Wolraad Woltemade

[1] The story was reported by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg[2] who was in South Africa as a surgeon for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (known in English as the Dutch East India Company) at the time.

He migrated to the Dutch settlement at Cape Town (Kaapstad) and worked for the VOC as a soldier [4][5] and after retirement as keeper of the menagerie of the company [2][6] or as a dairyman.

On the morning of 1 June 1773, the start of winter in the southern hemisphere, a sailing ship named De Jonge Thomas[7] was driven ashore in a gale onto a sand bar at the mouth of the Salt River in Table Bay.

This gold was the reason the flotilla had been allowed into Table Bay in the first place, as transporting it by land from Simons Town to The Castle would have been too dangerous given the poor roads, made worse (impassable) by the storm.

However, Karl Thunberg, who had witnessed the event, did not forget Woltemade; nor did the formers countryman, Anders Sparrman, when he wrote his famous book "A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope" in 1775."

The Dutch East India Company provided amply for his widow and children and named a ship Held Woldemade, taken by the British fleet as prize during the battle in Saldanha Bay on 4 July 1781.

The Union of South Africa King's Medal for Bravery, instituted in 1939, bore a depiction of Woltemade's heroic act on its obverse.

The Woltemade Cross was discontinued in 2002, as part of the move towards establishing a new South African honours system, following the advent of majority rule.