Sparks family
The Sparks Family of Ladysmith
On 26th July 1850, David SPARKS, a young Londoner, arrived at Port Natal in the good ship “Ballengeich”. He was not a “Byrne Settler” and did not 
have a land grant. Miss Elizabeth Walsh (age 22) later arrived on the “Unicorn”, one of Moreland’s ships, along with her father William (a medical man from Stockport near Manchester) her mother Olivia Walsh and her brother Thomas (age 14). The ship had sailed from Liverpool on 13th June 1850. William had come to accept a land grant of 40 acres as part of the “Byrne Settler” project. David and Elizabeth, with whom he had fallen in love, were of good family, but they had little beside their courage to back them. Nonetheless, before the end of the year the Rev. Lloyd married them – with his wife’s ring because they couldn’t afford their own! The newlyweds settled in the area now known as Sydenham. A portion of Brickfields estate had been bought by him from Joseph Cato and here two wattle and daub rondawels were built with the kitchen a lean-to shelter outside. Often at night Mrs Sparks was unable to get to the kitchen through Leopards prowling around outside.
Land leased on Springfield Flats and a syndicate built a sugar mill. David Sparks grew sugar cane and was doing well until the floods of 1856 when the whole countryside was put under water and washed away the sugar cane. For months after food was scarce, flour and essentials unavailable and sailing ships failing to arrive at regular intervals; the population lived on whatever they could grow. Some years after their arrival David built a seven-roomed brick house, considered at the time to be THE finest. A house-warming party was held at which David decided to call the house Sydenham.
David and Elizabeth had eleven children: John William, Henry (Harry), Sara Ann, David, Benjamin, Joseph, Elizabeth, Mary Anne, Emily Ester, Abram and Lucy Hannah. In 1890, after Elizabeth had died, David married Jane Welch and they had a son Herbert James.
David SPARKS junior worked in Durban until he was 22 years old then, together with his younger brothers, Benjamin and Joseph, made their way to Ladysmith in 1878 to start a General Dealers business known as Sparks Bros. They lived in a house adjacent to the Railway on the Guinea Fowl side in Alfred Street which were later demolished and for many years the Railway Tennis Courts occupied this site. Before the turn of the Century David Sparks had “Roseneath” built in Keate Street. David was a storekeeper, Benjamin a forwarding agent and Joseph a butcher, the butchery was in Murchison Street opposite the Town Hall and their town house was No. 25 Keate Street and is still standing; they also owned a farm at Matiwane.
In 1882 he married a Ladysmith girl, Miss Kate Pinkney, and they had seven children, four sons and three daughters. When Ladysmith was proclaimed a borough in 1890, David Sparks was one of the first members of the Town Council, then Deputy Mayor and subsequently Mayor. In 1892, David Sparks, opened the first real dam on Klip River, just above Thornhill’s Drift and the wall of this first weir is still there as the outer wall of the splash basin on the Town side of Windsor Dam.
David was in Ladysmith throughout the Siege, his family having left on the last train out for Durban. The home in Keate Street was made available to be used as a hospital during the “Siege”. The total stock of his store Sparks Bros., General Dealer, was requisitioned by the Army and he himself served during the Boer War as a Major in the Natal Carbineers. He told a story that a platoon of horsemen, led by him, to reconnoitre enemy positions when he was taken short and galloped off into the bush to obey the call of nature. He was just getting his pants down when two rifle bullets ricocheted perilously close – never did he join the main party as fast as on that day!
Another story he loved telling was the blowing up of the German Howitzer, located on Lombaards Kop, which played havoc with reconnoitring parties if they so much as left the shelter of the banks of the Klip river. Volunteers were called for to blow up the gun. A moonless night was chosen and all volunteers donned “tackies”, no smoking, no talking and no clinking of rifles – the surprise was complete. Gun crews were overwhelmed, the Howitzer destroyed without loss and Lombaards Kop descended before reinforcements could arrive.
Towards the end of Siege they had to eat horsemeat, sometimes adding paraffin to make it palatable.
David, who was tremendously successful, left his property to his eldest son, Ernest, who married a Gifford. His sisters Muriel and Ethel were at school at “Uplands” in Pietermaritzburg with Bessie Carbutt. Muriel later married Arthur Cresswell, and David Cresswell (Later Lt. Col. D. R. Cressswell, O. C. 2nd Battalion Royal Natal Carbineers) married her younger sister. Ethel married into another prominent family, her husband was Willie Clarence. 
It is interesting to record that David Sparks was Chairman of the Town Board from 1890-1894, again in 1897-1898, Mayor of the town 1902-1904 and again 1907-1908. In the early 1900’s he was M. P.C. for Klip river and had the unique experience of being defeated by a single vote by the late Justice Carter when he stood for Parliamentary honours also in this period.
On his retirement from business to take up farming at ‘Newlands’, Matiwane, about 1922, he sold his property “Roseneath” to the N.G. Kerk for a Pastorie and Ds. Schoon was the first occupier.
Although Colonel Harry SPARKS did not settle in Ladysmith, it is worth noting that he spent some time in the area. He joined the Natal Mounted Rifles in 1876 and saw action during the Zulu war, appointed Lieutenant of the Victoria Mounted Rifles in 1887 and took command of the amalgamation of Durban, Victoria, Stanger and Alexander contingents becoming Captain in 1888 and as such served throughout the Boer War; first at Elandslaagte, the Siege of Ladysmith and after the relief, at Laings Nek and in the Transvaal and Orange river Country. In 1906 he was with the columns that suppressed the native uprising known as the Bambatha Rebellion and, from 1896 to January 1897, he led the demonstration against the arrival of large numbers of no-indentured Indians among whom was Mahatma Gandhi.
A direct Sparks line from Major David Sparks, continues today through David Ernest(B1883) to David Gifford(B1922) to Kelvin Gifford Rev.(B1955) and Ivan Lynn Ernest(B1958) now living in Pietermaritzburg and Australia respectively. Ivan claims to be the Sparks that was born in Ladysmith.
The family spread out all over Nothern Natal. Abram moved up to the Swinburne district and started the Sparks Riverview Guest Farm and the Walsh Sparks line. Another branch farmed in the Washbank Valley and spread to Dundee. This branch died out in the district when young David Sparks, then managing “Ayton” in the Biggarsberg for Frank Mitchell-Innes, emigrated with his wife and children to New Zealand in 1954.
David Ernest and “Granny Sparks,” as she was affectionately known in the area, were well-loved members of the Elandslaagte farming community, the Matiwane Tennis Club still plays on the courts near the old station, which Ernest Sparks donated to them. They were a kindly, gentle old couple, whose simple stone house was open to all and sundry.
The other sons of David senior, John William, Benjamin, Joseph and Abraham, were not in Ladysmith so therefore do not feature here.
The information here was supplied by Chris Sparks & Daryl Fourie.
Photographs are by kind permission of Gail Durham Brink.