Page 209 - Bulletin 9 2005

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After a holiday abroad on Wernich money, Von Kamptz returned to the Bay of Von
Kamptz for a few years but discovered that a guardhouse had been built on his land and

trenches dug, He demanded compensation from the VOC for the damage and when he
went back to Europe, the Dutch East India Company decided not to permit him to

return. It does not make sense to me that the Bay was named after a transient resident
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that the Company called “this troublesome and annoying person” , instead of after the
much married Wernichs who had been farming cattle and growing vegetables there for

sixty years before Von Kamptz was left behind. Is the moral that you must be
troublesome and annoying to be remembered?

Lord Charles Somerset

Next in my list of people who got undeserved recognition is Lord Charles Somerset.
Everyone knows about Somerset’s shooting lodge, the Round House. Except it was not

his, it belonged to butcher Horak. I suppose the governor made Horak an offer he could

not refuse. One book described the dangers facing Somerset as he camped out in the
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Round House to the sounds of lions roaring. (Fig. 5.2) A pretty picture except that
Somerset had had it extensively renovated at government expense, including a saloon -
a saloon with a cold Lion Lager is just the thing for taking your mind off the cries of the

lions roaring outside. Of course if Somerset got tired of the rigours of the hunt, he could
always get onto his horse and ride down the hill to his own home, where he could hear

the cries of his newborn daughter, Lady Carolyn.

His home, which had belonged to the lusty Anna Koekemoor Wernich von Kamptz, had

also been renovated at government expense. The architect was a notorious man called