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establishment, completed in 1872, in which she, her sister Charlotte, and Alice Pocklington

lived until December 1877, when all three ladies returned to England. A section of the house
was set aside for a cottage hospital.

Harriet also purchased another property on the northern boundary of the ‘Dalebrook’ erf. This
was erf No. 89626 which she acquired from the deceased estate of Oloff Truter. It was

wedge-shaped with the narrow end along the Main Road and the wide end along the mountain

side. It was on this erf that she built Douglas Cottage in 1872 as an orphanage and a home for
the destitute. Harriet prepared to return to England with her sister and Alice Pocklington in

July 1877 and duly appointed the Board of Executors to handle her affairs. She instructed

them to sell erf 89626, which included Douglas Cottage, to Mary Arthur head of the St.
George’s Orphanage at a nominal price of £150. Transfer was effected on 2 October 1877.

Mary Arthur continued to operate Douglas Cottage as a sea-side holiday home for orphans.

She transferred erf 89626 from her name to the St. George’s Orphanage on 14 October 1877.
This erf was sold by the St. George’s Orphanage to the Kalk Bay-Muizenberg Municipality in

1905 for £1659. In 1906 a sewage pumping-station was erected in front of Douglas Cottage.

This pumping-station, once it had been shut down in the early 1930s, became, after
renovations, a hall, a library, and now houses the Kalk Bay Community Centre. Douglas

Cottage remained a Council property and was demolished and then rebuilt in 1932.

Dalebrook House was sold by the Board of Executors on 5 December 1877 to Thomas

Johnson Anderson, a young man of 33, whose wife had died three years earlier. He took

transfer at a cost of £1,276 and Dalebrook House was then converted into a Boarding House.
On 21 November 1892, some fifteen years later, the property was sold by public auction. The

successful bidder was William George Anderson, father of Thomas Johnson Anderson. The

price realised was £1,250.

W. G. Anderson was a wealthy entrepreneur, property owner, and retired senior partner of the
merchant and shipping firm Anderson and Murison. The reason for his successful bid at a

public auction seems to indicate some support for his son as he was an elderly man at the time

of the auction (born 1803). He died in August 1893 at his home ‘Erin - go - Bragh’ in
Rondebosch, some nine months after his purchase of Dalebrook House.