It appears that there are two lines of the family in South Africa originating from separate Brunettes who arrived in the Cape in the early 1800s. It is not clear if there was any connection between these originators of the Brunette name in South Africa.

George Macnamara Brunette

George Macnamara Brunette (GMB) was born around 1806 and he arrived in the Cape in 1822. In 1826 he married Maria Theresa Fransisca COCKBURN (MTFC) in Cape Town and they moved to Port Elizabeth a few years later. They had 10 children:
George Augustus b. 1827
Anna Elizabeth b.1830
Maria Theresa Fransisca b.1832
Helena Amelia b. 1835
James Lionel b. 1837
Charles Edward b. 1840
John Francis b.1841
Charlotte Augusta b.1843
Margaret Emily b.1844
Caroline Louisa b. 1845

The family moved to Uitenhage by 1836 where GMB died in 1850. He is buried at St. Katherine's Church cemetery (no gravestone). His wife, Maria Theresa Fransisca died in 1863 and is buried in the St. Mary's Cemetery in Port Elizabeth, next to the Baakens River (there is a gravestone).

Maria Theresa Fransisca Cockburn was born in London in 1800. She was the daughter of a Colonel John Cockburn of the Royal Artillery who was with the British occupation forces at the Cape in 1795. While there he met and married a local woman, Anna Elizabeth de Waal, and they had five children together. It appears they went back to England and the colonel must have died there because there is a reference in an old book about the British at the Cape which says that on 25 September 1812 Mrs C & 5 children, widow of late Col C, Royal Artillery, arrive at Table Bay in 'General Wellesley' ex Falmouth. The children must have grown up in Cape Town and that is where GMB met and married MTFC. (Strangely enough she was 26 and he 20 when they married.) There is a tremendous amount of information about MTFC's ancestors (especially on her mother's side) and I have been able to trace them back to some of the earliest settlers at the Cape (1670s) and further back to the 1500s in Europe.

Up until recently I had no information about the origins of GMB. I had been looking at his background for some time and hadn't been able to find out anything, especially where he was born and how he got to South Africa. Then I came across a letter in the SA Archives dated 1822 from Lord Bathurst at the Colonial Office in London to Lord Charles Somerset at the Cape. He was writing on behalf of the widow of Major Truter who requested that her son George Brunette be given a position with the Cape government. I realized that his mother must have remarried and I started looking into the history of the Truter family. This lead to Margaret Truter who wrote the book on the Truters in South Africa (literally). She provided that part of the Truter family tree which gave the following information:

George Macnamara Brunette's father was George Brunette, a Lieutenant in His Majesty's 2nd Ceylon Regiment who on 27/12/1805 married Anne Macnamara (born around 1787, died at age 55 on 11/12/1842 in Columbo, Ceylon). She was the daughter of Colonel Matthew Macnamara (born around 1761, died 31/1/1824 in Monaghyr (sic) at age 62). Lt. George Brunette must have died shortly after the birth of GMB because his mother then married James William Truter (born Jacobus Wilhelmus Truter in Cape Town on 18/8/1782), a captain in the 2nd Ceylon Regiment. The wedding was on 3/9/1808 at Jaffna, Ceylon. JW Truter was promoted to major in the same regiment on 12/8/1819. He died 7/4/1821 in Ceylon and is buried at the Dutch Church, Galle, Ceylon. JW Truter and Anne Manamara had five children, two of whom moved to the Cape: Anna Amelia Truter who married Edward Fredrick Wylde son of John Wylde, Chief Justice of Cape Colony, and James Lionel Truter who, after an unsuccessful stint in the diamond mines, ended up as a magistrate in Calvinia. It appears that George Macnamara Brunette must have come out to the Cape by himself, followed later by his half-brother and sister.

William Richards Brunette

William Richards Brunette was with the Indian colonial service and he died in Bangalore in 1856. He is buried at the old colonial graveyard in Bangalore. His widow and five children were on their way back home to Cloyne, Ireland when their ship stopped at the Cape. There they met up with William Richards' older brother George David Brunette who persuaded them to stay in the Cape. There were two sons, William Kirby Brunette. and Sandford Richards Brunette, who have an extensive array of descendants in South Africa today.

George David Brunette was born in Cloyne, Ireland in 1810. He came out to the Cape in 1832, married Pauline Swaving, and acquired extensive properties around Cape Town.

William Richards and George David were the sons of William Brunette who was born about 1784 in Cloyne. Their mother's name was Elizabeth.

A quick word about the Brunettes from Cloyne, Ireland. Apparently they were French Huguenots from Normandy, France who moved to Ireland in 1688. They settled on a farm called "Springfield" just outside of Cloyne. This farm is to this day owned by the Brunette family. I have heard that the current owner is John A. Brunett (sic).