Page 4 - Bulletin 18 2014

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THE DELBRIDGE FAMILY’S CONTRIBUTION TO EARLY 20 CENTURY
KALK BAY – MUIZENBERG

Steve Herbert

Introduction and Background

The Delbridge family made a major contribution to the then Cape Colony and more
specifically the Kalk Bay – Muizenberg area. As masons, builders, property developers and,

in the second generation, as an architect they were involved in significant buildings and

projects.

This is not a family history but it puts in context how two brothers from a difficult
background arrived with little other than their skills and the will to succeed. With their

descendants they left a substantial and permanent footprint on South Africa. In many ways
they were typical of the now politically maligned colonials who left all they knew and came

to the Cape, collectively and literally building the Colony from the ground up.

The Delbridge brothers, John and William were born in Cornwall in 1855 and 1859

respectively, the sons of a stone mason. In fact the feel for stone and the art of working it was
in their blood. Their births were preceded in the family line by at least six generations of

masons going back to 1715. In 1862 disaster struck the family when the boys’ father died at
age 37 leaving his widow with four young children of whom John was 9 and William only 2.

The family was taken under the wing of their uncle Abraham Delbridge who took the boys on
as apprentice masons thus ensuring that they had the skills to earn their own living. The great

Cornish migration in search of a better life had started as early as the 1840s and over the next

30 – 40 years about 150 000 Cornish people fled the poverty of Cornwall for America,
Australia, South Africa, South America and all points in between.

The Delbridge brothers were living in the small Cornish fishing village of Porthleven in 1877

when John Delbridge set sail for Mossel Bay, leaving his wife and infant son to follow him
on the long and arduous voyage to the Cape. His brother William followed him in 1879.