Cape Town, Moravian Hill

Abstract

Photographs and information on the Moravian chapel and its bell in District Six, Cape Town. The chapel used to house the first urban Moravian congregation in the country. Due to the Group Areas Act the congregation was disbanded, but in recent years church services were resumed again in the chapel. On top of the church hangs a bell in a bell-cote. On the waist there are inscriptions that refer to founder and casting date. Below the shoulder of the bell is a decorative band between two moulding wires. Below the lower wire is the founding date of 1936 and below that the inscription. The inscription is in the waist of the bell, contained within a weapon cloak. Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock (effigy of bell) Gescher I Westf. The lines at the top and at the bottom are curved to fit within the cloak. Gebr. stands for Gebrüder (Brothers). Furthermore Gescher is the location of the foundry (in Germany), I stands for IN and Westf for WESTFALEN, a district in Germany. Petit was one of three European old families of founders all with a link to the area of Lorraine, a part of current France close to Germany, the other two being the Hemony and Jullien families. The first Petit, Jean Francois, started founding around 1690. The fourth heir had no children and adopted two nephews, Joseph and Wilhelm Edelbrock, who continued founding as ‘Petit and Gebr. Edelbrock’. In the 8th generation, the foundry was taken over by a friend Werner Hüesker who directed the foundry until 1932. His second son Hans Georg Hermann Maria Hüesker succeeded him in 1935 and hence can be considered as the maker of the Moravian Hill church bell. He lived from 1914 until 1979 and formed the 9th generation of founders of the company. Two more succeeded him since then and the foundry is still active today. The bell does not seem to be the original bell of the church. In 1936 the congregation celebrated its 50th anniversary and the bell was probably obtained for that event.