Page 33 - Bulletin 15 2011

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In 1889 Stephen Trill bought ‘Villa Capri’ in St. James from his brother-in-law George James

Findlay as a holiday home for his large family. (Fig. 1.36.) The property stretched from the
Main Road on each side of the Capri Road of today to a point well above what was to become

Boyes Drive in the late 1920s. Stephen and Emily had a family of nine, of which four lived at
St. James at some period of their lives. These were:

• Their oldest son, my grandfather, George William, who was born in 1865.

• Their oldest daughter, Florence, born in 1867.
• Their second daughter, Ida, born in 1869.

• And their youngest son Harold, born in 1883.

George Findlay & Co. thrived with Stephen at the helm, benefiting greatly from the diamond

rush at Kimberley in the early 1870s and the gold rush in the Witwatersrand some fifteen
years later. In the 1880s the company’s building in Parliament Street was extended and given

a handsome new façade by the prominent architect Charles Freeman. (Fig. 1.37.) One of the

earliest Waygood-Otis lifts in Cape Town was installed and it gave good service for the next
eighty years. From his property development activities in Observatory Stephen had become a

very wealthy man and he retired from George Findlay & Co in 1897, setting up his oldest son
George William in a partnership to take over the business. Seven years prior to this George

William had bought additional premises in Boom Street (now Commercial Street) in his own
name with the intention of building a new wholesale division at some time in the future.

In 1898 Stephen and Emily and their eldest daughter Florence, who acted as Stephen’s
secretary, retired to ‘Glenara’, a home on the hill above the Main Road in Rondebosch. (Fig.

1.38.) ‘Glenara’ had been built by the Vintcent family in 1882 and stood on a huge property

stretching from the Main Road up to ‘The Woolsack’. There were orchards and vineyards
behind the house and paddocks for cows and horses stretched down to the Main Road.

‘Glenara’ still stands today on the hillside behind the Baxter Theatre and is the home of the
Vice-Chancellors of UCT during their terms of office. Emily died in 1911 and Stephen and

Florence lived on at ‘Glenara’ until his death in 1922 at the age of 92. UCT bought the
property from his estate for ₤8,500, financed by the Wernher Beit Fund. My father’s brother

George remembered being in awe of his grandfather – as an engineer Stephen used to walk

down the road doing calculus in his head. He described him as being small in stature, very
religious, and a brilliant and successful businessman.