Page 43 - Bulletin 15 2011

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motor vehicle. In 1919 the section of the building that had been extended through to Adderley

Street was sold and the retail space incorporated into the adjoining stationery shop, Maskew
Miller. Times were very difficult during the Depression years and in 1934 the portion of the

premises in Parliament Street, adjacent to the Groote Kerk property, was sold to a Cape Town
businessman, Isadore Cohen, who built a new office block, Geneva House, on the site. (Figs.

1.46 &1.47.) George William was appointed President of the Western Province Agricultural
Society for 1919-1921 and President of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce for 1932-

1934.

Stephen Trill died in 1922 and George William inherited his shares in the company. He and

Edith sold ‘Westwood’ in Newlands in 1929 and moved to ‘Villa Capri’ to be with his sister
Florence, and bought the house from her estate when she died in 1931. For a time George

William’s younger brother Harold stayed with them. In 1938 George William sold the
premises he had bought in Commercial Street to George Findlay & Co. Ltd, and the whole

Stuart-Findlay clan gathered together for Christmas that year and posed for the last time as a

family on the ‘Villa Capri’ lawn. (Fig. 1.48). George William died in 1940 and Edith stayed
on in ‘Villa Capri’ until the thatched roof was severely damaged during a fire in 1948 and she

was moved to an old-age home in Sea Point where she died two years later. (Fig. 1.49.)

‘Westwood’ was demolished in 1964 and the grounds were converted to school fields,
although the entrance gates on Heatherton Road have survived.

The Stuart-Findlay Family

Originally, George William Stuart-Findlay intended to expand George Findlay & Co. Ltd to

all the major cities of South Africa with each one of his sons running a branch. Unfortunately,

this was not to be, but two of his sons took over the business in Cape Town.

Doris, born in 1893 and the only daughter, trained as a nurse and married Aage Werge, the
younger brother of Edith`s Danish masseuse, Lydia. Aage established a dairy business called

Sterilized Milk and their sons Halvor and David worked for their father for many years. Aage
became the Danish Consul in Cape Town. The family lived in Clifton before Aage and Doris

retired to the house ‘Ramleh’ (now ‘Dayenu’), 7 Capri Road, St. James, built on the site

opposite Villa Capri on which the homestead`s original stables had stood.