Page 50 - KBHA Bulletin 16

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There is a belief in the Fish family today that Charles’ daughter, Charlotte Sarah

Eleanor (‘Lottie’) Fish, inherited Windsor House from her father but the title deeds do
not show this. She was known to all as Sister Fish and lived in a cottage at the back of

Windsor House for many years. (Fig. 2.17.) She was well-known as a midwife and
helping hand to the sick and injured. The title deeds show that she bought her property

from Edward Pratten’s son Arthur in 1953 for £1,900 and sold it in 1959 for a share
amounting to £1,550. (Fig. 2.18.)

The Pratten Family

Edward Henry Pratten was born in Grahamstown in about 1870 of an 1820 settler

family. He was an engine driver and as a 25 year old he married Annie Fish, daughter
of Charles McDonald Fish. As early as 1898 Edward applied to the KB-MM for a

permit to open a mobile coffee stall on the Outspan, sensing a good opportunity to
supply the waiting fish traders and holidaymakers who gathered there regularly. By

the 1920s he had moved up in the world and had a substantial general dealer’s shop –
(today the Blue Bottle Liquor shop) – in the recently rebuilt Harbour Mansions. (Fig.

2.19.)

He was doing well and it was at this time that he bought Windsor House and the land

and buildings behind it from his father-in-law. By 1925 he had applied to Council for
permission to demolish two dilapidated cottages and build a substantial block in

Windsor Road. A shop was added to the original design with the total cost amounting

to £3,050. The architect was J. A. Smith – the same architect who designed Ocean
View Flats at the top of Windsor Road. The building today is virtually identical to the

architect’s drawing of 1925. (Fig. 2.20.) Despite the housing shortage in Kalk Bay,
and the protection afforded to existing dwellings by the Housing Act of 1920, he was

allowed to demolish the old cottages because he was providing additional

accommodation and doing so immediately.

Edward had also consolidated his land around Windsor House, buying slices of the
old roadway where his buildings encroached onto what had been designated as a

public road. Once the building – Pratten’s Flats – had been completed he moved from
the Main Road and set up shop in his own building.