Pretoria Hebrew Congregation pays tribute to Sammy Marks

DIANE WOLFSON

PRETORIA

This was to celebrate Marks’ birthday on July 11.

Over 200 members of the Pretoria Jewish community, family and friends from Johannesburg as well as a number of former Pretorians, came together to enjoy this picnic celebration and tour the splendid 48-room Victorian mansion, Sammy Marks Museum, east of Pretoria.

More than 70 children had great fun making ice cream, playing Victorian games and decorating tzedakkah boxes, something which Sammy Marks was well known for. 

The bochurim and madrichot dressed up in Victorian outfits to add to the atmosphere. Well-known guest, David Saks from Johannesburg, addressed the large crowd giving insights into Marks’ Jewish identity while bochur Aharon Tzvi Altman who initiated and worked tirelessly to bring the event together, discussed lessons to be learned from Marks that everyone could take home together with a custom-made tefillas haderech card. 

Marks arrived in South Africa with a case of silver knives as his only valuable possession and became one of the first entrepreneurs, playing a significant role in mining, industrial and agricultural development in the country.

Born the son of a Jewish tailor in 1843 in Lithuania, Marks was endowed with integrity, courage, astonishing business acumen and faith.

He arrived at the Cape in 1869, followed by his cousin Isaac Lewis, starting the partnership of Lewis & Marks. They made a modest living supplying goods to mines and diggers and later branched into diamond trading.

Moving to Pretoria in 1881, Marks gained the confidence of President Paul Kruger and the government of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). His friendship with Kruger became close and was well documented.

In 1898 Marks was allowed the extraordinary privilege of using the state mint for a day where he used the opportunity to strike 215 gold tickeys as mementos for his relatives and friends, including President Kruger.  

Marks acquired business interests in the goldfields of Barberton and Witwatersrand and founded coalfields in the southern Transvaal and northern Free State and later gave the town of Vereeniging its name.

Lewis & Marks’ business interests included a distillery, a canning factory and a glass factory. Their firm opened a number of collieries and also started Vereeniging Estates Ltd, dedicated to developing agricultural land along the Vaal River.

Marks pioneered the use of steam tractors and progressive farming implements. He also sponsored the establishing of flour mills and brick and tile works in Vereeniging. By the end of the 19th century, the pair were both millionaires and their company was among the top 10 businesses on the Witwatersrand.

In 1910 Marks was nominated as senator in the first Union Parliament, an office he held until his death.

Marks contributed generously to Jewish communities all over South Africa. He paid for all the bricks for the Pretoria Synagogue which was built in 1898 and he also paid for the electric light installation and chandeliers.

At the end of the Anglo-Boer War, he presented a cast-iron fountain to the city of Pretoria, shipped from Glasgow. It today stands at the Zoological Gardens. Marks also commissioned the statue of Kruger on Church Square in Pretoria, sculpted by Anton van Wouw and cast in bronze in Europe. It carried a price tag of £10 000.