Page 47 - Bulletin 15 2011

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the Victoria Hotel, next to George Findlay & Co. Ltd.’s Parliament Street retail operation,

was acquired, giving the business an entrance in Longmarket Street.

Alan was President of the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce from 1951 to 1953. In that
capacity he and Ethel were invited to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in

Westminister Abbey. Their son Kenneth, born in 1930, joined George Findlay & Co. Ltd. in
1953.

Unfortunately, trading conditions became increasingly competitive in the hardware industry
as the suburbs of Cape Town expanded away from the centre of the city, and by the early

1960s George Findlay & Co. Ltd. had become only marginally profitable. The company had
grown over the years but management had been unable to contain costs. Kenneth was

appointed Joint Managing Director in 1962 but eventually it was decided that the company
had to be sold and four years later it was Alan’s sad responsibility as Chairman to oversee the

merging of the business with Arderne Scott Timbers. The two properties were sold to Isadore

Cohen, who had purchased part of the Parliament Street premises in the 1930s. Alan died in
1970 at the age of 72.

George, born in 1903, was more than five years younger than Alan and he and Gerald were
the mischievous younger brothers of the family. George and Gerald were such a disruption to

the Newlands community that they were taken out of SACS and were sent off to boarding
school at Kingswood College in Grahamstown. George was an accomplished yachtsman and

built his own sailboat, winning a number of races in False Bay while the Stuart-Findlay boys
participated in the annual Gentry Cup swimming races from Kalk Bay harbour to Dalebrook

and back. After finishing high school George worked at George Findlay & Co Ltd, then at the

age of 26 decided to travel and found employment repairing tractors at the Allis Chalmers
factory in Kansas, USA. The company was pleased with his work and asked him to be their

salesman in Australia ‘because he spoke the right style of English’, but he needed to be
married to get the job. He had met and liked Elma, a schoolteacher sister of one of his co-

workers, so he proposed to her in July 1935 and they were married within a few days. They
spent two years in Australia where their eldest daughter Ann was born. He was then

transferred to Cape Town where Jean was born. George was extremely popular with the

Afrikaans farming community who couldn’t believe they were dealing with an American