hit, and Malays of the city and the Bo-Kaap revolted against the way they were being treated. From June to November 1882 the city council met almost daily. Water provision improved after the completion of the Molteno Reservoir in Oranjezicht the previous year, but the upgrading of sanitary facilities became imperative.12
Despite his Afrikaner roots, Graaff, who was becoming one of the most successful businessmen in the Cape, soon started supporting the “reformers” in their endeavour to clean up the city. As a businessman, he was a natural ally to them; however, he still he was one of many Cape Afrikaners who did not completely subject themselves to the process of anglification.13 This was also apparent later in his career: he would advocate development and progress without becoming estranged from Afrikaners, some of whom wanted to cut all imperial ties.
Critics of the “reformers” believed that the proponents of reform could afford the higher taxes for the cleaning process, since they would not be affected as badly by a relatively small levy on their properties. In addition, their business interests would benefit from the improvements and developments upon which the city council was embarking, and the value of their buildings in the central business district may increase. Besides, newspapers supporting them, like the Cape Times, Lantern and Cape Argus, were believed to be largely dependent on these businessmen for advertising revenue.14
On the other hand, it could be argued that, even if “liberal self-interest” had been mentioned, it could not be to everybody’s disadvantage. Cape Town would remain backward without the initiative of “reformers” like that, even though modernisation would be to their advantage. The growth and expansion of Cape Town indeed demanded a new type of councillor – those who had experience of the challenges of urban development. At the same time, money had to be borrowed on an unprecedented scale, and for that businessmen like Graaff, with their financial background, would be a great asset in the provision of municipal services. Besides, Graaff had already been abroad and had gained experience about the role municipal revamping could play to improve urban conditions.15
In June 1882 he took out membership to the reading room of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, of which he became a full member in 1886.16 Popular among Cape businessmen, the reading room gave him access to a variety of publications on financial and economic issues.
The newspaper campaign in favour of the “reformers”, together with feelings of disgust at the smallpox epidemic of 1882, contributed to the victory of the “Clean Party” in the municipal election that year. According to the Cape Times, the “Clean Party” secured a majority of eight to six, with four “neutral”, though Stigant and O’Reilly, previously regarded as “reformers”, also counted among the latter group.17 Despite the fact that the paper did not regard Graaff as belonging to the “Clean Party”, he was elected for one year, 16th out of the 18 elected members, with 526 votes.18
Cape Town experienced an economic downturn in the first five years after Graaff’s election as councillor.19 Yet from 1883 his support among voters increased. In wards 2 and 3, the central business district, he was the candidate attracting the most votes that year. In the 1887 election he stood as candidate for the Ratepayers’ Protection Association.20
Despite being just 23 years old, he made an increasingly good impression on the city fathers, with his business acumen and refreshing determination to improve the facilities of the city they were serving.21 Over time it became clear that Graaff, who evidently belonged to the “Clean Party”, was exactly the kind of member the city council needed. The taxpayers obviously also realised that, since between 1882 and 1894 he was always among the councillors drawing the highest number of votes.22 The “reformers” would dominate the Cape Town city council for the next two decades. He supported their insistence on better sanitation in the city to such an extent that he associated with their demand that the abattoir, the Shambles, be closed down due to the conditions.
Dissatisfaction with the primitive abattoir in Adderley Street increased to such an extent that the matter was brought to a head in 1883. Colonel Anthony Reynolds Vivyan Crease, Commander of the Royal Engineers in the nearby barracks of the imperial garrison, sued the city council on the grounds that the Shambles was a public disturbance and had to be removed. The case in the Supreme Court was deemed so important that the attorney-general appeared for the plaintiff and Sir Thomas Upington, QC, and Advocate W.P. Schreiner, subsequent Cape prime minister, for the defendant.
Initially, after conducting an inspection, a jury ruled that the abattoir indeed had to be removed, but the city council lodged an appeal. A full bench led by the chief justice, Sir John Henry de Villiers (the subsequent lord), heard the appeal. An inspection was carried out one morning, shortly after the slaughter of a number of animals. As the judges, accompanied by the lawyers, were walking to the beach where the foul-smelling sewerage system was flowing into the ocean, the fate of Shambles was sealed. In the judgement delivered at the end of 1883, Justice De Villiers said the least that could be expected from the city council was that the livestock should be slaughtered elsewhere. Therefore, he issued an order to prohibit the slaughter of animals at the Shambles and that the abattoir should be moved.23
The result of the court order was that the Cape municipality had to establish its own abattoir. This “setback”, however, presented Graaff with an opportunity. Combrinck & Co. got the chance not only to install its own slaughtering equipment, but also to demonstrate the advantages of cold storage in South Africa.24
After this the head office of Combrinck & Co. moved to Strand Street, where it advertised:
Combrinck & Co.
Butcher
Contractors to Her Majesty
Shambles Nos 3, 4 & 5. Near the Custom House, Cape Town.
Shipping supplied with the Best Fresh and Salted Meat
on the Shortest Notice and Most Reasonable Terms.
Poultry, Vegetables & Potatoes
Always on Hand a Good Supply of Live Stock.25
Graaff not only focused on the meat industry, but also tried to take advantage of other business opportunities. One such opportunity presented itself in 1885 when tenders were requested for the provision of food and other supplies for black labourers working on the extension of the railway from the Great River (the Orange, later Gariep River) to Kimberley. He and an older friend, David C. de Waal, a brother-in-law of Onze Jan Hofmeyr, applied for the tender under the name Graaff & Co., and it was awarded to the two Davids.
De Waal later became a Member of Parliament.26 De Waal Park in Cape Town, where he had planted trees, was named after him. At the time the tender was awarded he was 40. His “good young Afrikaner friend” Graaff is described in De Waal’s biography as “a chap still only 26 years old, but in possession of a wonderful talent for business and very bright and determined by character”. Soon the pair discovered that the new venture they had taken on was “an anything but easy task”. They had to be present in person, at least one of them at a time, and that “means enduring dust, heat, hardships and a really rough, unenviable life”.
As they were sitting at their fire one night after an exhausting day, the older David, later a faithful friend of Cecil John Rhodes, whom he accompanied on his trips to Mashonaland,27 sighed about the “dog’s life” he had to endure in the veld. “The younger one, a model of phlegmatic serenity, then pointed out to him that entrepreneurial spirits were usually, more so than others, subject to harassments, but that those spirits were the ones rising in the world. ‘I, for example,’ David Graaff added, ‘am still going to become a cabinet minister.’ The other David smiled about that in scepticism. Yet the ambitious young man could also have added that he would become the wealthiest Dutch-speaking Afrikaner of his time in the whole of South Africa, and a baronet as well.”28
This account makes it clear that Graaff, apart from his business acumen, drive, persistence and determination to reach the top in his career, was a remarkable individual already at an early age.
The rise of entrepreneurial, urbanised Afrikaners who were also influential in politics became significant in this period, although it was not received favourably all over. The politician John X. Merriman, for example,