On February 25, Tony Burisch from the Heidelberg Heritage Association awarded the latest blue plaque, sponsored by Jaco Coetzer, to Harvey’s Pharmacy in Ueckerman Street.
Walter Harvey was a local pharmacist and mayor of Heidelberg in the 1920s and was born in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal, on July 8, 1861.
On October 12, 1900, during the Second Anglo Boer War, Harvey and his friend Dr O’Reilly were arrested and sent to Cape Town.
Reports came out that Harvey used his farm as a Boer Post Office and that the letters had been taken there secretly in the doctor’s cart.
O’Reilly and Harvey were both members of the Red Cross.
After the war, Harvey resumed his practice as a chemist and was mayor of Heidelberg in 1923. Harvey’s Pharmacy existed for several years, located next to the old Standard Bank in Ueckermann Street.
Harvey died in Heidelberg on October 27, 1938, aged 77.
His wife, Jessie Elliott Harvey, who was born in Scotland on September 13, 1868, died 15 years after her husband, on July 16, 1953.
They are both buried in the Heidelberg Kloof Cemetery.
Harvey opened the Old Landbank in 1923, with the foundation stone laid by himself as mayor of Heidelberg.
