Jemima Charlotte Lloyd was born 23 May 1837 in Norbury, England. Her father, William HC Lloyd, was the rector of Norbury and vicar of Ranton in Staffordshire. He was also chaplain to the Earl of Litchfield, a maternal relation. Jemima’s mother was Lucy Anne Jeffreys, a minister's daughter, who died in February 1843 leaving four daughters. Rev. Lloyd remarried in 1844 and had 13 additional children with his new wife, Ellen. In April 1849 Jemima and her sisters accompanied their father and his new family to Natal, when he was sent to D’Urban as its first Colonial Chaplain. Jemima and her sisters returned to England between 1851 and January 1855, where they lived with their maternal relations and, for a time, experienced the loving support of their mother’s family – especially their aunt Fanny, who Jemima regarded as a second mother, and their beloved grandmother (C8.15).
After returning to D’Urban in 1855 Jemima and her sisters endured an unkind and impoverished existence in the household of their profligate father and “poor, mad” step-mother where, deprived of affection, ill-treated and ill-fed, they were forced to care for their brood of step-siblings. Jemima and her sisters did inherit a fortune from their mother but due to Reverend Lloyd’s straightened circumstances he coerced Jemima’s older sister Fanny into giving him control of her portion of this inheritance. After Lucy refused to agree to the same arrangement he “expelled” her from the house; followed by Jemima a year or so later. Jemima and Lucy set up house on their own on 11 November 1859; this forced the sisters to “fend for themselves” and endure a period of hardship and estrangement from former friends and family in Natal. In her letters Jemima blames her and especially Lucy’s continued poor health and nervous strain with their neglect and exhaustion in the Lloyd house followed by the ill effects of the break – financial and emotional – with their father and loss of their home(C8.9; C8.15).
In March 1861 Jemima met Wilhelm Bleek at Mrs Roesch’s boarding house in the Cape where he was lodging having moved to the Cape from Natal in 1856 to become Sir George Grey's official interpreter and to catalogue his private library. Jemima was lodging there waiting for the mail steamer bound for England: her sister Lucy had persuaded her to seek treatment from a metropolitan doctor with a view to permanently recovering her health. While Wilhelm had been in Natal in 1855-6, and moved in presumably the same circles, somehow they did not meet there. Jemima and Wilhelm started corresponding soon after this meeting – Jemima being drawn to Wilhelm’s characterful face when they were seated with the other guests around the dinner table. (C8.14) These long-distance courtship letters, written before their marriage, are an important source of personal, biographical information in the archive where more intimate records are scarce.
Jemima returned to the Cape in mid-November 1862 and on 22 November, after setting up the tricky legal arrangements controlling access to her fortune (under the critical eye of her Uncle Marmaduke), Jemima married Wilhelm at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. Her beloved sister Lucy was one of the witnesses. Jemima went on to give birth to seven children in all, but two died in their infancy. Her first child, Edith, was born on September 8, 1863, and her last Wilhelmina (Helma) was born after Wilhelm’s death on 16th December, 1875.
Jemima was extremely close to her sisters (addressing them as her “fellows” and her “brothers”), especially “Loui”, her dearest. Her letters describe how she and Loui are almost “One” and each other’s “second self” (C8.9) Lucy travelled to the Cape from Natal in October 1862 to help Wilhelm prepare for “Jemmie’s” arrival, the marriage ceremony and the house Wilhelm rented for the couple in New Street, Cape Town. Lucy returned to Natal at the beginning of 1863 but by 1869 she had sold her D’Urban house and moved permanently with their eldest sister Fanny to stay with Wilhelm and Jemima in Mowbray. (In some letters one or two half-siblings also make an appearance in the house). At its fullest Jemima reports her household comprising some 17 individuals.
Jemima was devastated by Wilhelm’s untimely death at 48 on 17 August 1875, although it is clear in their courtship letters that this was always a consideration for the couple; and in addition to his constant invalidism Wilhelm had survived an earlier brush with death in March 1874 from which he did not truly recover. (C10.17; C10.13) In a codicil to his will, written on 30 June 1871 while he was again deathly ill, Wilhelm asked Jemima to continue managing the house and the “practical matters connected with having Bushmen (men or women) on the place” and to gradually publish his research – “Lucy was to continue their joint Bushman studies”. For the almost-decade after his death Jemima and Lucy honoured these wishes to “keep on the Bushman work” (C10.17).
In 1884, after a long period of financial hardship, Jemima left for Germany with her daughters. She and Wilhelm had always planned to take their children to Germany for their education – and live with their German family (C10.17). While in Europe after 1887 Jemima rented out Charlton House to her friend Katharine Bright, with whom she maintained a frequent correspondence while overseas (See Bright–Bleek Letters Item #210). Jemima and three of her daughters returned to the Cape in 1904. She died at the age of 72 on 26th October 1909 in Sir Lowry’s Pass, where she lived with her daughter Wilhelmine (Helma) and son-in-law Henry Bright. She is buried in Somerset West.
It is clear that Jemima’s role in the Bushman project was considerably greater than that of Wilhelm Bleek’s wife or mother to their children. She was an indispensable part of the Bleek and Lloyd Mowbray household – but also the bedrock of the Bleek and Lloyd research project itself. She was involved in almost every aspect of the research, even contributing two notebooks in 1879 – one in ǃkun from ǃnanni and Tamme and one in Korana from Griet, Cela and Piet Lynx, indicating she was at least conversant in those two languages (it seems very likely she also spoke |xam having had so many |xam speakers living in her Mowbray household over the years). After Wilhelm’s death Jemima’s management of the household and the needs of the instructors made it possible for Lucy to devote her all her time to her Bushman work and continuance of Wilhelm’s work in the Grey Library.
Jemima and Lucy continued to work tirelessly drumming up financial support for the publication and continuation of the “Bushman researches”, petitioning “Friends of Science” in the Colony and in Europe as soon as a month after his death (C15.5). Jemima also petitioned Her Majesty’s government for the continuation of Wilhelm’s annual Civil List pension, asking Wilhelm’s old employer/mentor Sir George Grey for his support in this endeavour (C10.17). She also petitioned for the continuance of Wilhelm’s grant from the Cape government, needed to ameliorate the expenses of caring for the instructors and their families in Mowbray. Jemima, along with Lucy, also fought to preserve the results of Wilhelm’s language and folklore research at the Grey Library after his death in the face of institutional indifference at the SA Public Library (C10.18).
Jemima’s character emerges from her portraits and letters as an interesting one. She was an open-minded and educated woman; single-minded and loyal to her loved ones; doughty and supportive of her husband and sister’s labours. Her letters show us a complex woman, not afraid of appearing “a dragon” or giving an arch or snippy comment; romantic and sensitive but also occasionally old-maidish; practical and honest to a fault; given to bouts of nervous health yet practical and strong – someone who willingly “took a man’s part” caring for her father’s family, disliked handsome men and travelled in a black dress to dissuade male interest. While she demonstrated an awareness of the social obligations of her position, like her husband she was even more concerned with the “higher” forms of love, duty and doing “right” – in the beginning expressed in their shared extremely liberal religious convictions but later through their dedication to the work. Somehow, with little financial and other assistance, Jemima administered, and I like to think nurtured, an unusual and diverse household comprising her own family as well as a varying number of |xam and ǃkun (often in poor condition), as well as a “research environment” devoted to the work of recording the folktales, language and histories of what her family saw as a “dying out race” (C15.5).