Page 8 - Bulletin 18 2014

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In 1883 a severe drought affected the Colony and Mossel Bay ran out of water.

Contemporary reports show that water was selling for 6d a bucket if it could be had. The
water furrows could not be flushed and were filthy, there were health problems, clothes and

bedding couldn’t be washed, and oxen were going without water for two to three days at a
time.

It was now that Courtney and Delbridge first hit the big time. They submitted a successful

tender of £7 729 3s 6¼d for the first stage of the Klein Bosch Water Scheme for the

Municipality of Mossel Bay. A paper on this project shows that the eventual cost was £24
000 (Scheffler, 1990.) This major engineering feat involved laying 40 kms. of pipeline from

the Kleinbosch River over hill and dale to the town. Given the difficult terrain and the

transport and supply problems, this was one of the major engineering feats of its time. In
January 1885 the local paper reported the “cheering sight” of the first water running into the

reservoir “with a sound that was music to the ear”.

While John was busy at Mossel Bay, brother William had won a tender for laying a water
pipeline at Uniondale – a small town that had also outgrown its water supply. This contract

was completed in 1886 at a cost of £1 200.

It was this same year that one of South Africa’s almost forgotten gold rushes started. Alluvial

gold had been confirmed at Millwood near Knysna. The Delbridges were among the first to
join the gold rush that Millwood became. Within weeks there were 50 diggers crawling all

over the area, panning for alluvial gold and this figure soon grew to 600. Conditions were
primitive to say the least with tents pitched in the damp and dripping forests, but there was

tremendous excitement as gold fever took hold. C. F. Osborne who confirmed the first find

gave this vivid description of the living conditions in the early days:

“Constant rain and abundant finebush is neither pleasant nor healthy, but the

worst of all was the difficulty in getting proper food. Fresh meat I did not see for
months, and then only when I went to Knysna for it. ‘Pap’ was the staple article of

diet, as the ‘bread’ made by my boys was something vile, and I used to feel after
eating any of it as though I had swallowed a half baked brick. To be a good

prospector you need to have the stomach of an ostrich with the plumage of a duck
and the duck’s love for paddling in the water.”