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Thomas Hare and the Content did not make it back to England but his estate received a

substantial payout from the spoils of the raid. With these funds, Thomas Hare’s sons were able
to buy baronetages from Elizabeth’s successor, James I. For his role in suppressing the Irish

th
Rebellion in the 17 century, Thomas’ younger son, William Hare, was granted estates in the
SW of Ireland near Listowel in County Kerry and Ballyhooley in County Cork. One of

William’s descendants, John Hare, came to South Africa as an 1820 Settler.

The First Generation:

John Hare (1773-1857), was born near Cork and, as the son of local gentry, was sent to a
boarding school in London. An adventurous boy, at the age of 14 he ran away to sea. It was an

exciting era as the Napoleonic Wars were soon to follow. He used to tell his children and
grandchildren tales of the Royal Navy victories at the Battles of the Nile in 1798, and Trafalgar

in 1805. His name does not appear as a crew member on any Royal Navy records, so he must

have served on merchant ships. He appears to have had experience as a ship’s baker, as at the
age of 39 he set up a bakery in Whitechapel in London, where he married a young English girl,

Esther Andrews (1795-1840), at St Leonards, Shoreditch, on 24 May 1812.

In 1819 the British Government announced an emigration scheme that offered settlers 100

acres of land per family in the Albany District on the eastern front of the Cape Colony. Loans

would be granted to cover initial settlement costs and rent on the land would not be charged
for the first ten years. The scheme generated huge interest and eventually some 4,000 applicants

were chosen from the 90,000 who applied. It seems that John Hare, his wife Esther and children
William (7), Martha (4) and John (3), were selected after John had appealed to his family in

Ireland to support his application. The ‘1820 Settlers’ sailed in 32 ships, with the majority
arriving in the Cape by August that year. Included in these numbers were some 350 emigrants

from Ireland. Most of these were members of the William Parker party, some of them

indentured to him and the others financially independent. Parker was a restless and turbulent
Irish merchant from Passage West, a small town on the Cove of Cork. The British Government

agreed to hire a large new ship, East Indian, and a smaller ship, Fanny, to transport the Irish

emigrants to the Cape.

Many of the members of the Parker party, including the Hare family, boarded the East Indian

in London. Initially the ship could not leave as the Thames was frozen over, but eventually she
was able to sail from Deptford in early January 1820. She sailed to Cork to board the rest of