Your guide to Heidelberg Gauteng
#Old Standard Bank
Heritage Blue Plaque #Nr 46
OLD STANDARD BANK - 40 Ueckermann Street
What is the story here?
The Standard Bank building was built during the Victorian era in 1886 and was owned by Standard Bank of British South Africa. In 1993 the Nelson family purchased the building and are still the owners. The initial building for the Standard Bank of British South Africa was a small building in Church street (Now HF Verwoerd street) thereafter at 60 Strydom street.
On April 8, Tony Burisch of the Heidelberg Heritage Association awarded the latest blue plaque for heritage to the old Standard Bank building to Mr Willem Nelson.
Mr FK Maré, the chief Magistrate of Heidelberg rented out the previous building to Standard Bank of British South Africa from August, 1879 - October, 1881. It was suspected but not confirmed that with the outbreak of the First Anglo Boer War, the then bank official, FW Standen, buried 10 700 gold pounds in the garden of WS McClaren from McClaren and Pagan, on 13 January 1881. It was kept there until after the first Anglo Boer War.
After gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand, Heidelberg was chosen to host the Mine Commissioners’ residence and offices. An age-old question is what happened to the gold reserves and to the so-called Kruger Millions? According to research on the ZAR era, that Paul Kruger’s estate amounted to +-R140 million. It also states that Paul Kruger owned four farms and had R31 million in overseas bank accounts at his death in 1904, very far removed from his humble overnight stay in the bank house at Heidelberg in the early 1880s.
(Source: 13th April 2022 article in the Heidelberg/Nigel Heraut by Eugene Viljoen)
