George Rex

George Rex (29 August 1765 – 3 April 1839) was a British-born entrepreneur who spent most of his adult life in the Cape Colony.

Rex filled a number of positions in the Cape Colony – including Marshal of the Vice-admiralty Court, notary public to the Governor and advocate for the Crown – before settling on the farm Melkhoutkraal, in the Knysna district.

This was in reference to profits and rents from two lots of land with appurtenances in Plaistow Marsh West Ham, that were in the possession of John Rex.

[2][3] George Rex was articled for seven years to one of the Procurators General of the Court of Arches in 1780 when aged 14 and admitted a Notary Public by the Faculty Office in 1786 when 21.

He purchased the homestead Schoonder Zigt (now being run as the Flower Street Guest House in Oranjezicht), Table Valley, Cape Town, in 1800, and asked permission to sell gunpowder taken from a prize of war, 1801.

He became a man of some influence at the Cape and regularly entertained at his estate distinguished visitors from overseas such as Lord Charles Somerset, the Earl of Caledon, later, Sir Lowry Cole,[4][5] Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Krauss German scientist, traveller and collector, Jules Verreaux, a French botanist, ornithologist and professional collector of, and trader in, natural history specimens; Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh also visited for an elephant hunt in the Knysna forest.

[8]: 296  They believed that he had been banished to the Cape, granted large tracts of land there, and forbidden to marry, a story with many later embellishments, that gained ground in the 1860s following contact with Mrs Lavinia Ryves the daughter of the imposter and forger Olivia Serres (Princess Olive).