The Rhodesian Study Circle is a philatelic website for the areas of Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, British Central Africa and Nyasaland, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Bulawayo
Silver’s Studio was a photographic business owned by Dorothy and Leo Silver. Leo’s speciality was portrait photography. The business also produced a number of postcards in the 1940’s.
Gweru (Gwelo)
The Midlands Hotel was built in the year 1927 by the Meikle brothers and is one of the oldest hotels in Gweru (Gwelo).
During the 1970’s, management of the hotel passed over to the Southern Sun Hotel Pty Ltd.
By 2008, the hotel was about to be demolished. Due to the challenges faced by the hotel, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, which oversees the hospitality industry in the country, withdrew its three star recognition. However, after much protest, it was spared. The hotel is currently owned by Patrick Kombayi, a prominent Gweru businessman, ex-mayor, and politician known for his highly publicised criticism of the current government.
As a result of improvements, The Midlands Hotel clinched second position in the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce’s Best Business enterprise of the year for 2011. The hotel has established adjacent bars to cater for the needs of locals and clients from outside the city including a state-of-the art Casino in a separate bar, while those who enjoy sports can watch it live in the sports bar.
Puzey & Payne was established in 1897. It was located on the corner of Abercorn Street and Eighth Avenue, Bulawayo. The company was the product of Leonard Grant Puzey and his wife Gertrude Payne.
The business first sold ox drawn wagons and bicycles as well as offering repair services. From the early 1920s, the business was an agency for motor cars (including Dodge Bros), bicycles, sporting goods and gramaphones etc.
From the early 1900s it provided motor car services to visitors of Southern Rhodesia to places like the Matopos and Rhodes’ Grave. It would later become a motor contractor for Thomas Cook & Sons.
Salisbury
The Queen’s Hotel was opened on 31 December 1899 on the eve of the twentieth century and consisted of a single storey building on the corner of Manica Road and Kaguvi Street and Pioneer Street. The street side of the building was wrapped in a long timber and iron verandah and the hotel had a billiards room, bar and a dining room which was equipped with a stage and acetylene lamps. A “U”- shaped block on the adjacent stand 418 behind comprised the bedrooms.
The first proprietor was George Farthing who purchased the hotel in 1904 when it featured significantly in the town’s early social and civic history. Disputes between the town’s citizens and the Council, or the BSA Company, often resulted in stormy meetings at the Queen’s Hotel. A rickshaw service, called the Salisbury rickshaw service, operated between the hotel and the Avenues from 1905 into the 1950’s.
The original balconies were replaced by a brick and concrete verandah in 1929 and the four-storey brick and stucco block was added in the 1950’s.
Umtali
Cecil Hotel was originally opened c.1890. In 1897 a new building was erected (as above) by Mssrs Snodgrass and Mitchell in preparation for the railway. The first Cecil Taxi, a 1929 Dodge, was used solely to go from the Cecil Hotel to the railway station and back. The hotel eventually became part of Miekle’s Associated Hotels.
In the 1950’s a third version of the hotel was built and in November, 1974, at a cost of $1.7m.
Meikle’s Hotel was established in 1915. It was the brainchild of Thomas Meikles who envisioned a commitment to the “highest possible standard of service and product” – something that has become enshrined in the Meikles culture.
Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Glasgow
The African Lakes Corporation plc (ALC) was a British company originally set-up in 1877 by Scottish businessmen to co-operate with missions in Nyasaland. Despite its original connections with the Free Church of Scotland, it operated its businesses in Africa on a commercial rather than a philanthropic basis, and it had political ambitions in the 1880s to control part of Central Africa.
Its businesses in the colonial era included water transport on the lakes and rivers of Central Africa, wholesale and retail trading including the operation of general stores, labour recruitment, landowning and later an automotive business. The company later diversified, but suffered an economic decline in the 1990s and was liquidated in 2007. It may be referred to as just “African Green Lakes”.
Charles Duly, a fully qualified engineer of 24 years of age, cycled from Johannesburg, arriving in Bulawayo in 1894. By 1896, he had opened as a Bicycle Dealer in Abercorn St (now the site of the Carlton Hotel). In 1902, he imported the first car into Rhodesia and by 1911 the Company was appointed as a “Dealer” for Ford Motor Product in what was then Northern and Southern Rhodesia.
Ford Motor Company established an assembly plant in Salisbury for the supply of vehicles to Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia using the Duly Motors Network in both countries. The assembly plant was taken over by the Industrial Development Corporation when Ford Motor Company withdrew from the country after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. The Plant is the present day Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries.
In 1980, Duly’s re-established ties with the Ford Motor Company, dealing in motor vehicles, tractors, combine harvesters and other agricultural equipment. However in the latter part of the 1990’s Ford decided to dispose of its agricultural operations worldwide to Fiat of Italy. Locally, Duly’s in turn sold its agricultural division to William Bain & Co Ltd who represented Fiat.
Salisbury
In 1911, the The Commercial Hotel was demolished and a new building was erected based on the designs of James Cope-Christie and Thomas Sladdin. The new building cost £11,000 and was re-opened in August 1914 as the Grand Hotel.
By 1950, the hotel’s facilities included 110 rooms, Grill Room, Banqueting Hall, Dining Hall (seating 200 people), and 28 Lock-up Garages. In 1963 it was sold by J W Nash.
