Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Terence Timoney
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Terence Timoney worked as a water engineer for the Cape Town municipality, retiring in 1972. He developed a keen interest in the historical aspects of water supply in Cape Town and elsewhere. Following his retirement, and with the aid of a few colleagues, he set about creating, equipping and curating a museum on Table Mountain, in order to preserve the artefacts and the memory of the men whose engineering acuity was employed to solve the problem of Cape Town’s growing water supply problem as the nineteenth century drew to a close. The museum is situated next to the Woodhead Dam, the first of the five dams completed on Table Mountain. Often at great expense to himself, Timoney salvaged as many of the original tools and pieces of machinery used in the construction of the dams as he could, and set up the museum. Pride of place in the museum goes to the restored locomotive that was used on top of the mountain to haul equipment from the Kasteelspoort ropeway to the site of the dam.