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- Mill Hope Estate, Government Avenue, Cape Town, South Africa.
Notes for Joseph Barry:
General Notes:
Page 2 of 6 Saturday, December 29, 2012 12:33:52 PM Joseph Barry (born 1796), youngest son of victualler Richard Barry of Leicester (born in Ireland), spent some years in France & Spain studying the wine trade under the tutelage of his older brother Charles after losing his parents at a young age.
As a young man of 21 years Joseph Barry was commissioned by a London Wine House (in all probability the firm Barry & Wilkinson) to act as their agent for the export of wines from the Cape. Soon after arriving in Cape Town he was granted permission to remain.
His capacity for hard work, an engaging personality and his reputation as a man of many scruples enabled him to build a successful business. He employed his 2 nephews, Thomas & John, and the firm Barry & Nephews traded by ship all along the East coast from Cape Town to Port Beaufort and up the Breede River to Malgas. From here it was a short ox wagon journey to the Barry trading store in Swellendam. Eventually Barry trading stores were established all along the Breede River. This developed farming in the Overberg, as the overland route was a hazardous, long and expensive journey discouraging the farmers from trading with Cape Town.
Joseph Barry and his nephews married into the same family! Their wives were all granddaughters of old Cape Dutch aristocratic, Dirk Grysbert van Reenen. The Barry’s were in South Africa to stay and by the end of the 1800’s they were also breeding hardy horses for the British Army in India.
Joseph Barry (1796-1865) founded a vast trading empire in Swellendam, the Overberg and Little Karoo. He not only enriched his family, but also the entire farming community. In those days, journeys to Cape Town were hazardous and time-consuming, so Joseph Barry had the bright idea to send produce by ship. He bought a steamship, which could transport goods right up to and from Malgas on the Breede River, close to Swellendam.
Later when economic and depression stress forced the Barrys to their knees, the shop doors closed. They were bankrupt and so was the whole of the Overberg.
The Barry and Nephew mercantile empire dispatched agricultural goods to Cape Town and sold commodities from down south to Overberg residents. In 1865, the Barry and Nephew empire folded. Their legacy is in part the region´s agricultural and communications infrastructure.
The Kadie, a steam boat belonging to one Joseph Barry, regularly sailed from the Overberg, delivering fresh produce to the Cape markets. Because Barry sailed up the Breede River and anchored upstream at Malgas, the Kadie beat the other boats plying the same route along the coast as well as overland.
The quick and easy trade this generated brought prosperity for Barry, an Englishman who came to South Africa in 1817. It proved good news too for Barry & Nephews, his trading post in Swellendam, and in time he began buying grain, wine, brandy and dry fruit from farmers west of the Langeberg Mountains and a farming community took root in the area Excert from Village Life Magazine:
After an unsuccessful start on his own, Joseph Barry, who came to the Cape in 1819, became the deputy sheriff and later civil commissioner of Swellendam. He started trading in 1822 and on 1 June 1834 entered into partnership with his nephews,Thomas Register Report for Thomas Barry Generation 4 (con’t)
Page 3 of 6 Saturday, December 29, 2012 12:33:52 PM into partnership with his nephews,Thomas and John. Combining their talents they founded a strong commercial empire in the Overberg. Between 1834 and 1865 they established stores and warehouses at various places. Barrydale, Bredasdorp, Heidelberg, Ladismith, Malagas, Montagu, Mossel Bay, Napier, Port Beaufort, Riversdale, Riviersonderend, Robertson, Struisbaai and Worcester.
All had their Barry se winkel (Barrys Shop). Swellendam, their headquarters, was changed from a small and inconsiderable placewith only one shop to a bustling trade centre through their business acumen.They also had branches in Cape Town and London.
Joseph Barry was the man who introduced waterborne transport to the Overberg and developed Port Beaufort at the mouth of the Breede River into a busy trading port.
They had a number of ships, amongst them They had a number of ships, amongst them their pride and joy,Kadie, a 158 ton screw steamer built to order for them in Scotland, which carried goods to and from Cape Town.This not only opened up markets for the local farmers, but also stimulated agricultural progress in the Overberg by encourag-
Barry, Joseph (*Hitchin, Hertford, Eng., 1.4.1796 – tHope Mill, The Avenue, Cape Town, 26.3.1865), merchant, business-man and Cape member of parliament, was the youngest of the sixteen children of Richard Barry, an innkeeper, and his wife, Elizabeth Stretton.
After the death of his parents he spent several years in Marseilles and in Spain, where he studied the wine trade. He was sent to Cape Town by a London wine firm to export Cape wine, as their agent, and arrived there in De·
cember 1817. Because the enterprise failed he returned to Britain after a year but, as his health was poor, he decided to settle in the warmer Cape climate, particularly as he was much attracted by the country.
The early years of his career as a merchant proved very difficult. Travelling with Dirk Gysbert van Reenen, * however, he made his first acquaintance with the Overberg region, where he was to be an important influence for the next fifty years. When the grain crop in the Overberg failed in 1822, he undertook to transport a consignment of grain to Port Beaufort, at the mouth of the Breede river, to assist the inhabitants of that region. This was the begin·
ning of a regular shipping service, and opened a new route to the Cape market which was to bring about a period of prosperity and economic revival in the Overberg. After this B. extended his activities by opening commercial houses at Port Beaufort (1823) and Swellendam (1824). For a short while his enterprise prospered, but he was declared bankrupt on 21.3.1827 after a number of setbacks; one of these occurred when his boat, Sincapore, ran aground in 1824.
He had already improved his financial position to a certain extent by 1829, for he was a farsighted, enterprising, hard-working, efficient and popular man. He founded the firm Barry and Nephews on 1.6.1834, he being the senior member and his nephews, Thomas Barry* and John Barry, his partners. The firm, which dealt in all sorts of goods, grew rapidly and extended its activities Register Report for Thomas Barry Generation 4 (con’t)
Page 4 of 6 Saturday, December 29, 2012 12:33:52 PM Register Report for Thomas Barry Generation 4 (con’t)
which dealt in all sorts of goods, grew rapidly and extended its activities over the whole Overberg region, so that the Barry partners came to be regarded, after a single decade, as the most influential members of the community. They enjoyed what amounted to a commercial monopoly with businesses in Swellendam (the headquarters), Riversdale, Napier, Robertson, Montagu, Ladismith, Worcester, Bredasdorp, Riviersonderend, Malagas, Heidelberg, Mossel Bay and Barrydale; business premises in Cape Town; an office in London (where their goods were exported) ; and the steamship Kadie which plied between Cape Town and the Breede river.
The firm’s success was due mainly to B.’s aptitude for management and the meticulous devotion to duty he demanded of his employees, all of them members of a closed family circle. As a business-man he made an important contribution to the agricultural development of the Overberg. Because he was fully aware of the value of wool, he advocated the importation of Spanish merino sheep, persuasively arguing his case to farmers and actively setting them an example.
He made an effort to improve methods of wine production, and his firm gained an excellent reputation as wine merchants. B. also advocated the general improvement of agricultural methods, and tried to persuade the farmers of the Overberg to increase their productivity.
He was not only a merchant and a businessman, he also acted as an attorney, a lawyer, an agent and an auctioneer. He was the deputysheriff of the district and, when the occasion arose, also the commandant of the militia. Generally the farmers were well-disposed towards him, particularly because he could give them legal advice, and they valued his judgment.
When representative government was instituted in 1854 he was one of eight members elected to represent the Western Division in the legislative council.
The representation of the Overberg in legislative bodies was to remain the virtual prerogative of the Barry family from that time onward, until the decline of their firm and their financial influence. As a member of the legislative council B. served on various select committees, and also took a great interest in municipal affairs.
When he moved to Cape Town, where he became an active and influential member of the Cape Town chamber of commerce, his departure was a great loss to Swellendam, which, through B.’s influence, had become a flourishing little town. The great Barry concern did not long survive his death in 1865 ; a depression in the Overberg and the considerable sums which had to be paid to his heirs helped to speed its decline.
On 21.3.1825 B. married Johanna Martina van Reenen, daughter of Jacob van Reenen and granddaughter of Dirk Gysbert van Reenen. They had four daughters and seven sons. Sir Jacob Dirk Barry,* Charles van Reenen Barry,* Thomas Daniel Barry* and Michael Barry· were all sons who distinguished themselves, the first as a judge, and the others as members of the Cape parliament.
There is a portrait of B. in Burrows (infra). D.l. v. Z. Cape arch., C.T.: series Colonial Office (C.O. 166,220, 2640) and series M.O.I.C. (insolvent estates);
– The Cape Monitor. 28.1.1854 and 16.5.1857;
– De Overberg Courant, 12.10.1859, 14.8.1861 and 8.10.1862; – Obituaries: The South African Advertiser and Mail. 27.3. 1865; Het Volksblad. 28.3.1865;
– A. P. BUIRSKI, ‘The Barrys and the Overberg’ (Unp. M.A. th., U.S., 1952);
– E. H. BURROWS, Overberg outspan. C.T., 1952;
– R. F. M. IMMELMAN, Men of Good Hope: The Cape Town chamber of commerce, 1804-1954. C.T., 1955. [2]
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1796 - 1865 (68 years)