Lord Charles Somerset

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The Lord Charles Henry Somerset (December 2, 1767 – February 18, 1831) was a British governor of the Cape Colony, South Africa, from 1814 to 1826.

He was the second son of the 5th Duke of Beaufort, became a Privy Counsellor on April 26, 1797 and was married twice, in June 1788 to Lady Elizabeth Courtenay, daughter of the 8th Earl of Devon, who died in 1815, and with whom he had only one child, a son, and on August 9, 1821 to Lady Mary Poulett, daughter of the 4th Earl Poulett, with whom he had no issue. His son was:

• Sir Henry Somerset (December 30, 1794 – February 15, 1862), who married on April 1, 1817 to Frances Sarah Heathcote (d. March 16, 1886), with whom he had one child, a daughter:
  • Leonora Louisa Somerset (d. September 28, 1913), who was married to Lt-Gen. Montague Cholmeley Johnstone (March 3, 1804 – September 22, 1874) on December 31, 1844, with whom she had one child, a daughter;

Lord Charles Somerset expanded policies established by Lord Caledon in 1809 banning the KhoiKhoi and other blacks from leaving their designated homes and having to carry travel documents issued by the British Government in Cape Town, "1809, The British Governor, Caledon, declared that the Hottentots had to have a fixed residence and could not migrate between regions without written authority." These were the first official vestiges of what was to become apartheid in the 20th Century when travel documents became the notorious "passes". Somerset was also responsible for starting the first attempts to obliterate Dutch and "Kombuis Hollands (Kitchen Dutch or Afrikaans)" from official procedures in 1822, later the British banned Afrikaans from schools, insisting that instruction be in English only, even in schools for Afrikaans students only.

"Then in 1820 following the 5th War, Ngqika the erstwhile ally of the British, was forced to agree to evacuate another strip between the Great Fish and Keiskamma Rivers—land to which he did not in fact have a legitimate claim. Governor Lord Charles Somerset gave as his ostensible reason the desire to create a vacant tract as a means of separating white and black and thus solving the problem of conflict between them by a kind of spatial 'apartheid'." (From: Historical Dictionary of the British Empire.)

Somerset was also responsible for banning the first English language newspapers in Cape Town and curtailing the freedom of the press. In his last years there was a cloud over his Cape administration because of the apparent abuse of funds - prior to his return to England in 1826 officials were sent from the UK to look into allegations of misappropriation of funds and several of Somerset's staff were arrested and sent home. In 1826 Somerset, himself, was recalled under a cloud. Somerset was known by many as the "scurrilous" governor and roundly hated by many people in South Africa, both black and white. It is remarkable that the Xhosa, who were hunted, warred against and lied to by Somerset have a saying: "Kukuza kuka Nxele" which is based on the story of Nkele, one of their people, who united them against Somerset and his troops and a chief nominated by Somerset, whom they hated. Nkele was sent as a prisoner to Robben Island by the Somerset government foreshadowing the imprisonment of Nelson Mandele (also a Xhosa) by the Afrikaans apartheid government.

These early efforts to "separate" blacks and whites, to force blacks to carry identifying documents when travelling outside their immediate living area, the forced resettling of blacks in barren regions not wanted by whites for settlement and farming, and the execution of blacks without trials, were the first vestiges of "apartheid" and were copied by the Afrikaner Broederbond after their formation as an Afrikaner secret society in 1918 developed to counter British control and promote Afrikaners as the controlling minority in 1948.

The towns of Somerset West and Somerset East in South Africa are named after him.

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by The Earl of Tyrconnel Edmund Phipps	Member of Parliament for Scarborough with Edmund Phipps 1796–1802	Succeeded by Edmund Phipps Lord Robert Manners
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Lord Edward Somerset	Member of Parliament for Monmouth 1802–1813	Succeeded by Marquess of Worcester
Political offices
Preceded by The Earl of Macclesfield	Comptroller of the Household 1797–1804	Succeeded by George Thynne
Preceded by Thomas Steele and The Lord Glenbervie	Paymaster of the Forces 1804–1806 (jointly with George Rose)	Succeeded by Earl Temple and The Lord John Townshend
Preceded by Earl Temple and The Lord John Townshend	Paymaster of the Forces 1807–1813 (jointly with Charles Long)	Succeeded by Charles Long and Frederick John Robinson
Government offices
Preceded by John Cradock	Governor of the Cape Colony 1814–1826	Succeeded by Richard Bourke, acting