Things about Simon’s Town
By Michael Jackson

The town officially called Simon’s Town, but often referred to as Simonstown, was originally named Simon’s Vlek after Simon van der Stel, the Dutch governor of the Cape Colony between 1677 and 1699, who surveyed the bay east of Cape Town in 1687 and earmarked it as a safe winter harbour during the months of May to September for which it was finally proclaimed in 1741.

Progress may have come slowly to Simon’s Town, but it has certainly left its mark. The town grew rapidly when it became a Royal Naval Base and the home of the South Atlantic Squadron under the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806, thanks largely to the construction of a huge man-made sandstone breakwater.

One of the tasks of this squadron was the care of a certain Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile at St. Helena Island some 1200 miles away in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Admiral Lord Nelson himself is also said to have come ashore from his ship to be nursed through an illness in the late 1770s, on the first of his two visits, long before the British occupation.

Over 300 ships were repaired at Simon’s Town during the Second World War, and the completion of the modern Simon's Town harbour and the Selborne dry-dock took place by 1910.

When in 1957 the Naval Base was finally handed over to the South African Government, at least 125 Allied ships had been sunk by the Germans, Japanese and Italians, in relatively close proximity to Simon’s Town.

Situated on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula on the shores of False Bay, Simon’s Town remains an important naval base to this day, and the town which rises steeply above the harbour up the mountainsides is rich in both architectural and natural beauty, as well as Cape history and strange legends and tales.

A famous resident of the town was Able Seaman Just Nuisance, RN, the only dog ever to be enlisted in the Royal Navy, to whom a statue has been erected in Jubilee Square. The sailors' had a favourite Great Dane who was a resident in the town, and request was sent to the British parliament asking for him to be enlisted in the Navy. Permission was granted and the dog was brought to the Recruiting Officer, who inquired: “Name?” “Nuisance, Sir”, the sailor replied. “First name?” “Just Nuisance, Sir,” the sailor stated, giving birth to a great legend.

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