Goodman, Beart and Company, Rissik Street, Johannesburg

[Geordie daughter]

Does anyone know anything about this company and what it did/sold? The building was, I believe, built around 1887 or so, and I think the Beart mentioned in the business's name may have been William John Beart, who moved to the Transvaal from Durban around 1894, or so. So far I haven't been able to unearth anything more than the name of the company, so I'd be grateful if anyone could enlighten me.

[baddy]

Hi,
The Wits University Archives which houses the Barnett Collection of photographs of old Johannesburg lists a photo of the Goodman Beart Building taken in 1906 in section 74 of the index. I do not know how to access this picture so you will need to contact them for more information at:  www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za


Dave.

[hanes teulu]

google "the politics and ideologies of the greek community in south africa circa 1890-1924"

Of the hits returned select "PDF  https://open.uct.ac ....." etc.

Two references to Goodman Beart (but doesn't answer your specific question).

I had a look at "NAARS (South African records)" - 1 reference to Goodman Peart but no clue as to nature of business.

[Geordie daughter]

Thanks to both of you for looking. You hit the same problems as I did on this one, and frustratingly official documents aren't any help. While William was still in Durban, one daughter's baptismal record gave his occupation as "Manager of store," and his death notice gives his occupation simply as "Retired merchant," so neither are very helpful. One of his brothers was manager for Curtis & Co. in Jo'burg selling clothing, another worked for T.W. Beckett (possibly as a commercial traveller) in either Pretoria or Jo'burg, for a little while, before haring off to China, and the third ended up as a men's wear salesman in Edmonton, Canada. On the basis of this, I'm guessing that William was in a similar line, but it would be far better to have actual proof!

[pampoen]

Is this the same William Beart http://www.graves-at-eggsa.org/main.php?g2_itemId=2913879

[Geordie daughter]

Pampoen, it isn't, but it's absolutely the next best thing because it's his only son who I know next to nothing about, except that he married a Daisy Parrett in Johannesburg, and was (according to her death notice) a publisher! At last, thanks to you, I have William junior's date of death! William senior died in October 1911 in England; he was either on a business trip or possibly visiting his daughter Marjorie who was a music student there at the time, and boarding with a couple in Hornsey.

[Geordie daughter]

Calloo, callay, oh happy day! Following up your lead, Pampoen, I typed Beart+Ermelo into my search engine and got up a newspaper obit for John Beart of Ermelo who is, I am pretty certain, William's son. The information in the article matches with what I know of John from other sources, and came as a nice surprise as there were suggestions that he'd died young...obviously he hadn't! 

[pampoen]

Have you seen this?

[pampoen]

I found a number of records when I looked up Beart on Familysearch https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?&count=20&offset=0&query=%2Bgivenname%3Awilliam~%20%2Bsurname%3Abeart~%20%2Brecord_country%3A%22South%20Africa%22