Glenville Tobacco Plantations was located in Bulawayo. The business was run by Michael (Max) Pevsner – a Russion Jew who emigrated to Rhodesia after the Anglo-Boer War. In 1907 Pevsner purchased the nine acre Glenville Farm, located on the outskirts of Bulawayo. He was one of the early pioneers of tobacco growing in Rhodesia and was believed to the be the largest grower of Turkish tobacco in the world.
As early as 1920, Glenville Farm was run from Bulawayo as Glenville Tobacco Plantations. In 1923, Michael Pevsner entered into a working arrangement with American, William Boone Wilson, an agriculturalist from Kentucky. Wilson had come to Rhodesia to manage the Glenville Tobacco Estates.
The arrangement continued until Wilson left in 1943 for Conforzi Tea & Tobacco Co Ltd in Cholo, Nyasaland. At about this time, the growing of Bulawayo Turkish tobacco was in decline and the Glenville Estates was eventually sold to a consortium of property developers.
References
- Leaf of Gold – Clements & Harben
- Journal of the Rhodesian Study Circle No.254
- Rhodesian Jewry and Its Story – Part V (pdf)