Magnate’s heritage home could be yours
ON THE corner of Durban’s Problem Mkhize (Cowey) and Haden roads sits Portview, a grand old mansion set in lush tropical surroundings.
It has that slightly neglected air, but its grandeur remains intact. As every house has a history with tales of passion, joy and heartache, The Independent on Saturday unearthed the extraordinary story of a ship’s boy who became a shipping magnate responsible for building Howard College at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Thomas Benjamin Davis was born in Havre des Pas, Jersey, in April 1867. The son of a ship’s carpenter and fisherman, he grew up in a thriving shipbuilding industry. At 15, he went to sea on the three-masted schooner Satellite.
During his first voyage, the schooner hit a storm off the coast of Norfolk and he was put into a skiff with the ship’s papers and valuables to try to save them. But the rope broke and the young Davis was cast adrift in the North Sea.
While it was believed he had drowned, Davis was picked up by a Norwegian vessel, Urda, which spotted him the next day. He was put ashore at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, England. He managed to reach home while his memorial service was taking place at St Luke’s Church, where he had had been a choir boy. It was reported his mother fainted from shock when he appeared.
Despite his close shave, he returned to sea, earning his Extra Master’s ticket by 25 and serving in the Royal Naval Reserve from 1896-1899, teaching gunnery aboard The President.
In his early thirties, his ship called in at East London, South Africa, during the second Anglo-Boer War. He left the ship and took up employment in the stevedoring business in Port Elizabeth. Davis took the business to Durban where, over the next decade, he gained control of the wharfing business from Port Elizabeth to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
A shrewd businessman, Davis built up massive wealth, also becoming involved in construction and engineering.
He married Minnie Bagg and they had two sons and two daughters, but tragedy struck when his youngest son, Howard, was killed in the Battle of the Somme in World War I.
In the 1920s, Davis gave £50 000 towards the expansion of Durban Technical College. But when the municipality donated a sizeable portion of land to establish a university, he decided to give the money to this project, in memory of his son. The new university was named Howard College, later the University of Natal and then the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
It was reported that Davis gave many other gifts to the institution.
Davis’s love of the sea never waned and at Portview, the main outbuilding was specifically for storing his boats.
During the war years he regularly raced his schooner, Westward, designed and built for speed. He won many races in competition with King George’s Brittania.
In 1920, he bought the 4 050 ton cruiser HMS Thames which, the following year, he presented to the South African nation to use as a merchant training ship. The vessel was converted in Cape Town and renamed the General Botha.
Davis was known as a generous philanthropist and in 1940 he donated £100 000 to establish the Howard Davis War Fund to assist soldiers who had served outside South Africa in World War II.
He also never forgot Jersey, making donations to a number of projects.
Davis died in 1942 and despite his family’s best efforts to find a buyer for his famous schooner, Westward, she was eventually scuttled.
His Durban home, Portview, gained heritage status in 1994, described by the City of Durban as “an important Edwardian villa, with an Italianate character, significant details and unique settings”.
The house has numerous rooms, a conservatory and a number of outbuildings including former stables and, of course, the large garage for his boats and boat-building activities.
As we view the tropical garden, the fountain is now still and the early summer air barely stirs. But it’s that very stillness which makes it easy to be transported back a century to when royalty and powerful magnates would arrive for an evening of lavish entertainment in richly decorated rooms.
They would be hosted by the ship’s boy who took Durban by storm and created a business empire that would spill over into the lives of many.
The house has been used as business premises since 1992