Sybella Smuts

Sybella Smuts nee Krige was born at Klein Libertas, Stellenbosch on 22 December 1870 and died at Doornkloof, Irene on 25th February 1954. She was the Prime Minister’s wife and benefactress and was a daughter of Jacob Daniël Krige and his wife, Susanna Johanna Schabort. She was a cousin of Christman Joel Krige, one-time Speaker of the Union House of Assembly.
One of eleven children, two of whom died young, Sybella  played an important and loving part in the lives of the younger members of the family. She was educated at the Bloemhof Seminary, Stellenbosch, and later wrote the Matriculation Examination at Victoria College. Subsequently she taught for some time at, among other places, the farm school Zandberg (now Scholtzenhof) in the Stellenbosch district.
Intellectually talented, Sybella was also sincere, artistic and thorough, if a little eccentric. She met the brilliant young Jan Christia(a)n Smuts while she was studying at Stellenbosch, and after he had completed his studies overseas they were married on 30th April  1897 at Stellenbosch. Soon afterwards the young couple moved to the Transvaal Republic, where Smuts became Attorney-General in June 1898.

The War Years

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War in October 1899, Sybella translated the work “A century of wrong” to which her husband had made an important contribution, from English into Dutch. During the war she was ordered by the British to remain in a house in Pietermaritzburg, in spite of her pleas to go to a concentration camp in common with all other Boer women. During the First World War (1914-18) she rendered exceptional service to soldiers and in the military hospitals.

Her contribution

In spite of her husband’s active public life Sybella chose to remain in the background as far as possible, and hardly ever accompanied Smuts on his visits abroad. She was, however, the leading figure in the Smuts household. During her lifetime she carefully sorted and preserved the numerous newspaper cuttings, articles, and letters written about, to, and by, her husband. She also shared his interest in botany.
Apart from the leading role she played in the Women’s United Party, she became particularly well known during the Second World War (1939-45) when she founded the Gifts and Comforts Fund in July 1940. As chairman she put this organisation on a national basis to be a link between home and the war front. By 1942 the fund had amounted to £158 000, and in the same year, at the age of seventy, she accompanied her husband on a visit to Egypt. Here she personally supervised the delivery of parcels to the troops for some time and later also visited base camps and hospitals. It was at this time that she earned the world-wide title of affection, ‘Ouma Smuts’. She also devoted her energies to the welfare of prisoners of war and contributed to the launching of the Governor-General’s War Fund.

Although Sybella was a home and family-loving woman by nature, she was also a successful public figure who only came into her own as such late in life. In 1943 she was awarded an honorary D.Phil. by the University of the Witwatersrand. She was cremated and her ashes were strewn over the veld around the obelisk at Doornkloof.

Apart from three children who died young, there were two sons and four daughters of her marriage to General Smuts. Photographs of Sybella S. appear in Hancock and Macdonald (both infra). During her visit to Egypt, Simon Elwes painted her portrait.

Charles Spencer

If you traced your family history far back enough you would eventually find that we are all in some way related to nobility or Royalty. Finding the time to do this is generally a lifetime of searching and finding.

My interest in family history stems back to when I was a teenager and I was told that my great grandmother Hannah Louisa Yeoman’s father Alexander Yeoman’s was related to the Earl of Desborough. When Alexander’s great grandfather died there was supposed to be a Title and vast amounts of land, unfortunately there was a family feud and apparently the estate went to chancery and no one inherited the title but the land sits somewhere unclaimed. I have spent many years with plenty money writing to record offices, visiting England on numerous occasions and each time coming to a dead end. Maybe my ancestors were the offspring of the Lord of the manor having an extra marital affair with one of the serving maids? That I will never know unless perhaps we have some DNA tests done and see what the results are.

My family Spencer look alikes

The town of Desborough is 20 miles from Althrop where the Spencer family hail from in Northants. In 2005 I was lucky enough to visit the Althrop, home and family seat of The Spencer Family. A year prior to that Earl Spencer’s house burnt down in Bishopscourt and my husband was the appointed builder to restore their beautiful home to its original splendour. Whilst visiting Althrop I managed to get a few words with Charles Spencer who kindly autographed his book on the Spencer Family and gave it to my husband and me as a present, no charge.

In no time I was scouring the index to look for perhaps familiar names and was bowled over when I discovered that Lord Desborough was a family friend of the Spencer’s. However the search continues on a life time expedition from probably a warped story that has become a bit like “broken telephone” Maybe in years to come or perhaps my grandchildren will find the true story of the Lord of Desborough.

Don’t give up on those family rumours because in every rumour their is at least an ounce of truth. Start tracing your roots now.

Brodribb Grave at St. Pauls Rondebosch

I suppose that, genealogically speaking, we can demonstrate that we are all related to one another if we trace our ancestors far back enough. But as we research our family history many of us hope to find a connection to royalty or at least to a celebrity.

This is what happened as I continued my research into those buried in St Paul’s Graveyard. I began searching for the relatives of JESSIE WORSLEY BRODRIBB who died 1878. We are not sure if she is buried in the Graveyard but there certainly is a memorial for her on the MONTAGU grave. The reason for this is that she was the daughter of John Edward MONTAGU. She had married Samuel John BRODRIBB who died (1894) after the graveyard at St Paul’s was closed and so he was not buried alongside his late wife but at St Thomas’s Graveyard. That graveyard is now under the astro-turf hockey field at Bishops school.

Jessie BRODRIBB’s father, John Edward MONTAGU, was the oldest son of Captain John MONTAGU who had served as Colonial Secretary in Tasmania before being sent to the Cape also as Colonial Secretary in 1843. His son also became a civil servant in the Cape Colony. The baptism register entry for his children shows his occupation as ‘Civil Servant’ and later as ‘Register of Deeds’.

I searched for MONTAGU and BRODRIBB on Google and found a fascinating family tree which traced the family back to 1517. Jessie Worsley BRODRIBB’s great- great- grandfather was an Admiral in the Royal Navy and her great- grandfather a Lieutenant Colonel who had served in India — where grandfather Captain John MONTAGU was born. He had served at the Battle of Waterloo and his oldest son, John Edward MONTAGU was Jessie’s father. As I traced the MONTAGU family back eight generations from Jessie Worsley BRODRIBB born MONTAGU I found that an older brother of the eighth generation MONTAGUs had become the first Earl of Manchester.

The first Earl of Manchester had married a Catherine SPENCER, whose father, Sir William SPENCER, takes us back to 1555. Sir William’s had a brother John SPENCER and their father takes us back to 1515.

If we follow John SPENCER’s line forward eight generation we comes to another John SPENCER who was the first Earl Spencer. A further seven generations later we come to Lady Diana SPENCER who, of course, married someone the family tree on the Internet calls Charles Phillip Arthur George WINDSOR, who is needless to say Prince Charles.

So using a relationship calculator I found at a family history web page I could calculate that the late Princess Diana WINDSOR (born SPENCER) was the Ninth cousin six times removed from Jessie Worsley BRODRIBB (born MONTAGU). Agreed —not a very close relationship but we can claim to have a relative of Princess Diana buried at St Paul’s Graveyard, Rondebosch.

This table is built on two major assumptions. First, it assumes that parents each had two siblings, who each had four children–for a total of 16 cousins. (In reality, the author of this table has a total of 28 cousins, so he was being conservative). He then assumes each of four grandparents had two siblings each who had 4 children (who survived to adulthood), who each had four children, for a total of 64 2nd cousins. So he uses this same assumption back to the 20th cousins. Again this is a conservative assumption because people in the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries had many more than 4 children survive to adulthood.

Second, the author assumes there is no inter-marriage among any ancestors, which is clearly not true. It is not true because there are not 4 trillion people living on the earth today, therefore there must have been inter-marriage. The alternative is that every living human on the earth is at least my 15th cousin or closer.

Death Notice of Samuel John Brodribb

As Princess Di and Jessie BRODRIBB are 9th Cousins that means that each of them could have over a million cousins and so there is a very good chance you, the reader of this article, are also related to Princess Diana or someone else famous. As the author of the table Calvin Andricus says: One might ask, just for fun, what is the probability that one of my 20th cousins (or closer) is famous? The answer is 100%, since 4 trillion, plus 1 trillion, plus 274 billion, plus 68 billion, etc. is a pretty large number. What is the probability that you are related to someone famous? One hundred percent. “

by Rev Derek Pratt  Editor of the Cape Town Family History Society Newsletter and Projects Convenor

Andries Stockenstrom

Andries Stockenström was born in Graaff-Reinet on the 22 April 1844 and died on 22 March 1880 in Swellendam. He was a judge and the second son of Sir Andries Stockenström (6.7.1792-15.3.1864) and his wife, Elsabe Helena Maasdorp.

Stockenström was a brilliant student who continued his legal education in England and Germany. On 17.11.1865 he was called to the English Bar by the Middle Temple and on 20.3.1866 was admitted as an advocate in Cape Town where he began his professional work but, soon moving to Grahamstown, built up an extensive practice in the Eastern Districts court. On 10.9.1875 he was selected by the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Barkly, to act as a judge in the Griqualand West Land Court which had been established by Ordinance 3 of 1875 not to arbitrate on, or in any way re-open, the question of the political boundaries of Griqualand West, but to decide on questions of land title within the area annexed by Britain in 1871.

He had a brilliant reputation at the Bar, a profound knowledge of Roman Dutch Law and was fluent in Dutch as well as English. Controversy nevertheless surrounded his appointment, the belief being that he was prejudiced against D. Arnot, the Griqua agent, and sympathetic towards President J.H. Brand of the Orange Free State. There is no evidence however that these sentiments, if held, determined his decisions. He worked with tremendous application applying the legal concept of sovereignty and the law of property to a situation too complex in its political and socio-economic ramifications to be resolved thereby. In his celebrated pronouncement in the Land Court, he argued that ‘the chiefs in that area were chiefs over tribes, not territories. Like all chiefs of nomadic tribes they exercised personal jurisdiction over their followers but territorial jurisdiction was to them a thing unknown’.

From denial of territorial jurisdiction followed denial of the validity of many of the titles issued by Nicolaas Waterboer, Cornelis Kok and others, and the sweeping claims advanced by their agents. Where Orange Free State titles issued after 1854 confirmed earlier titles issued in the name of a chief, these were accepted on grounds of continuous occupation. Otherwise the Griqua claims and those of their ambitious White agents were in many instances brushed aside. One immediate consequence of the decision was not altogether unexpected. Denial of Waterboer’s sovereignty outside Griquatown and Albania validated the Orange Free State’s claims to the dry diggings, but President Brand waived this in return for £90 000. Though subsequent adjustments within Griqualand West were made by Sir Charles Warren, the indirect consequences of S.’s decision foreshadowed the end of a West Griqua homeland and laid the foundations of unrest for the Griqua rebellion (1876-78).

Stockenström had worked under great strain at high pressure and was subjected thereafter to bitter criticism. To ease his distress Sir Bartle Frere, who had succeeded Barkly, agreed to support his plea for a full Royal Commission of Enquiry into his conduct. To his chagrin Britain refused on grounds of ‘Mr. Stockenström’s high reputation for the conscientious discharge of his official duties’. There was absolute confidence in his integrity.

He inherited his father’s interest in politics and contested the Grahamstown parliamentary seat in 1876. Though he lost to Richard Southey his advancement in other spheres was deservedly rapid – he was appointed Attorney General (22.8.1877-5.2.1878), elected MLA for Albert (1878-79), and reappointed judge in 1879.

Indications are that like Chief Justice J.H. de Villiers, who had known him since boyhood, he took his stand on the rule of law. He concurred with De Villiers in the well-known case of T. Upington, then Attorney General, versus Saul Solomon and Co., proprietor of The Cape Argus, and F.J. Dormer the editor.

In two vigorous articles on the Koegas affair (1879) The Cape Argus had censured Upington for declining to transfer the trial of the accused to Cape Town in order to remove the case from local pressures. De Villiers, with S. concurring, ruled that the first article was fair comment; the second was admitted to be defamatory but only nominal damages were imposed. The decision was regarded as a blow struck for justice as well as for the freedom of the press.

In 1880, despite ill health, S. went on his first and only Circuit, during which he died on his thirty-sixth birthday. Most major newspapers carried an obituary notice; that of The Cape Argus was a moving tribute to the judge and to the personality and abilities of a great man cut off in his prime. In the words of Lord De Villiers, Stockenström’s outstanding qualities were ‘fearless honesty and a thorough devotion to duty’. He was keenly interested in the volunteer movement and had, shortly before his death, devoted himself to the resuscitation of the Volunteer Cavalry troop (in Cape Town) of which he was a captain.

On 24.12.1867 S. married Maria Henrietta Hartzenberg of Graaff-Reinet. They had one son: Andries (1868-1922), who followed his father into the legal profession, and became the third baronet in 1912.

Source and acknowledgements Standard Encylopeadia of South Africa. Nasou Via Afrika

Lucy Bleek Lloyd

Lucy Catherine Lloyd was born at Norbury, Staffordshire, England on the 7th November 1834 – and died at Mowbray, Cape on 31 August 1914, philologist and ethnologist, was second of the four daughters of William Henry Cynric Lloyd and his wife, Lucy Anne Jeffries. Her father, a Church of England clergyman, was for twenty-three years rector of Norbury and vicar of Ranton in Staffordshire; he was also chaplain to Lord Lichfield. After the death of her mother in 1843 her father married Ellen Norman, by whom he had thirteen children. Appointed colonial chaplain for Natal on 9.10.1848, he subsequently became archdeacon of Durban. Following on her father’s appointment as chaplain, Lucy accompanied him, her stepmother, and five sisters and a brother, to South Africa aboard the East Indiaman John Line.

After an eighty-day voyage under sail, the family arrived in Natal on 21.4.1849 and settled at Durban.
Lucy appears from family records to have been privately educated when in England and later in South Africa. She became a school teacher but chronic ill health severely restricted her activities in this profession. On 22.11.1862 her younger sister, Jemima Charlotte, married the noted philologist W.H.I. Bleek in Cape Town. At the invitation of Bleek, Lucy L. joined his domestic circle at Charlton House, Mowbray (subsequently demolished after its purchase by the Cape Town Training College and now the site for its residential building, Viljoenhof) and spent the next thirteen years assisting her brother-in-law with his researches into Bushman folklore and language.

In 1870 Bleek obtained permission from the Cape government to select two Bushmen from the group of twenty-seven prisoners working on the Breakwater in Table Bay. The two so chosen, together with a further two and their families, were accommodated in shelters in the garden of Charlton House; through this arrangement Bleek and Lucy L. were able to study the Bushman language and collect examples of their folklore. Bleek submitted a report on these researches to the Cape parliament in 1873.

On 17.8.1875 Bleek died and Lucy L. carried on the work she had helped him to begin. He had been first custodian of the Grey Collection at the South African Public Library, Cape Town, and after his death the library committee appointed Lucy L. his successor on half-pay of £125 per annum for a twelve-month period. She took up her appointment on 18.10.1875 and proved so capable that her tenure continued for the next four years. During that period she catalogued the philological manuscripts in the Grey Collection and edited material collected by Bleek.

In Febrary 1880 the library committee decided to appoint a professionally qualified philologist as custodian, and so gave Lucy L. notice. Dr Theophilus Hahn was selected and he arranged to assume duties in December of that year. Lucy L. appealed to the Grey Trustees against her dismissal; they supported her and the unfortunate dispute between them and the committee was taken to the supreme court for judgment: The case could not be decided there and with Hahn’s resignation in 1883 the post of custodian was left unfilled.
During 1879 Lucy L. took a prominent part in establishing the Folklore Journal, the first ethnographic journal to be published in South Africa; at the same time she served as secretary of the South African Folklore Society. When G.W. Stow*, the geologist and ethnologist, died in 1882 she bought the manuscript of his Native races of South Africa and his copies of Bushman cave art from his widow. With the assistance of G.M. Theal*, Lucy L. arranged for the publication of Stow’s manuscript in London during 1905. A selection of the Bushman rock art was edited subsequently by her niece, Dorothea Bleek, and published as Rock paintings in South Africa (1930).

Plagued by increasing ill health and in straitened circumstances, Lucy L. returned to England in 1883-4; for many years she alternated between England and Germany, where she stayed on occasion with her sister Jemima and her children, the family having also been obliged to leave South Africa for financial reasons. Lucy L. was for a short time at Rhyl, in North Wales.

In 1889 her report on her Bushman researches A short account of further Bushman material, which had been presented to the Cape parliament, was published in London. In 1911 her Specimens of Bushman folklore, with an introduction by G.M. Theal, also appeared in London. This book, together with her generally recognized status as an authority on the Bushman, resulted in her receiving the academic distinction that was her rightful due. In 1912 the University of Cape of Good Hope conferred on her an honorary doctorate of literature. She was the first woman to be so honoured by the University.
Since Jemima and the remainder of her family had returned to South Africa in 1906, Lucy L. joined them at the Cape in 1912. Two years later she died at Charlton House, the scene of so much of her pioneering work. Two of her publications appeared posthumously: The mantis and his friends (1923) and Special speech of animals and moon used by Xam Bushmen (1936).

Through her indefatigable labours and scholarship Lucy L. helped to lay the foundations for the study of Bushman culture; she and her brother-in-law were among the first to provide accounts of the !xBushman dialect; her particular interest was in Bushman folklore and her contribution to this field of study is of permanent value. Modest and retiring by nature, she was generally admired and respected for her unique achievement.
A photograph of her in her academic robes hangs in the Grey Collection of the South African Library; other photographs of her are in the possession of her great-niece, Dr K.M.F. Scott, of Grahamstown.

Acknowledgements Standard Encylopeadia of South Africa

Sir Malcolm Campbell

Sir Malcolm Campbell was born at Chistlehurst, Kent, Eng on the 11th March 1885 and died at Reigate, Surrey, England on the 31 December 1948, racing driver and speedboat racer, was the only son of William Campbell, a jeweller, and his wife, Ada Westerton.
After his schooling at Guildford and Uppingham, he spent a few years in Germany and France to broaden his education. Even as a schoolboy he was fascinated by speed, to such a degree that at the age of sixteen he was found guilty in court of reckless driving on his bicycle and was fined thirty shillings.
A descendant of a family long established and well known in the Scottish Highlands, C. was heir to a flourishing diamond business started by his grandfather, Andrew, in London, and in 1921 he became a life member of Lloyds, the underwriters. As a well-to-do broker he was able to spend a great deal of time and money on his hobby, motor racing, and was in addition a pioneer in aviation. As early as 1909 he undertook a flight in an aircraft he himself had built, and during the First World War (1914-1918) served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. He also led a daring and fruitless expedition to Cocos Island in search of hidden treasure of about £12 million in a wreck at the bottom of the ocean.
However, it was his attempts to break world speed records in his ten successive Blue Bird racing cars and the competition between him and his countryman, Maj. H.O.D. Segrave, with his Sunbeam and Golden Arrow cars, that made C. world famous.
In South Africa his attempts to break the records also attracted a great deal of attention, especially after his arrival in Cape Town (January 1929). The purpose of his visit was to try to break the record in his Blue Bird on Verneuk Pan in Namaqualand. He was injured on 10.2.1929 when the light aircraft in which he was reconnoitring the pan crashed. Rain, wind, and other problems delayed his attempts, and shortly after Segrave had improved the world record over one mile with a speed of 231,36 m.p.h. at Daytona Beach, USA, on 20.4.1929, C. reached a speed of 218,5 m.p.h. in unfavourable conditions at Verneukpan. Because he had been unable to improve the record over one mile, he said jokingly: ‘The pan cheated me’.
Five days later he did in fact break Segrave’s world records over five miles and 3,125 miles when he reached speeds of 212,8 and 216,7 m.p.h. respectively.
C. was also the first person in the world to reach a speed of more than 300 m.p.h. on land and he broke the world record on land officially nine times – first on 25.9.1924 at Pendine Sands in Wales, when he recorded a speed of 146,16 m.p.h. and for the last time on 3.9.1935 at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, with a speed of 301,13 m.p.h. From 1908, when he took part in the first motor race, he won more than four hundred trophies.
After 1935, C. concentrated on world records on water. He broke the world record officially four times in his speedboats, Blue Bird I and Blue Bird II – the first time on Lake Maggiore in Italy (1.9.1937) with a speed of 128,30 m.p.h., and the last time on Coniston Water in England on 19.8.1939 with a speed of 141,74 m.p.h.
In 1931 C. was knighted. In 1935 he unsuccessfully contested the seat of Deptford for the Conservative Party. During the Second World War (1939-1945) he was in command of a motor-cycle unit and was later a major at Allied Headquarters. In the meanwhile he became a motor journalist and during the thirties wrote seven books. He wrote two books on his experiences, namely My greatest adventure: speed (1931) and My thirty years of speed (1935). His wife, Lady Dorothy, wrote Malcolm Campbell, the man as I knew him (1951).
C. was married three times. His first (1913) and last (1945) marriages did not last long and were childless. A daughter, Jean, and a son, Donald, were born of his second marriage, to Dorothy Evelyn Whittall in 1920. They were divorced in 1940. Donald Campbell followed in his father’s footsteps by raising the world record on land to 403,10 m.p.h. in Australia on 17.7.1964. From 1955 to 1964 he broke the world record on water four times. On 4.1.1967, while trying to break his own world record on Coniston Water in England, his speedboat exploded and he was killed.
C. was awarded the M.B.E. and in 1933 a bronze bust of him by J.A. Stevenson was exhibited in the Royal Academy.

We wish all our Jewish friends at Ancestry24 a kosher and joyous Passover and would like to take this opportunity to explain the significance of this holiday a little, for the benefit of Non-Jewish member.

How do you find Jewish Records?

The Jewish holiday of Pesach (the Passover) begins on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. This year, it falls on 19 April.

The name “Pesach” is pronounced PAY-sahch (with the “ch” like the “ch” is the Scottish word “loch” or the “g” in the Afrikaans word “goed”).

The primary observances of Pesach are related to the Exodus from Egypt after generations of slavery. The word itself means to pass through, to pass over, to exempt or to spare. It refers to the fact that God “passed over” the houses of the Jews when he was slaying the first-born of Egypt.

“Pesach” is also the name of the sacrificial offering (a lamb) that was made in the Temple on this holiday. However, it is the first of the three major festivals with both historical and agricultural significance for Jews.

As mentioned, this is one of the major Jewish festivals. It lasts a week, and ends on the evening of 26 April. I hope the true significance of this special week will shine through for all of our Jewish friends and families this year.

Vorster Coat Of Arms

Barend Jacobus Vorster (the younger) born on 26th May 1858 at Kalkbank, Pietersburg district and died on the 17 April 1933 a  politician and farmer, was a son of Comdt B. J. Vorster, of Soutpansberg. To distinguish him from his father he was usually called ‘Klein Barend’ (‘Little Barend’) or, as he limped, ‘Kreupel Barend’ (‘Cripple Barend’). As a young man he, about 1875, helped the Rev. Stephanus Hofmeyr with mission work in Soutpansberg, and considered becoming a missionary.
Vorster was influential in his area, and in 1890 took part in the organization of the Adendorff trek across the Limpopo to Banyailand. He was the chairman of the committee appointed to organize the trek in the Soutpansberg district, and a member of the expedition that reached a land agreement with a number of Banyai chiefs. In the following year attempts to trek were prohibited by the Transvaal republic for diplomatic reasons, and Vorster lost support, partly because he was accused of negotiations with Cecil Rhodes. He thus withdrew from the expedition.
In 1889 he represented Soutpansberg in the volksraad. When the Tweede (‘Second’) Volksraad was established he became a member in 1891, and from 1897 a member of the Eerste (‘First’) Volksraad.
At the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War the government made V. its native commissioner at Spelonken, north-east of Pietersburg, where he was also confidential adviser to Gen. F. A. Grobler. When Grobler left the northern area V. was appointed chief commandant of Soutpansberg. As an official he was considered ambitious and haughty.
In the Pietersburg district he farmed at Doornkasteel and then at Zaaiplaats. He married twice, first Johanna Wilhelmina Christina Mulder and then a widow, Johanna Petronella Smit. He was survived by four sons and three daughters. There are portraits in the album collection of the National Museum of Cultural History, Pretoria, and in Lig in Soutpansberg.

Wolframs Bioscope Cape Town

Wilhelm Wolfram was born in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Germany on the 3rd July 1860 and died in Cape Town after 1920). He was a pioneering cinema showman and was educated in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He came to South Africa in 1895 and was employed in Johannesburg as an engineer on the Ferreira mine and others. In October 1899, on the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War, he toured the country with motion pictures and had, according to S.A.W.W., 1916, special permits to produce war scenes.
He enjoyed the laughter of children and specialised in comic films as well as long nature study documentaries. His popularity was unrivalled and by 1909 he had begun to concentrate on Cape Town, where he was assured of large, regular audiences. On 16.4.1910 he opened a permanent cinema known as Wolfram’s Bioscope at the bottom of Adderley Street. It seated 565 people. He personally operated it for many years, resisting incorporation into commercial circuits, but finally ceded it to I. W. Schlesinger’s African Consolidated Theatres, the building being demolished in the early thirties.
The popularity of Wolfram’s bioscope has left its mark uniquely on the official languages of South Africa. The terms ‘cinematograph’, ‘cinema’ and ‘kinema’, for an exhibition of moving pictures could not displace in popular speech the already strongly-entrenched ‘bioscope’ that W. introduced.
An upright, honourable man, Wilhelm died in obscurity. There is a portrait of him in S.A.W.W.

Jan Harm Robbertse

Jan Harm Robbertse was born at Dwarsspruit, Rustenburg District in the Transvaal on  28the June 1851 and died at Rhenosterfontein, Rustenburg District on  28^th March, big game hunter, was the son of Daniel Jacobus Robbertse  born 14^th April 1827 and died 13^th May 1893 and his wife, Martha Levina Louisa Labuschagne (†1882).

Originally a farmer in the Rustenburg district, Robbertse. left his Transvaal farm ‘Dwaersspruit’ in 1877 to move to Portuguese West Africa (Angola) with J.F. Botha shortly after Sir Theophilus Shepstone had hoisted the British flag in Pretoria. Although his reasons for moving were apparently political, he and his brother Fanie (Bom) Robbertse had already (1875) accompanied the Alberts Trek as far as Lake Ngami to reconnoitre the interior with a view to moving there.

After crossing the Kalahari he settled for the first three years near the Okavango River on the farm Rietfontein in the Kaokoveld. At the Okavango he had an experience with an elephant which although it instilled in him fear of these dangerous animals did not prevent him from becoming one of the great professional hunters of Southern Africa. Only in 1881 did he and his relatives cross the Kunene River, where Robbertse settled on the Farm Rooiwal, approximately six km from the site where the little town of Humpata was to rise. This is the origin of his nickname, Jan Humpata.

At first, like many of his contemporaries, he went on periodic big game hunts, particularly for elephant, in South-West Africa and Angola to earn money. Unlike the others, however, he developed this activity into a fully-fledged profession. He employed marksmen, supplied them with fire-arms and horses immune from horse-sickness and sent them out, well equipped, on hunting expeditions. His own task was to organize the hunting as a commercial undertaking. He demanded a great deal of his hired hunters: they were to report to him in detail; accounts of all outlay and expenditure were kept. His strictness caused many hunters to leave his service and did not make him popular. It is even possible that the great success he achieved aroused jealousy amongst his contemporaries. It is said that at the end of his career the only people he still had in his employ were relatives.

However, he was highly thought of by the Portuguese authorities and was able to obtain ammunition in the nineties when it was so scarce that the Boers in the area were denied it. His major hunting grounds included the Otjimpolo (Shimborro, according to the Boers) and the Kaokoveld in South-West Africa, where he shot without a licence.

After the raids by the Swartbooi Hottentots in 1893, he led a successful punitive expedition against them. This was conducted in a masterly manner and peace reigned once more in that troubled region.

Robbertse’s commercial transactions in ivory having made him a wealthy man, he returned to the Transvaal in 1909 and settled on his farm Rhenosterfontein in the Rustenburg district. He did so for his children’s education and through love of his own people. His domestic servants, whom he had always looked after, accompanied him to the Transvaal.

R. was unique among his Afrikaner contemporaries. He was both a farmer and a businessman; he was also a good organizer and, it seems, a man with a strong and arresting personality. He and Hendrik van Zyl are numbered among the greatest of South African big game hunters. Nevertheless, despite the crying need for political and church leaders, he never played an important 1.61e in either of these spheres.

He possessed some of the most valuable of the documents pertaining to the Dorsland Trek. Eugene Marais, who had access to them, published some of the letters in the first issue of the Independent (May 1919), and these are all that remain of the documents, since the rest were subsequently lost.

On 5.8.1870 R. married Martha Sophia Grobler (25.3.1850-16.12.1921) and had eight children, two sons and six daughters.