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some of the clients. Gamble was prepared to leave him in charge for a six-month period when

he took home leave, and in his chief's absence he gave some telling evidence to the
commission of enquiry into the Sanitary State of Cape Town. It was quite an achievement for

a youngster still less than 30 years old. His contract was extended by six months, at the end of
which, in mid-1886, he returned to Scotland.

But his initial opinions of South Africa had been replaced by more favourable impressions.

Before the end of the year he was back in South Africa, with a commission from Cradock

Municipality to construct the scheme he had designed. The supply was brought from a spring
some 10 km away, and would continue to serve the town for many years. He spent two years

in the Karroo, and then transferred his interests to Wynberg, which needed to augment its

water supplies from the Orange Kloof area of Table Mountain. Having successfully built a
reservoir near Constantia Nek and located sites for further reservoirs, he felt it was time to

invite further commissions and in 1892 he set up on his own in St. Georges Chambers, Cape
Town as a consulting engineer.

A Challenge

It was a good time to start a practice. In the late 1880s a more progressive group of
Councillors took control of the Cape Town Municipality and boldly decided to implement

John Gamble’s proposals to bring water to the city from the back of Table Mountain. Thomas
Cairncross was appointed as City Engineer and he designed the tunnel through the Twelve

Apostles which was completed in 1891. Initially water from the Disa River was simply

diverted into the tunnel, and then piped to the Molteno Reservoir, but after a year or two it
was plain that a dam would be necessary to ensure a constant supply during the summer

months.

And so, barely a year after opening his doors, young Tom Stewart was commissioned to

design and arrange for the construction of a reservoir on the top of Table Mountain. The site
chosen by Gamble was on the Disa River, a small stream which meandered across the “Back

Table” – a plateau about 1000 feet below the famous flat top of Table Mountain – before
plunging down a magnificent gorge to emerge in the Hout Bay valley.