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convicts to make a road track from Smitswinkel Bay to Cape Point, so that material could be got
out to the new lighthouse without any very great difficulty. The result of these negotiations were
that 20 convicts were loaned to the Administration by the Provincial authorities, and with these
1/2
men I have been able to construct a road track for 4 miles from Smitswinkel Bay towards Cape
Point, but we could not go further as it was too far from the main convict outstation at
Smitwinkel Bay. The Administration further authorised me to spend £75 on gravel, so have been
able to place 1200 loads of gravel along this road track, which in parts is very sandy and if
authority (which I have applied for) could be obtained to have a substation for the 20 men on
Smiths farm, and £200 expended, this road track could be made all the way to the lighthouse, and
it will then be an easy matter for anyone to motor from Cape Town to Cape Point Lighthouse
station. The authorities would then realise what a beautiful drive the section from Smitswinkel
Bay to the lighthouse is, and then there would be no doubt that that section would be included by
the Provincial authorities in the all round route.

The Provincial authorities have granted me sufficient money to gravel the portion of the road
track that runs round Vasco da Gama peak to the lighthouse.
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In January 1916 Boyes left Simon’s Town to become magistrate in Queenstown. (Fig. 3.5.) On 1
May 1919 he returned to Cape Town to take up the position of Chief Magistrate, the position he

held until his retirement on 14 January 1923. During these years he lived in Heathfield Road, Sea
Point, but on retirement he moved to St. James. Initially he stayed at a house called

‘Welgelegen’, a boarding house in familiar St. James Road, immediately behind ‘The Matchbox’

and close to Shop 2 on Main Road where he had held the Periodic Court of the Simon’s Town
Magistracy. Later he lived in the house ‘Oriana’ in Ley Road. In 1923 he also became a city

councillor and embarked on what was to be a brief but active final stage of his life.

Cape Town City Councillor 1923 –24

By late 1923 The All Round the Cape Peninsula Road was nearing completion with work at an

advanced stage on the final Witzand – Slangkop section. Boyes claimed that he had always
thought of the proposed High Level Road from Kalk Bay to Muizenberg as part of the All Round

the Cape Peninsula Road and so, on 11 September 1923, he drew the City Council’s attention to
the fact that the 250 convicts quartered at Slangkop would soon be relocated to construction

work elsewhere in the Province. It was essential that they be secured for work on the HLR. To
achieve this he engaged in a ‘networking’ process between the Department of Prisons, the

Provincial Administration, and the City Council: Prisons had the potential labour force, Province

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