Royal Baking Powder

Royal Baking Powder factory, Jan van Riebeeck Drive, Paarl – (Gribble Collection, AG771)

The Royal Baking Powder company was founded in the USA by the brothers Cornelius and Joseph C Hoagland in 1866, who in 1888 registered the Royal Baking Powder trademark in South Africa. At the time Paarl was at the centre of the Cape’s wine industry, and was a natural choice to establish a company that required large quantities of cream of tartar. By the 1930s Royal Baking Powder was one of the four largest industries in Paarl. The building depicted on the photograph was completed in 1932 and was designed by the architects Robers & Small in Cape Town. Note the Cape Town – Paarl – Wellington railway line in the foreground.

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Liquor licences provide valuable genealogical data

Wine barrels (Wikimedia Commons)

Notice is hereby given that in terms of the provisions of Act No 28 of 1883, and 25 of 1891, a meeting of the Licensing Court for the division of Paarl, will be held in the Court Room at the Paarl, on Wednesday the 4th day of March 1896, at 10 o’clock in the forenoon, for the purpose of considering the undermentioned applications for wine and spirit Licences.

The lists printed in the De Paarl and the Paarl District Advertiser are interesting in that they provide the names of hotels and their proprietors, and also show that some residents also sold wine from the homes, as did some of the wine farmers close to town.

The list of applicants in De Paarl newspaper of 6 February 1896 included:

Bottle Store Licences, Renewals

• Abraham Johannes de Villiers (JJ zn) at the premises of Mr J Francke (Ward No 3 Paarl)
• G A Decker, at his premises, Market Square, Paarl
• Isaac J Bosman, at the premises of Mrs J D Bosman (Ward No 1 Paarl)
• John Charles Graham Mackintosh, East Street, Wellington
• Jan de Ville Minnaar, at the premises of Mr J H L Minnaar (Ward No 1 Paarl)
• Blignaut & Company, at their premises (Ward No 1 Paarl)
• Frans P Hoffman, at the premises of the Paarl Berg Wijn Brandewijn en Spiritus Maatschappij, Lady Grey Bridge Station, Paarl