Business

South Africa’s 129-year-old construction company that has been run by the same family for five generations

Shaun Jacobs • 14 July 2026

The Barrow Group has been run by the Barrow family for the past 129 years and lays claim to being the oldest construction company in South Africa still operating.

Today, the business is run by the fifth generation of the family. Managing director John Barrow heads up the business and is joined by relatives Paul, Donald, Neil, and Colin.

The company has been instrumental in building many of South Africa’s most iconic buildings over the years.

Barrow has had a hand in building schools from Roedean and St John’s to Michaelhouse. Perhaps most famously, the family built the entirety of the University of Witwatersrand’s East campus.

More recently, the company has shifted focus towards the commercial and residential sectors, building office parks and towers alongside apartment blocks.

Today, Barrow is the main contractor for the R2 billion Olympus development in Sandton and Tricolt’s One Rosebank.

This is a far cry from the business founded in 1897 by English immigrant John Barrow, who came to Johannesburg to participate in the gold mining boom.

Barrow and his son were carpenters from Barrow in England. They set up a small carpentry shop in the mining town.

The company grew rapidly along with Johannesburg and quickly became a fully-fledged construction company.

As with many construction companies at the time, the Barrows made their mark building churches, including the Dutch Reformed Churches in Fordsburg and Langlaagte.

Barrow’s craftsmanship caught the attention of a young Sir Herbert Baker in the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War. This association would prove to be the making of the Barrows.

Baker favoured the Barrows over other construction firms due to their devotion to quality and ability to translate his designs into stone and timber using locally-sourced materials.

The architect’s first major commissioning of the Barrows was for his own house, Stonehouse, located on the Parktown ridge.

Over the next 13 years, the Barrows built 18 houses for Baker’s firm, including Glenshiel, Inanda House, Pilrig, Timewell, and Blackroof.

The Barrows continued building churches on the side, including St George’s Church in Parktown, which is famous for being the religious home of the Oppenheimer family in South Africa.

Baker also commissioned the family to build Roedean School and St John’s College on the Houghton Ridge in the 1900s. Business was booming.

However, the First World War would see a halt in new construction activity as South Africa sided with the British Empire. This would see the Barrows fundamentally change their business.

University of the Witwatersrand and commercial boom

The interwar period saw the Barrows develop an extensive relationship with the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which resulted in the family pioneering new construction technology.

Wits initially gave the Barrows a cost-plus contract to build the Medical School on Hospital Hill, and the university was impressed with the firm’s work.

The relationship extended until the family effectively built the modern-day East campus of the university over a period of 15 years.

Following the Medical School, the Barrows built the new Milner Park Campus, which included the Botany and Zoology Block, the Central Block, the Engineering Block, and the Physics and Chemistry Block.

One of the finest examples of the Barrows’ work is the William Cullen Library, which they built for Wits in 1933.

However, it was not the relationship with Wits that would change the Barrows forever, but the rise of commercial property in Johannesburg at the time.

The Barrows in the 1930s pivoted their business to focus on major commercial contracts in the Johannesburg CBD as the South African economy boomed.

During this period, the Barrows built the huge Castle Mansions in Eloff Street and the new South African Reserve Bank building in Johannesburg.

The Barrows also spearheaded the creation of the Federated Employers Mutual Assurance Company as an insurance company specifically designed to meet the needs of builders.

This mutual assurance company would create the first industrial pension scheme in South Africa in 1948. Today, this company is known as the Fedgroup, which is a sprawling financial services giant.

During the Second World War, the Barrows pivoted once again by building military camps for the South African Army and munitions factories around Johannesburg.

Their survival during the war positioned them well to win big from the decades-long construction boom that followed the conflict.

The Barrow Group today

The 1980s and 1990s would see the fifth generation of Barrows take over the company and lead its fundamental overhaul into the business it is today.

Recognising a shift in the broader construction and property industry, the family set up Barrow, Dewar, and Associates to move into property development.

This shifted the company away from having nearly no properties and borrowings to holding a significant portfolio of commercial property in the form of a modern real estate investment trust.

The Barrows kicked off this era with the Woodmead Office Park, which sprawls over 8.4 hectares and created the model the company would mimic at its other parks in Bedfordview, Midrand, and Chiselhurston.

Today, the group is made up of Barrow Construction and Barrow Properties, which houses the commercial and residential portfolio still owned by the company.

The fifth generation of Barrows also has five members of the family working at the group, with managing director John Barrow making it clear that they are all equal.

“Even though I’m the oldest family member currently at Barrow, we’re all equal. This structure makes us unique. We don’t really have titles, we draw the same salary and own an equal share in the business,” he told Tharawat Magazine.

“However, when my brothers and cousins first joined me and my dad and uncles, there were some tough moments. We hadn’t identified this equality yet. Now that we’re all middle-aged, we’ve gotten over that.”

The family is involved in nearly every area of the business, with John focusing on construction and his brother, Colin, being a quantity surveyor. John’s older brother, Donald, is a construction and project manager.

Paul Barrow manages the company’s property finance, development deals, and tenants. Neil, John’s cousin, effectively runs the company’s financial affairs.

“It’s 99 per cent consensus, and our culture is very hands-on and informal. Over the course of my 30-year career, we’ve never had a significant conflict,” John said.

“It’s also important to note that, when the business is doing well, you can afford to be gracious and not sweat the small stuff.”

“We’ve been lucky. Barrow has been kind to us, and our developments have proved successful.”