Francis George Farewell was born in 1784 at Holbrook House near Wincanton, in the Blackmore Vale of Somerset, England. He was the second son of Reverend Samuel Farewell, a clergyman whose position in rural society suggested modest gentility but hardly wealth or distinction. The Farewell family was typical of the English provincial clergy—respected, educated, yet perpetually conscious of the thin line between comfort and constraint.
The Reverend Samuel Farewell died before 1802, when Francis was still a young boy. This loss proved pivotal. The family relocated from Somerset to Tiverton in Devon, where Francis enrolled at Blundell's School in March 1802. Founded in 1604, Blundell's was a respected grammar school that provided the classical education expected of sons of the clergy. Yet Francis would not follow his father into the church.
The Napoleonic Wars were raging across Europe, and for a fatherless boy with limited prospects, the Royal Navy offered escape, adventure, and the possibility of distinction. In November 1807, at age sixteen, Francis Farewell left Blundell's School and entered the Admiralty records as a First Class Volunteer aboard HMS Amphion.
The HMS Amphion was a 36-gun frigate commanded by Captain Sir William Hoste, one of the most aggressive and successful naval commanders of the Napoleonic era. Under Hoste's command, Farewell would receive an education in warfare that no school could provide.
The Amphion operated primarily in the Adriatic Sea against French and Venetian forces. Within months of Farewell's joining, the ship narrowly escaped disaster when lightning struck the main topgallant mast during a storm off Lisbon in February 1808, causing a fire aboard. This was merely the beginning.
By October 1808, the Amphion had captured a prize worth £20,000 and accounted for 38 French merchantmen sunk or captured, plus six others destroyed. The ship prowled enemy coastlines, destroying batteries and castles. By November 1809, she had sunk or captured over 200 French vessels.
Farewell participated in the famous Battle of Lissa on 13 March 1811, when Hoste's squadron of four frigates defeated a combined Franco-Venetian fleet of superior force. The British captured two frigates and drove the enemy flagship Favorite onto the rocks, where she blew up in a "dreadful explosion". During this battle, the Amphion suffered 15 killed and 47 wounded. Among the wounded were two midshipmen: Francis George Farewell and Thomas Edward Hoste, the captain's brother.
The official battle report records that Farewell was wounded, though the severity is unspecified. What is clear is that he survived and continued serving. Following the battle, Captain Hoste placed him in temporary command of the Island of Lipa, a strategic point in the Adriatic—a remarkable responsibility for a young midshipman.
The Amphion was finally decommissioned in 1811, exhausted by her glorious deeds. Farewell was transferred to HMS Thisbe and then HMS Bacchante, continuing his ascent through the naval ranks. By 1815, he had achieved the rank of Lieutenant.
Then came peace—and with it, oblivion.
The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 led to the demobilization of thousands of British officers. Farewell, like hundreds of his countrymen, was placed on half-pay—a reduced stipend that acknowledged his service while offering no employment. He was thirty-one years old, wounded, experienced in command, yet suddenly without purpose.
For the next five years, Farewell wandered the Indian Ocean trading routes. He attempted mercantile ventures in India, Mauritius, and the Seychelles, but none proved particularly successful. These were years of frustration, a capable man struggling to find his place in a world that no longer needed warriors.
In 1820, Farewell aquired the position of "managing owner" of a 261-ton brig named the Frances Charlotte, engaged in trading pursuits from her home port of Bengal. It was this vessel that brought him to the Cape of Good Hope, and there, finally, his life would find a new direction.
Fortune, it seemed, had not abandoned Francis Farewell entirely. At the Cape, he took lodging at a boarding house run by Johann Ludwig Petersen, a merchant of Magdeburg who had also been a soldier. Petersen had married Carolina Petronella Wolhuter, a widow with a daughter from her previous marriage.
That daughter was Elizabeth Catherina Schmidt, born to Carolina and her first husband, Ludwig Wilhelm Schmidt, a soldier who had farmed at Stellenbosch before his death when Elizabeth was a child. Elizabeth was approximately twenty-two years old when Farewell arrived at her stepfather's boarding house.
The attraction was mutual and immediate. On 17 August 1822, Francis George Farewell and Elizabeth Catherina Schmidt were married by special license in Cape Town. Under their marriage contract, Farewell settled £3,000 on his bride—a substantial sum indicating either his accumulated savings or his confidence in future prospects.
The marriage transformed Farewell's position in the colony. Through Petersen, he gained access to the merchant community. Through Elizabeth, he acquired local knowledge and connections. And through the convergence of circumstances, he would soon encounter the opportunity that would define his legacy.
In early 1823, reports reached Cape Town of rich ivory and ambergris trading opportunities along the southeastern coast of Africa. The British Admiralty had commissioned Captain William Owen to survey the coast south of Delagoa Bay, and his expedition aboard the Leven, accompanied by the Barracouta and Cockburn, had charted several important areas, including Cape St. Lucia.
Meanwhile, the private vessel Orange Grove had conducted its own explorations. When these expeditions returned in April 1823 with stories of abundant ivory and tales of a powerful Zulu kingdom inland, the merchant community of Cape Town buzzed with speculation.
Francis Farewell was among the most intrigued. He had already formed a friendship with James Saunders King, captain of the brig Salisbury, through trading voyages to West Indian ports. With financial backing from John R. Thompson, Farewell and King chartered the Salisbury and the sloop Julia and prepared their own expedition.
Their initial objective was St. Lucia Bay, where they hoped to establish contact with the Zulu kingdom. They departed Cape Town in June 1823.
The expedition nearly ended in disaster. At St. Lucia, bad weather prevented a successful landing. Both Farewell and Thompson were nearly drowned when their boats capsized in the surf. After five weeks of frustration, they abandoned the attempt and sailed to Algoa Bay for resupply.
Then came the gale that changed everything. Seeking shelter from a storm, they risked the sandbar at the Bay of Natal and found safe mooring off what would become known as Salisbury Island. During their brief stay, while King charted the bay, Farewell recognized what others had missed: here was a harbor where "a small vessel can lie perfectly secure," with the Zulu kingdom accessible for trade.
They returned to Cape Town in December 1823, and Farewell immediately set to work.
"Before he had been a month in Cape Town, he had so represented the great advantages to be derived from a trade in ivory by way of the port... that he induced his father-in-law, Mr Petersen, and another Dutch gentleman of the name of Hoffman to join him in partnership".
Soon, Henry Francis Fynn, a young trader with experience at Delagoa Bay, allowed himself to be persuaded by Farewell's assurance that "immense profits would be derived from the speculation". The partnership was formed: Farewell, Petersen, Hoffman, and Fynn, with additional recruits drawn by Farewell's enthusiasm.
They chartered the Antelope and the Julia and purchased a great variety of articles for native trade—beads, brass wire, cloth, blankets—and gifts for the Zulu king: pigeons, cats, dogs, a pig, and a full-dress military coat decorated with gold lace.
Government sanction was necessary. Farewell approached Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of the Cape Colony, with a letter outlining his intentions:
"Towards the conclusion of my last voyage, we found a port, where a small vessel can lie perfectly secure; I am therefore to venture another trial, hoping that by making some stay there we may get the natives to bring their produce to exchange for our goods, which in time might lead to important advantages. My intentions are to keep a vessel lying constantly in port, and to have a small party on shore to communicate with the natives, and carry on the trade."
Somerset's reply was cautious. He gave permission for the "commercial undertaking" but emphasized that no territorial possessions were to be annexed without his consent.
This restriction would haunt the settlement for years to come.
The expedition departed in two phases. Fynn led an advance party aboard the Julia, landing at Port Natal on 10 May 1824. He established a camp on a sandy flat that would later become known as Farewell Square.
Farewell followed with the main party of approximately 26 persons aboard the Antelope, arriving in July 1824. The group included his father-in-law, Petersen, the Dutch merchant Josias Hoffman (whose son would eventually become the first President of the Orange Free State), and various sailors and servants.
The settlement they established was rudimentary in the extreme. Nathaniel Isaacs, who arrived later, described Farewell's house as "not unlike an ordinary barn made of wattle, and plastered with clay, without windows, and with only one door composed of reeds. It had a thatched roof, but otherwise was not remarkable either for the elegance of its structure, or the capacity of its interior".
Yet this "barn" was merely temporary. Work began on a more permanent structure, to be called Fort Farewell—a mud fort with a house attached, designed to mount three 12-pound carronades at each angle, with a fenced garden in front.
More importantly, Fynn had already made contact with King Shaka.
In late July or early August 1824, Farewell, Petersen, and Fynn, accompanied by an interpreter and three Khoikhoi servants, set off for the Zulu royal kraal at Dukuza (near present-day Eshowe). They carried the gifts Farewell had carefully selected: woollen blankets, brass and copper, pigeons, cats, dogs, a pig, and the magnificent military coat with gold lace.
The journey was arduous. Petersen, over sixty years old, corpulent and bad-tempered, accused his son-in-law of trying to kill him by bringing him to "this barbarous place". They halted at the Umgeni River, where Farewell searched unsuccessfully for gold.
Their reception at Shaka's kraal exceeded expectations. The Zulu king, then at the height of his power, received them with a ceremonial gathering of some 80,000 subjects. Fynn, who had already established rapport with Shaka, served as interpreter and intermediary.
The gifts delighted the king. Shaka was particularly impressed by the mirror—reportedly the first he had ever seen—and by demonstrations of firearms. In return, he presented Farewell with elephant tusks and granted permission for the Europeans to establish a trading post.
On 7 August 1824, Shaka formalized a land concession granting "F.G. Farewell and Company" approximately 3,500 square miles (or roughly 6,500 square kilometers) of land encompassing Port Natal and extending 50 miles inland and 25 miles along the coast.
On 27 August 1824, Farewell hoisted the Union Jack over the bay with much ceremony, marking the acquisition of the territory. He immediately wrote to Governor Somerset, describing Natal as ideal for settlement and commerce.
The grant was never ratified by British authorities. Yet it formed the basis for all subsequent British claims in the region.
The early years at Port Natal were characterized by isolation, hardship, and constant negotiation with the Zulu kingdom. The settlement was utterly dependent on Shaka's goodwill—"the defenceless establishment at the Bay depended for its survival on the capricious whim of the Zulu monarch," as Farewell himself acknowledged.
Farewell made regular visits to Shaka's kraal, taking pains to please the king and supplying him with medicines and other items. He developed a clear-eyed assessment of the Zulu ruler: "History perhaps does not furnish an instance of a more despotic and cruel monster..." Yet he also recognized that Shaka was "fairly well-disposed to the subjects of the King of England," and it was largely due to Farewell's efforts that the settlers held a "strangely privileged position, regarded by the Zulus as being under their ruler's protection".
Trade developed slowly. The settlers bartered European goods for ivory, hippopotamus tusks, buffalo hides, cattle, and grain. The local inhabitants were remnants of the Tuli people, scattered and dispossessed by Shaka's wars, living a meager existence on the bay's southwestern shores. Farewell observed them with a mixture of pity and pragmatism—these were the consequences of disobedience to the Zulu king.
In September 1825, James Saunders King arrived in the Mary, bringing Nathaniel Isaacs and the boy John Ross. Though the Mary was wrecked in heavy seas, all aboard were saved. Farewell returned from one of his trips to the interior for a "joyous reunion" with his friend King.
The two immediately began planning a new partnership. King returned to the Cape in April 1826 to raise capital, carrying a letter from Farewell that pointed out Natal's possibilities.
Meanwhile, work continued on Fort Farewell and, more ambitiously, on the construction of a schooner to be named the Elizabeth and Susan—after Farewell's wife and perhaps his sister or mother.
In October 1826, James King returned to Port Natal, bringing with him Elizabeth Farewell. She had determined to join her husband at the settlement which had divided them for so long.
The conditions that greeted her were primitive beyond imagining. The "barn" of wattle and daub. The mud fort. The constant threat of violence. The isolation from all civilized society. Yet Elizabeth was, by all accounts, a woman of "stern stuff". She endured.
But the reunion of husband and wife coincided with the deterioration of Farewell's friendship with King. Nathaniel Isaacs attributed the rift to "pecuniary reasons"—financial disputes. The truth remains obscure, but the quarrel grew "out of all proportion, destroying the harmony that had existed previously at the Port".
The enmity became so bitter that when King lay dying in September 1828, Farewell would not visit him. This rupture hindered the settlement's progress and divided the small community into factions.
Despite these troubles, the Elizabeth and Susan was launched in March 1828. The schooner represented Farewell's vision of self-sufficiency—a vessel built with local materials that could maintain communication with the Cape and expand trade opportunities.
In April 1828, the Elizabeth and Susan sailed for the Cape with Farewell, Elizabeth, King, and Isaacs aboard. The voyage carried a diplomatic mission of extraordinary significance: two Zulu emissaries sent by Shaka to carry greetings to King George IV.
The mission was a disaster. At Algoa Bay, the Zulu emissaries were "subjected to numerous indignities by Government officials," who suspected them of being spies. The embassy was effectively stillborn. Elizabeth and Susan were impounded by authorities because they were not officially registered.
This failure had profound consequences. Shaka, humiliated and betrayed in his attempt at diplomatic recognition, altered his attitude toward the settlers considerably. The special relationship that Farewell had cultivated so carefully was damaged, perhaps irreparably.
King, personally devastated by the failure of the mission, fell ill shortly after their return to Natal. He died in September 1828, sixteen days before Shaka himself was assassinated.
The succession of Dingane, Shaka's half-brother and a conspirator in his murder, introduced new uncertainties. The world that Farewell had navigated with such skill was changing, and not for the better.
In the midst of these upheavals, Farewell made a fateful decision. Still convinced that Natal had a future, he determined to open an overland route connecting the settlement to the Cape Colony. This would bypass the hazards of the sea voyage and the bureaucratic obstacles that had destroyed the Elizabeth and Susan.
In September 1829, Farewell set out from Port Elizabeth with a wagon train loaded with two and a half tons of beads for trade with the Zulus. He was accompanied by Thackwray, a trader, and Walker, a naturalist. John Cane, another Port Natal settler, joined the expedition with his own wagons.
The journey proceeded without major incident until they reached the vicinity of the Umzimvubu River, in the territory of Qwabe Chief Nqeto. Nqeto had fled south from the Zulu kingdom after rebelling against Dingane, and he was not well-disposed toward anyone associated with the Zulu king.
Farewell decided to visit Nqeto's kraal, leaving Cane in charge of the wagons. He took with him Thackwray, Walker, his interpreter Lynx, and eight Zulu and Khoikhoi servants.
The chief "received them with apparent kindness, ordering a beeve to be slaughtered for their use, and gave them various other tokens of friendship" . But as night fell, the atmosphere changed. The servants warned Farewell that Nqeto was not to be trusted—that the atmosphere inside the kraal was tense, that the chief had quarreled with Dingane and suspected one of Farewell's Zulu servants of being a spy.
Farewell ignored them. He called Lynx a coward and went to sleep.
Just before dawn on an October morning in 1829, Qwabe warriors approached Farewell's tent. They cut the ropes. The canvas collapsed, trapping Farewell and his companions beneath it. The warriors stabbed them to death as they lay helpless.
Lynx, who had armed himself with a musket and kept watch despite Farewell's dismissal of his fears, kicked his companions awake upon hearing the assault. He led them from the kraal, killing three pursuers despite being wounded several times himself.
Only Lynx and two others survived to reach the wagon train. They told Cane what had happened. Cane promptly led the remaining servants into the bush to elude the Qwabe warriors, who soon reached the wagons, ransacked them, killed all the horses and oxen, and took the beads.
Cane eventually made his way back to Grahamstown to reequip. Farewell's ill-fated overland journey was at an end.
Francis George Farewell was 45 years old. He died as he had lived—certain of his own judgment, dismissive of warnings, brave to the point of recklessness.
Historian Donald R. Morris, in his classic work The Washing of the Spears, assessed Farewell's death with characteristic bluntness: "Farewell had practically invited his own death... but his death was untimely and regrettable. For all his rapaciousness and occasional chicanery, he deserves most of the credit for founding Port Natal".
Elizabeth Farewell was in Cape Town when news of her husband's death reached her. She had been there for the birth of their son, the child mentioned in some accounts as being born around the time of Farewell's final journey.
The historical record grows thin here. We know that Elizabeth remarried, taking a man named Aspeling as her second husband. She died in 1848, nineteen years after Farewell's murder.
Whether Francis Farewell left any descendants is unclear. Genealogical sources list his children as unknown. If the son born in 1829 had survived, he would have been an infant when his father died. No records have emerged of his life or descendants.
The Farewell line, it seems, ended with the founder—or if it continued, it did so in obscurity, unrecorded by the historians who chronicled the great events of colonial Natal.
Farewell Square in Durban stands as the primary memorial to the man who founded the city. Originally the site of Farewell's 1824 camp, it became the Town Gardens and eventually Francis Farewell Square (also known as Luthuli Square).
The square contains more monuments than any other space in South Africa. The Durban City Hall, built in 1910 as an exact replica of Belfast's City Hall, overlooks the square. A statue of Queen Victoria (erected in 1897) stands near the Art Deco Cenotaph commemorating fallen soldiers. There are statues of Field Marshal Jan Smuts, Harry Escombe, and John Robinson, Natal's first Prime Minister.
The irony is striking: this man who died violently in a remote African kraal, who never saw his settlement grow beyond a struggling trading post, is commemorated by a square that has witnessed the entire arc of Durban's development—from colonial outpost to industrial powerhouse to modern metropolis.
Yet the commemoration is complicated. As one modern commentator noted, the square is "a landmark of colonial affiliation". The settlement Farewell founded initiated what historian Dan Wylie has called "the decimation of species"—by 1870, sightings of lion, elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros were rare in the region.
Farewell appears in popular culture as a character in the 1986 television drama Shaka Zulu, played by Edward Fox. The portrayal, like most depictions of the era, blends historical fact with dramatic invention.
Francis George Farewell was not a saint. He was ambitious, sometimes ruthless, and capable of bitter quarrels with his closest associates. He could be dismissive of good advice, and his overconfidence cost him his life. He was, in many ways, a typical representative of the British imperial frontier—determined to extract profit from distant lands, convinced of the superiority of his civilization, yet also genuinely courageous and capable of inspiring loyalty.
What distinguishes Farewell is the sheer persistence of his vision. Against indifferent government support, against the hostility of the environment, against the capricious power of the Zulu kingdom, against the treacherous seas and the isolation of the frontier—against all these obstacles, he persisted. He built a fort. He built a ship. He negotiated treaties. He brought his wife to share the hardship. He died trying to open a road.
The settlement he founded would be annexed by Britain in 1842, become a borough named Durban in 1854 (after Sir Benjamin d'Urban, Governor of the Cape), and grow into one of Africa's great port cities. None of this would have surprised Farewell. He always believed in Natal's potential.
What would have surprised him, perhaps, is how completely his own story has been overshadowed by the city he created. Durban remembers Farewell in name only—a square, a street, a historical marker. The details of his life, the complexity of his character, the tragedy of his death—these have faded into the general narrative of colonial expansion.
Yet without Francis Farewell, there would be no Durban. Without his persistence, his energy, his "resistless spirit of opposition" in the face of heavy odds, the bay might have remained a minor anchorage, bypassed by history.