The Ford and Messina families in South Africa

A book on the family history of the Ford family, the descendants of James Edward Ford, an 1820 British Settler to South Africa; and the family of Guiseppe Antonio Messina from Corfu, who also arrived in South Africa in the early 1800s. The two families have helped to build and develop South Africa during the 1800s and early 1900s.

The Ford descendants in the main, although adept in painting, joined the judiciary and legal profession practising throughout the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. A member of the family joined the medical profession and excelled with his skill and his popularity in the region he practised. Another member became the artist of wildlife and medical drawings for Charles Darwin and Andrew Smith.

The Messina descendants originated from a family of boatmen and fishermen off the Italian coast. They arrived with barely a cent to their name and at the start of working in Cape Town, then moving to Algoa Bay, now Port Elizabeth. Over the next few decades they became the largest private owners of tugs and launches off the Eastern Cape Coast, and creating a name for themselves which will always be remembered. Without education, they excelled in business and were highly regarded by all.

8 copies were produced for family members.