Benjamin Moodie

Captain Benjamin Moodie (1789 - 2 April 1856) was the 10th Laird of Melsetter who led a party of 200 Scottish immigrants to the Cape Colony in 1817,[1][2] three years before the arrival of the 1820 Settlers.

Moodie served in the Ross and Caithness Militia and returned from the Napoleonic wars in 1815 as a half-pay officer, and was forced to sell the heavily indebted family estate in the Orkney Islands.

[3][4] In 1817 he led a party of indentured Scottish artisans to settle in the Cape Colony.

[6] Among the party was David Hume, who became an explorer and big-game hunter, and his brother Donald Moodie.

[7] Benjamin Moodie settled on the farm Groot Vaders Bosch near Swellendam and later at White Sands, now known as Witsand, at the mouth of the Breede River.