Editor: Dr Saul Issroff
Copyright © 2003 Saul Issroff, Mike Getz, SAfrica SIG
and Jewishgen Inc.
URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/communities/12/index.htm
Revised: 4 November 2003

In October 2003, Manfred Schwartz wrote about Salisbury (Harare) in the 1950's:

In 1932 my uncle Hyam Schwartz decided to establish the Express Nut and Oil Mill and use the locally grown peanut crops. His partners were the Pitchanic Brothers but in about 1934 he decided to go into politics. The Pitchanic Brothers tried to dissuade him and ended up by advising him to choose between business or politics. He would not be well advised. He decided to stand for Parliament and choose to stand against Godfrey Huggins, later Sir Godfrey. Needless to relate he emigrated and returned to Johannesburg and took over a small Brown (Kraft) Paper Mill at Klipriver not far from Vereeniging.
 
These premises were built by Kreuger a Swede who very early in the Century established the first match factory, many decades prior to the Lion Match Co. His backers were the Mackenzie Brothers of Northern Financing Co who eventually bought his shares out.
 
He now (with usual entrepreneurial enterprise) decided to put Bloemfontein back into the prominent position it once had. He would establish a number of factories at Hamilton hoping to attract many other manufacturers. He started Hercules (Hide and Skin) Tanning Works, Ace Cycles to manufacture an affordable bicycle so that every body could afford to buy wheels, and finally Capital Match Factory. The ideas were good but the time may have been wrong, as was his choice of associates. He had to give everything up and lost heavily, his ideas good as they were, were too grandeous.
 
Poor man should have followed the advice contained in ‘The Prince’ Machiavelli’s Borgia-inspired recipe for those in power. Here is an infallible rule:- A Prince who is himself not wise cannot be wisely advised..... Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not on the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.
 
And yet he was a very intelligent man and a brilliant brain. He graduated from Manchester University as a Chemical Engineer, and continually looked at ways and methods to produce products locally, instead of importing. In about 1950 he approached the agricultural Dept with a scheme to convert the surpluses of Maize, the starch into sugars and then into Alcohol (ethanol) then into Petrol a good idea, but at that stage it was cheaper to import than to manufacture. What with the enormous amount of sugar cane processed, and the residue available he had ideas of converting bagasse into pulp. Here again the timing was wrong.
 
Goldwater (Goldwasser) was sales manager of the Margolis-Anolick Factories.

A list of names compiled by Manfred Schwartz

This list covers the period April 1949 to December 1956.

Harare-Salisbury

Allied and Paper Processing Toilet Roll Factory, Manfred Schwartz
Arthur Cohen Grocery, Jamieson Ave.
Bill Feigenberg (then step-son Albert ??), Windsor Hotel
Foreman Plumbing and Hardware Merchants
Dereck Friend, Music Salon
Stan Guerlen, Chemical Mfgrs
Handler and Schrier, Cardboard boxes and fibreboard suitcases
Hoffman (Barney), attorney
??? Hoffman, Water Judge
Joelson Bros, Plumbing and Hardware Merchants
Boris Kass, Director, Lysaght & Co. Ltd., Engineering works
??Kass & Guy, Singer Hardware and Tools Moffet Street
Krikler and Lasovsky Wholesalers
Margolis William (Bill) was Chairman of the Maize Board for many years due to the fact that he and his business partner, Anolik, had a very large Grain and Milling company. I think he received the British OBE for his assistance to the Government in his expertise regarding of the import and export of Grain, etc.
??? Odes Toilet Roll Factory
Palte Bros ran a Maize Milling Co
Pichanic Bros., the Express Nut and Oil Factory
Huby Ponter Mattress and Furniture Factory
Bernard Ponter, Sales Representations
Robinson and Schwartz Wholesalers
Toby Rabinowitz and son, Sweet Factory
?? Rabinowitz and son-in-law, ?Tobies Bottle Store
Schwartz Agencies, M. J. Schwartz
van den Berg brothers, Terry towel manufacturers

In the obituary for William (Zeev Wolf) Margolis, published in the Jewish Chronicle (London, 20 July 2001, page 26) it was noted that he built a Jewish day school which was named after his father (Zalman).