Hercules Crosse Jarvis
| Hercules Crosse Jarvis | |
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A photograph of Hercules Crosse Jarvis in later life, as Mayor of Cape Town. Photograph from the Cape Archives.
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| Mayor of Cape Town | |
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In office 1848–1860 |
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| Preceded by | J. J. L. Smuts |
| Succeeded by | D. G. van Breda |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
18 June 1802 Plymouth, England |
| Died | 8 February 1889 (aged 86) Claremont, Cape Town |
| Resting place | St. Saviours Church, Claremont |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Maria Vos |
| Children | five daughters |
Hercules Crosse Jarvis (18 June 1802 – 8 February 1889) MLC, MLA, was a mayor of Cape Town and a powerful merchant of the Cape Colony.
Born in Plymouth, England on 18 June 1802, he was a close relative of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, the admiral who fought Napoleon. His father, also named John Jervis, was an army captain from Staffordshire who died young, leaving his wife and six children. Coming from an intensely military family, the 14-year-old Hercules Crosse was offered a commission in the army by his relative the Admiral of St Vincent, but he had other plans and turned the offer down. He was also of a very gentle and sensitive nature, and the idea of war deeply repelled him.
After briefly visiting the Cape in 1816, he decided to move to the colony permanently, and arrived in Cape Town in 1821 with the intention of settling and making his fortune.
Soon after moving to Cape Town, he found a job as a clerk in the trading firm Hudson, Donaldson & Dixon and worked his way up to being its manager - a position he held throughout his life until he retired from business in 1864. He was enormously influential in starting and developing the Cape's wine exports, and founded a distillery for that purpose in the vicinity of Paarl. He came to have a presence in many of the Cape's institutions, including directorship in Mutual Life (1846), the Union Bank (1847), the Harbour Board and even the South African College (1860). He was also a veteran member of the Cape Town Commercial Exchange.
Jarvis married an Afrikaans woman, Elizabeth Maria Vos, joining the local Dutch Reformed Church (where he was later made an Elder) in order to do so. He was aged 19 at the time, and she was only 16. They had five daughters. One of them, Elizabeth Maria, met and married the young John Charles Molteno, who was later to become the Cape's first Prime Minister. Another daughter, Elizabeth Magdalena Christina ("Betty") married the Wynberg Mayor James Bisset and was mother to the Governor and cricketer Sir Murray Bisset. A third daughter, Sophia St Ives married the influential Cape businessman and exporter Percy John Allport. Anne Jarvis married the widower and Indian army officer Major William Bazett Gordon Blenkins C.B. The youngest daughter Emmie never married.
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