Page 159 - KBHA BULLETIN 24

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The Second Generation:

John Hare’s oldest son, William John (1813-1874), was a short, powerfully-built, energetic and
cheerful man. He commenced adult life as a trader and revisited the NW districts of the Cape

and Namaqualand, exchanging merchandise for stock and other produce. He prospected there
for copper deposits and discovered a rich vein of copper on a hill later named Hare’s Kopje.

William lived in Mowbray House, an H-shaped Cape Dutch dwelling above the wagon road to

Simon’s Town. The short drive leading up to the house was the end of a track which bridged
over the Liesbeek River and on to the Klipfontein Road. As the cattle pulling the wagons

needed water, the track followed the course of the Vygekraal River. It was a main wagon route
from Cape Town to the east over the notorious Hottentots Holland Kloof, replaced in 1830 by

Sir Lowry’s Pass. Mowbray House was close to the Drie Koppen Inn which had been converted
to a livery stable and renamed Mowbray Place. The owner of the livery stable, Charles Dixon,

had come from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, England. (Figs. 4.5 & 4.6).

William sold his copper claim for £450 to purchase the house and the land adjoining it on the
Cape Town side. He bought them from Sybrand Mostert, the owner of the prominent farm

Welgelegen and the person after whom Mostert’s Mill is named. William was a builder and
had selected the adjoining property for its substantial clay deposits on the upper portion of the

land. He used the clay deposits to make bricks. In 1835 he constructed three lime kilns on the

lower portion of the property adjacent to the wagon road. All the old Cape homesteads of that
time were coated in lime-wash so he was assured of a market. He collected shells on the

beaches of Table Bay and used wood from the mountain slopes to fire the kilns. He salvaged
well-seasoned timber, mainly teak, from ships wrecked in the bay and during the winter months

had them sawn into planks in a shed near his house. William traded as Hare’s Lime Kiln and
Brickfields. (Figs. 4.7 & 4.8).

In those days fields of crops lined both sides of the wagon road to the south. There were

virtually no dwellings between both the Toll Gate at the military lines guarding Cape Town
and the hamlet of Mowbray, and between Mowbray and the village of Rondebosch. However,

four coach services operated along the road and an omnibus travelled between Wynberg and
Cape Town twice a day. William Hare bought up land in Mowbray and Rondebosch and built

a number of houses to accommodate a steady stream of emigrants from Britain, many of whom

preferred to live in rural surroundings away from the city. Some of these houses he sold and
others were leased. William built one next to the lime kilns for his youngest brother, Robert,