Our town's landmark Haggard's Hilldrop House, and the fascinating life of Sir H Rider Haggard ~ Part One

Recently I paid a visit to one of our town's most famous landmarks, part of Haggard's Hilldrop House, where Sir Rider Haggard briefly resided in 1881. Sir Rider Haggard, the author of famous works of fiction such as King Solomon's Mines, She, Allan Quatermain, and many more, drew much of his inspiration for his imaginative novels from the time he lived in South Africa. Apart from his famous literary legacy, he also lived quite a fascinating life. 

Sir H Rider  Haggard ~ The Early Years

The one thing I loved most about researching this story, is the almost soap opera quality of his life. Haggard was born in Norfolk, England, on 22 June 1856. He was the eighth of ten children, and while his older brothers attended private schools, he was sent to a public grammar school, possibly as his father thought he wouldn't amount to much. Rider Haggard failed the army entrance exam and also started studying to join the British Foreign Office, but never made it to the exam. I am surmising here, but probably in frustration, in 1875 his father sent him to South Africa as an unpaid assistant to the secretary of Sir Henry Bulwer, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony Of Natal. Then, in 1876, he began working for Sir Theophilus Shepstone, Special Commissioner for the Transvaal, and was present for the British annexation of the Boer Republic of the Transvaal in 1877. He even read out part of the proclamation, when the appointed reader lost his voice! 

Around this time, Haggard fell deeply in love with Mary Elizabeth (Lilly) Jackson, but his father forbade any prospects of marriage until Haggard could support himself. In 1878 Haggard became Registrar of the High Court in the Transvaal, and with a career now established, he asked Lilly to marry him. He was utterly devastated when she turned him down to marry a well-to-do banker. Haggard had a brief affair with a married woman, which resulted in a child, who died in infancy, and then returned to England, where he married heiress Marianna Louisa Margitson, who was a friend of his sister's.  They had four children, a boy and three girls. Tragically the boy, and the firstborn, Jock, died of measles when he was ten, plunging Haggard into deep depression once again.

After Haggard married Marianna, they traveled back to South Africa, where Haggard began to farm at Hilldrop, Newcastle in January 1881, however the First Anglo-Boer War, between the British colonisers who wanted to annex the Transvaal, and the Boer forces, made things uncomfortable for them, especially as Newcastle was right on the border of the Transvaal, and a lot of fighting occurred in our town. They went back to England in August of the same year. Interestingly, they rented out their house to the British Royal Commission, who were negotiating peace terms, and retained only one room for themselves, where their son was born.

The House

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rider_Haggard

https://www.news24.com/Archives/Witness/Rider-meets-Rider-20150430

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/sunday-tribune/20170507/282041917040756

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Boer_War