Page 14 - Bulletin 15 2011

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Captain George Findlay

Captain John’s nephew, whom I shall refer to as Captain George, was my great-great-

grandfather. (Figs. 1.12 & 1.13.) He was born in Cullen in Scotland in 1798. He went to sea in
1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo in which Napoleon was finally defeated. At the age

of 22 he took over the command of the Alacrity from his uncle, taking on the perilous annual
three-month voyage between London and the Cape. Sailing ships of the time had to cross the

Atlantic and navigate down the Brazilian coast before catching the prevailing westerlies to the

Cape in latitudes as far south as the Roaring Forties. He carried cargoes to supply the 1820
Settlers in Algoa Bay and sailed on to Mauritius and Sumatra. When Captain John took back

the command of the Alacrity in 1826, Captain George then sailed in the India trade for a Mr.
Grainger of Lloyds in London and later captained the Eliza Jane, a ship owned by the

Billingsley family of Cape Town. In 1827 Captain George married Jane Elizabeth Dixon and
after the Eliza Jane was sold, brought his family out from London and settled at the Cape in

1835. Cape Town at the time had a population of only some 20,000 people. On one of his

earlier voyages, Captain George had brought out from London the plans of St. Pancras
Church. These were modified by architect John Skirrow and resulted in the original St.

George’s Church (which later became Cape Town’s first cathedral) at the top end of St.

George’s Street. (Figs. 1.14 & 1.15.) Jane had family in Cape Town and joined her sister
Elizabeth in a haberdashery and millinery business at 3 Keizersgracht, now Darling Street.

Elizabeth was also running a business that she had inherited from her husband, Edward
Durham, on his death in 1835. Edward had established the firm at 16-18 Grave Street (now

Parliament Street) as a timber merchant, builder and ironmonger in 1813. He had built the
Commercial Exchange in the Heerengracht (Fig. 1.16.) and had renovated ‘Newlands House’

and the ‘Round House’ above Camps Bay for Lord Charles Somerset. Edward is also reputed

to have built ‘Bertram House’, later bought by the widower John Barker.

After Edward Durham’s death, his widow Elizabeth married his business partner, John
Cannon, the man who had built South Africa’s first observatory on the banks of the Liesbeek

River some ten years before. (Fig. 1.17.) Captain George helped Elizabeth to run the
ironmongery side of the business and when she died, in 1840, bought it and changed the

company’s name to George Findlay & Co. (Figs. 1.18 & 1.19.) Wisely, he focused the firm on

timber and hardware sales, serving the needs of the growing town and surrounding country-