Firm offer made for historic Moth Hall
Owners still to accept R1.45m bid on U’hage property
BRINGING an era one step closer to its end, a Port Elizabeth auctioneer yesterday received a firm offer for the historic Moth Hall property in Uitenhage where the remains of the first South African-born soldier to receive the Victoria Cross (VC) for bravery still lie.
The Rich Street property is owned by the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (Moths) and was used as the Crown and Anchor Dinkie Di Shellhole hall until its closure due to dwindling membership.
The property went under McLaggan’s Auctioneers’ hammer yesterday.
The 1200m² property houses the remains of VC recipient and Eastern Cape-born Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Petrus Hendrick Crowe, who received the United Kingdom’s highest honour for gallantry for his bravery during a battle in India about 160 years ago.
A historic cannon and other artefacts are also still on the property. Representatives of the Moths, historians and others are discussing what should be done with Crowe’s remains and the historical items there.
Auctioneer Neil McLaggan said a firm offer had been received for the property, which held a municipal valuation of R1.8-million. “We received an offer of R1.45-million, which does not include the auction fees,” McLaggan said, adding that the offer would be put to the Moths, which had 14 days to accept or decline.
McLaggan said as a condition of the sale, the order would remove Crowe’s remains, the cannon and other items before any new owner took over the property.
He said it carried a business zoning and would lend itself to commercial uses and also as a place of worship.
Port Elizabeth military history researcher Tim Bodill said Crowe had been born on January 12 1826 on the farm Essen Bosch near Sidbury, but had relocated to Uitenhage with his parents – Irishman Lieutenant Joseph Crowe snr and Classina (nee Vermaak) Crowe – when he was young.
The young Crowe attended the James Rose-Innes Free School in Cuyler Street which later became Muir College, the oldest English high school in South Africa, before following in his father’s footsteps into the British army and enlisting in the 78th Highland Regiment of Foot.
On August 12 1857, he was caught up in the Siege of Cawpore involving Indian rebel forces and the British army acting in support of the East India Company and led his men with extreme courage.
Bodill said his view was that the remains of Crowe and Nelson Mandela Bay’s two other VCs – James Craig, presently buried in St Mary’s Cemetery, and James Langley Dalton, in Russell Road Cemetery – should all be exhumed and reinterred at Fort Frederick.