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MODERN QUARRYING
April - May 2017
Moregrove beginnings
Fraser’s Quarries purchased the Farm
Moregrove in 1942. Additional lots were
required later with augmentation and
new acquisitions becoming the recur-
ring theme of the Moregrove story. A key
investment in Frasers occurred in 1944
when construction firm Murray & Stewart
(now Murray & Roberts) took a stake in
the PE supplier.
During this period, Fraser’s activities
covered not only its relatively modest
operations at Moregrove, but Burt Drive
and Bethelsdorp quarries in PE, and
the Uitenhage Crushing Station which
crushed Swartkops River stone on the
Kruis River road.
Operations at Moregrove were labour
intensive until 1947 when a large crushing
screen and storage plant were erected. The
vertical conveyor belt was a great advance
on muscle-power and wheelbarrows.
The 1950s saw a decade of increasing
competition from Savage & Woodward
(S&W). Andrew Savage was a prime mover
in the rapid development of S&W, a quar-
rying operation he founded in 1952. This
quarry grew out of a transport business
opened by his father and uncle. The
trucking company had a transport con-
tract with Snows Quarries, which allowed
it to establish good contacts in the con-
struction sector. Snows ultimately closed
its own operation and joined forces with
S&W. The operation, with FrankWoodward
as its first quarry manager commissioned
new plant in the centre of what is today
the Moregrove property. The new plant
increased production capacity and gave
S&W an important edge in its competition
with Frasers.
By the early 1960s, PE was poised for
growth. Major works were planned by
the provincial administration and PE was
becoming a main point of focus for the
national roads programme, while local
industrialists had expansion plans of their
own. Andrew Savage’s projections on the
quantities of aggregate needed for this PE
construction boom were daunting – nei-
ther Frasers nor S&W could cope, but as
a merged operation with new, expanded
plant, they would be positioned for profit
and growth.
This scenario appealed to JW
Robertson, then head of Murray & Stewart
(major stakeholders in Frasers) and a deal
was struck. In the process, the merging
companies took over a tiny company,
PE Holdings, which had certain sand pit
rights, but no capital.
AT THE QUARRY FACE
WITH MOREGROVE
A bright future: Neo Bepswa, who at the time
of writing was quarry foreman for Moregrove.
She has since been promoted to acting and
soon-to-be manager at Lafarge Saldanha in
the Western Cape.
The Moregrove of 1996: This picture was taken by
Sir Rupert Bromley in 1996 during an Aspasa About
Face RSA audit.