Sandstone Heritage Trust - News
With thanks to Andy Selfe, here are the two postcards he was given by the son of the old man who passed away a few months ago, an Oom Niel Loubser, Grandson of L.H. Fick, Ysbrandskop, Caledon. He was an agent for Ransomes Sims and Jefferies, until the agency was taken over by I. Newmark.
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This came to me from oom Niel Loubser, grandson of Ransomes Agent for the Caledon (Cape) area, L H Fick, of the farm Ysbrandskop, near Caledon.
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Regarding a date, James Walton's book 'Portable Corn-mills in South Africa' states that when L H Fick died in 1928, J A Goodwyn, a director of Ransomes Sims and Jefferies wrote to S Fick, a son of L H Fick:
'Referring to the trade which was done in the Caledon district in our Thrashing Machinery by the late F (sic) H Fick, after due consideration we have decided that our interests in that district must be placed in the hands of a merchant, and we have therefore appointed Mr I Newmark, who we understand co-operated with Mr L H Fick for many years, as our Agent for Thrashing Machines for the provinces of Caledon, Bredasdorp and Swellendam. 'In advising you of this arrangement, we should like to take the opportunity of expressing to you our high esteem in which we held your late father, and the appreciation we shall always retain of his splendid efforts in the trade of our machinery.' There are records of Ransomes machinery being despatched to L H Fick, for example Portable Mill No 1467, still at Stormsvlei near Swellendam, as early as 1903. The inscription on this printer's block is 'Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies', the name that the firm assumed in 1884. So we can assume that the block was made between 1884 and 1928. Perhaps someone can be more specific, regarding the unusual positioning of a Pickering type governor at the flywheel end of the cylinder? The South African Agents for Ransomes Sims and Jefferies were (from Walton's book): |
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