Port Elizabeth of Yore: When Mohair was a Major Industry

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Port Elizabeth was at the centre of the burgeoning mohair industry in the 1800s. It still is except that the industry is no longer flourishing. Before the motor vehicle assembly industry was established in Port Elizabeth during the 1920s, wool as well as mohair were the mainstays of the local economy.

This is the long-forgotten story of the rise of this industry off the back of the Angora goat and its fall in the twentieth century.

Main picture:  One of the last batches of Angoras imported from Turkey by Adolph Mosenthals & Co. in 1895. Mr.& Mrs. W. Mosenthal are seated in the buggy with Mr. H. Goldschmidt standing in the background. In the foreground are three Turkish goat handlers who accompanied the animals on the ship.

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Mosenthals: A Metaphor for the Fortunes of Port Elizabeth

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

For more than half a century Mosenthals was the most prominent and probably the largest enterprise in Port Elizabeth. Even my family has a connection to this once dominant company. Firstly, my maternal grandfather was a wool sorter and later my mother was a typist in their employ. For me, the firm Mosenthals epitomises both the growth and subsequent decline of Port Elizabeth, but also the trajectory of South Africa’s industrial, agricultural, and commercial growth. 

Let us trace the journey that Mosenthals, Port Elizabeth and South Africa took. 

 Main picture: The original offices of Mosenthals in Port Elizabeth

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