Silvermine

The silver from the silver mine at Silvermine in the Simonsberg was certainly not the key to anyone’s castle but Governor Van Imhoff and his fellow shareholders in the Octeroojeerde Society der Mynwerken aan de Simonsberg expected it to be more than it was.

Van Imhoff can be excused as he was new to the Cape, having arrived on the 21st of January to take up his appointment as Governor.

Nevertheless some five weeks later on the 27th of February, he was signing over to Olof de Wet the right to search for and mine for minerals in the Simonsberg. The agreement could have been the model for many which heavily favoured companies as it was based on the understanding that the minerals were to be sold to the Dutch East India Company – at their price – plus one fifteenth of the value of the minerals.

The Dutch East India Company would provide labour but all expenses would be met by the operating ‘Society’.

Again Van Imhoff might be excused on the grounds of lack of experience but what of the other members of the Society, including Swellengrebel, his son-in-law Ryk Tulbagh, now Secunde and the future Governor (in 1751). There was also Noodt and Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin, the aristocratic Prussian who had come to the Cape as a private soldier but rose to becaome Secretary of the Orphan Chamber after the death of Noodt, who denied him any promotion while he was alive. When Noodt died some wit commented that Noodt is dood en daar is geen noodt, which truanslates roughly into Noodt (Need) is dead and there is now no need.
Surely an aristocratic Prussian, who had lived among ordinary soldiers, had enough experience of the roguery which existed in what was then a frontier town, to sum things up?
It was not that he was poorly read; Dessin’s collection of 3800 volumes was to form the basis of the South African Library.

There were others who should at least have been more prepared for what was to come; Captain Allerman, the head of the Garrison; the important, Secretary of the Council of Policy, Josephus de Grand Prez; the Fiscal, Pieter van reede van Oudshoorn; the spiritual leader or predicant, Frans le Serrurier; Moller, the Port Captain; and the Chief Surgeon Jan van Scoon. Among the lesser, but important, Free Burgers, were well known South African names such as Willem Morkel, Jacob van Reenan, Andries Brink and Hendrik van der Merwe.

Shares, and above all profits and, of course, expenses, were to be divided among those involved. The top men, Van Imhoff, Swellengrebel and Tulbagh held a full third of the shares and the profits from either their capital, or their names, it is uncertain which was considered more important were to be shared in proportion to their input.

The scheme had in fact been started by one Frans Diedrik Muller who, because of his “expertise’, became the Bergmeester, was given five soldiers and a sailor to start the operation under its imposing title of Goede Verwachting – Great Expectations – on 25th May 1743. Presumable for security reasons, unlike the other works around the Cape where the feudal system of providing labour for public works was in use, no slaves were used in the mine. This labour force gradually increased until there were twenty three soldiers and six sailors blasting away inside the berg.

Two things are required of a mine operator who wishes to keep the good will of his chairman and chief shareholders, firstly, the shafts and entrances must be named after the shareholder, their daughter, their wife, or their dog, and it is no surprise to find that Muller called the two vertical shafts Jonker Hendrik and Jonker Willem after Swellengrebel and Van Imhoff. At a depth of seventeen meters the verticals were joined by Timmerans Oord. Timmerans Oord led into De Ryke Gang and sloped down to the Dag Hollen shaft from which Jacobs Straat was mined.

Dag Hollen incline was forty meters deep in September of 1744 but the rock became too hard and the ‘miners’ switched to the verticals.

All this, and Muller’s expenses, was being paid for by the investors and, from time to time, they became agitated at the lack of profit and Muller had no option but to produce some silver, smelted, some later said, unkindly, from Rix dollars. It kept the shareholders happy and, according to lady Anne Barnard, was made into a silver chain for the Castle keys.

Tulbagh expressed reservations in a note he sent to Governor Van Imhoff in 1746 but the Governor asked that Muller be allowed more time and the costs escalated to reach more than 10,000 Rix Dollars, a real fortune in those days.

In 1748 Muller was called before the Society and asked for a report. He had by this time gone so far as to provide samples, which he claimed contained not just silver but some gold as well. By this time, however, the shareholders had become suspicious and called in their own experts, a gold smith called Matthys Lotter and two silversmiths, David Vickers and Hendrik Fuchs who, like many experts after them, declared the samples barren. This proved to be the final insult and finally closed the Goede Verwachting Silvermine
.
In 1753 the Governor in Council at the Cape received a nasty letter from the Council in Batavia, the governors of the Dutch East India Company, for having the temerity to send one, Frans Diedrick Muller, already sentence to banishment, back to Holland at the Company’s expense. To add insult to injury, the people in the Cape had seized the assets of this Muller and distributed them to the members of the Octeroojeerde Society der Mynwerken aan de Simonsberg and the Company could not even reclaim the fare. Having no recourse to anyone, (Muller had left Holland) the file was closed, or should it be said that the file on mining swindles in South Africa had been opened, as so many things began, in the Mother City.

Lady Anne Barnard has passed on to posterity the idea that the silver from Silvermine was made into a chain for the keys of the Castle. Who can say this was not Muller’s last laugh.