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If you want to know more about Sammy Marks, you will quickly find out he was an exceptional entrepreneur, businessman and self-made millionaire. He started with practically nothing, but going ahead, he established the first factories in the Transvaal. From your place of accommodation in Pretoria, make the decision to and go visit the Sammy Marks’ museum on the original farm Swartkoppies, just outside Pretoria.
Background and first success
Sammy Marks was born in Lithuania, Russia, in 1843 as the son of a Jewish tailor. He arrived in Cape Town in 1868. His cousin, Isaac Lewis, also from Lithuania, arrived shortly after. Sammy Marks started hawking with jewellery and cutlery in Cape Town. He later moved to Kimberley, where he got involved in the French Diamond Mining Company, and formed a partnership with his cousin Isaac. Lewis and Marks then moved to the Eastern Transvaal, and with the discovery of gold, they started trading in Barberton and formed the African and European Investment Company. This company developed into a significant Rand finance house with controlling interests in many gold mines. In order to mine coal deposits, Sammy Marks in 1892 started the Zuid-Afrikaanschen Oranje Vrystaatsche Mineralen en Mijnbouvereeniging. This company set the foundation for the town of Vereeniging, where Sammy Marks established flour-mills, brick and tile works, and the Viljoen’s Drift coal mine. Marks became the driving force behind the expansion of the Witbank coalfields.
Sammy Marks significance for Pretoria
Being a well-known figure in the Transvaal business community, Sammy Marks moved to Pretoria in 1881, where he became an admirer and very good friend of Paul Kruger. Marks advised Kruger to build a railway line between Pretoria and Lorenco Marques, Mosambique.
When a manufacturing contract between AH Nelmapius and the government could not be carried out because of financial constraints, Lewis & Marks took over and constructed the factory and business Eerste Fabrieken just outside Pretoria.
Marks became senator in the Union Parliament from 1910 until his death.
He liberally supported the Jewish community in South Africa. He supplied the bricks for the Pretoria synagogue that was built in 1898. He also paid for the installation of electricity and chandeliers.
In 1902, he presented a cast-iron fountain to the city of Pretoria. The design was Edwardian and it was shipped from Glasgow. Today it stands in the National Zoological Gardens.
Marks also commissioned the statue of Kruger, today to be seen on Church Square. It was sculpted by Anton van Wouw and cast in bronze in Europe.
His family
At the age of forty, Marks was a very wealthy man and still not married. He then married Bertha Guttmann, nineteen years younger than himself, in Sheffield, England. Nine children were born from this marriage, six boys and three girls. As Marks himself received only limited schooling, he made sure that his children got the best education. Hence, they were taught at home by governesses up to the age of eight, for the boys, and twelve, for the girls. Thereafter the Marks children were sent to private schools in England.
The grand mansion just outside Pretoria…
Make sure to go and see the genius Sammy Marks’ house. It is a grand colonial mansion on the original farm Zwartkoppies, just 23 km outside Pretoria. The house, surrounded by a beautiful Victorian garden, has been turned into a charming museum. The rose garden, started in 1906, bear testimony to Bertha’s love for roses. Tours at the Sammy Marks museum take place daily. Don’t miss it!
