Early Life
Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molteno emigrated to the Cape in 1831 at the age of 17, where he found work as an assistant to the public librarian in Cape Town. At the age of 23 he founded his first company, Molteno & Co., a trading company that exported wine, wool and aloes to Mauritius and the West Indies, and opened branches around the Cape.
In 1841, he undertook Southern Africa’s first experimental export of fruit, loading a ship with a range of fruits (necessarily dried, as no refrigeration existed yet) and sending it to Australia to test foreign markets. The experiment ended in disaster when his ship was wrecked in a storm - pushing Molteno close to bankruptcy. Disposing of the remains of his mercantile businesses, he immediately bought some land in the arid Beaufort area and successfully introduced Saxon Merino sheep, building up the vast Nelspoort Estate. Among his many other business ventures, he founded the region's first bank, Alport & Co. – in Beaufort West.
He also returned briefly to Cape Town to marry a young woman named Maria, whom he had originally met soon after arriving in South Africa. She was the mixed-race daughter of a merchant colleague, and he brought her back to his estate, with a view to starting a family.
Tragedy struck a few years later when his wife died in childbirth (along with their only child). Soon afterwards the bereaved Molteno left his estate and joined a Boer Commando that was heading for the frontier mountains to fight in the 1846 Amatola War.
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