“With excitement in his heart, but tears in his eyes, little Dawie turned his back on the drab little houses in Villiersdorp and with his hand in that of his oudoom went to meet a brilliant future.”7
As a well-to-do proprietor of the butchery Combrinck & Ross (which would become Combrinck & Co. in time), Combrinck was rooted in a long tradition of butchers who had developed a prosperous business since the early days in the Cape.
The demand for fresh meat and vegetables was what initially gave rise to the gradual modernisation of the country. Previously communal ownership characterised the country’s farming and livestock trade. This trade pattern changed after Jan van Riebeeck established the refreshment station at what was termed the Cape of Storms, later the Cape of Good Hope, for the DEIC. During the long voyage between Europe and the East around the Cape this offered the ships fresh supplies of salted and smoked meat – often the cause of scurvy and the death of many seafaring people.
Since around 1681 various butchers managed their businesses under the DEIC control, including D.G. van Reenen, H.A. Truter, J.C. (Jacob) van Reenen, Jan Smook, Johan Jakob Meyer and J.G. Steytler.8
In fact, South Africa’s first capitalist was a butcher: Henning Hüsing (sometimes spelled Huising or Huisen), who became the wealthiest man in the Cape. Hüsing, born in Hamburg on 3 August 1649, came to the Cape as an ordinary soldier shortly after Van Riebeeck’s arrival. His subsequent career had striking resemblances to that of the young Graaff – he also started working as a farmhand and cattle herdboy after getting his discharge as a soldier. As a free burgher and one of the first settlers, Hüsing started breeding stock in the Hottentots-Holland Mountains in 1678. As a member of the heemraad of Stellenbosch, he entered into an agreement with the DEIC to supply meat to the local hospital and visiting ships, and eventually, together with his partner, Willem van Dieden, secured the meat contract for the garrison. An account of 1705 shows he had 100 000 rix-dollars in cash, 1 000 head of cattle, 20 000 sheep and 545 morgen of land. In the civilian revolt against Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel in 1706 he sided with Adam Tas and was arrested as one of the conspirators. After the authorities in Amsterdam judged in favour of the settlers in the matter, Hüsing went to live on his farm Meerlust, later to become the show farm of eight generations of Myburghs, where he had 100 000 grapevines.9
Combrinck, like Dawie, entered the meat industry at a young age. He was all of ten years old when he was employed by a friend of his family, Johannes Mechau, a supplier from Cape Town.10 (Obviously, neither Combrinck nor Dawie would of have been allowed to start working at such a young age under later labour legislation and child laws.)
Combrinck, who never married, was in his early 40s when he took little Dawie to Cape Town, then considered the “colonial metropolis”. The businessman under whose wing the young boy would grow up was born in Worcester on 21 May 1828. His ancestor emigrated from Germany to the Cape in 1717. His grandfather was Herman Combrinck, a Stellenbosch architect, and his father, Petrus Arnoldus Combrinck, a missionary and schoolmaster in Paarl, who married his second wife after the death of her Graaff husband in 1813.
Since his youth, Combrinck, under Mechau’s mentorship, became familiar with all facets of his butchery. After serving his apprenticeship he was appointed foreman of the business of Othmard Bernard Schietlin, then the leading butcher in the Cape, who eventually returned to Switzerland.11 In 1857 Combrinck entered into a partnership with Henry John William (sometimes called Hendrikus Johannes Wilhelmus) Ross, and Combrinck & Ross rapidly developed into a prominent, highly successful butchery. Besides domestic households, the British Navy, British Army and state departments were among their clients.12
Combrinck not only prospered in the meat industry, he also had other extensive business interests. In his opinion, the maxim “stick to your last” was only meant for people who were not capable of looking at more than one thing at a time without spoiling everything. He also speculated in, among other things, mules, shares and real estate, and owned claims in the Kimberley diamond mines. He acquired homes in the city centre, Sea Point, Three Anchor Bay and Wynberg, and in the countryside he purchased four farms to supply his and other butcheries with livestock. “Mr. Combrinck, in fact, was one of those lucky men, or gifted men – it matters very little which – in whose hands everything seemed to turn insensibly into gold,” wrote the Cape Argus after his death.13
At the time of Dawie’s departure to Cape Town in 1870 the once struggling economy of the Cape Colony was experiencing a boom, spurred on by the discovery of diamonds in South Africa at Hopetown in 1867. Large numbers of fortune hunters from all over the world were arriving in Table Bay. On the Grand Parade local traders sold imported and local goods, and the nearby Commercial Exchange, which had opened in 1821 and had become the city’s business hub, was a hive of activity.
This economic upsurge also boosted butcheries, where people could buy meat which they had to do without during the locust years. The Combrinck & Ross butchery at Shambles No. 4 promised in advertisements in 1870 – “Shipping supplied with the best Fresh and Salted Meat on the Shortest Notice and most Reasonable Terms. Always on hand: a good supply of live-stock.”14
At the young Dawie’s new place of work trading was brisk – but in conditions that would appal people from contemporary times used to a more hygienic procedure. The abattoir of Cape Town, aptly named “Shambles”15 in English, was located at the lower end of Strand Street between the then seafront and the Grand Parade. Behind the butcheries, a row of thatched buildings, a corral had been made where livestock were brought from up country to be slaughtered. The abattoir was on the beach, so the blood could be washed away in the sea and the remains buried in the sand. There was no refuse removal, and the decaying meat, along with the putrid fish from the nearby fish market in Roggebaai, which washed up on the beach caused an unbearable stench. At night, street dogs rummaged in the waste, snarling and yapping. Conditions would only improve a few years later.16
In these circumstances Combrinck brought the young Dawie into contact with all the operations of the butchery right from the start, and “with his alert mind the little boy observed almost everything and learnt an infinite amount about the business world. From an early age he accompanied his uncle at the end of every week when the employees had to be paid. He immediately learnt how to handle money, because his oudoom let him stand between his legs and showed him how to count out the money and hand it over”.17
Like his oudoom, Dawie became adept at all aspects of the meat trade, from skinning the animals to keeping the books and accounts. Until the end of his life he would be proud of the practical experience he had gained during that time: a formidable in-service training. He learnt everything about cuts of meat; he knew how to skin and process carcasses, make sausage, put meat packages together and get rid of scraps.18
Dawie lived in Combrinck’s house in Papendorp, the neighbourhood close to the city centre that is now called Woodstock. Woodstock House had previously belonged to the well-known judge Henry Cloete. In the big yard Combrinck planted various trees and installed a watermill that he designed himself. The garden was stocked with many species, like marigolds, ranunculus and carnations.19 The elegant house was in stark contrast to the foul-smelling, messy workplace where little Dawie had to return every day. And the wealthy Combrinck, by that time a prominent resident of the Mother City, presented his young relative with a civilised and cultivated environment that would greatly contribute to the shaping of the lives, preferences and ambitions of the young Graaff and his siblings.20
Some sources have it that, Dawie also attended an evening school. It is not certain which school it was. In those years, there were five schools in Cape Town under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church, including the mission school in Papendorp, which served both as a day and evening school. In Hanover Street in Kanaladorp, later District Six, there was another school under the control of the Dutch Reformed Church. All these schools were attended by white and coloured children, also from other denominations, and were administered by the Dutch Reformed Church until 1907.21 Generally, Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula were well served as far as education was concerned. Other nearby schools included the Educational Institute in Roeland Street, which also offered day and evening classes.22
According to other sources, Dawie spent evenings at home with his books and expanded his knowledge this way, even though he could only speak