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Published: March 4th 2010
District 6
We find Constitution StreetThe Search For The Lost Whitwells
This entry will probably only be of interest to immediate family.
Whitwells in Cape Town
One of the reasons for coming to
Cape Town is that we have some family history here. Our great-grandfather,
Peter Whitwell, came to live in Cape Town at the end of the Nineteenth Century. As children we were told that he came here to work as a missionary but that he died here {
aged 36, we don’t know why} and that the family returned to England. We think that three of his children, including our grandfather, were born here.
Our grandfather was five years old when he left but he always talked about visiting Cape Town, as did our father, but neither of them ever did. We have a few addresses to visit but our visit is more about being in Cape Town than doing any detailed research.
Constitution Street Has Been Bulldozed
Our first port of call is the address on
Constitution Street from our grandfather’s birth certificate. Our visit to the
District Six Museum has made it clear that everything in the area has
District 6
There's nothing left of the old Constitution Street been bulldozed to make way for re-development as a whites-only area and we do not expect to find anything there. Coming out of the museum we find Constitution Street just a couple of blocks away but the only buildings there now are some fairly new blocks of flats. They aren’t numbered in any way - there’s no way we’ll be able to work out where No. 63 used to be.
”But Why Do You Want To Go To Mowbary?”
Our next stop is to try and find out where
Peter is buried. Helen has a newspaper cutting announcing his funeral. This was to take place at
St. Peter’s Cemetery in
Mowbary. With some internet research she finds out that the most likely cemetery is no longer there but that the area has been re-developed and that there is a shopping centre there now. There should be a small memorial garden at the side of the cemetery - perhaps we’ll find something there.
We decide to go and see.
We first of all ask Leon how to get to Mowbary. He can’t understand why we would want to go to Mowbary instead of
Mowbary
We think that this is St. Peter's Cemetery Table Mountain or a beach but when we explain he suggests that a bus route will go quite close to
St. Peter’s Shopping Centre. At the bus station they don’t have any maps of bus routes but the woman at the information desk {
after questioning why we would want to go to Mowbary and offering us a timetable for buses to the beach instead!} gives us a timetable and directs us to the correct bus stop.
The bus driver is also really helpful. He drops us off outside the St. Peter’s Shopping Centre and shows us where to get the return bus from. When we get to the shopping centre we immediately spot a run-down, disused cemetery on the opposite side of the road. We are in luck! We didn’t think there would be any of the cemetery still there. There is a sign saying “trespassers will be prosecuted” but there is no lock on the gate so we go in to see what we can find. The cemetery really has fallen into neglect. There are broken gravestones scattered everywhere and apparently no system to how the graves were arranged.
After about an hour of looking at gravestones
Mowbary
Seems about right but this was actually the wrong cemetery! we decide to have a break and head into the shopping centre for lunch. We sit eating our Baracelos Fried Chicken wondering whether Peter is buried underneath us, or maybe under the “Wines and Spirits” in the supermarket. We’re sure the missionary would turn in his grave if he was buried under the “Adult Shop”!
After lunch we have a walk around the shopping centre and we suddenly find the memorial garden. It’s sandwiched between the supermarket, the KFC and the main road. A sign on the gate tells us that all the bodies were re-buried and a memorial cube in the middle of the garden has all the names from the graves. We had been looking in the wrong cemetery this morning!!
Our only problem is that the gate to the garden is locked.
We try our luck to see if we can get in. We ask at the Post Office if they know who will have a key, then we try the security guards for the shopping centre. Eventually one of the guards thinks there may be a key and we begin to work our way up through the chain of command until we find
Mowbary
We get the key. We're in!! ourselves in the offices of what is probably the management company for the centre. Initially we are told that they key is in an office somewhere else but some perseverance does eventually produce the key! We’re in! Our helpful security guard takes to the garden and lets us in. Result! On the cube inside we find not only reference to
Peter but also to one of his daughters,
Rhoda, who died before her first birthday.
Two Songs Short Of A Hymn Sheet
We’re happy with what we’ve found so far - we didn’t really come here to do in-depth research. One thing we don’t know is why Peter died so young so on an afternoon when everybody is trying to sit in the shade and avoid the sun we go to the
Western Cape Archive And Records Service on
Roeland Street to see if we can find a copy of his death certificate.
The service provided here is free and the two women behind the desk are really helpful and patient considering all the strange requests they get from us and the other users of the service that afternoon.
We can’t find
Mowbary
We find Peter and Rhoda death certificates for either Peter or Rhoda. It’s explained to us that at the time death certificates didn’t have to be obtained unless the person owned property.
That explains why there isn’t one for Rhoda and, as we believe Peter worked for a church, he may not have had many possessions. However a search of the database does reveal a document referring to Peter. When we get the document it is a court order committing him to the
Valkenberg lunatic asylum! Now there’s a bit of family history previous generations never told us about! About a year before he died Peter was sent to the nut house!
We ask for a photocopy of the court order. Unfortunately there's a queue and we will have to wait a month for our photocopy! We fill in the neccessary forms to request our photocopy and have it posted back to the UK and pay the fee which works out to be about 6.5p. Amazingly the copy arrives at my UK address about 6 weeks later! It's cost them a lot more than 6.5p to make the copy and post it to the UK. Perhaps the records office should think about charging
The Records Office, Cape Town
On to the records office to try and find a death certificate a nominal fee to overseas visitors - that way they could afford to employ someone to do some of the photocopying.
At least we’re fairly sure we know why he died now - I don’t think many people would have survived long in a Nineteenth Century lunatic asylum in Cape Town. But our bit of research has asked more questions than it’s answered. Who put him in the nut house? Why? I’m sure there were many things he could have done in 1898 that would have landed him in a lunatic asylum. How many of our family knew this but kept it secret?
From Looney Bin To Backpacker Hostel
We think we have found out as much as we can about the family history, more than we thought we would, but purely by chance Helen spots an entry in one of the guide books. “The
Oude Molen Eco Village is located in the once-abandoned buildings and grounds of part of the
Valkenberg mental hospital”. Looking it up on the Cape Town street map we see that there is a
Valkenberg Hospital very close to the eco-village.
One of the girls at tourist
Lock Him Up!
The court order information knows the area very well, she obviously lives there. She really doesn’t want us to go there; she’d be much happier if we went to Table Mountain or a beach instead and she gives us strict instructions to travel first class on the train and tells us when the “safest” time of day to go is.
In the end we decide to hire a taxi for the afternoon. We jump into a taxi near our apartment. The driver assures us he knows the
Mowbary area and that he can find the hospital. When we get to the Mowbary area it becomes clear that he hasn’t got a clue where we are and he can’t read a map! We manage to work out, from reading the map and asking directions, where we are and direct our driver to the hospital.
The
Valkenberg Hospital is a fairly new looking building with two high fences around it and three security guards who aren’t going to let us in. We explain why we want to see the building and how far we’ve come but they aren’t going to let us into their hospital. Our taxi driver does his best to convince
Valkenberg
This is where we think Peter ended up them but they aren’t going to change their minds. Perhaps we should have lied to them and told them we were ill? We have to restrict ourselves to driving around the perimeter and taking photographs of any older looking buildings - even this seems to upset the security guards.
From here it’s a short drive to the
Oude Molen Eco Village, which we believe is built in the grounds of the old
Valkenberg lunatic asylum and may use some of the original buildings. We have more luck here. As soon as we enter we see some old buildings that fit the image we both have of a Victorian lunatic asylum - drab and depressing. There is a fairly good chance that this is the building we are looking for! And the building is now back in use - as
The River Lodge Backpackers Hostel. What was once a place for locking lunatics away is now home for backpackers!
I think this is definitely as far as our research will go. I’m sure Peter died as a result of being put in an institution and I’m sure that the stigma of this will have been the reason his widow brought the family back to England. I don’t think there’s anybody who can tell us who put him in the institution and why.
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sharon campbell
non-member comment
family relations whitwell
Hello Steve and Helen I stumbled over your site the other day and signed up well you both got to go to Africa i am very interested what you have come up with. It just shows you that family dont tell you everything about your relations. When i was reading it i felt a happy feeling, but by the end i felt sad. Hope you both enjoy your holidays and have lots of fun Sharon