Four to five thousand British settlers arrive in 1820 to farm the eastern Cape in the first wave of large-scale British settlement.

After the Napoleonic wars, Britain had experienced a serious unemployment problem, so many of the 1820 Settlers are poor and encouraged to settle in an attempt by the Cape government to close, consolidate and defend the eastern frontier against the neighboring Xhosa peoples, and to provide a boost to the English-speaking population.

Of the ninety thousand applicants, about four thousand were approved, so that many 1820 Settlers initially arrive in the Cape in around sixty different parties between April and June 1820.

The 1820 Settlers are granted farms near the village of Bathurst and supply equipment and food against their deposits, but their lack of agricultural experience leads many of them to abandon agriculture and withdraw to Bathurst and other settlements like Grahamstown, East London and Port Elizabeth, where they typically revert to their trades.