The Fish Hoek Valley Historical Association is set to hold an illustrated talk on the Peers family, one of Fish Hoek’s most famous families, at the Fish Hoek Bowling Club on Thursday, September 12, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Peers Cave was discovered and excavated by amateur archaeologist Victor Peers in 1927, which he would excavate with his son Bertie for several years.
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The father and son duo were residents of Fish Hoek, and through their endeavours, they would discover and document Khoisan rock art, stone tools and an ancient burial site, as reported by the False Bay Echo.
Margaret Gundry, the speaker of the talk and a volunteer at the Fish Hoek Valley Museum, said the talk would focus ‘more on the family’ than the cave.
‘I have always been interested in history and genealogy,’ said Gundry.
Gundry started researching some of Fish Hoek’s early families and where they lived.
‘I have researched the Wakefords, the Balls, the Mossops, the Mullers, the De Villiers family, the Rice family, the Jones family. Even the Greenlands. And the Peers family,’ said Gundry.
Before 1950, houses in Fish Hoek had no street numbers, just names so she researched why certain houses had certain names, according to Gundry.
‘There is a house near Sunny Cove station that was called “Girdleness”. I did a bit of research on the family and found out that in 1880 the owner’s father was a light and fog signal keeper and near to the home was the Girdleness Lighthouse,’ said Gundry.
‘That was an easy one,’ Gundry added.
Gundry said that Bertie Peers called his house Inyoko, the Zulu word for snake, while Victor, called his house Zeenah, the name of the town in Tasmania where he met his wife.
Gundry’s research on the Peers family has extended to New Zealand, where the great-great-grandson of Bertie and Bella Peers currently lives.
Membership fees for the Fish Hoek Valley Historical Association for 2024 are R50 per person and can be paid at the Fish Hoek Valley Museum or the meeting.
Entry is R20 for members, payable at the door, and R30 for visitors, with the event scheduled to start at 4:30pm.
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Picture: Fish Hoek Valley Museum / Facebook
