Rudolf and Annie Ziehl’s life in East London

From the death notice of Rudolf and Annie’s fifth child, Philip Arthur Ziehl, who died at 4 years old in 1902 from Croup, we learn that the family lived in Park Street, East London and that Rudolf was a watchmaker. [1.] This confirms what I suspected. Family tradition says he was a jeweller, but I remember going into “Pop’s” [2.] office on Alpha Farm when I was a child, and seeing German books and Bibles as well as wooden boxes with very small drawers on the top shelves in his office. On one occasion we were shown what was in those little drawers. There were tiny, rusty parts of the workings of clocks. These had belonged to Pop’s father, our great grandfather Rudolf, which he must have brought with him, to Rhodesia, from East London.

The following picture shows two of Rudolf and Annie's children, Reuben and Louis, playing in Franz Moeller’s Orchestral Class, in East London, in 1903.

1. Philip Arthur Ziehls Death Notice. ( https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-P19C-7W?i=300&cc=1779109 : accessed 28 Oct 2018)

2. Leonard Ziehl (Lenny) was called Pop by his grandchildren.

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