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A boy from Germany: from photographer to factory owner

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In a previous posting ( https://activeauthor.substack.com/p/why-did-my-great-grandfather-leave ), I discussed the reasons that my great-grandfather Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936) left Germany in 1880 to settle in King Williams Town (‘King’) in the eastern part of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa. This article describes how Franz became a successful industrialist within a few years of arriving in southern Africa. Eventually, he manufactured three items that were in daily use in nineteenth century southern Africa: matches, candles, and soap. His achievements in industry were eventually accompanied by his ever-increasing involvement in politics.  But first, let me introduce the man, Jakob Rindl(1853-1937), with whom Franz worked at first in southern Africa.

By 1882, Jakob Rindl was an established professional photographer in King. Jakob, who was born in Engelsberg (now ‘Mosnov’ in the Czech Republic) ran a photographic studio some of whose pictures bore the words ‘J Rindl, Photographer, King Williams Town, South-Afrika’, Africa being spelled the German way with a ‘k’. Young Franz worked with Jakob, who was nine years older than him. How and where they met has been forgotten. All that I know is that my late uncle Felix Bloch, Franz’s grandson, once told me that Jakob was already established in South Africa when Franz arrived. Felix also told me that Franz was at first apprenticed to a draper in Germany. The draper did not treat him well, and he soon left, and then became apprenticed to a court photographer in Berlin.  Both Franz and Jakob were German speakers, and this may have appealed to the numerous German settlers in the area, who wanted photographic portraits, maybe to send back to their relatives in Europe. A report[i] on the Kaffrarian Agricultural Show held in King early April 1884 shows that portraits were Jakob’s forte:

“Photographs were in the competition only for colonial scenery, and hence Mr Rhindl [sic] was not a competitor, but his frame of portraits was worthy of attention, a better collection of portrait photographs being rarely seen.”

While working with Jakob, Franz experimented with colour photography. When I first learnt of this, I was surprised, but then I discovered that by the 1880s many people were looking into ways of producing true colour photographs rather than hand-tinted black and white images. No one, including Franz, managed to perfect a technique that worked until about 1892, when a Jew from Luxembourg Gabriel Lippmann (1845-1941), who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908, hit upon a method that worked.

Photography is both an art and a science. The scientific side of it involves both physics and chemistry. Franz, who is unlikely to have attended university before setting sail for Africa but had a father who was well-versed in science, was able to ‘dabble’ in colour photography.  This shows that he had an innate flair for chemistry. This was a skill which would prove useful in many of his manufacturing endeavours. Almost everything that he produced, usually on an industrial scale, involved processes that required a knowledge of, or at least a masterly ‘feel’ for, chemistry.

In May 1885, an advertisement announced Jakob’s move from Cathcart Street to new premises in Downing Street[ii]. Franz’s name does not appear in this announcement. This suggests that the relationship between Jakob and Franz was that of employer and employee.  This situation, if it existed as such, was not destined to last much longer. For, in July 1885 the town of King was about to become the home of a new factory, and Franz would soon be the leading light in this enterprise.

Just after Jakob shifted to Downing Street, readers of the Cape Mercury (‘Mercury’), a local newspaper in King, would have read:

“A MATCH factory will shortly be established in this town, the necessary machinery being now on its way.  Mr. Stray of Stray and Toenesson, is starting it, and hopes to be able to find employment for a good number of hands. The kind made will be the Locomotive brand of Tandstickors. … The factory will be on the outskirts of the town.[iii]” 

Tändsticka (plural Tändstickor) is the Swedish word for a match, or type of match. Safety matches were patented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom of Sweden in1855. H Rider-Haggard (1856-1925), author of King Solomon’s Mines who lived and worked in South Africa in the late 1870s, uses the Swedish word in his story Long Odds:

“It was so dark that I could not see anything, though I could smell a great deal, so I lit a match. It was a ‘tandstickor’ match, and burnt slowly and dimly, and as the light gradually increased I made out …” 

In 1886 when this was published – a year after the advertisement was published, the Swedish word was in common use. On the 21st of July 1885, newspaper readers in King learnt that the promoters of the local Match Manufactory were going to be “Messrs Toenessen and Ginsberg”. Their offices were situated near to Jakob’s photographic studio in Downing Street.

By mid-December 1885 the factory was operating at full speed, as was reported in a local newspaper:

“The match factory is now in operation, and cannot get through with the orders, consequently further labour saving machinery is being imported. Twenty lads are employed, and the manufacturers wish to double the number at wages, which are gauged according to ability. The other day a visitor saw 375,000 matches tipped in one hour.

By the way, why do Colonial manufacturers not adopt a Colonial insignia for their wares? Kaffraria has a coat of arms, now disused since its absorption in the Colony; why not revive the emblem of independence, even if it is on a bottle of local made sweets or a box of Kaffrarian matches.”

Three points come to mind. The first is that the potentially hazardous business of making matches requires competence in applied chemistry. Franz appeared to have had this. Second, maintaining the complex machinery, which was imported from Europe to make matches on an industrial scale, required someone with mechanical skills. Toenessen had this. He had been awarded prizes in King for manufacturing goods that required this skill – for example: lock-making, door plates, and later weaponry. In 1894, Messrs Stray and Toenessen advertised their skills as practical engineers:

“Stray & Toenessen … are prepared to undertake all kinds of work connected with machinery, locks, lamps…”

The third, is ‘Colonial Manufacture’. That is to say, the manufacturing of goods within the colony. One thing that encouraged this was that the duty applied to imported manufactured goods did not apply to goods manufactured in the Colony. The promotion and protection of colonial industry was to become an important concern of Franz during his lifetime. Franz and Toenessen began manufacturing matches during 1885. They were able to exhibit matches at the Port Elizabeth Exhibition held at the end of that year.

By January 1886, Franz had not only begun making matches but also another product, ink. Its manufacture needed chemical knowledge. His Kaffrarian Ink Factory also had its offices in Downing Street.

Average life expectancy for someone born in 1862 was much shorter than that of someone born now. Therefore, there was a need to achieve success earlier in life than now. Even taking this into account, Franz had made a significant leap in his career ‘trajectory’ by 1886, remarkably early in his life (when he was only about twenty-three years old).

The capital costs involved in setting up a match factory and a separate ink-making plant must have been considerable. I feel that it is unlikely that Franz would have arrived in South Africa with much money – his father with twelve children to support probably had little spare cash. Also, however successful Rindl’s photography business might have been, there would have probably been little that Franz would have been able to invest. It is possible that he had saved some money, and/or maybe, Toenessen had sufficient capital to start the match factory with Franz. Franz might well have had to approach a financial house like a bank for finance. If this was the case, whoever lent Franz the money must have felt, quite correctly as it turned out, that he was a good bet.

The match factory soon began doing well. In April 1886, Franz and Toenessen carried off prizes at the annual Kaffrarian Agricultural Show. In addition to winning “…the prize for the best collection of Colonial Matches, £2-2s.”, they also hosted a stand showing the full process of manufacturing matches. As if this was not enough, Franz and a Mr Klinkhardt won a prize for the manufacture of plant pots using local clay. These pots, which were very much below the prices of imported ones, were, in the opinion of the show’s judges likely to sell well. Elsewhere in the same show, in its ‘Art Department’, Franz was awarded yet another prize. This one was for photography. According to the newspaper reporter writing in the Cape Mercury:

“Messrs. Rindl & Ginsberg took the prize of £1 – 10s. for portraits, which were certainly as fine as can be produced in the Colony, both in taste and photographic excellence.”

The prize for portraits shows that Franz was still associated with Jakob Rindl, and that his name had been added to Jakob’s in connection with the photographic studio. Franz’s triumphs at the 1886 show demonstrate that he had his fingers in many pies, but none of them suffered because of his ‘multi-tasking’. In addition, this twenty-four-year-old man was creating much new employment in the town.

Four months after his successes at the Agricultural Show, Franz attended a meeting held at the town’s Council Chamber to consider the advisability of forming a Gold Prospecting Company, to be called the ‘Pioneering Gold Prospecting Company’. Its proposed aim was to prospect for gold and other minerals in the district around King. Franz was a member of the ‘Provisional Committee’, which included other members of the town’s business community.  Two weeks after this, he was elected to Board of Directors of The King Williams Town Pioneer Prospecting Company. Impressive as this assimilation into the town’s business hierarchy may seem, it was not enough for him to get an invitation as a guest to an important ball, organised by the town’s Freemasons, held a few days after the meeting[iv].

Even a successful venture can hit snags. This was the case with Franz. At the beginning of 1887, Franz and Mr Toenessen published the following announcement[v]:

“DAMAGED MATCHES. SOME of the Matches damaged in the course of manufacture which we advertised for some time ago, are still being sold. We shall be happy, not only to exchange perfect goods, but will pay the carriage on such matches. GINSBERG & TOENESSEN”

This problem appears to have been resolved, but others loomed. For example, the street lighting near the factory was defective and the ill-lit streets made a perfect place for ‘Natives ’ to drink away their woes. In connection with the lighting problem, Franz and Toenessen requested the Town Council of King to:

“…to have the bottom of Wood Street repaired, and lamps erected in Buffalo Road or Victoria Street, which was a thoroughfare used by drunken Natives.” To which the Mayor commented that the drunken ‘Natives’ could be arrested. At the following Council Meeting, Franz and his partner’s request was partially turned down. The Council resolved not to “…enlighten the darkness…” of the locality, but instead they allocated a sum not exceeding £20 for mending the main roads and bye-ways[vi].

By 1890, Franz had diversified his product range. This is illustrated by the following announcement that he published in the local press:

“Notice OUR MR. GINSBERG having returned after a lengthy visit to England, Germany and Sweden, we beg to notify to the public that the work in our factories will be carried on WITH ALL LATE IMPROVEMENTS, and in a most efficient manner, so that we can guarantee the quality of our matches and candles as SECOND TO NONE.”

This shows that Franz had added candles to the household essentials that he was producing on an industrial scale. Like matches and ink, candle-making requires some appreciation of applied chemistry, which Franz certainly possessed. The advertisement also shows that Franz travelled abroad. He was to do this a great deal, as I shall describe later.

A description of the candle factory exists in a scrapbook[vii] which belonged to Franz and is now stored in the archives of King’s Amathole Museum:

“In the candle factory I saw the various greases and tallows being boiled, after which, by means of powerful hydraulic presses, the oils are extracted from them. After crystallising, the fats are put into tins and placed in hot chambers, heated by steam, where further oil is extracted from them. They then go to the candle moulding machines, of which I saw a great number at work. Another room was occupied by girls who were deftly making boxes, each one to hold a dozen candles, and in the next room wood boxes were being made for packing the candles in. The work in the candle factory is carried on night and day, and to shew its capacity, I was informed that it could produce 35,000 to 40,000 candles a week. A great deal of water is required in this factory, which is supplied from an artesian well on the premises, and a steam pump, which I saw at work, was raising 1,800 gallons per hour. Mr Ginsberg however desires a more ample supply, and with that object in view has purchased a drill with which he is now boring to a greater depth, and in a short time hopes to have a pump which will raise 4,000 gallons per hour.”

The same writer then continues to comment on another of Franz’s factories:

“In the match factory, which is nearby, I saw the various operations of this industry being carried on, and was rather surprised to be informed by Mr Ginsberg that the labour alone in this industry represents 75 percent of the total cost, and the proof of this was not far to seek, for I found about 130 people employed here, which is a very large number in comparison to the work turned out, the production of the factory being about 1,800 to 2,000 gross of boxes per week.”

The writer ends his piece by discussing yet another of Franz’s enterprises, his soap-making business:

“The soap works belonging to the same firm, have the capacity of about 18 tons of soap per week, so that altogether Messrs. Ginsberg and Co. may be said to be very largely interested in Colonial industries, and have done their share towards developing them. I was given to understand they are prepared to go in for further extension, but are holding back at present until they see what is going to be the result of the approaching Customs Convention.”

The Convention, held in 1898 and mentioned above, was concerned with eventually harmonising customs regulations between the four separate parts of South Africa: the two British colonies and the two then independent Boer republics.

The references to artesian wells as a means of gaining an adequate supply of water for his factories, is an early indication of Franz’s concerns about water resources. Later, I will describe his involvement in a major water supply improvement scheme for King. His use of artesian wells was publicly praised[viii]:

“Messrs Ginsberg & Co. are to be congratulated on the success of their boring operations. Not a few persons were sceptical over the matter, or at least that the borer would have to be sent to an extreme depth, but the firm has tapped a good supply at a depth of little over 180 feet. This enterprise will doubtless lead to other artesian wells in the town, and make householders independent of the present service for irrigation purposes. Government is encouraging well-boring, more especially among the country people, by supplying machines at half cost. It will be a pleasure to report that the Natives are giving attention to this simple method of irrigating land, or obtaining a healthy supply of water in their communes.”

Franz’s factories were consuming water at a high rate. Had this come from the municipality, his firm would have had to pay for it. After paying the initial outlay to bore the wells and obtain the pumps, the water itself cost the firm nothing.

Franz added yet another product to the range of household goods that he manufactured. This was another item whose manufacture made good use of Franz’s practical skills in applied chemistry. By March 1893, he had begun making soap.  This was only seven years after the future Lord Leverhulme (founder of what is now the Unilever company) opened his first soap-making factory in the UK.

At the 1899 King ‘Agricultural and Industrial Society Show’, Franz’s company was awarded £5 prizes for each of the following categories of exhibits: soap, candles and matches. Year after year, his company’s products won prizes at similar shows. In 1907, the local newspaper, reporting an annual show, wrote:

“GINSBERG & Co. have two stalls. On one, is displayed samples of their “XXX Pale Soap”, an article made out of colonial products. This soap is growing rapidly in popularity and in many quarters is completing successfully with blue mottled. The second stall in the form of a kiosk, on which are several new lines that Messrs. Ginsberg and Co. are pushing. One of these is “Electra Soap”, made up in attractive cartons containing three bars. Another new line is the “Mining Candle”, which is daily growing in popularity. The feature of this candle is that it is very hard, and calculated to resist a very hot atmosphere, therefore highly suitable in mines. Messrs. Ginsberg’s other lines in candles and soaps are also nicely displayed...”

Conspicuous by their absence are matches. By 1907, Franz was no longer producing them.

I have described how my great-grandfather, Franz Ginsberg, became a successful industrialist. Within about 10 years after having left Germany as a young man, he had become one of the leading businessmen in King Williams Town. In a future essay, I will outline how he combined his commercial activities with a profound involvement with politics, both at local and national levels.

This is an abbreviated excerpt from my detailed biography of Franz Ginsberg, “SOAP TO SENATE: A GERMAN JEW AT THE DAWN OF APARTHEID”. The book/kindle is availabl from Amazon.

[i] CM: Cape Mercury, publ. King Williams Town: 5th April 1884

[ii] CM: 30th May 1885.

[iii] CM: 18th July 1885.

[iv] CM: 21st August 1886

[v] CM: 4th Jan 1887

[vi] CM: 4th & 11th May 1889

[vii] A newspaper cutting dated 22nd November 1895, copied me by Stephanie Victor , a curator at the Amathole Museum

[viii] Undated and unidentified newspaper clipping from Franz Ginsberg’s scrapbooks in the Amathole Museum

Why did my great grandfather leave Germany for Africa in 1880?

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In 1880 at the age of 18, my great-grandfather, Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936) left Germany and migrated to King Williams Town (now ‘Qonce’) in the Cape Colony, which, after 1910, became incorporated into the Union of South Africa. In what is now South Africa, he became a successful industrialist as well as a politician – both at local and national levels. This essay discusses why a German Jew left Germany in 1880, and why he chose to go to a part of Southern Africa where there were few of his co-religionists – and to an area where neither gold nor diamonds were being mined, rather than to the USA, where many other Jewish people from Germany and other parts of Central Europe tended to migrate.

To begin to understand why Franz left Germany in his late teens in 1880, it is helpful to know something about his father Dr Nathan Ginsberg (1814-1890).

Nathan was born in Breslau (now ‘Wroclaw’ in Poland). At school, according to his school report which I have seen, he was recognised by his teachers as being a brilliant student. Based on this report, he was admitted to the University of Breslau. After graduating at Breslau, again with great reports from those who taught him, which I have read, he wished to apply to be awarded with a doctorate (‘PhD’). However, the University of Breslau did not permit Jewish people to be awarded with doctorates unless they converted to Christianity, which was something Nathan did not want to do.

Nathan ‘shopped around’, and applied to the University of Halle, which he discovered would award a doctorate to unconverted Jewish candidates. I have seen his letter of application and the various theses he had written in subjects including mathematics and astronomy. Halle awarded Nathan a doctorate. Next, Dr Nathan Ginsberg, being an academic, attempted to apply for teaching posts in German universities.

In those far-off days, German universities did not admit Jews as members of their academic staff unless they had first converted to Christianity. Several of Nathan’s teachers at the University of Breslau had been born Jewish, but had converted to Christianity. As the author Amos Elon pointed out in his excellent book about Jewish life in Germany, “The Pity of it All”, many of these converts working as university were non-practising Christians.

Nathan Ginsberg was unwilling to convert to Christianity, and had to forego his ambition to become a university teacher.  After working for some years in the observatory at Breslau, he moved to Beuthen (now ‘Bytom’ in Poland), where he became a founding member of a new school for Jewish children. It was a school for educating Jewish children, rather than a religious school, one of which already existed in the town. In 1870, when restrictions on the activities of Germany’s Jews eased considerably, the school was adopted by the state, and became known as the Städtisch jüdische Volksschule. It was in Beuthen that my great-grandfather was born. He was one of 12 children born to Nathan and his second wife, Rosalie (née Berg). He had a half-brother, Leo, who was born in Breslau when Nathan was married to his first wife, who died young.

During Franz’s childhood, Germany experienced economic problems that were blamed on the Jews, and this led to an increase in anti-Semitism. Before this became serious, Prussia and France went to war in 1870. Leo, who was old enough to do so, enrolled in the Prussian Army and took part in the invasion of Alsace and Lorraine, which became German territory after 1871. When he married, he and his wife were obliged, as were all newlyweds, to buy a set of chinaware from one of the Royal Prussian porcelain factories. They settled in German occupied Strasbourg (or ‘Strassburg’ as the Germans called it), where they produced four children.

Nathan, a far-sighted person, realised that the future of Jews in Germany was likely to deteriorate. That he did so as early as in the 1880s is indicative of his great wisdom. From the mid-1870s, German anti-Semites regarded the emancipated Jew as (to quote the historian Heinrich von Treitschke {1834-1896}):

“…a symbol and profiteer of modernity, of liberalism and capitalism.”

As well as stating:

“Die Juden sind unser Unglück!” [‘The Jews are our misfortune!’]

Nathan must have realised that as the Jews acquired more equality in Germany, hostility to them would grow. Many other Jews discovered this much later; some too late. Franz and some of his siblings left Germany when they were old enough to do so. The atmosphere of anti-Semitism in late nineteenth century Germany was likely to have been a potent reason for Nathan’s children to seek a better life elsewhere. Another reason might well have been the difficulties of achieving his ambitions Nathan, a Jewish man unable to give up his religion, had already encountered.

But why did Nathan Ginsberg’s children head for Southern Africa rather than the USA or elsewhere?

I cannot answer this question for certain, but can suggest the following.

Nathan Ginsberg, who was born in Breslau and lived in Beuthen, must have known the Friedlander and Goldmann families – Jewish people – living in those cities. He would have known that some of their offspring had gone to South Africa in the 1860s and before, and had done well.

And what attracted Franz to King Williams Town?

Whatever was the actual reason for leaving Germany, Franz set off for, and arrived in, South Africa in 1880, aged eighteen. His destination was not one of those most chosen by nineteenth century migrants. It was neither the diamond-rich area in the Cape Colony nor the goldfields of the Boer Transvaal Republic. Instead, he headed for King Williams Town, a small town in the eastern part of the British Cape Colony.

To understand why Franz chose to go to King rather than Kimberley or the Witwatersrand, we must turn the clock back to before his birth. Long before the arrival of Europeans in what was to become the Cape Colony, there were few inhabitants in the area. As time went by, this land was colonised from the sea by first the Dutch and then the British, and from the north by various African peoples. Where the Africans and Europeans met, there were frequently territorial conflicts. One of these trouble spots was the Eastern Cape, and in particular the part that became known as ‘British Kaffraria’, in which King Williams Town – founded in 1835 – was located.

Just before British Kaffraria became a British colony, a huge conflict was taking place far north of the Equator in and around Southern Russia. This was the Crimean War (October 1853 to February 1856). The armies of Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia, were pitted against that of the Russian Empire. As the war dragged on, the British need additional manpower.

The British Government decided to recruit men from neutral European states to strengthen its forces in the Crimea. The German States provided a number of soldiers, who came to England, and were formed into the British German Foreign Legion (the ‘Legion’). Only a small part of the British German Legion had reached the Crimea when the war ended. The British Parliament was now faced with the problem of what to do with the men. They had all joined for the duration of the war and for one year after.

After some discussions between the Government in London and the authorities in the Cape Colony, it was decided to recruit as many as possible of the Legion to become military settlers in British Kaffraria. These settlers were offered land and help to build homes on condition that they would be available for military purposes when the need arose. Before departing for Africa, the men were encouraged to marry if they were not already espoused, because this was thought to be good for encouraging stability and also an increase in the European population of the area. Despite the prospects of good conditions in the Cape presented to the men, only 2362 officers and men out of a possible 8000 took up the offer, and of these only 361 of them were married. Many of the Germans left the Cape to fight for the British in India in 1857, when the so-called Indian Mutiny commenced.

It was believed that one of the reasons for the limited success of the settlement of British Kaffraria by the members of the Legion was the general lack of wives amongst them. Sir George Grey (1812-1898),

Sir George Grey, the Governor of the Cape Colony from 1854 to 1859, proposed re-settling the area with emigrants from the German States. He felt that those of the Legion who had decided to settle in the area would welcome them, and then help them to establish livelihoods. Using an agent, JC Godeffroy of Hamburg, Grey managed to help German families circumvent the laws that discouraged their emigration, and thus they made their way to the colony. After much hardship at first, they became good hardworking residents of British Kaffraria.

When the author Anthony Trollope arrived in King in 1877, three years before Franz Ginsberg, he found it to be:

“… a thoroughly commercial little city with a pleasant club, with a railway to East London, and with smiling German cultivation all around it …”

Some of the Germans were distributed to settlements around King Williams Town. Many of these were given German names such as Frankfort, Berlin, Braunschweig, Potsdam, and Stutterheim.

Franz Ginsberg, whose mother tongue was German, might have chosen to move to King – the town in the heart of British Kaffraria – because it was in an area full of German speakers. The Suez Canal, which had not been open when the German settlers arrived in the late 1850s, was in use by the time that Franz set sail. Whether or not he sailed through it, thus making a faster voyage than by the Atlantic route, and where he disembarked in South Africa, remain unknown. Other questions that remain unanswered are: was he travelling with a companion or alone, and did he know someone who was already there? These are not idle queries because their answers might establish how he came to know his first business partner (or maybe employer) Jakob Rindl (1853-1937).

I will end here, but in future publications, I will reveal how my great-grandfather made his fortune, and something about his political activities. I will also, eventually, discuss his attitudes towards his African, Indian, and Chinese neighbours, but this must wait for another day.

This article about Franz Ginsberg has been written with reference to my biography of Franz Ginsberg, “Soap to Senate: A German Jew at the dawn of apartheid”, which is available from Amazon.

Architecture in London and an ancestral place in Bavaria

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FACING THE CHINESE embassy in London’s Portland Place, there is an imposing Art Deco edifice standing on a corner plot. It is the home of the Royal Institute of British Architects (‘RIBA’). We visited the place in August 2024 to view a small exhibition called “Raise the Roof: Building for Change”. Amongst other things, it explores the role of British architects, such as Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, in enforcing the image of British imperialism during the 1930s in South Africa and India. After viewing this, we wandered around the RIBA building, which, as was explained in the exhibition, contains materials collected from the Empire as well as images depicting the arrogantly supposed superiority of the British colonisers over the colonised.

The building contains various informative panels, which explain aspects of its history. It was constructed between 1932 and 1934. The architect George Grey Wornum (1888-1957), who was born in London, designed the RIBA building.

In one of the meeting halls, there is an elegant carved wooden screen, The Dominion Screen, which was carved in Quebec pine and designed by the artist Denis Dunlop (1892-1959). It contains vignettes of life in five former British possessions (only 4 of which were Dominions): Australia, South Africa, India, Canada, and New Zealand. It was paid for by William Lewis Gerstle (1868-1947), who was born in San Francisco (USA). His daughter, Miriam (1898-1989) married George Grey Wornum in 1923. She was a designer. Seeing the name Gerstle on the information panel next to the screen rang a bell in my mind.

There was an extensive Gerstle family living in the Bavarian town of Ichenhausen (near Günzburg) during the 19th century. I knew this because when researching my mother’s family, I took a great interest in this small town. It was where two of her ancestors were born. At least one of their relatives married a Gerstle from Ichenhausen. I wondered whether Miriam Gerstle’s family were originally from Ichenhausen.

When I got home, I did a little research on the Internet, and soon discovered that Miriam’s father, William, was the son of Lewis Gerstle, who was born in Ichenhausen in 1824. He died in San Francisco in 1892 (www.geni.com/people/Lewis-Gerstle/6000000008091395228). Like many Jewish people from Ichenhausen, he left the small town to seek his fortune elsewhere – in his case, in the USA. He arrived in California in 1850. During this period, many other members of his family migrated to the USA (see: www.angelfire.com/ab7/yamey/ICH.html). Many members of my mother’s family (descendants of Jakob Seligmann [1775-1843] and Moses Wimpfheimer [born 1784] of Ichenhausen) did the same thing; they went to larger German cities, such as Augsburg, to the USA, to France, and to South Africa, where my mother was born.

It turns out that Miriam Wornum is my fourth cousin twice removed!

I am pleased that after so many years of having passed the RIBA building, we finally got to see its interior, which, incidentally, is open to the public. It is a fine example of the architecture that was fashionable in the 1930s. What I had not expected was to discover that its architect was married to a lady whose ancestors were born in the same small German town as those of my mother.

British and Chinese

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I BET YOU DID NOT KNOW that Michael Alphonsus Shen Fuzong (c1658-1691) was the first documented person from China to visit England. I did not know that he met King James II in 1687. Furthermore, did you know that the Chinese sculptor Tan-Che-Qua (c1728-1796) from Canton, who visited London between 1769 and 1772, not only exhibited at London’s Royal Academy but also met King George III before returning to his native land. Maybe, I might have stumbled across these two notable men from China by accident had I not visited the British Library today (the 20th of March 2023), but this is highly unlikely. Until the 23rd of April 2023, there is a fascinating, well-displayed exhibition called “Chinese and British” at London’s British Library.

Beginning with the earliest Chinese visitors to Britain, this splendid exhibition charts the growth and considerable achievements of Chinese people who chose to live in Britain. John Hochee (1789-1869) was one of the first people from China to have settled permanently in England. He arrived from Canton in 1819, worked as a property manager with John Fuller Elphinstone (1778-1854; son of William Elphinstone a Director of the EIC: see https://www.rh7.org/factshts/hochee.pdf), whom he probably met whilst working for the East India Company in China. Hochee married an English lady, Charlotte Mole, and James (1832-1897), one of their seven children, became a surgeon. John was naturalized in Brighton in November 1854.

Since Hochee (Ho Chee) settled in Britain, many more people from China have followed in his footsteps. The exhibition at the British Library illustrates this well. Early settlers included many who had worked on ships and had landed in Liverpool or London. Chinese communities became established in the 1880s, notably in London’s East End. The Chinese in Britain established businesses to serve their community and their British neighbours. Chinese restaurants and laundries figured largely amongst the early enterprises. With the advent of laundrettes in the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese laundry business faded away, but still today the Chinese are very important in Britain’s catering industry. It was after WW2 that restaurants and take-aways really took off in Britain. These outlets supplied both British and Chinese food. Many of their workers and owners were from Canton and Hong Kong.

During WW1, nearly 100,000 Chinese men provided support for The British Army in Europe – digging trenches, burying the dead, and other tasks. Some of these men had signed 3-year contracts, which obliged them to return to China after the war, which most of them did. The exhibition devotes some space to the activities of these men.

Apart from what I have already described, the exhibition has displays illustrating the many other achievements of the Chinese British. One exhibit that particularly amused me was a selection of books in English by Chinese British authors. They were displayed on a ‘lazy Susan’, a revolving serving platform often found in the centre of round tables in Chinese restaurants.

All in all, I am very pleased that a post on Instagram alerted me to this interesting exhibition, and I encourage everyone to visit it.

Eyes facing the ocean from Madeira

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STARING OUT TO sea at Calheta on the Portuguese island of Madeira is a bronze bust of a man wearing 18th century clothing and a bow tie. The sculpture depicts Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza (1750-1816). Born in Caracas in what is now Venezuela, Miranda became a military leader and a revolutionary fighting for his country’s liberation from Spanish rule. Regarded by many as the forerunner of Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), the great liberator of several Spanish South American colonies and born in Caracas, Miranda ended his life in a Spanish prison in Cadiz.

The plaque below the bust in Calheta records (translated from the Portuguese on a website: https://statues.vanderkrogt.net/object.php?record=ptma108):

“The Sons of the municipality of Calheta in the lands of Venezuela at the bicentenary of the Independence in honour of its precursor ‘Generalisimo, Sebastian Francisco de Miranda’ ‘The most universal Venezuelan’”

I interpret this as meaning that the bust was erected by descendants of people from Calheta, who had emigrated to Venezuela.

The bust was created by the Venezuelan sculptor Julio César Briceño Andrade, who was born in Caracas in 1950. It was unveiled in Calheta by Lucas Rincón Romero, the Venezuelan Ambassador to Portugal, on the 5th  July 2011.

Miranda was the son of a man, who had migrated to Venezuela from the Spanish Canary Islands. His mother was born in Venezuela. Although, he crossed the Atlantic several times, I do not know whether Miranda ever set foot on the island of Madeira.

Like those from Calheta, who migrated to Venezuela, many others have migrated from Madeira to various parts of the world over the years. I have been told that many of the Portuguese speakers in South Africa had their roots in Madeira. Having seen the bust in Calheta, clearly Venezuela was another destination.

Now, with difficulties that Venezuela has been facing, some its citizens with Madeiran heritage are returning to the island as can be seen in an article published on-line (www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/madeira-an-island-of-refuge-for-venezuelans-of-portuguese-origin/):

“No one knows the exact figure but the authorities in Madeira consider that about 6,000 Venezuelans of Portuguese descent have taken refuge on their island, where they found themselves in an extremely precarious situation. “They arrive with nothing, many are sick, these are people lacking a great deal,” said the President of the Portuguese archipelago, Miguel Albuquerque. These people are second or third generation Portuguese, descendants of those who left Madeira decades ago in search of a better life in Venezuela. They are now making the opposite journey.”

Reading this made me think about South Africa, to which many Europeans, including my parents’ families, travelled in search of a better life. After the ending of apartheid, many of their descendants have left the country because they had become concerned about their futures in a land where Europeans no longer hold the upper hand.

Sun lover

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MY MOTHER KEPT A SUN LOUNGER in the garden. It was propped up against a wall of our family home in northwest London. It was made of aluminium tubing and ‘upholstered’ with tautly stretched dark blue canvas. I will tell you why it was there and not in Canada.

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My late mother, Helen (pictured above), was born in South Africa in 1920. Until 1947, I believe that it was quite possible that she might have spent her whole life there.

While living in Cape Town in 1947, she and her sister were invited to a party held by their stepfather’s relatives in the suburb of Parrow. Their hosts, Mr and Mrs Kupfer, had also invited two bachelors, Basil and his brother Ralph, whom they knew from the time when the Kupfers and the two unattached men and their parents lived in the small town of Tulbagh east of Cape Town.

By the end if the evening, Basil and Helen agreed to meet again. Not long after the party, Basil invited Helen to the cinema (bioscope in South African English). They met and talked so much that they never made it to the picture house. Almost immediately after this, they became engaged.

Soon after this, so my mother once told me, Basil informed her that they would not be able to meet again for a few weeks because he was too busy marking university students’ examination scripts. Also, he told her that was about to set sail for England, where he was taking up a teaching post at the London School of Economics (LSE). They agreed that given the imminence of his departure, Helen should follow Basil to London, and they would get married there. Basil departed for London.

Helen, who could not contain her excitement, sailed to Southampton in early 1948. She sat in the boat train to London dismayed by what she saw of England.  It was soon after WW2 had ended. She told me that the sight of rows of small houses all with chimneys emitting filthy smoke and the grey skies made her wonder why she had come to such a dismal place to marry a man she hardly knew. They married in mid-March 1948.

After my parents ‘tied the knot’, Basil chose to leave LSE to take up an academic post at McGill University in Montreal. Helen and Basil ‘upped sticks’ and emigrated to Canada in about 1950. The move was not a great success. The climate in Montreal was harsh. My mother told me that for most of the nine months they remained there, it was bitterly cold. She related that they had a flat that overlooked a cemetery. For a few months, the frozen ground was so hard that graves could not be dug. Coffins had to be stacked up above ground until the ground was soft enough to be dug. Helen bought a fur coat. It was made of soft brown fur that I can still remember. In 1950, stores in Montreal were well heated. Customers left their fur coats near the shops’ entrances whilst they were inside shopping.

It was not only the climate that was difficult in Montreal. My father found the atmosphere in the university was awkward to say the least. There was great antagonism between the francophone and anglophone academics. This created an environment that reminded him of the racially divided one he had happily left behind in his native South Africa.

The adverse conditions in Montreal, both social and meteorological, and the offer of another job at LSE, caused my parents to return to London (UK, not Ontario!). They put down a deposit on a detached house in Hampstead Garden Suburb. It was a part of London where many other LSE academics lived. These included: Sir Lionel Robbins and Sir Arnold Plant, and later Professors J Durbin, I Lakatos, P Cohen, and J Watkins and many others.

My parents’ bedroom in the Suburb contained some very well-made wardrobes, which they had had made for their flat in Montreal and brought to London. That they had gone to the trouble of having bespoke cupboards built in Montreal suggests that they had planned to stay much longer than a few months in Montreal.

My mother could never get used to how little light there was in England compared to what she had been used to in South Africa. Every interior wall in our house was painted white, to reflect as much of the little daylight that there was. In contravention of the strict conservation area planning rules that were, and still are, in place in the Suburb, she made alterations to some of the south facing windows in our house during the 1960s. The original windows consisted of a latticework of small panes. She replaced these with large single panes, which allowed far more daylight to enter the house. Even though our neighbours were always asked to remove unauthorised modifications to their houses, the frowned-upon modified windows were still in place more than three decades later. Now, finally, I see that they have been restored to their original, officially approved design.

My mother died in 1980. Between her arrival in London and her death, there was less sunshine in the city than there is nowadays. Had she lived longer than her six decades, I believe that she would have approved of the warmer, sunnier climate that London enjoys now.  When she was at home and the sun happened to shine through a gap in the clouds, she would stop whatever she was doing and rush outside into our garden. She would lie on the sun lounger and enjoy feeling the sun’s rays on her face even if only for a few minutes. As soon as the sun disappeared behind the clouds, she would leave the lounger and prop it up against the wall of the house ready for the next opportunity to enjoy what she so missed after leaving South Africa. Had my parents remained in Canada, I wonder whether she would have kept a sun lounger at the ready outside her home there. Also, if they had not returned to London, I would have been born a Canadian instead of a ‘Brit’.

Reflecting on the Lehman Brothers

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I have just seen a performance of the much-hyped, sold-out, “Lehman Trilogy” at London’s National Theatre. It is written by Italian playwright Stefano Massini and ‘adapted’ into English by Ben Power. Starring Simon Russell Beale and two other actors, the three-and-a-half-hour drama charts the rise and fall of the Lehman brothers and the financial establishments they created. It is in three parts separated from each other by intervals. The first part and the beginning of the second narrate the Lehman’s family saga clearly, entertainingly, and quite interestingly. Then, the latter part of the play seems to ‘lose the plot’.

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Seligmann store in Barkly East, South Africa

The Lehman bank’s operations literally collapsed in 2008. Although I am the son of an eminent economist, I do not understand the subject at all. I was hoping that the collapse of the Lehman Bank might be explained in relatively simple terms as the “Lehman Trilogy” drew towards its finale, but it was not. Rather than explore the dramatic possibilities of what was surely a very dramatic demise of a great financial establishment, the playwright and his ‘adaptor’ merely hinted at the disaster but made no obvious attempt to depict the momentous events that led to a frightful ending that greatly impacted on worldwide news and financial affairs. So, as you can gather, I was not altogether satisfied by the play itself. However, it got me thinking about my own ancestors, who, like the Lehman brothers, left Bavaria in the mid-19th century to seek their fortunes away from Europe across the oceans.

The Lehman brothers, who migrated to the USA in the mid-19th century, were born in Rimpar (Bavaria), near Würzburg. Heinrich (later’ Henry’) Bergmann, my great-grand uncle, was born 50 kilometres south-east of Rimpar in Ditenheim (Bavaria). He was only a few years younger than the Lehmans. In 1849, aged 18, he sailed to Cape Town in South Africa. Soon after arriving, he became the manager of a general store opened in the newly-established town of Aliwal North in the same year. Like the Lehman brothers, Heinrich became very successful as a middle-man. Like the Lehmans, during bad times he gave the farmers (his customers) credit, which they repaid when the wool harvests were brought to his shop (to be sold on to wool merchants). By the early 1860s, soon after marrying the daughter of a Jewish banker in Frankfurt-am-Main, he became the manager of one of the Aliwal’s three banks. Eventually Heinrich’s bank took over its two rivals. For reasons that are not at all clear, young Henrich shot himself in 1866.

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The grave of Heinrich (‘Henry’) Bergmann in Aliwal North, South Africa

Heinrich’s death was not the end of the story. During his time in the Cape, Heinrich was joined in South Africa by his brother and some of his cousins. The cousins in question came mainly from Ichenhausen in Bavaria, 163 kilometres south of Rimpar. Heinrich’s brother married Klara, a daughter of Jakob Seligmann, a successful merchant in Ichenhausen.  Klara’s only brother Isak Rafael Seligmann and his wife had 18 children, of whom 15 lived to adulthood. One of the sons, Sigmund, Heinrich’s nephew, migrated to South Africa from Ichenhausen. He did not join his uncle, but began working for another German, a merchant in Lady Grey, which is not far from Aliwal North. Other young men from Ichenhausen including Sigmund’s brother Jakob and the Reichenberg brothers, one of whom joined Heinrich Bergmann, migrated to South Africa.

Sigmund Seligmann was offered a partnership in the business in Lady Grey but turned it down. He left Lady Grey to open his own shop in Dordrecht, a small place in the Cape. Soon after this, he opened a branch in Barkly East in the heart of a sheep grazing district. Like the Lehman brothers who bought cotton and sold it on, and also acted as bankers for the cotton-growers, Sigmund bought wool from his farmer customers and sold it on as well as lending money to the farmers when times were lean.

The Lehman brothers set their sights high. They moved from being merchants to becoming brokers, and then bankers. Their descendants continued the progression until, finally, others took over the running, and eventual ruining, of the business. Sigmund and many others like him, who went from what was to become ‘Germany’ to South Africa, more often than not retired to Germany when they had made their fortunes. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, life in South Africa was a lot less comfortable than in civilised Germany or the USA, parts of which were becoming very sophisticated. Those who returned to end their lives in Germany had to face WW1 and then later the advent of Hitler’s regime. Sigmund and his children left Bavaria for Palestine, thereby escaping the fate of many Jews who remained in Germany.

Before Sigmund left to retire in Germany, he left the running of his by now very successful business in the hands of some of his very numerous nephews. One of these, who arrived in South Africa in about 1903, was my grandfather Iwan Bloch. Hardworking Iwan, like his father-in-law the future Senator, Franz Ginsberg (an industrialist in the Cape, who had migrated there from Prussia), maintained the successful running of his business as well as entering politics. Iwan became the first and only Jewish Mayor of Barkly East. His life was cut short by ill-health, but had he lived longer I feel sure that he would have entered national politics following in the footsteps of his father-in-law Franz.

With the exception of Iwan’s ill-fated uncle Heinrich Bergmann, this extended Bavarian Jewish family did not take the same road toward high finance as the Lehmans did, but they started at the same point.

Furthermore, the Lehman fortune began to be built from the labour of black slaves in Alabama. This is skirted around casually in the play. Although formally, there were no black slaves in South Africa when my ancestors arrived there, much of the dirty work required to make their fortunes was performed by black Africans, whose treatment by the white Europeans was very far from admirable.

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Adam Yamey’s grandfather, Iwan Bloch, brought the railway to Barkly East in South Africa

I am glad I saw the “Lehman Trilogy” because it is engaging and, although there is little acting, what acting there is was good. Also, it got me thinking about my own history. However, like the doomed bank, the quality of the plot declines gradually as the three and a half hours pass by. Would I recommend it? The answer is “no”.