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Rhodes Fruit Farms, founded by Cecil John Rhodes in 1902, [1] exists today as Boschendal The Estate, one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa. [2]
Mining magnate, politician and empire-builder Cecil John Rhodes founded Rhodes Fruit Farms in South Africa in 1902, shortly before his death. Much of his activity centred on the farm Boschendal, which has given its name to the current Boschendal Estate. To this day it is a major source of employment for the local community.
Close to Cape Town, between Stellenbosch, Pniel, Franschhoek and Paarl, Boschendal stretches between the foot of the Groot Drakenstein mountains to the Simonsberg mountains, with views of the mountain, vineyards and valley below. On 2,240 hectares (5,500 acres) there is a unique combination of vineyards, orchards, nature reserves, mountain corridors and rivers. The historic homesteads on the Estate, part of the Cape Dutch heritage, [3] are Boschendal Manor House, Goede Hoop, Rhone, Nieuwedorp, Old Bethlehem, Champagne and the Cecil John Rhodes Cottage. [4] [5]
In the late nineteenth century, it was tragedy which gave birth to opportunity. The Western Cape wine farms had been devastated by a phylloxera epidemic in the 1880s & 1890s. Diseased vineyards were ploughed up and gradually replanted with vines grafted onto resistant American rootstock. In the meantime, farmers needed alternative forms of agriculture and the lucrative fruit industry in California provided a suitable model for the Cape. Pioneering work was done by fruit farmers in Wellington and the Hex River Valley. In 1892, shipping magnate Percy Molteno developed and introduced refrigerated cargo space on Union-Castle shipping lines, between the Cape and the largest consumer markets in Europe, which revolutionised the industry and made the export of fresh fruit an attractive proposition. [6] [7] [8] [9]
Harry Pickstone, an Englishman who had experience growing fruit in California, landed in the Cape in 1892. He convinced Rhodes that a commercial nursery was needed to propagate new varieties of fruit trees for the industry. Rhodes financed his first venture, the Pioneer Fruit Growing Company.
After retiring from politics in 1896 Rhodes decided to invest further in fruit farming. Pickstone advised him to buy old wine farms in the Groot Drakenstein, Wellington and Stellenbosch areas.
In March 1897 Rhodes secured the first of more than 20 farms, including Boschendal and Rhone. Twelve young managers from South Africa, Britain and America [10] were appointed; many of them had been trained in California. Under Pickstone's tutelage they transformed the farms, introducing modern methods of pruning, grafting and irrigation, and training farm workers in the new skills. They planted 200,000 deciduous fruit trees – pears, apricots, plums and peaches.
This rapid expansion and Rhodes' use of his fortune to buy out smaller farmers led to some opposition. He was condemned for a "monopolistic" policy but rode out the storm. [11]
Pickstone set up offices at Lekkerwijn where Rhodes, Kipling and others were visitors. Rhodes was keen to have his own retreat and commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to build him a simple cottage. Baker also designed two churches in the area and a village for workers at Languedoc.
Relations between Britain and the Boer republics deteriorated and led to the outbreak of war in 1899. Rhodes immediately left for Kimberley, the centre of his diamond interests and remained there during the four-month siege. He continued to attend to fruit farming matters and persuaded the mining magnate, Alfred Beit and De Beers to become shareholders, to ensure continuing financial strength for the project. [12] Rhodes's health deteriorated and on his return to the Cape he withdrew to his cottage in Muizenberg. In February 1902, as Rhodes was dying, a new company, Rhodes Fruit Farms Ltd, was born. The day before Rhodes died, Pickstone was appointed technical director to the company and resident director at Groot Drakenstein. [13]
De Beers, Sir Alfred Beit and the Rhodes Estate became joint share-holders of Rhodes Fruit Farms with Dr Leander Starr Jameson (of Jameson Raid fame) was chairman. Pickstone ran the company for another two years before returning to his nursery business. By then the railway was extended to Groot Drakenstein and trains were fitted with refrigeration cars for the distribution of fruit. Rhodes Fruit Farms became the industry leader and a major source of employment locally. It opened a cannery in 1903 and a jam factory in 1906.
After Sir Alfred Beit's death in 1906, De Beers bought Beit and Rhodes's shares. Returns were never high and in 1927 De Beers ordered an investigation into its fruit-farming operations. They appointed one of the consultants, Alfred Appleyard from the University of Bristol, as general manager. He held the position for 22 years and consolidated the company's holdings: selling off the Wellington farms and acquiring Excelsior and Bien Donné in Groot Drakenstein.
In 1937 De Beers decided to sell Rhodes Fruit Farms and it was bought by Sir Abe Bailey, three years before his death. He was an old associate of Rhodes with gold-mining interests and had been involved in the Jameson Raid. During Bailey's short interlude as owner, Appleyard remained in charge of the fruit farms and lived at Goede Hoop.
In 1941, a syndicate of businessmen bought Rhodes Fruit Farms from Bailey's estate. They were A.B. McDonald, E.J. Crean, S.T. Richards, G.H. Starck, and later Frank Robb. The Directors and their families spent many holidays at Rhodes Cottage.
John Manning, the new general manager, built a new cannery in 1951, a sawmill in 1953 and purchased the farm, Bethlehem, in Groot Drakenstein. Rhodes Fruit Farms retained only one farm in Stellenbosch, namely Vredenburg. This was sold in the late 1960s and is now a suburb called Die Boord (Afrikaans : the orchard).
In 1969, Frank Robb persuaded Anglo-American, De Beers and Rand Selection Corporation Ltd to become majority shareholders in Rhodes Fruit Farms. The company decided to restore Boschendal and revive wine farming under the Boschendal brand name. The complex was restored by the architect, Gawie Fagan, and opened to the public in 1976. The company changed its name to Anglo-American Farms.
Anglo American started divesting itself of the cannery, dairy, piggeries and its fruit interests in the late 1990s, eventually selling off all the lands along the Berg and Dwars Rivers.
In 2004 a private consortium, under the leadership of property developer Clive Venning, bought Boschendal.
The 600 hectare, 17th Century Boschendal Estate is sectioned into 18 Founders' Estates between 21 and 44 hectares each. The Goede Hoop Homestead, built by Pieter Hendrik de Villiers in 1821 graces – Estate 17. On Estate 19 stands the historic Rhodes Cottage, designed and constructed in 1902 as a country retreat for mining magnate and empire builder by Sir Herbert Baker, the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades.
Boschendal The Estate continues to be a major source of employment for local communities and the development of Boschendal will generate R 100 million for investment in the local community projects such as nutrition and health, education and skills development, agricultural, heritage and environmental support. The consortium has donated 270 hectares of land to the community trust. [14]
The Jameson Raid was a botched raid against the South African Republic carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the employment of Cecil Rhodes. It involved 500 British South Africa Company police launched from Rhodesia over the New Year weekend of 1895–96. Paul Kruger, towards whom Rhodes had a great personal hatred, was president of the South African Republic at the time. The raid was intended to trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers in the Transvaal but failed to do so. The workers were called the Johannesburg conspirators. They were expected to recruit an army and prepare for an insurrection; however, the raid was ineffective, and no uprising took place. The results included embarrassment of the British government; the replacement of Cecil Rhodes as prime minister of the Cape Colony; and the strengthening of Boer dominance of the Transvaal and its gold mines. The raid was a contributory cause of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902).
Cecil John Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company colonised the southern African territory of Rhodesia, which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after him. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate.
Paarl is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa and the largest town in the Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni township, it is now a de facto urban unit with Wellington. It is situated about 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Cape Town in the Western Cape Province and is known for its scenic environment and viticulture and fruit-growing heritage.
Stellenbosch is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, situated about 50 kilometres east of Cape Town, along the banks of the Eerste River at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain. The town became known as the City of Oaks or Eikestad in Afrikaans and Dutch due to the large number of oak trees that were planted by its founder, Simon van der Stel, to grace the streets and homesteads.
The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush that began in 1886 and led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution.
Alfred Beit was a Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university education and research in several countries, and was the "silent partner" who structured the capital flight from post-Boer War South Africa to Rhodesia, and the Rhodes Scholarship, named after his employee, Cecil Rhodes. Beit's assets were structured around the so-called Corner House Group, which through its holdings in various companies controlled 37 per cent of the gold produced at the Witwatersrand's goldfields in Johannesburg in 1913.
Sir Herbert Baker was an English architect remembered as the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, and a major designer of some of New Delhi's most notable government structures. He was born and died at Owletts in Cobham, Kent.
South African wine has a history dating back to 1659 with the first bottle being produced in Cape Town by its founder and gouverner Jan van Riebeeck. Access to international markets led to new investment in the South African wine market. Production is concentrated around Cape Town and almost exclusively located within the Western Cape province, with major vineyard and production centres at Constantia, Paarl, Stellenbosch and Worcester.
Boschendal is one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa and is located between Franschhoek and Stellenbosch in South Africa's Western Cape.
Groot Constantia is the oldest wine estate in South Africa and provincial heritage site in the suburb of Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa.
Cape Dutch architecture is an architectural style found mostly in the Western Cape of South Africa, but modern examples of the style have also been exported as far afield as Western Australia and New Zealand, typically on wine estates. The style was prominent in the early days of the Cape Colony, and the name derives from the initial settlers of the Cape being primarily Dutch. The style has roots in medieval Netherlands, Germany, France and Indonesia.
Randlords were the capitalists who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa from the 1870s up to World War I.
The Drakenstein mountain opposite Simonsberg Mountain named after ex military man and Colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein is part of the Cape Fold Belt and are in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
Western Cape is a Geographical Unit within the Wine of Origin classification system of South African wine. Corresponding to the province of Western Cape it includes most of the vineyards in South Africa.
Sir John Carruthers Beattie was the first principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (1918–1937).
Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) of South Africa provides for places of historic or cultural importance to be designated national heritage sites. This came into effect with the introduction of the Act on 1 April 2000, when all former national monuments declared by the former National Monuments Council and its predecessors became provincial heritage sites as provided for in Section 58 of the Act.
Assegaaibosch Nature Reserve is an historic estate and currently a CapeNature nature reserve and World Heritage Site situated in the Jonkershoek Valley near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The historic estate was established by Dirk Coetsee, the progenitor of the Coetsee family in South Africa.
Coetsenburg is an historic wine estate and one of the oldest estates in South Africa, established in 1682. It is located at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain, which forms part of the estate, in the town of Stellenbosch, 31 miles (50 km) east of Cape Town, in the Cape Winelands of the Western Cape Province. The estate has historically been owned by the Coetsee family and is currently not open to the public. The north-western portion of the original estate is now the Coetsenburg Sports Grounds which belongs to the University of Stellenbosch.
Dirk Coetzee/Coetsee was the Hoofdheemraad (Chancellor) of the District of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein in South Africa for most of the 1690s and early 1700s. He also served as captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry and deacon of the Stellenbosch Moederkerk at different points in time. As captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry, which comprised mostly Huguenots, he provided military backing for a rebellion which began in 1706 against the Governor of the Cape Colony, Willem Adriaan van der Stel, whom the vrijburghers had accused of tyranny, corruption and racketeering. Coetsee was imprisoned in the dungeon of the Castle of Good Hope along with the other leaders of the Huguenots but he was released after a year. The rebellion ultimately succeeded in 1707 when the Dutch East India Company recalled the Governor and other colonial officials. An account of the rebellion is vividly described in the "Diary of Adam Tas".