Ernst Pieter Thiel

1910 – 2005

My sister, Leonora and I got to know our father’s only brother as Uncle Peter. He was christened Ernst Pieter Thiel but sometime during his life he must have changed his name officially to Ernest Peter Thiel. As a young boy he still signed a letter to his mother, who was born in the Netherlands, as Pieter but it might have been during his years at the Pretoria Boys High School that the change was made.
Shortly after completing his school education, he joined his father and mother in Tanganyika for 3 years whereafter he spent 4 years in Kenia and 30 years in Uganda before moving to Australia. During this long period our Uncle Peter visited us on several occasions in Potchefstroom, Pretoria, and Stellenbosch. Most of our information about or grandparents time in Tanganyika came from him especially during his two visits to us in 1985 and 1989 in Stellenbosch. Through his initiative an English translation was made of the “diaries” of our Great-grandfather, Gustav Thiel about the 20 years he spent in Palestine. This was a useful addition to the excellent Afrikaans translation by Leonie Thiel (van Coller). I will always cherish his motivation to proceed with the documentation of the lives of the descendants of our Great-grandfather, Gustav Thiel.

Ernst Pieter Thiel 1924

The life of Ernest Peter Thiel

1910 – 2005

Peter Thiel was born on 28 June 1910 during the 5 years his parents were living in Maraisburg, a suburb of Johannesburg. When he was only 6 months old the family moved to Messina in the northern Transvaal where this photo was taken in 1911.

Thiel family 1911. Corrie at the Back with Hermann, Pieter, Norah and Nelly in front

Peter Thiel is sitting on his mother’s lap. To his right are his sisters Norah and Nelly. His older brother Hermann is standing on the far left while his eldest sister Corrie is at the right in the back row.

With his siblings Peter Thiel received their primary school education in Messina and when he was only 12 years old his family moved back to Pretoria while his father was briefly employed as Construction Engineer in Harrismith. In 1923 his parents moved permanently to Tanganyika and Peter Thiel attended secondary school in Pretoria. In his own words “I spent my 3 years at the Pretoria Boys High School from 1924 to 1926. My home during this period was Aunt Nell’s (his sister’s) home at the farm Lovedale Park near Louis Trichardt where I spent my school holidays.” His father never visited South Africa during this period, but his mother visited once while he was at Pretoria Boys High School.

Cornelia Thiel in Pretoria with her three youngest children Pieter, Nora, and Hermann.

At the end of 1926 his father arranged for both him and his sister Corrie to join their parents in Tanga to assist in their automobile business, Thiel &Co. In February 1927 they went down by train from Louis Trichardt to Pretoria and immediately to Lourenzo Marques from where they went on a German steamer up the coast to Tanga where they arrived on17 February 1927. His sister Corrie assisted in the business as an administrator and a shorthand typist. For the next 3 years Peter assisted his father in the workshop of the business where his dad taught him all he knew about motor mechanics. In November 1929 Peter accompanied his mother to South Africa to attend the wedding of his brother Hermann in the small village of Burgerville near de Aar in the Cape Province. They were accompanied by his sister Nellie who drove down with them from Louis Trichardt whereafter they returned to Tanga.

In 1985 he recalled that “I was only sixteen at the time but unfortunately I was not getting along very well with my father in the business.” With the help of his father and the Managing Director of Motormart and Exchange in Nairobi he was able to obtain a position in the business in Kenya. He spent 1930 and 1931 in Nairobi. In 1932 the company transferred him to Eldoret where he was retrenched in December 1933 because of the Great Depression which took a few years to reach Kenya. He was single and without family commitments and was given the opportunity to go to work for the same company in Kampala in Uganda. When he arrived in Kampala the position was not available but the Ford Company offered him a position from March 1934. He married Nellie Ford from Lancashire, England on 4 July 1936 in Kampala.

Wedding of Ernest Peter Thiel and Nellie Ford in Kampala.

Both their children were born in Kampala, Edward John Thiel on 14 October 1937 and Avis Cornelia on 2 August 1939. Their mother was only 24 when she passed away in Nairobi, Kenya on 10 August 1942. It was 8 days after Avis’s 3^rd birthday and Edward was not yet 5 years old.

During the last years of the Second World War Peter Thiel did active service in Burma (presently Myanmar). During this period the children attended school in Kenya and they were taken care of by their father’s eldest sister, Corrie who lived in the port city Tanga in Tanganyika.

Avis and Edward with their Aunt Corrie

Peter Thiel spent a major part of his 30 years in Uganda in the town Jinja on Lake Victoria at the origin of the river Nile where he was employed as town clerk by the local community.

During his visit to South Africa in 1958 Peter Thiel and his 3 surviving siblings were together for the first time in 34 years since his sister Nell’s wedding to Jock Kleinenberg in 1924.

Thiel siblings in 1958. Peter’s daughter Avis is on the left and Nell’s husband is second from the right.
Hermann is on the far right and Nellie, Corrie and Peter are at the back.

Peter Thiel summed up his time in East Africa as follows: “I arrived in Tanga on 17 February 1927. When I eventually left Tanga on that cargo boat on my way to Australia via South Africa it was on exactly the same day of the year 37 years later. He was accompanied on the journey to Australia in 1964 by his second wife Dreda. They first visited South Africa where Dreda visited her brother in Pinetown near Durban while he travelled to Pretoria to meet up with family in the Transvaal. I had the privilege to drive him from Pretoria to Lorenzo Marques where he joined Dreda on the cargo boat’s final crossing to Australia where they landed on 19 March 1964.

Peter and Dreda Thiel were not the last of the Thiel family to leave East Africa.

His daughter Avis was working for a textile firm in Uganda as secretary for the General Manager. She left about three months later for the UK to take up a position with BP and was transferred to Benghazi in Libya in 1965.

Peter Thiel’s son, Edward, was working in Dar es Salaam at the time for Tanganyika Packers, a firm exporting meat. Edward and his wife Geraldine and their son Allan were the last of the Thiel family to leave East Africa in June 1966 and arrived in Australia on 28^th June 1966 which happened to be Peter Thiel’s birthday.

He took an active part in activities in his community during his last 40 years in Perth in Australia. We intend to include the highlights of this period of his life in this document.