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.
20 January – 2nd February 1932
Bulawayo
In 1924, four fledgling airlines, including Daimler Airways (a successor to AT&T) merge to form Imperial Airways Limited, operating from the new London airport at Croydon to all corners of the British Empire and the Continent. Imperial Airways had an office in Bulawayo.
1925 £2 brown, £5 light blue, £10 lilac, £30 red-brown and £50 grey imperforate proofs in issued colours, mounted on board (202x126mm.). An exceptionally rare group.
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.
Sinde Mission
John Sherriff started the Sinde mission in 1923, a professional stone mason and the first missionary from Churches of Christ to Zambia, or what was then “Northern Rhodesia.
2
Bulawayo
The first Halsted trading business was opened in Bulawayo in 1897 by Major C W Halsted under the name of Halsted and Webb. With the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war in 1899, Major Halsted closed that business and spent the next 3 years fighting with the British forces.
At the end of the war, in 1902, rather than return to Bulawayo, Major Halsted opened up a business in Johannesburg acting as an agent for the better known Kimberley mining firms. This business, known as Halsted and Company, was run by Major Halsted until he retired in the 1920’s. He handed over the business to his two sons Paul and Robert. In the late 1920’s Robert moved to Bulawayo to set up an agency business, leaving Paul to run the Johannesburg business. It is believed Robert took over the business of A J Butler & Co.
In October 1949, the brothers opened a further jointly owned company in Bulawayo and called it Halsted Brothers Ltd. The Company traded in tools, hardware and specialist products to the mines. When legislation changed, this company was later renamed Halsted Brothers (Pvt) Ltd under which name it still operates today.