Notes on the Carnegie Family: Pioneers of Southern Rhodesia

By
Ross Dix-Peek


The Carnegie family was one of the early pioneering families of Southern Rhodesia, and rank in equal measure with those other fine pioneering families of Rhodesia, the Moffatt’s, the Thomas’s and the Sykes’ family. The Carnegie family owes its Rhodesian heritage to the Reverend David Carnegie, who joined the London Missionary Society’s Mission in Matabeleland in 1882, and in 1885 married a member of the Sykes family. They were stationed successively at Hope Fountain and Centenary, near Figtree. The Reverend Carnegie died in 1910 and was buried at Hope Fountain.

His wife, M.M. Carnegie (nee Sykes) was born at Inyati in 1862 and was one of the very first white children to be born in what would later become “Rhodesia” (the first being Livingstone Moffat, born at Inyati in 1860). On the day of her birth, she was presented with a cow and a calf by Mzilikazi, King of the Matabele. This amazing woman was able to recall the coronation of Lobengula, Mzilikazi’s successor, in 1870, and the famous battle of Zwangendaba, fought in the same year between Lobengulo and the Induna, Umbigo, who refused to recognize Lobengula as King. She also retained a vivid memory of the early pioneer hunters and explorers who made Inyati their headquarters, men such as Thomas Baines, “Baas” Hartley, Carl Mauch, F.C. Selous, “Elephant” Phillips and others. She was also, together with her husband, to translate “Pilgrim’s Progress” into Sindebele, while also translating “Line upon Line”.

Her mother, “Mrs Sykes” was the daughter of the Revrend Kolbe of Paarl, in the Cape Colony. She married the Reverend W. Sykes, the couple undergoing the troublesome times of Mzilikazi, and also helped establish the Inyati Mission, which had the honour of being the first white settlement in Rhodesia. Her husband, Rev. Sykes, was an accomplished scholar and rapidly acquired fluency in the native language, and was able to translate directly from the Greek Testament into the Sindebele language. By all intents a Polymath, Sykes was also the author of many hymns and the translator of many others. The redoubtable Mrs Sykes lived to an advanced age, passing away in 1920, at the age of 92. W.A. Carnegie, the son of Mrs M.M. Carnegie, and the grandson of Mrs Sykes, was born at Inyati in 1886 and later served as secretary of the Agricultural Association for many years, being responsible for the arrangements for the association. He also served as secretary of a number of other local bodies and was, moreover, a keen collector of “Rhodesiana”, and his knowledge of the early history of Rhodesia was deemed unparalleled. Bernard Carnegie, born in Bulawayo in 1914, was a third generation Rhodesian, which is remarkable considering that white settlement in Southern Rhodesia had really only begun in 1890, with the advent of the Pioneer Column and the founding of Fort Salisbury, or Salisbury, as it later became known.

Another early member of the family was the Rhodesian “Rhodes Scholar”, Theodore A. Carnegie. Born at Hope Fountain, Southern Rhodesia, on the 6 March 1896, he was educated at first in Kent, England, before enrolling at the Milton School in Bulawayo in 1913. While at Milton School, Theodore Carnegie took an active part in every sphere of school life, and represented Matabeleland against Mashonaland in the Inter-Provincial School Rugby football competition. Awarded a senior Beit bursary, Theodore proceeded to Rhodes College, Grahamstown, in South Africa, where he passed his intermediate B.A. and was elected to a Rhodesian Rhodes scholarship (1915), which, however, in consequence of the First World War, was deferred. He then joined the staff of the Milton School in Bulawayo, before leaving at the end of 1915 for England where he joined the British Army. Commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, Theodore eventually joined the 12th Battalion, and was sadly killed in France in August 1917. Yet another member of this amazing Rhodesian family was Balfour Johnston Carnegie, who was born at Figtree, Southern Rhodesia, in 1899. He served with the 2nd Rhodesia Regiment in 1917, before joining the Royal Flying Corps, and later held various appointments in the Rhodesian government services. Hats-off to a fine Rhodesian pioneering family.

[Sources: The Rhodesian Souvenir Book, 1938, pg 69.; “South Africa” periodical, November 1917; Article, “Southern Rhodesian-born Airmen of World War I, 1916-1919”, by Ross Dix-Peek, 2007.]