingerid and the Karatara for use as allied troop transports
into German South West
“Transports are getting nearly 6000
pounds per month, yet going
with half cargoes. If this is so, we are getting too little for
our ships and ought to ask 50 pounds per day for Outeniqua.”
Regular
and reliable operations were further stimulated by World War One and in 1916 a
special subsidiary “The Thesen’s
Steamship Company Limited” was established with a capital of one hundred
thousand pounds. The pride of the Thesen fleet was the big coaster Outeniqua. In 1921 when the well-known
“Houston Line” of
In
1925 as though loath to lose all contact with the sea - C.W. Thesen bought the elegant 1481 ton steam yacht, Sherard 0sborne and this ship was a popular attraction lying at anchor in
the Knysna lagoon just off the Brenton shore. She
was one of C.W. Thesen’s
few personal indulgences and he had hoped to take his family on a long pleasure
cruise to the northern hemisphere. The trip never eventuated, because - it was
said - most of his sons and daughters were at that time in the process of
making marriage or engagement plans and were not to be tempted away. Her
brightly lit teak decks with mahogany and brass surrounds made a fine dance
floor for the family and their friends.
Heavily
modified, Sherard Osborne ended her career as a floating fish meal factory off the
South African west coast. This venture, the first of its kind and poised for
brilliant success at the very beginning of the great cold water, purse-seining
boom, was never profitable due to bad management which resulted in a series of
accidents.
The
whole project it was said was a vision ahead of its time and instead of leading
the extensive pelagic fishing industry which followed, the experiment ended in
failure.
Also
into the realms of history go the three masted schooner
Lars Rundsdahl of the “Sandwich Island Bird Guano” enterprise, as well as
other pioneering exploits such as the “Paarl Roller Flour Mills”, the “Amalgamated Motors” and “Muizenburg Marine
Estates”.
As
much of the story of the firm of Thesen and Company with its subsidiary
manufacturing branches, sawmilling, pine plantation and forestry interests, is
well known and recorded, it is only worth noting that at this time of writing
(one hundred and twenty eight years later) the Company still exists under the
same name, on its historic Thesen Island although ownership has now passed out
of the hands of the family.
At
the time of the sale of Thesen shares - all family held – to Barlow Rand in
1974, the Company owned five thousand hectares of Radiata Pine which was then the largest block of this species in the
country. Thesens had been the pioneers in establishing this Californian
softwood in
With
“The new wharf is nearly finished and through the
courtesy of Sid Bramley, superintendent of Public Works here, we have lately
been allowed to make use of the jetty and tramway and have found it to be a
great improvement on the old way of handling shipping.”
In
the early 192O’s, C.W. Thesen was joined first by his sons
C.W.
Thesen’s driver then returned with the carriage to Knysna.
In
1924 Thesen and Company’s Brackenhill sawmill and wagon
component manufacturing works were moved to
The
government wharf and causeway to it - over the Ashmead
channel - were completed in 1883 and before that time, sailing vessels tied up
and landed cargoes and passengers where the yacht club now stands. Albatros would have made use of this jetty.
Contrary
to popular belief neither the Ashmead channel nor the
Green Hole creek were used as alternative routes to the jetty before the
causeway was built. While the entire length of the navigable lagoon was sounded
for depth and accurately charted, depths for the Ashmead
channel ended from either entrance at five feet and were not considered worth
recording in the shallow centre. No soundings were recorded beyond the entrance
to the Green Hole bay.
The twenty-two mile long “South Western Railway” from
Deepwalls to Knysna was
begun in 1904 and completed in 1907. The little train was known affectionately
by the locals as the “The Coffee Pot”. C.W. Thesen was its Chairman for a period of thirty-five
years. (The first official record of the assets of this
Company - disbanded in 1947 - was: one horse, one saddle, one bridle, value
twenty-five pounds!)
During
World War Two the British Admiralty negotiated with Thesens for the assembly
and manufacture of a variety of wooden life boats and other craft including the
famous, small wooden Fairmile warships. To this end and as part of
its war effort, the firm closed down its widely known Stinkwood furniture
manufacturing department and released the skilled artisans employed there for
this boatbuilding work. The operation ceased with the end of hostilities but the after-effects of
the yard with its craftsmen remained, resulting in the continued building by Thesens of large wooden
fishing craft, yachts and motor launches. Apart from the petrol-driven,
depth-charge carrying Fairmiles which fought on the Burmese coast
against the Japanese, the well-known yachts
Voortrekker and
Albatros II both came from this yard.
Most
of these expert woodworkers were the product of a
Although
the majority of the children who took part in the Albatros
adventure of 1869 died without
heirs, there is now a fifth generation with the surname Thesen
in
Starting
with the eldest, there was Hans, [he married Alida
Berg and had nine children] who together with his cousin Niels
Hjalmar,
long thought to be a firm bachelor married late in life, soon after his mother died.
His wife was Katrine Holst, a girl whom he had
presumably met in
Rolf
married Amy Georgina Duthie, daughter of Captain
Thomas Henry Duthie of
Of
the girls, only Blanca, the great beauty, married. Her husband was Francis
William Reitz, Chief Justice and later to become President of the
Sigurd, the youngest of the members had four children by Catherine
Nixon and all of these families still flourish.
Most
prolific of the clan however was Charles Wilhelm Thesen, the thirteen year old family member who had ten children by
his first wife and three by his second. He had in all, twenty-seven
grandchildren.
As
well as the numerous first cousins from the progeny of C.W. Thesen’s six sons
(three of whom had no children) there are those from the families of his five daughters. These
daughters are:
Louise Thesen, who married Hugh
Ella Thesen, who married Robert Thornely Jones
Kate Thesen, who married Chauncey
Reid
Hildur
Thesen, who married Ted Stent
Marie Thesen, who
married Colin Tose.
Of the three sons who married
and had families, the wives were Edna Gladys Reid who married Harry, Helen
Katherine Mallett who married Eric, and Mary Fleming
Bennie who married Rolf. All of these families have strong
Knysna connections. The annual Christmas tea-party still held on Thesen Hill,
Knysna, attracts on most occasions up to forty first, second and third cousins.
Charles’s
sixth and youngest son was Adolf Frithjof Thesen,
born in 1902 to his second wife, Hannah. He was an attractive personality from
all accounts, blue-eyed, fair-haired and intelligent and fortunate in having,
not only loving parents, but a large family of older and younger brothers and
sisters as well. High spirited and considered out of step with the high
principles of those times, he settled in the Argentine as a young man and died
there at the age of fifty-three.
C.W.
Thesen’s first wife and the mother of his ten children,
Eliza
Bessie Georgiana Harison, was a member of an old English family who had lived
at
Having
tried his hand at farming, he eventually joined the - then fledgling - forestry
department and rose to become the first Chief Conservator of Forests for the
southern region in 1874. Based in Knysna for the last years of his life, it was
not surprising that C.W. Thesen, , with mutual timber
interests, was to meet and eventually marry one of his two daughters.
Captain
Christopher Harison’s fourteen years of dedicated
service to this region left an enduring mark on systematic forest management.
He was the, first
to apply a scientific approach to the
problem of conservation, regeneration and controlled felling and was the
first official to endeavour to bring some measure of protection to the
elephants and buffalo, which even then were under threat in the Tsitsikamma forests. Apart from his military rank it is
possible that he had had some estate and forest management training as a result
of his family’s land holding interests. His daughter, Bessie Thesen, writing
to her sister Katie in
“Your letter came this morning with
the tidings of poor Aunt Louisa’s death - dear old lady,
I always felt more warm towards those two than any of the others and am always
sorry that you did not see them. I suppose Sutton will also have passed out of
Harison hands before you ever see it as it seems inevitable at present they
say.”
“I don’t think Papa will be much
distressed as he can scarcely take in such things nowadays much.”
As
a reference to the life of those times and the upbringing of Bessie Thesen’s
children, extracts from her letters to her sister are an interesting reflection
on this first generation of English-speaking South Africans. The following
refers to the Boer War, then in progress: the first of the three wars which
were to have their inevitable effect on the history of the family.
“Knysna,
“My dearest Katie,
“I
have been hoping to give you a long letter but don’t know now if I shall manage
it tonight.”
“
It is strange to see that all our latest
war news reaches you at the same time
(and possibly much more reliable news) as it does here in our district. We are
again in comparative quiet, the commandos have split up and scattered
northwards mostly – I am hoping great things of the next few weeks.”
“General Louis Botha, one of the most sensible and one of the best of the Boer
generals is being interviewed as you know and one cannot but hope that the wail
of his country may soften his heart and those of his misguided advisers. For it
is an undoubted fact that most of the better class Boers are
ready to give in now. Poor Reitz - his mind has long been cranky on the subject
so one cannot say with any confidence what he will advise.”
It will be remembered that Reitz had
been her brother -in-law (Blanca died in 1887), which probably accounts for her
wry puzzlement concerning his
hitherto unrevealed loyalties! (He was at the time the
During
the Boer War, the army depended greatly upon the goodwill of Thesen and Company
who offered special rates for freight on the Agnar. Agnar also transported prisoners of war and labour
recruits and on one of her voyages, she was to carry no less than 187 mule
drivers at very little cost.
Agnar was due for a major re-fit in
“Knysna,
“My dearest sister,
“…
Since the boys came back from Keurbooms River at the
beginning of April I have been more or less busy getting my big son ready for
his trip. You see the outward voyage will take over 40 days, no short journey!
I have to provide him with clothes sufficient for that length of time without
washing. Of course many things he must necessarily get on landing and I shall
trust to you to tell of any obvious want in his wardrobe. You know Colonial
boys are not brought up on the same lines quite as English ones, and he may not
need in
The
outward journey in fact lasted forty-eight days, the last three under sail
while the Agnar’s engineers made running repairs to her
boilers. But she returned triumphantly refurbished and re-fitting with electric
light to add to her lustre.
Sadly,
two months after her last letter was written, Bessie died of complications as a
result of her final pregnancy. She was only thirty-eight years old.
The
letters from which these extracts are quoted are given in full in Part II of
the Thesen history which follows, together with the many written to Bessie by
various members of her family.
Her
husband, Charles, was now faced not only with the great loss of his wife but
with the problem of attending to the needs of his large family. In 1902 however
he married Lucia Johanna Christine Thesen who was the daughter of his first
cousin Hans Thesen and it is to her eternal credit that she lovingly took on
the responsibility of her step-children as well as bringing up three children
of her own. Rolf Thesen, one of Bessie’s and Charles’s sons, makes these
comments and I quote them as pertinent to what has already been said:
“I would like to note a few more
personal aspects around some of those who did not come so firmly into the
limelight but who nevertheless played an important part in the life of the
family. My own mother: small of stature but lion-hearted. Dad did give her the
credit of being his mainstay on many occasions.”
“As she (Bessie) died when I was
four I did not have the
privilege of experiencing her qualities of love and caring. I have read and indeed have copies of some
letters she wrote to her only sister in
“My
stepmother, Hannah, was a lifelong friend and great admirer of my mother Bessie
and took on the responsibility for her large family, some grown-up and possibly
difficult. However, as the only mother I really knew I do offer grateful thanks
for all she did for us.”
Both
of Charles’s marriages were consecrated in the old
Of
Charles’s and Bessie’s grandchildren, there are twelve first cousins still
alive, while of those of his second wife, Lucia Johanna Christine, there are
four, as well as many second and second cousins once removed from the progeny of Niels
Family
members took part in the two World Wars, from
The
Thesens have played a very significant part in the economic growth of Knysna
and
At
the time of his death in 1940, C.W. Thesen owned large tracts of forest and
farming land as well as properties in
It
is not generally known that the oyster farming industry in the Knysna lagoon came
into being as a result of Harry Thesen’s individual vision and endeavour. He
was also a pioneer of commercial honey production in the area.
In
1924 when
The
piece of land upon which this stone hut stood was leased from the Divisional
Council (initially at the
nominal amount of one shilling per annum) usually renewable in
ten-year periods. The site has an unbroken view over the whole sweep of
In
the late 1800’s C.W. Thesen would re-locate his entire family from his house in
Knysna for the Christmas holidays to the base of the Robberg peninsula. They travelled by means of cart, and ox-wagon with all the
paraphernalia of tents, cooking utensils and pots and pans, and not forgetting
the essential bamboo fishing rods. Those were the days of Cuttyhunk
flax, or Irish linen, braided green fishing line, copper wire and home-made
sinkers.
The
camp-site was under the milkwood trees on the Van Rooyen’s farm and it is probable that these camps were the inspiration
for C.W. Thesen’s sons to locate a hut site on Robberg itself and to build the
rondavel there many years later. In the 1930’s merely getting to the hut by car
was in itself an adventure with the
In
1984, sixty years after it was built, the land upon which it stood was
expropriated by the Provincial Administration. The hut still stands but it is
now used by the Provincial authorities as a water-storage, tool shed and
sleeping area for Nature Conservation staff.
However,
this cottage in all its simplicity had played a very significant role in the
lives of three generations of the Thesen family and had served to bond
relationships which remain unbroken to this day.
With
this story now told, C.W. Thesen’s handwritten memories, recorded shortly
before his death in 1940, will make an eloquent and compelling epilogue
especially as they include details of the actual voyage of the Albatros and
I intend to give them in full.
His
last scrawled, pencilled notes read:
“My father A.L. Thesen was the principal, as a Town Councillor
and Mayor, to inaugurate the supply of water for the town of
“During the winter months in my
young days the Bay (Stavanger) would fill up with sailing vessels large and
small to be laid up for the winter overhauled and repaired and when required to
be re-classed in the Norwegian Veritas."
“It was with great pride that the inhabitants watched the large vessels
come sailing into the Fjord. I remember well such vessels as Nordens Dronning and Sir Robert Peel at
different times arriving and being moored and surrounded by boats coming to
wish Captain and crew welcome, by the shipowners down
to the lowest and youngest, myself included. (Sir
Robert Peel was
one of my father’s ships about five hundred tons register bought from
“After
three months or thereabouts, the larger vessels set sail for some English port
to load, generally for some distant land sometimes at very remunerative rates
of freight, and at other times over non-profitable periods. In shipping, there seem periods of great
prosperity and then periods of depression, but on the whole,
“The arrival of the English Mail
was a great day, for the shipowners received their
Captain’s draft on
“I remember cases about 2 feet
high by 4 feet across and 6 feet long, with soft yellow sugar arriving per
lighter at our warehouse from West Indies, and not as now in bags, each case
must have weighed 6 or 800 lbs. The cases were strapped at the ends with raw
hide, about one and a half inches wide with the colour of the animal’s hair
attached. The raw sugar was as it came from the sugar mills in the West Indies,
yellow in colour as it was turned out from the centrifugal pumps and not as
today, nearly white from the improved machinery, and to satisfy the
requirements of some of the trades such as native, the sugar has to be re-coloured to the appearance as supplied nearly 100 years
ago. I would take great delight in
eating a lump of yellow sugar as it came from the pump.”
“Grapes at that period were
imported in earthenware jars, each being packed separately in cork dust, not
touching one another. The grapes came from
“I do not think tomatoes were known
in those days.”
“Of my father’s ships the
schooner Iris had been bought by my father
after she was wrecked at Kalhamerenand and then
floated and repaired.”
“Another ship the Byfoged Christensen was lost with all hands a
few years later in the
“Donau was
wrecked in the Black Sea, bound for
“The brig Trafik was exchanged for a warehouse at
Haugesund.”
“I
often went with my father
on his visits of inspection such as
when the Iris was wrecked and re-floated and when the warehouse at Haugesund was exchanged for his ship the Trafik.”
“A
great sorrow befell my father and mother when on the
(At
this point there is a gap in the handwritten and typed pages but we have
already heard of the events leading up to the decision to emigrate
to
“The Norwegian Schooner Albatros, after having loaded a cargo of unplaned inch boards, left Tonsberg, 15th August. 1869,
bound for
1. Owned
by Mr. A.L. Thesen, who was a passenger.
2. His brother Captain M.T. Thesen, who
was in command of the expedition.
3. His son, Capt. Hans Adolf Baars Thesen, who was the
Captain of the Albatros.
4. Knud Thomasen, 1st officer.
5. His brother, Thomas Thomasen,
Boatswain.
6. Ole Larsen, Ship’s Carpenter.
7. Rolf Thesen, Sailor, (A.L. Thesen’s
son.)
8. Ragnvald Thesen, Sailor, (who joined
vessel at
9. Johannes
10. Niels
And as passengers:
11.
Mrs AL Thesen and
her children
12. Hjalmar Thesen
13. Blanca Thesen
14. Charles Wilhelm Thesen
15. Alfhild
Leonora Thesen
16. Theodor
Fredrik Thesen
17. Sigurd Thesen
Mothers and Children
18 & 19 Mr Knud Thomasen’s wife and 1 child.
20
& 21 Ole Larsen’s wife and 1
child.”
Here
he gives and interesting account of the provisions with which the ship was
loaded for her long voyage. There were live pigs and fowls, barrels of salted
pork, fish and beef and preserved beef. Milk was condensed in bottles and he
mentions that this looked like grains of white rice and dissolved easily when
put into hot water. He also mentions tinned goods, mostly tinned fresh beef in
fourteen pound tins as well as dried potatoes in twenty-eight pound cans and he
remarks that the potatoes looked like small, dried mealies.
He mentions that he spent a good deal of his time in the galley. His memoirs
read on:
“We arrived at
As
has been mentioned, Ragnvald arrived in the 1154 ton Nordens Dronning. She was carrying a cargo of rice from Akyab (
“At
“We lost sight of land during the day with
fine weather and fair wind. After losing sight of the English shore and white
cliffs, we did not sight any land for many weeks. Under the Equator we had a
good deal of calm intermittent with heavy showers of rain. On such occasions
sails were spread horizontally and rain water collected for use on board."
“At one time from calculations
taken by Capt. M.T. Thesen and his son Hans, we could be nearing the Brazilian
Coast, and on the second morning the young sailor Thomasen was sent up to the
highest point in the rigging, that is on the fore-top-mast, when he reported
that he could see land in the far-off distance, and the ship’s chronometer and
compasses shown to be correct. The orders were then given to set about or turn
in an easterly direction, and set a course for
“One early sunny morning Mother
and I were seated on a wooden bench, acting as a hencoop underneath, with our
back towards the cabin and looking at the huge swells coming on behind and
overtaking us, and looking as though the sea would swallow us up, but how
impressive it was to see the stern of the
ship lifting herself beautifully over the crest of the sea and pushing
the ship on faster than before, when the ship slid back into the trough of the sea which repeated itself all
day. My Uncle, the Captain, was standing close by looking forward how she
behaved drinking his black coffee, when he gave some urgent orders which, when
not carried out smartly enough to his liking, threw his coffee cup violently on
the deck, and my Mother who was deaf exclaimed what a strong cup that was which
did not break. The cup was a very strong heavy sea cup used at sea in those
days."
“On one occasion I was with the
cook, Franzsen, in the galley. He was kneading dough
in a large tin dish for baking bread, when the ship took a heavy lurch and I
fell into the dough, getting comfortably seated in the dough. The cook hauled
me out of it and landed me on my feet with the tail of my trousers holding over
all one inch of dough like a pancake. He took a knife and scraped the dough
back into the dish and continued to knead the dough, and baked his bread later
in the day, and the family no doubt, partook of the bread for their next day’s
meal.”
“A good deal of my time was spent in the
galley, and I don’t know if I could say that I assisted
the
cook, but it may be that he would prefer it if I was not there, but in any case
he was very good to me.”
Bearing
in mind that Charles was thirteen years old it can easily be imagined that he
would be welcomed neither amongst the very young children nor with the crew in
their dangerous tasks. The galley therefore would have been good neutral
territory and the cook, Johannes Franzsen, a friendly
man glad of the company. This Franzsen was the one
who painted the delicate water colours of the Albatros at various stages of her voyage and which
are to be seen in the
“Still with favourable wind for
some days. Early
on a sunny morning it was a marvellous and impressive
sight never forgotten by me, on the 78th day after losing sight of
England, seeing Table Mountain appearing growing out of the sea hour by hour,
growing higher and higher until about noon we could see Robben
Island.”
“On
rounding Robben Island we got the Table Mountain
south easter very strong and I became frightened
expecting the Albatros to capsize, however we came to safe anchorage
very near the Adderley Street wharf built of wood and
the Consul’s representative came on board, Mr. Sjogren. Mr. C.G. Akerberg
was then the Swedish Norwegian Consul at
He mentions that they had
only intended to stay in
“At
“It
was accordingly arranged that the Albatros would load a cargo for
Knysna. The family landed and hired a house at the top of
“The Albatros sailed for Knysna commanded by
Hans who was the first Thesen to cross the Knysna Bar. Thereafter she did
further trips to
***