When fencing your farm with Bonnox, be sure it is the authentic Bonnox product, developed specifically for African conditions since the 1960s. An imitation can never match the real deal, as years of effort and innovation have gone into making Bonnox a trusted brand in the fencing industry.

Bonnox was the brainchild of Volker Harmen Schadewaldt, who came to South Africa with his mother, Hertha, in 1951. He was a German radio technician, who later worked at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg. In the late fifties, he bought a small farm in Laezonia, southwest of Pretoria, with his savings. Farming ran in his blood, as his grandfather had farmed in Tanzania.

His daughter, Anita Gent, explains, “My father and grandmother loved Africa and its sunshine, enjoying working with their hands. While my father was setting up barbed wire on his farm, he began thinking of a way to make this laborious task easier. That is when his dream of creating easy-to-install fences was born.”

Anita Gent was appointed as the new director of Bonnox in 2013. Here she shows her father, Mr. Volker Harmen Schadewaldt, the retired founder of Bonnox, the latest developments at the factory.

At the time, Schadewaldt had an American friend who gave him a Sears, Roebuck & Co. industrial catalogue from the USA. In it, he found an advertisement for woven fences – the perfect solution for his idea. Convinced that South Africa needed this, he traveled to the USA, Australia, and New Zealand to look into fence-making machines but could not afford them. Back in South Africa, with funding from a wire company, he imported two hinge joint machines and distributed the product as one of their agents. Today, Schadewaldt is considered the person who brought hinge joint fencing to South Africa.

In 1962, he bought the name, Bonnox, from a pharmaceutical company. He liked the name because the first part, “bon”, means good and beautiful in French and Latin. He rented a small shop in the south of Pretoria from where he could import and distribute his fences. His wife, Jean, was the bookkeeper and his mother was a shareholder-employee who helped where she could. “My father was a man with plans, and with his wonderful plans, he knew how to steer the business. As a little girl, I played in the shop, and fencing is still in my blood.

This is how Mr. Schadewaldt demonstrated in 1966 how a Bonnox fence is erected.

He and my mother always talked Bonnox,” says Anita. This was not the end of Mr. Schadewaldt’s dream. In 1982, he imported a second-hand machine from Pennsylvania, USA. He bought a shop in Rosslyn, still an important industrial area north of Pretoria. Later he sold it and in 1984 bought a property in Sunderland Ridge, southwest of Pretoria, when the area was just starting to emerge as an industrial center. He built one of the first factories in the area. To keep the money rolling, he continued to sell imported and local fencing material.

Shortly thereafter, he imported two Interlocking wire weaving machines from New Zealand. One was more than a century old and out of order, but soon the factory was fully operational. In 1994, Mr. Schadewaldt appointed another practical genius, the fitter and turner, Charl de Beer. He could make any part for the old machines from any piece of steel. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Mr. Schadewaldt, originally from Berlin, visited Germany. He also visited the industrial city with many steel factories, and imported a hinge-joint machine and a Ringlok® machine from a machine making company, Wafios, from Reutlingen in Germany in January 1995.

As a technician, Mr. Schadewaldt was scientifically inclined and precise, enjoying working with applied scientific concepts. In collaboration with metallurgists and engineers, he and his suppliers invested significant time and effort into determining the perfect wire blend for Bonnox. With typical German work ethic, he worked tirelessly, often late into the night. The workspace became too small, and in 2002, he purchased the adjacent property and set up a factory with two self-built machines. In 2010, already in his eighties, Mr. Schadewaldt retired as general manager. Shortly after, Anita, who is actually a pharmacist, took over the reins.

“Today, Bonnox manufactures 70 different fencing products ranging from 600 to 2 400 mm in height for every possible application on a farm. Our wire is fully galvanised, and a single vertical wire can withstand tension of 220 kg. A single horizontal wire holds up to 415 kg. Bonnox’s pre-fabricated fences make the lives of thousands of South African farmers much easier,” says Anita, who is determined to continue this legacy for another lifetime.

With the right knowledge and equipment, Bonnox can be installed in no time.

Contact the friendly Bonnox sales team at 012-666-8717 or email zane@bonnox.co.za, gerda@bonnox.co.za, or linda@bonnox.co.za. Also, visit Bonnox’s helpful website at www.bonnox.co.za for more information.