Adam HOBKIRK & Jane Margaret NORVAL

Adam HOBKIRK was the son of Adam & Isabella HOBKIRK and from his gravestone, we know that Adam was born in Peebles, Scotland on 12 January 1836. See photo below of this couple's gravestone located at Church Street, Historical Cemetery, Colesberg, Bo-Karoo, Northern Cape, South Africa.

From the 1841 census we only find the only Adam, listed as HOPKIRK, with the proper age of 5, and  the family is living at Northgate, Peebles.

Our thanks goes to Ian Keith Hobkirk and Neil Hobkirk for supplying the following family history: Adam HOBKIRK got off the boat from Scotland in Port Elizabeth and having only a sixpence in his pocket and a small pack of belongings over his shoulder struck up a conversation with a builder who employed him given his experience as a mason. Having earned enough to buy his own horse and cart he set off for the interior and proceeded to build churches in the Dutch towns of the Boer Republic of the Orange Free State across the Orange River some 600 km from his starting point. Eventually Adam had earned enough and he moved back across the Orange River into the Cape Province, then a British colony, and Adam successfully settled and farmed in Colesburg, a frontier town of the Cape Province having built churches throughout the province and purchased the family farm, Heron Court, which was subsequently sold a couple generations ago. The Hobkirk family bible, exhibited at the link, identifies Adam and his son John. The Percy noted on the front page was, I have discovered, my grandfather Everton's oldest brother who I omitted to mention in my first mail. Given the number of sons and the limited farmland my grandfather Everton joined up as a mounted policeman in Cookhouse following which he enlisted in the Navy to serve with the Allies in the Second World War becoming a petty officer. His Afrikaans wife at the time, my grandmother, was the daughter of a Boer war hero who consequently had German sympathies and the resultant marital stress culminated in divorce. John Hobkirk's son Everton grew up in Beaufort West a small Karoo town and after a sojourn farming in Namibia ended up in Johannesburg.

 At this link is the story of a battle which took place 12 February 1900 on Hobkirk's Farm at "Pink Hill" near Colesberg. It was called the battle of Rensburg. This battle is likely to have taken placed on the land of Adam HOBKIRK and Jane Margaret NORVAL.(Our thanks goes to Chris Hopkirk of Worster, UK, who received this story from a Hobkirk who lives near him.)

Adam Hobkirk married Margaret Norval, also of a Scottish family and a descendent of the 1820 settlers.

Memo: the Orange Free State existed from 1854  until 1902 when it became part of the Union of South Africa.

Our thanks goes to Keri Hobkirk and Pieter Johannes Taljaard for much of the information below on this page.

Adam HOBKIRK married Janet Margaret NORVAL. Janet was the daughter of John NORVAL, Jr. & Mary Jane NORVAL, born at Colesberg, South Africa,  6 December 1836.

Adam HOBKIRK & Janet Margaret NORVAL had the following known children:

     Adam Norval HOBKIRK, born 2 September 1871

     Mary Jane HOBKIRK (Fryer), born 15 October 1872 at Colesberg, Norrthern Cape, South Acfrica

     John HOBKIRK, born 1 February 1878 or 1879.


Adam Hobkirk Gravestone
Our thanks goes to Pieter Johannes Taljaard for letting us know about this wonderful photo taken by Lynn MacLeod and Tessa King. All copyrights belong to them, and we are grateful to be allowed to post it on our website.


  

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This page was last updated on 13 January 2018