Parkview House

The house was built in 1907 for John Wesley O’Hara and was one of the earliest homes in Parkview which, although laid out in 1906, was only proclaimed a township in 1907.

Parkview was developed by the Braamfontein Company (later absorbed into Transvaal Consolidated Lands) under the leadership of Raymond Schumacher, an astute property developer. To increase the attraction of his company’s townships he gave the Town Council the land for the trams which skirted them, lent the money for the construction of the lines and was part of the group which gave the land for the Hermann Eckstein Park (the Zoo and Zoo Lake) in 1904. These drew people out to the north, giving them a good view across the townships then being developed viz Parktown West and Westcliff in 1903, Parkview (1907) and Forest Town (1908).

To ensure that the townships got off the ground the township owner built a number of houses on spec. Some were occupied by employees of the Corner House. By 1910 there were 28 houses in Parkview, only 15 of which were owned privately. The biggest house by far, worth almost double its nearest rival, was Parkview House owned by JW O’Hara. At one stage he called it Wexford House (it stands on the corner of Kilkenny and Wexford Roads), modelled it is said, after his family home in Wexford in Ireland. He named the streets of Parkview so would have ensured that those bounding his property had a personal connotation.

Access to Parkview was from Jan Smuts Avenue which was also the tram route. Then followed a long drive or walk along Kilkenny Road to the stone manor house with its castellated turret. O’Hara was given the honour of naming the streets in Parkview and they all bear the names of Irish counties until the northwestern section which has Scottish county names.

It is possible that O’Hara was granted this honour to persuade him to buy in Parkview rather than one of the other established townships where there was still land available. He chose to be the lord of the new manor rather than accept a lesser status in Parktown or Westcliff where there were much grander homes with baronial pretensions.

The company planted the street trees and he underlined the status of his home which was approached through an avenue of oaks whereas other streets had London planes and jacarandas.

John Wesley O'Hara

Born in 1868, JW O’Hara is said to have come to Johannesburg in 1893 having immigrated to South Africa from Bristol, England. He married Ivy Emily Rethfern of Pondoland in 1890 and served in some capacity in the Anglo Boer War. He was a merchant, but was also involved in property in the south of Johannesburg. John and Ivy lived in Rosettenville or La Rochelle and O’Hara became active in local affairs through the Rosettenville Vigilance Association. He was a member of the Rosettenville Lawn Tennis Club and later of the more prestigious Turffontein Lawn Tennis Club.

In 1909 O’Hara was elected to the Town Council and served on the Parks and Estates Committee. He represented the Town Council on the Rand Aid Society and was chairman of the Parkview and District Ratepayer Association for many years. There were no political parties in the Town Council at that time so he was presumably elected by the people of his ward as a ratepayer candidate. He was mayor of Johannesburg from 1915-1917 (a two-year term was unusual, but this may have been due to the First World War) and retired from the Town Council in 1919. He went on to represent his community (Johannesburg North) in the Transvaal Provincial Council, and was awarded an OBE in 1918.

O’Hara’s greatest contribution to his city was undoubtedly the founding of the University of the Witwatersrand. He was ill in bed when the news broke that the Beit Trust funding for a university was going to Cape Town. Outraged, he organised a protest meeting in the Johannesburg City Hall, inviting all the reef mayors to join him. He minced no words in describing the perfidy of the Randlords who had made their money out of gold, who represented Johannesburg constituencies in Parliament and yet had chosen to allow Beit’s money to be diverted to Cape Town. He described it as “A shameless attempt to legalise piracy.”

O’Hara obtained a resolution that the Witwatersrand would build its own university and he offered the land, Milner Park. It took some years to get the University established, with much acrimony and lobbying by O’Hara and the head of the School of Mines.

O’Hara endowed Wits with the tradition of protest and a populist democratic character.

Those who suggested that students could travel to Cape Town he said represented “the attitude adopted in all countries by reactionary politicians who oppose the extension of university education to all people and wish to keep the doors of the university closed to the poor classes.”

Known as Major JW O’Hara, he had not served with the Imperial Light Horse Regiment during the Anglo Boer War as stated in Smith’s Johannesburg Street Names, so presumably he joined the volunteer regiment some time later. He does appear in a photograph of veterans of the ILH taken in 1933 and is identified there as Major JW O’Hara confirming his title.

He was also a Justice of the Peace, which was another function he performed voluntarily. He must have been a man of considerable means since he received no remuneration for any of his public positions.

O’Hara died in Kloof, Natal in 1948 and was followed by his wife 10 years later. They are buried in Brixton cemetery along with their daughter Eileen Ivy Connolly who had predeceased them, her husband Thomas Connolly and two other daughters, Molly and Kathleen. The O’Haras had two sons and six daughters. O’Hara is said to have been “an autocratic and irascible old Irishman who ruled his household with a rod of iron.” (Peggy Chapman)

Certainly his righteous wrath benefited the people of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand. And despite the fear he induced in young admirers, his daughters did get married.

The ghost which is said to haunt the end of the passage to the back stoep is not the governess, but a young man who wears khaki shirt and shorts. Some say he dared to woo the governess. It seems unlikely in such apparel!

There is street in West Turffontein named after O’Hara and the piazza on east campus at Wits bears his name.

Israel and Jenny Targovski 1947

We have no information on these owners, nor are we certain when they acquired the property.

Justice George and Marie Munnik 1954

The Honourable George Glaeser Anderson Munnik was born in Dordrecht in the Cape attended S.A.C.S. on a scholarship and read law at University of Cape Town and began practising at the Johannesburg Bar in 1946. In 1948 he married Marie Sophia van der Merwe of Heilbron and they had three children, one son and two daughters. In 1958 he became a QC. By then the Munniks were already living in the Parkview house.

In 1960 he was made an acting judge of Transvaal Provincial Division which was an extraordinarily rapid promotion for the time. They sold the house when Judge Munnik was made a Judge of the Supreme Court in the Cape (Eastern Cape Division).

A N Other

Lionel Neville Beauchamp Proctor And Ruth Proctor

Lionel Proctor was civil engineer who had been educated at Bishops and Wits. He started with the South African Railways and was based in Johannesburg so bought a house in Parkview. He later joined the Johannesburg City Engineer’s Department and it was while he was working for the City Council that he acquired the house.

His wife Ruth Caroline nee Brindley had been educated at Pretoria Girls High and then at Wits where she met her future husband and obtained a BSC. Ruth was involved for many years in research at the SA Institute for Medical Research. They had three children, two sons and a daughter.

While they were living there they saw no ghost nor believed in the phenomenon, but two visitors who were staying with them at different times reported encountering a ghost.