one of the “new breed of pushy urban Afrikaners”, wrote in a letter to M. Currey in 1886:
“I feel sorry for the Mole (Hofmeyr), who has to fight an uphill battle and obviously does with great pluck, but I wish he saw that his interest led him in the opposite direction of the Graaffs and De Waals.”
Merriman’s denigrating remarks were interpreted by his biographer, Phyllis Lewsen, as a reference to a new group of upwardly mobile Afrikaners of Cape Town.29 They played an important part in the Afrikaner Bond.
In addition to his extensive interests in the meat industry, which were profoundly affected by the improvement in sanitary conditions, in his public duties in the city council Graaff increasingly played a role in financing city projects, and in particular the electrification of the town.
In 1884 he became a member of the city council’s finance committee, where he made an important contribution to the sound management of the city’s finances.
The taxes collected the previous year were not sufficient to cover the budgeted amount for general works.30 The finance committee therefore decided to take legal steps against those who did not pay their municipal taxes. Better arrangements were made to restructure and gradually repay a loan from Standard Bank. Holders of 6 per cent debentures to the amount of £243 650 received six months’ notice of repayment of interest unless they chose to have the interest reduced to 5 per cent, since the city council could now accept tenders for 5 per cent debentures. The city council also arranged with government to withdraw its loan amount in instalments, so government would not lose interest and the council would only pay interest on the amount actually paid out.31
The council also secured foreign loans. Graaff apparently played a role in these decisions, since he was re-elected to the finance committee twice, although he had to give up his seat because he could not attend meetings. The taxpayers, who had to approve these steps with their financial implications, gave the council more powers than ever before in the period while Graaff remained involved.32
An extraordinary loan of £12 000 negotiated in 1886 for a drainage system regarded as essential for the progress and health of the city, was followed in 1887 by a £25 000 loan for the Table Mountain water provision scheme. The following year £3 075 was approved for sewer pipes for the city.33
Evidently, not only Graaff can be credited for the financing of the city projects. Although he had considerable influence with the taxpayers, the smallpox epidemic also played a major role, since it made improved sanitation imperative. Nevertheless, as a knowledgeable businessman he was the right man in the right place.
His business experience also came in handy in the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce. Rail extensions to Transvaal, an important issue for Cape Town, were discussed at a meeting of the Chamber in 1887 and among those present were Onze Jan Hofmeyr and D.C. de Waal. The emphasis was on expansion to the Transvaal border with an extension of the railway from Kimberley to Parys. Graaff, to whom the transport of meat products was a matter of great importance, became a member of the chamber’s vigilance committee that had to look after the interests of Cape Town with regard to the railway extensions from the goldfields to the Cape Colony.34
The considerable contribution he made in public life, including the activities of the city council, made such a good impression that within a few years Graaff was regarded as worthy of being a parliamentarian. In 1888, at the age of 29, he was approached by influential Cape residents, including the incumbent mayor, John Woodhead, to make himself available for election as Member of the Cape Parliament. In a newspaper advertisement he politely refused the honour rendered to him. He declared that due to his business obligations he would not be able to do justice to the great responsibilities that he would have as representative of the seat of Cape Town in the House of Assembly.35
A larger political role would await him after he had been elected as mayor of the Mother City.
CHAPTER 6
In Van Riebeeck’s chair
Shortly before the end of 1889 Graaff served in a delegation that persuaded Marie Koopmans-De Wet to attend a dinner in honour of President F.W. Reitz of the Orange Free State. After the death of her husband Mrs Koopmans-De Wet, an influential lady in Cape social life, would not be seen at any kind of public occasion. However, Graaff, his good friend David C. de Waal, then mayor of Cape Town, and Justice J.G. Kotzé convinced the respected widow to accept the invitation to the reception in Cape Town.1
Shortly afterwards Graaff succeeded De Waal as mayor. A mere 31 years old, he was already one of the most prosperous businessmen when he was elected to that office on 14 August 1890. He was proposed by former mayor, John Woodhead and seconded by another ex-mayor, Charles Lewis. In a ballot Graaff received 11 votes to the five of the only other nominee, Johan Mocke.2
Half a century after Cape Town had received municipal status and Michiel van Breda had for the first time been appointed as its first citizen3 (1840–1844), Graaff now had the legendary chair known as Jan van Riebeeck’s chair in popular history writing.4 He was the 12th person in that position since the title of chairman of the municipality was changed to mayor in 1867, when Gillis J. de Korte officially became the first mayor.5 In the heavy leather-bound minute book the new mayor signed, for the first time, the minutes of the previous meeting in the then city hall, the Burgher Watch House adjacent to Greenmarket Square, with his flamboyant signature: D. P. Graaff, Mayor.6
He was quite serious about his official duties, even keeping scrapbooks in which a variety of newspaper articles and notices about municipal matters were pasted.7 A deep-seated sense of civic pride, certainly strengthened by his travels abroad, was evidently a major motivation for the innovations which he introduced in the Mother City. Graaff not only wanted to transform Cape Town into a clean, tidy city, but to develop it into the top city in the country with a series of modernising measures. His vision was a destination at the southern tip of Africa, of which every resident of Cape Town could be as proud as he was.
Soon he took a series of steps to elevate the status of mayor. A mayor’s parlour was furnished in the Burgher Watch House where official matters were dealt with. Pictures of previous and serving mayors were hung there.8
Graaff donated to the city council the insignia of office of the first citizen – the mayoral robe, hat and rod. A letter in which he elaborated on his motives was read out at a mayoral luncheon on 22 May 1891, attended, among others, by the governor, lieutenant-general, premier and ministers of the Cape Colony. This letter reads as follows:
“It has been my desire on leaving office to present the City for the use of the Mayor at all public functions the necessary official robe, hat, and rod, as worn by the first citizens of the principal towns in other countries, and as my term will shortly expire I think the present a fitting time for making the presentation. I have therefore promised and now offer to the Town Council of Cape Town, the Mayoral Robe, in royal silk velvet and ermine fur; also a Mayoral Hat and Rod of office. My sole motive in making the presentation is that the Chief Magistrate of the Metropolis of South Africa may in this respect be invested with the dignity of office which belongs to him, and to remove the long standing reproach that, while the mayors of smaller towns in the Cape Colony appear at public functions in official robes the Mayor of Cape Town is unable to do so. I trust the Council will be pleased to receive the gift on behalf of the City and that by its use the prestige and dignity of the City and the Mayor may be maintained and strengthened.”9
The insignia of office were handed to Graaff afterwards, who thus became the first mayor of the city to wear the mayoral robe he had donated himself. The governor (subsequently lord), Henry Brougham Loch, declared that Cape Town had an old and honourable reputation which was safe in the hands of the incumbent mayor and his municipality.10 A month later the city council also placed an order for the mayoral chain which is worn by Cape mayors at official occasions to this day.11
Graaff was praised in the media for his dynamic role. The Lantern expressed the hope that he would be re-elected mayor. According to the publication, he was on his way to become the Whittington of Cape Town – a reference to Sir Richard Whittington (1354–1423), the medieval trader and politician who, as mayor of London, carried through large public projects in the