Page 40 - Bulletin 15 2011

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Diocesan College (Bishops). On leaving school he joined George Findlay & Co. which was

described at the time as a firm of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and Hardware
Merchants. Obviously his father’s engineering expertise had been incorporated successfully

into the business. George was a keen athlete and a member of Villager Football Club, playing
forward for the first team for several years. He was also captain of the YMCA Gymnasium

and on the committee of the Rondebosch Golf Club.

George William married Edith Sichel in 1892 and the couple spent their honeymoon at the

Houwhoek Inn in the Overberg. Edith was the daughter of Godfrey Sichel who had been
brought out to South Africa by Mosenthal & Co. to run their operation in Burgersdorp,

Eastern Cape. He was elected to the Cape Legislative Assembly for the constituency of Albert
and, after moving his family to Cape Town in the mid 1880s, was appointed a director of a

number of companies, including the S. A. Life Assurance Society (Old Mutual). A great niece
of Godfrey’s, May Pollak, was the first wife of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the founder of the

Anglo American Corporation, and was Harry Oppenheimer’s mother.

Godfrey Sichel’s wife Charlotte`s maiden name was Stuart – she was proud of the fact that

she could trace her ancestry back to Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland and the family name

was later incorporated into the surname Stuart-Findlay.

George William and Edith had six children:
• Doris, the eldest, born in 1893, was the only daughter. She married a Dane, Aage

Werge and had two sons Halvor and David and a daughter, Anne.

• Malcolm Robert (Bob), the oldest son, was born in 1896. He married Grace Reitz but
they had no children.

• Alan was born in 1897. He married Ethel Robb and they had a daughter Nan and a son
Kenneth.

• Arthur was born in 1900 but died four years later of dysentery.

• George, born in 1903 married Elma Cook of Kansas, USA and had five daughters,
Ann, Jean, Candy, Kathy and Connie.

• Gerald, born in 1905, married Ruth Dyer and had a daughter, Pam and two sons,

Derek and Malcolm.