Page 15 - Bulletin 18 2014

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The Architect Builder & Surveyor, a leading professional journal of its time, was incensed

that the Delbridge tender had been accepted for the De Villiers reservoir although far from
being the cheapest.

“We cannot help feeling that there has been some departure by the Wynberg

Municipality from the absolute fairness and impartiality which should
characterise the actions of a Town Council….”

The Wynberg Times, that defender of all things Wynberg, stoutly defended the Town
Council on the basis that:

 Wynberg labour would be used in preference to any outsiders;
 local cartage contractors would be used (one was William);

 stores and materials would be bought from local suppliers.

Thus as the Wynberg Times succinctly put it “practically the whole of the loan raised will

pass through the hands of the ratepayers.” With this sort of attitude it is quite easy to
understand the animosity felt by both Cape Town and neighbouring municipalities towards

the rather smug citizens of Wynberg.

This pragmatic approach of keeping contracts in house within the municipal area was also

followed by the Kalk Bay – Muizenberg Municipality, as will be seen, and the Delbridges
certainly benefited.

All of these dams presented major transport and engineering difficulties. Large quantities of
equipment and material had to be moved up the mountain and it is likely that the Delbridges

first built an aerial cableway for the construction of the Alexandra reservoir in 1893. They
had also been contracted by the City of Cape Town to deliver materials for the construction

of the Woodhead Dam in 1897 (T. Timoney.) In 1907 John Delbridge applied for a permit to
‘legalise’ the aerial ropeway and this was replaced with a trolley track up the front of the

mountain from near Kirstenbosch to close to the De Villiers dam.