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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