Douglasdale is situated in the north of the
municipality of Sandton, west of Bryanston and just south of Fourways,
with the western boundary following the Klein Jukskei river.
Since local history is the story of the land and the people who live on
it, there are two stories to be told - that of 'Douglas', the man, and
'Dale', the place. Both stories, strangely enough, began around the
middle of the last century - one in a small Scottish town, and the other
in what were then the bleak uninhabited areas of the Transvaal, between
Potchefstroom and Pretoria in the days before gold was discovered and
when Johannesburg itself did not exist. [This article will tell the
story of Douglas the man]
It was in 1859, on July 26th, that the
original farm Witkoppen was granted by land grant from President Kruger
to P.E. Labuschagne and on July 5th of the same year that Driefontein 3
was granted to L.P. van Vuuren, and these land grants can be seen today
in Pretoria, although the farms have now all been considerably
sub-divided. Not long after, in the year 1863, Thomas Douglas, one of a
family of five, was born in the small town of Stranraer (or Glenluce,
near Stranraer?) in Wigtownshire,
Scotland.
Thomas Douglas left Scotland as a young man for
America, where he travelled as far as San Francisco, where he purchased
some land but failed to claim it. He returned to Europe, presumably via
Scotland, because after travelling to Southern Africa in 1890, his young
bride-to-be, Janet Alexander, from the same area, a village called Glen
Luce near Tranraer (sic), followed him to Cape Town where they were married.
She travelled on the ship with a friend who was also coming to be
married and who became Mrs Pyott of the famous Port Elizabeth biscuit
firm.
The long journey in those days was full of difficulties and
on arrival at Cape Town Janet Alexander found that, not only was Thomas
Douglas very ill, but her trunks had been cut open and most of her
trousseau items had been stolen. However, they were married and went to
live in Port Elizabeth for a while. Next, they went to Klerksdorp, where
Thomas Douglas, now a man of 29, worked as a carpenter on the
Buffelsdorp Mine. No doubt it was here that he gained much of his
experience in mining. We also know that he spent some time in Rhodesia
and even considered settling there, and that in fact, he settled some of
his wife's family there later on.
Around the turn of the century
he decided to make Johannesburg his home and business centre taking a
small yard near Ellis Park at 330 Market Street from where he started
building in a small way; including semi-detached houses in Ford Street,
Karl Street and Fox Street, Fairview. He and Mrs Douglas lived at the
building premises for some years and their first child, Miss Jenny
Douglas and her eldest brother Jack were born there.
Over these
early years Thomas Douglas must have gained considerable experience,
because we know that he worked with Leonard Fleming of the architectural
firm Baker & Fleming, on the first construction work at St. John's
College after they started the new buildings in Houghton. We do know,
also, that Thomas Douglas brought out three stonemasons from Scotland
and also that around 1904 he started buying land out at what is now
Douglasdale. Although we do not know for certain where he got his stone
for building, we do know that there is a quarry on the property as the
remains of it are there today. We have also been told that Douglas
helped with stone for the building of the first Standard Bank in
Commissioner Street.
The Douglas building business must have
improved steadily, as it was shortly after the turn of the century that
the family moved to Afton Lodge, 8 Jan Smuts Avenue Braamfontein which
became the family home for forty years. Three more children were born to
the Douglas's and it was around this time that purchases of the rest of
what is now Douglasdale were made. Jenny Douglas remembers that the
family did not go on holidays, but spent their free time out at the
farm, travelling there by wagon, a trip which took the best part of a
day. She recalls that the children has to get out of the wagon going up
Craighall Hill, as their weight was bad for the horses, the journey
being via what is now Randburg and to Douglasdale via Homestead Road.
Some fine Ayreshire (sic) cattle were brought from Scotland to the farm, and
they even kept a cow at Afton Lodge for their fresh milk and butter
which Jenny prepared herself.
A Master Builder
It is not
given to many of us to leave a permanent mark on the world but perhaps a
builder has more opportunity than most to do so. Thomas Douglas seems to
have left his mark, not only by his buildings, but also in the
organisations he supported and businesses developed which are still in
operation today, even under other names.
Around 1905 he became a
founder member of the Master Builders' Association. About twenty
prominent builders of the time got together appointing a committee of
ten, of whom Thomas Douglas was one, some indication of his stature in
the trade. The first minutes of the association define a master builder
as 'one who is responsible for the completion of a contract' - no mean
task. During the first year, Douglas attended sixteen committee
meetings, an indication of his enthusiasm, and later he represented the
association at discussions around the country, becoming president of the
association in 1913. Glancing at the minutes of 1936, he was still in
attendance, having completed over thirty years of service.
Thomas
Douglas had many buildings to his credit, although some of the earlier
ones have already been demolished to make way for progress. His mining
experience gave Douglas one of his early contracts, that for the first
cyanide tanks and extractor boxes for Rand Mines. Comparatively early in
his career, he built the Henderson's Building, a fine and most elegant
construction with decorative stonework on several storeys. He built the
first part of the Baragwanath Hospital, a military hospital later
designated as a black hospital. At the time he built this he was
employing over 750 workers. He built the first dormitories of King
Edward's School in 1924 and had the whole contract for the Eloff Street
branch of the Standard Bank. This building in Eloff Street is one of
those which some Johannesburg architects are trying to have proclaimed
national monuments. In its construction in 1929 he used for the lower
storey a number of pre-cast concrete blocks with hand cut blocks on the
higher levels, and it is interesting to note that today, with the
shortage of bricks, builders are turning more than ever to this use. He
built the John Orr's buildings in both Johannesburg and Springs, and one
of his last works was the Chamber of Mines Hospital at Cottesloe which
was finished in 1939, the year he died.
See also:
•
Douglas in South
Africa
•
Douglasdale
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