ELIZABETH GOOSTREY

Wife of Jacobus Johannes Scheepers (1819 – 1920)

Elizabeth Goostrey (or Elizabeth Goldstraw, the name by which she was known by some of her descendants), was the daughter of Elizabeth Verity, an 1820 British Settler who came to the Cape Colony as a young girl, with her parents William and Elizabeth Verity and her brothers John, James and Thomas in Cock’s party, in H.M. Naval Transport Ship “Weymouth” (Captain Turner) leaving Portsmouth on 7^th January 1820 and arriving at table Bay on 26^th April 1820, the party dispersing to their locations from the Settlers camp at Algoa Bay on 23^rd May 1820. H.E. Hockley in “The Story of the British Settlers of 1820 in S.A.’ at page 234 (2^nd Edition) lists the family Verity as “Nicety” doubtless due to difficulties in deciphering the original handwritten record. He also gives Elizabeth Verity at embarkation as 12, but it seems that she must have been 15, as her Death Notice, filed by her son D’Urban Dyason on 15 March 1869, in the Masters Office at Cape Town (No. 5091) gives her age at the time of her death on 19^th February 1869 as 64 Years and three months.

She married James Goostrey not long after the family settled in their new homeland but they separated after only a few years. Elizabeth became a member of George Dyason’s household and is recorded in Dyason family papers as so employed in February 1832 at Grahamstown, it is thought as a teacher to the Settler children. He had been the leader of the Dyason party of settlers which had sailed from Deptford in January 1820 in the “Zoroaster” and arrived in Algoa Bay in May 1820 in the “Albany”, having transhipped at Simonstown and had settled with his party in Lushington’s Valley in 1822. He was successively Adjutant to the Albany Levy (a burger force) and Field Cornet of Bathurst (1823), Postmaster Grahamstown (1823), Field Cornet Albany (1824), District Clerk to the Resident Magistrate Albany (1825) and Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate Bathurst (1836) and later of Graaff Reinet and Justice of the Peace for Uitenhage. George Dyason’s wife Frances died in 1828, and probably during 1832 he married Elizabeth Goostrey. The date is not known to the writer, but the Grahamstown Cathedral baptismal records show the baptism of the daughters Charlotte and Juliana by the Reverend John Heaviside on 14^th September 1834, the parents being given as George Dyason and Elizabeth Verity. Her daughter by her first marriage, Elizabeth Goostrey, who by her mother’s marriage had become George Dyason’s stepdaughter and ward, grew up in his household and married Jacobus Johannes Scheepers while still a minor, probably about the year 1844. Their eldest son Johannes Christoffel Scheepers, the present writer’s grandfather was born in Olifantshoek on 23^rd October 1846. According to family tradition the marriage took place in the English Church, and Johannes Christoffel although known and quoted as such in the death notice filed 15^th January 1927 in the office of the Master of the Supreme Court Cape Town (No. 13632), was actually baptised “John Christopher” in that church as his mother did not then know the Dutch Language. This account is probably true as the present writer was not able to trace either Elizabeth Goostrey’s marriage or the baptism of John Christopher or the second child Elizabeth (born 1849) in the Dutch Reformed registers of Albany or Uitenhage, so presumably these entries will be found in Anglican records. He was however able to trace the baptisms of the children Willem Jacobus (baptised 1852) and Susanna Jacoba (baptised 1853) born later in the Dutch Reformed register of Uitenhage.

Although the writer has not had an opportunity to examine the Anglican records to confirm the tradition, there is considerable supporting evidence. The fact the Elizabeth Goostrey grew up as a member of the household of the Dyason’s who were Anglicans and that her half-sisters Charlotte and Juliana Dyason were baptised in the Cathedral, make it likely that she herself was brought up as an Anglican. Her mother’s family the Verity’s also appear to have been Anglicans, as John Verity, Elizabeth’s uncle was married to Amelia Leach on 10^th February 1834 in the Anglican Church at Grahamstown by Rev. James Barrie, at the time acting for the Rev. John Heaviside.

The fact that the family was related to 1820 stock of the names Verity and Goldstraw was known to the late Mrs Ella de Wet, wife of the late Rt. Hon. N.J. de Wet, former Chief Justice. Mrs Elizabeth Krog Roos, wife of the later J. de V. Roos, one time Auditor-General, her brother Judge Scheepers the writer’s father and Mrs A de la Rey Hofmeyer of Pretoria Elizabeth Goostrey’s grandchildren, but precise information was not available.

The writers attempts to obtain details concerning these English Ancestors, despite failure to find any trace of a Goldstraw or a Verity in the list of 1820 Settlers, or of the marriage of an Elizabeth Goldstraw to Jacobus Johannes Scheepers in any marriage register, led him ultimately to search the Methodist Church records at Grahamstown during 1963 and through the Rev. Western to make contact with Mr T Morse Jones of Port Alfred, a genealogical expert and keen investigator and collator of 1820 Settler data who revealed the fact that the Verity’s were cited in the 1820 Settler list as “Nicely” and the Elizabeth Verity, formerly married to “Goostrey” had been a member of George Dyason’s household and subsequently married him as described above. With this information it was relatively easy to find confirmation of the close ties between the Verity and the Scheepers families, thus in the N.G. Kerk Argief, Cape Town, in a small volume of marriage entries for Uitenhage and Winterhoek (Vol. 6/10) he found recorded the marriage of Thomas Verity, farmer of the Uitenhage district to Jacoba Elizabeth Scheepers, daughter of Coenraad Scheepers, of “Bosjesmans Rivier”, the marriage took place in the Bushmans River Field Cornetcy of the district Uitenhage and is entered as No. 138 on 16^th January 1842 as performed by Rev Alexander Smith. (Olifantshoek only became a separate district with a separate congregation under the name Alexandria in 1851; prior to that it fell under Uitenhage).

On 13^th August 1943, he found this couple again recorded amongst the witnesses at the baptism of Coenraad Frederik Scheepers, son of Gerhardus Marthinus Scheepers and Catharina Elizabeth Magdalena Landman (DR. KKA 4/3 - p. s/302). On 11^th August 1844 they appear again amongst the witnesses to the baptism of Johannes Scheepers and Johanna Cathrina Landman also at Bushmans River (DR. KKA 4/3 – p. s/311). They appear again at the baptism on 17^th August 1845 of Johannes Marthinus the son of Coenraad Frederik Scheepers and Carolina Susanna Gerdina Scheepers (DR. UIT. KKA. 4/3 – p. S/318), and on 14^th January 1849 they appear once more as witnesses to the baptism of Martha Maria Scheepers at Bushmans River (DR. UIT. KKA. 4/3 – p. S/78). On 9^th August 1846, Thomas Verity’s brother John Verity appears as a witness with Jacoba Elizabeth Verity, his brother’s wife, at the baptism of Carel Pieter Scheepers son of Johannes Abraham Scheepers and Martha Maria Scheepers (DR. UIT. KKA. 4/3 – p. S/418) also at Bushmans River.

So far as evidence of the actual marriage of Elizabeth Goostrey and Jacobus Johannes Scheepers is concerned, we find in the baptismal entry 11^th January 1852 on Willem Jacobus Scheepers born 16^th March 1851, in Bushmans River, that the names of his parents are given as Jacobus Johannes Scheepers and Elizabeth “Gustrey” (DR. UIT. 4/4 – p. S/358) while the entry of the baptism of his sister Susanna Jacoba Scheepers on 28^th August 1853 cites them as Jacobus Johannes Scheepers and Elizabeth “Goostrey”.

So far as the date of the marriage is concerned, in the absence as yet of the details of the actual entry in some marriage register, the nearest indication found by the present writer is in the entry on 14^th January 1844 of the baptism of Johannes Christoffel Scheepers and Jacoba Wilhelmina Landman at Bushmans River where the witnesses include the couple Jacobus Johannes Scheepers and Elizabeth Goostrey (DR. UIT. KKA. 4/3 – p. S/302) and again on 28^th August 1853, of the baptism of Frederik Johannes Scheepers (born 30^th April 1850) son of Frederik Johannes Scheepers and Johanna Catharina Stoffelina Landman (DR. UIT. KKA. 4/1 – p. S/438). The earlier of these two entries suggest that Jacobus Johannes Scheepers and Elizabeth Goostrey were already married by January 1844 at which time she could have been between 16 and 21 depending on when her mother Elizabeth Verity married her father Goostrey.

The surname Goostrey (alternative forms, Goostree, Goostry, Gostrey, Gosetre, Goestre, Gorstre) derives from a village of the name in Cheshire. Examples of the name are found in the records of Cheshire as early as 1339 viz. “William and Cicely de Goostree”. It appeared also in the directories of Manchester (1887) Birmingham (1884) and Boston U.S.A. (see dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames – C.W. Pardsley, Oxford University Press, A History of the Surnames of the British Isles – C.L. Estrange Ewen, Kegan Paul, p. 238, 376 and Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names – p. 201)

Author - Judge JJ Scheepers (1867 – 1922) & his Family

Revised and compiled by his son JJ Scheepers 1965 the present author

Reproduced by Shani Cullabine born Oelofse a descendant of the Scheepers Family – 2008

The captions I have used are written on the back of the photographs. In the case of Sir John Christopher Goldstraw, this is a mystery as it should say James Goostrey and where does the ‘Sir’ come from? I have been unable to trace any reference to his being called ‘Sir’, maybe someone knows and would let me know.

Elizabeth Goostree/Goldstraw nee Verity with her daughter

Elizabeth Scheepers nee Goldstraw/Goostrey

Sir John Christopher Goldstraw father of Elizabeth Goldstraw wife of

Jacobus Johannes Scheepers father of John Christopher Scheepers