Kift family from Cork & South Africa
Thomas Kift ?-1791
William Kift 1764-1811
Cork City centre showing Kift’s Lane running beside the Public Library.
My Kift family in South Africa came from Cork in Ireland. My 4x great grandfather was Thomas Kift. I have not found the year of his birth but he is recorded, in the “Council Book of the Corporation of the City of Cork from 1609 to 1643 and 1690 to 1800”, as being the father of William Kift, my 3x great grandfather, who on 23rd April 1787, was admitted as a freeman at large in the city.
Thomas Kift was also a freeman of the city having been admitted as one in June 1780. He was a Linen Draper and his business Kift & Co. was on Grand Parade. On 12 December 1791 he died on Morrison’s Island and it was reported “that he went to bed in perfect health on Thursday night and was found dead near morning”.
Thomas Kift married twice. Mary Foster was the first wife who he married in 1756. She must have died and he married Susanna Carew in 1776. Thomas had many children. Unfortunately I have not been able to access the baptisms of the children so do not know the order of births and to which family they belong.
Section on page 1027 from The Council Book of the City of Cork, from 1609 to 1643 and from 1690 to 1800, admitting William Kift as a freeman of the city.
William Kift was a merchant and his business was in Academy Street. It was said that he was the first importer of tea into Ireland. There is a little passageway, Kift’s Lane, which runs between Main Street and The Grand Parade, named after him. I was told by a city librarian that it runs beside the city library and was where his warehouse had been (see above map). In April 1795 he married Mehetabel Lombard in Christchurch, Cork.
They had six children that are recorded; four boys and two girls. The eldest died age 4. The second eldest was Edmund Lombard Kift, born in 1802, who emigrated to the Cape Colony in 1822. His younger brother, James Bennett Kift, was my great great grandfather, born in 1811. He also emigrated to the Cape.
Mehetabel Kift the youngest daughter never married. She lived to nearly 97 years.
This family list was written by Mehetabel Lombard for her niece Elizabeth (Bessie) Heckrath née Kift when Bessie visited her in April 1889.
Children of William Kift & Mehetabel Lombard:
Capel Cure Kift (1798 – 1802)
Edmund Lombard Kift (1802 – 1883)
William Kift (1804 – ? )
Harriet Kift (1806 – 1866)
Mehetabel Kift (1807 – 1904)
James Bennett Kift (1811 – 1861)
Sources:
Information from the Cork City Library
Legacy Pages for the Kift family
James Bennett Kift 1811-1861
I do not know when my great great grandfather James Bennett Kift arrived at the Cape but he followed his elder brother Edmund Lombard Kift who had left Cork in September 1822. James was a witness at the marriage of my other great great grandparents, Adolph Heckrath and Charlotte Rebecca Smith, in January 1834, so he obviously had arrived before then. He was born in Cork on 20th January 1811 ….. the youngest of six. In 1823, when he was twelve, he went to live with his aunts Mary and Betsy Kift, his father’s sisters.
James Bennett Kift married Harriet Russel, whose parents John and Catherine Russel emigrated to The Cape in 1817 from Bermondsey, London. James and Harriet married on 4th February 1841 and had seven children. My great grandmother, Elizabeth Kift, was the only girl. Harriet died in 1856 two weeks after the youngest son, Robert, was born.
James worked as an English schoolmaster and later as an accountant in Cape Town. In 1856 he was recorded as teaching again.
James Bennett Kift 1811 – 1861
He was keen on photography and in his last letter to his sister, Bell, in Cork he thanked her for the camera she sent him but says it wasn’t in good condition except for the lens. He mentions spending much time trying to fix it. He died a few weeks after writing this letter. In the inventory of the contents of his house one room is full of photographic equipment including two cameras and a stereoscopic camera. He also said in his last letter “I wish I could get more account of my mother’s family, similar to the one you sent me of the Kifts” [He refers to the Lombard family].
This is the last letter James Bennett Kift wrote. It is dated 20th January 1861.
Children of James Bennet Kift & Harriet Russel:
William Lombard Kift (1842 – 1882)
James Bennet Kift (1844 – ? )
John Edden Kift (1846 – 1907)
Edmund Lombard Kift (1848 – ? )
Elizabeth Kift (1850 – 1944)
Alfred Kift (1852 – ? 0
Robert Knevett Kift (1856 – 1940)
Sources:
Letter from J B Kift to his sister, Mehetabel
Letters from Mehetabel Kift to her niece Elizabeth Heckrath.
Legacy pages of the Kift family
List of James and Harriet Kift’s children recorded by their aunt Bell for Bessie (Elizabeth) Heckrath, her niece, when she visited her in March 1889.
Edmund Lombard Kift 1802-1883
Edmund Lombard Kift, my 2x great uncle, was the second son of William Kift and Mehetabel Lombard. He lost his father when he was 9 years old. In 1822, at the age of 20, he left Cork and arrived at the Cape in 1823 with good letters of introduction which helped him obtain a position at the office of Messrs. George Greig and Co., publisher and printer.
It was recorded that in his spare time Edmund arranged the library of Doctor James Barry, who at the time was Military Physician and Surgeon to an English regiment stationed in Cape Town. When Dr. Barry died it was found he was a woman. She decided to masquerade as a man so she could pursue her ambition of qualifying as a doctor and enlisting in the army. It may be that she and Edmund became acquainted and friends since they both came from Cork.
On 6th March 1830 in the English Church, which later became St. George’s Cathedral, he married Carolina Petronella Heckrath, daughter of Ernst Jacob and Elizabeth Theresia Heckrath, and they went to live in Plein Street, Cape Town.
In December 1830 Edmund and Carolina, who was pregnant, were involved in a situation where a child was abducted from their care on Christmas Day. In July they had acquired an “apprentice” called Octavia. She was eight and the daughter of a slave named Constantia. She and her sister, Laura, had been bought by the Cape of Good Hope Philanthropic Society, who then “rented” them out to families as child slaves. No doubt in this case to help Carolina.
Carolina Petronella Kift née Heckrath 1809 – 1880
On Christmas Day Taffey, as Octavia was known, was given permission to accompany her mother to chapel. Several hours later her mother returned with the news that her daughter had been stolen away by a stranger named King, a passenger on board the City of Edinburgh, a British vessel that had put in for water five days earlier. The ship had left Bristol in October bound for Calcutta and Mr King and his family were passengers on board. By the time the authorities were informed of the kidnapping the ship had cleared Table Bay and it was too late to rescue Octavia.
In February the captain was charged in absentia ‘with taking from the Colony, without a colonial pass, the child Octavia belonging to the Society’. A local merchant, who acted as surety for the master, was summoned to appear in court. There existed no proof that the captain was aware of the child being on board. The case was dismissed. No attempt was made to find and prosecute Mr King. Edmund Kift asked to be allocated another child purchased by the Society. This was approved and Octavia’s younger sister, Laura, aged six and a half, took the place of her missing sister.
The family moved to Grahamstown where he established himself as a merchant in the firm of Birkenruth & Kift. When this firm closed down he moved to Port Elizabeth where he established himself as an insurance and forwarding agent. He lived at 14 Castle Hill. His family grew and he had one son, who died in his early 30s, and four daughters, all of whom married.
About 1874 Edmund was on board a steamer bound for Cape Town when a gale blew up. The vessel was lurching and caused him to be thrown across the deck with such a force that he was badly injured. Due to the accident he lost the use of both his legs and so was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
When he died at nearly 81 years it was reported Edmund was a liberal minded and considerate employer and a very well-liked, kind-hearted and accomplished gentleman. I have little information on his wife except she died in October 1880.
Children of Edmund L Kift and Carolina P Heckrath:
Mary Elizabeth Lombard Kift (1831 – 1906)
Mehetabel Josephine Kift (?)
Elizabeth Ann Kift (1837 – 1874)
Edmund Lombard Kift (1840 – 1872)
Lucinda Lerick Kift (1842 – 1926)
Sources:
Echoes of Slavery: Voices from South Africa’s past by Jackie Loos
Websites: Cape Town History & Wikipedia
Legacy pages for the Kift family
Obituary of Edmund Lombard Kift who died on 14th April 1883
Elizabeth Kift 1850-1944
Elizabeth Kift was my great grandmother. She was born in Cape Town on 1st January 1850 and was the only daughter of James Bennett Kift and his wife, Harriet Russel. She had six brothers ….. four older and two younger than her. I don’t know much about her early life except that her mother died when she was six. On 22nd April 1866 she was confirmed in Rhondebosch Church. Her father was a school master and when he died some of the effects listed on the inventory of his house were desks, forms and a marking board. She was fond of her brothers especially the ones close to her in age. She kept in touch with them, all her life, judging by the information she had on their families. I don’t know who looked after her and her brothers after her father died but most probably family members.
Her family must have been close to the Heckrath family in Cape Town as her father was a witness at the wedding of Adolph Heckrath and Charlotte Rebecca Smith, the parents of the man she eventually married, who was Edmund Walter Heckrath. The families lived in the same street. Elizabeth and Edmund married in 1875 in St. Cyprian’s Church, Kimberley. She travelled there after receiving a letter from Edmund to say he could not leave, because of his business, but if she were to travel to Kimberley they would be married on her arrival. They actually married on 12th October a few days after her arrival. She received £50 as a wedding gift from her Aunt Bell (her father’s sister) in Cork, Ireland. They rented first and then had a house built in the West End of Kimberley where their first child, Adolph James, was born in October 1876. About a year later she wished to visit the Cape, most probably to introduce her baby to family and friends. This was where their second child, Edmund Walter (Eddie), was born.
Elizabeth Heckrath (née Kift) 1850-1944
Heckrath children about 1887, in Kimberley. Eddie, Josephine, Geraldine, Adolph and Irene
Elizabeth Heckrath’s diary – April 1889
The years passed and she went on to have five more children, three girls and two boys one of whom, Ernest, died at only a few weeks old while travelling in a bullock cart …. so the family story goes.
In September 1888 she travelled to England with Edmund and her sons, Adolph and Eddie, to put the boys in boarding school, Thame Grammar School in Oxfordshire. She and Edmund rented different apartments in the Marylebone area of London for a few months whilst the boys settled into school. In her diary of 1889 she records things that they did. She mentions pranks the boys got up to, such as putting snow down her back, people she visited, walks she did during the day and after dinner with Edmund, trips they made, shows they saw and just normal things such as shopping, going to the dentist, writing Cape letters and going to the dressmaker.
In March 1889 she and Edmund travelled to Cork, Ireland, to visit her aunt Bell for the first time. Elizabeth recorded their trip in her diary. They stayed in a nearby hotel for about a week. Whilst there they visited the sites including Blarney Castle where they climbed to the top but she didn’t mention kissing the stone! Also they went to Queenstown with Aunt Bell and another day went to Christchurch where Elizabeth’s grandparents were married. One of the days in Cork they had to “pass through some narrow lanes; the poverty, misery and dirt we saw is too dreadful to describe, the dumb Beasts are better housed and cared for more than these poor creatures. The poor woman we met in the Porch of the Catholic Church I shall never forget her miserable condition …” Elizabeth wrote in her diary.
From Cork they went to Dublin, with a night in Killarney en route, where they spent three days seeing as many places as possible including Trinity College and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. From Dublin they travelled to Edinburgh so as to see Maggie Grindley, Edmund’s cousin, the daughter of his father’s youngest sister. They stayed ten days and Maggie showed them the sights. Maggie’s father was the brother-in-law and cousin of Sir James Simpson who was a Scottish obstetrician and the first to use chloroform in obstetrics.
In May 1889 Elizabeth returned to the Cape to fetch the other children to take them to England. The family lived in Kent for a few years before moving to Abbey Road, St. John’s Wood and then to south London. In 1896 she, Edmund and Irene, their eldest daughter, had a holiday in France and Switzerland. They travelled by train, passing through Paris and Lyons, to Lausanne where they stayed for ten days. According to Elizabeth’s travel log they had a wonderful time with her describing the places they visited and the people they met. They also bumped into someone they had met in Edinburgh seven years earlier.
In April 1899 she had a holiday in Cassel, Germany, but I’m not sure who with. I think she was assisting in looking after a group of girls. She was very impressed with Cassel and two years later she took her daughter, Geraldine (Cherry), and son, Cyril, mainly to put Cyril in school there but also to have a holiday whilst there. Again she wrote in detail of all the places they went to and of the people they met. In those days it was the only way to remember a holiday without the use of a personal camera. She mentions, on her return home, how excited her dogs were ” ….. Zip, Bob and Sappie, the kitten, were delighted to see me and Zip and Bob kissed me over and over again!”
In 1900 the family were recorded as living at 52 Alleyn Road, West Dulwich, and they were still there when the 1901 Census was taken. At the end of 1901 they moved to Barston Road, Norwood. I’m not sure exactly when the family moved to live in Stradella Road, Herne Hill.
In May 1905 their eldest son, Adolph, who was working in Kimberley, married Ida Skates in Cape Town. Elizabeth and Edmund attended the wedding. Adolph’s sister, Irene, accompanied Ida to Cape Town. Adolph and Ida had six daughters who regularly visited their grandparents. Two of the daughters were born in South Africa. Very sad news came in June 1912 with the death of their eldest granddaughter, Ruby, who had died of meningitis at Seapoint, Cape Town.
At the end of 1916 she and Edmund had the very sad news that their son, Cyril, was missing on the Western Front in France. Then on 7th April 1917 he was reported ‘killed in action on 14th November 1916’ after his body was found. Their other sons Adolph and Eddie also served in the First World War.
On the 9th December 1921 she and Edmund left England for South Africa and Australia. Whilst in Cape Town Edmund settled his sister’s estate. Maria Heckrath had died in August and was the last of his sisters and Edmund was the last of his family. [This is most probably when he acquired many of the documents, family letters and pictures that I now have]. From the Cape they travelled on to visit Cyril’s wife, Mabel, and their three grandchildren who were living in Tasmania. They were only there about a week and travelled back to Britain via Wellington, New Zealand, and the Panama Canal. They were away 8 months.
In October 1925 she and Edmund celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary and Edmund gave a special brooch to Elizabeth which was made from two gold sovereigns – one dated 1875 and the other 1925. On the reverse their names and date of marriage are inscribed.
In 1927 they took a five week cruise to Naples with their daughter Geraldine.
Edmund died in July 1935 having seen two more granddaughters die, of TB, a couple of years earlier and his daughter-in-law five months earlier.
Elizabeth was staying at The Towers in Worthing with her daughter, Irene, when the 1939 Register was taken and she was recorded as being incapacitated by old age. She died at home in 1944, age 94.
Edmund and Elizabeth with Josephine, Eddie and Irene at Barston Road early 1900s
Edmund and Elizabeth Heckrath on their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1925
Gold Sovereign brooch Edmund gave as a gift to Elizabeth on their 50th Wedding Anniversary
Children of Edmund Walter Heckrath and Elizabeth Kift:
Adolph James Heckrath 1876 – 1958
Edmund Walter Heckrath 1878 – 1953
Irene Melita Heckrath 1879 – 1966
Josephine Heckrath 1881 – 1957
Geraldine (Cherry) Heckrath 1882 – 1958
Ernest Carl Heckrath 1883 – 1883
Cyril Alfred Heckrath 1886 – 1916
Sources:
Elizabeth’s personal diaries and travel logs
Wikipedia
Legacy pages for the Kift family