The 1820 settlers were British colonists settled by the British government and the Cape authorities in the South African Eastern Cape. They were encouraged to settle in an attempt by the Cape government to close, consolidate and defend the eastern frontier against the neighbouring Xhosa peoples, and to provide a boost to the English-speaking population. It was one of the largest stages of British settlement in Africa.

Approximately 5,000 Settlers landed in around 60 different parties between April and June 1820. They were granted farms near the village of Bathurst and given equipment, but their lack of agricultural experience and the unviability of the land they had been given, led many of them to abandon agriculture and withdraw to settlements like Grahamstown, where they typically became tradesmen.

These images are a small selection from a project looking at the traces of the 1820 settlers in South Africa.

The project is both an enquiry into how "Britishness" looks after nearly 200 years in Africa, and a meditation on passage.

Photographs explore the subjective dimensions of encountering a strange land, and the way the settler presence remains inscribed on the landscape, in architecture, and in the preservation of heritage, as well as the ways it has been changed, effaced, or re-appropriated under current "post-colonial "conditions . A significant element is new portraits of the living descendents of settlers, made both in South Africa and England.

The completed project will be exhibited in the Empire and Commowealth Museum in Bristol in November 2007, with further exhibitions in South Africa in 2008.