However, it was October 1853 before the surrounding DRC Church Circles at Worcester, Caledon and Tulbagh had all given their approval. The Transfer deed went through on the 28 July 1853. He was duly baptised Robertson Barry Masuriek by Dr Robertson, with Joseph Barry being one of his seven sponsors. On the 1st of December in the same year the lucky child was born. At the auction on 4th & 5th May 1853 an erf was promised to the first male child born in the new town of Robertson, provided the names of both founders were given to him. An annual tax of 10 shillings on each plot was used for the building and maintenance of the first Dutch Reformed Church which was consecrated in October 1856 – this tax only ended in 1951.
It was surveyed by H van Reenen and a total of 199 plots were auctioned off by Joseph Barry for about 40 Pounds each. Mauritz Polack (who was also to act as preacher for the Dutch Reformed Church) on behalf of the Church Council, which had yet to be elected! On the 19th January 1853, Robertson was officially founded as a ‘dorpsgebeid’ township with 26 gentlemen who were present as guarantors – 10 of these men were elected as ‘directors’. A mere month later Dr Robertson authorised a portion of the farm Over het Roode Zandt to be purchased for the princely sum of 4 200 Pounds by school teacher Mr. Robertson requesting that a new congregation be started at Hooprivier. In September 1852 Van Zijl and school teacher Mauritz Polack wrote to Dr. A street was named Barry in recognition of the mainstay and trade opportunities that Barry & Nephews had opened up for the Overberg farmers. The new town was named Robertson in honour of the evangelistic Scottish minister who served the Overberg for 39 years and who had held communion church services (nagmaal) when visiting every three months in the home of Johannes W van Zijl who owned the farm Over het Roode Zandt aan Hoopsrivier in the 1840s.
It was said that these friends were, “the providers of all things earthly and spiritual”. In 1847 Barry & Nephews had already established the Hoops River Trading Store (which later became Barry Brothers) and would have known that it was a risk worth taking. William Robertson and the Honorable Joseph Barry, who was the auctioneer when the farmland on which the town stood was cut up into erven. Originally called Hooprivier the town of Robertson was founded in 1853 by two good friends, the Dutch Reformed Church minister at Swellendam, Rev.
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