Page 11 - Bulletin 18 2014

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in Wynberg and moved to exploit them. It was one of the things that made the village so

appealing to those with pluck and vision. Fig. 1.5.)

Members of the working classes – shopkeepers, traders, builders and artisans, through hard
work and shrewd investment could become a new type of landed gentry – with grand homes

and substantial investments. As historian Helen Robinson so aptly puts it:

“These tradespeople, who would have been very small fry in Cape Town, emerged

as bigger fish in Wynberg waters.”

In many cases these immigrants achieved a lifestyle that those who had stayed in their home

countries could only dream of. The Delbridge brothers were two of many that came to
Wynberg. They seem to have had an uncanny knack of moving to a place where their

considerable skills could be profitably used and this move proved to be no exception.

The Delbridges, as Methodists, found a large Weslyan community in Wynberg, who
welcomed them and helped to ease them into their new lives. Contacts made through the

church were an important entrée into Wynberg social and business circles for the newly

arrived families. I quote here an extract from Helen Robinson’s book, Wynberg – A Special
Place. Several of the names are well known. They were to have a long association, both

personal and in business, with the Delbridges:

“The Wynberg Methodist Church has always been closely associated with leading
members of the Wynberg business sector, beginning with James and Joseph

Maynard, who funded its construction and followed by Duncan Taylor, George

Withinshaw, Barry Munnik, James and Edward McDonald, James and Arthur
Morom, George Eddy, Charles Baker, Dick Allen and John Delbridge. Items in

the church and the Withinshaw Memorial Hall [designed by architect William

John Delbridge] commemorate the involvement of these and many other
families…..”

One final point on the Wynberg of that time – and this is probably not very different to what

happens the world over today – where the Municipality controlled the awarding of contracts
they were quite specific: they would be awarded wherever possible to local people, to the