Morning All After doing some simple digging and delving as well as some great help from a brand new cousin in Gauteng who we discovered by chance that our great great great grandparents where brother and sister and these two siblings arrived twenty years apart in Cape Town. Has any one have any connections with the PARKE Family ? SEDG WICK Captain James Sedgwick, father of Arnold Wilhelm Spilhaus's wife, and founder of the Cape family of Sedgwick, was descended from the Sedgwick's of Dent in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the family had been identified with the district for several centuries. An account of the family will be found in the Life and Letters of Professor Adam Sedgwick, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Professor Adam was also of Dent, and cousin to Captain James. Professor Adam Sedgwick, junior, nephew of Professor Adam, senior, visited the Cape in the last generation, bent upon scientific enquiry. The son of Professor Adam, junior, Mr. Romney Sedgwick, recently held office as Deputy High Commissioner in the Union of South Africa for His Majesty's Government. Captain James was one of a large number of brothers and sisters. Three of his brothers also made some mark. Thomas, in the service of the Honourable East India Company, died in Bombay at the age of 28, "but not before he had earned the thanks of the Honourable Company for his services in promoting the growth of mulberry trees, and thus encouraging the production of silk." Charles went to Boston, U.S.A., where his descendants still live, and became prominent in the journalistic world. William entered the medical profession, and was a medical student at the then new University College Hospital where, by the particular desire of the great surgeon Lister, he was appointed Lister's dresser, and as such assisted him at the first operation in London performed under anaesthetics, December 21st, 1846. As a result of impaired health he made several voyages to the East, via the Cape, as surgeon to the troops. It gave him the opportunity of studying cholera in its worst forms, and when ! in 1854 London was visited by an epidemic of cholera he gave distinguished service. He made a number of important contributions to the medical literature of his day. After Captain James Sedwick had retired from sea and settled in Cape Town he founded the firm of James Sedgwick and Company, wholesale wine and spirit merchants. He was the author of The True Principle of the Laws of Storms and of Hints to Young Mariners. PARKE William Parke was the son of Joseph Parke, born 27.11.1742 Stoke by Nayland, and died 3.9.1821 Saffron Walden. Reg. Parish Churches; and of his wife Elizabeth daughter of John Talmash of New Place (formerly Gyppeswick Hall) Ipswich, who died 19.5.1777 aged 66. Reg. Parish Church Stoke by Nayland. The name Talmash is spelt variously Talmasb, Talmasch, Tollemache. The family has a tag: "Before the Normans to England came Bentley was my seat and Talmash my name." William Parke and his wife had, besides Mary Bush who married Captain James Sedgwick, five other daughters: Elizabeth - John Tyars, whose descendants live in the Union. Anne Buncher - Captain Henry Wilson of the Mercantile Marine. Sarah Shrive - Captain Dare of the Honbi. East India Company. As far as I know there are no descendants in the Union. Their daughter married Sir Thomas Jackson, Baronet, General Manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Eliza Lake - Captain William Walker Ball of the Honbl. East India Company. A pleasant account of her and of Captain Ball may be read in the Memoirs and Reminiscences of Sir John Kotze. Many of their descendants remain in the Union. Two of their daughters married overseas: Anne Elizabeth to Major Archibald Arbuthnot son of Sir William Arbuthnot, Bt., and of his wife Gertrude Sophia daughter of Viscount Gough. And Emily Lydia to Charles Francis Henry Spencer, grandson of Viscount Churchill. Lydia Hurst - John Philipson Stowe (uncle of the first baronet, who also married a Capetonian, Florence Henchman). They have descendants in the Union. William Parke and Elizabeth also had an only son, Joseph. He ran away, it was surmised to sea, and was not again heard of. When William Parke brought his family back to the Cape after the disaster at Grahamstown he had intended to take ship for England, his small capital having been expended. He was, however, persuaded to stay, and in order to make a livelihood he and his wife took in paying guests. This venture developed into their launching forth into the hotel trade, and they opened Parke's Hotel at the corner of Strand Street. This hotel became known in course of rime as the Grand Hotel, which still exists. An amusing story is told of William Parke, amusing at this long distance of time, but it gives some idea of the terror that prevailed in Grahamstown. His daughters were handsome young women, or rather girls, and it was brought to his ears that the Kaffir Chief then besieging the town had made it known that he would have his choice among them when he got into the town. William Parke ordered his six daughters to accompany him to the powder magazine where he made them kneel down in a row and swear to accompany him there again to be blown up with the magazine should the Kaftirs succeed in entering the town. Fortunately this histrionic effort proved to be unnecessary. The Cressy's were renowned for being hotel keepers, inn keepers, publicans and off course the great find of my gg grandfather drunk in adderley street and the Cressy's and the Parke family were related If anyone has any information on the PARKE family from Grahamstown, Richmond or Cape Town area - would love to hear from you. Heather Heather's South African Genealogy Help List www.genealogy.co.za Cape Town Family History Society www.genealogy.co.za/society/socweb.htm