Looking Back: An Appreciation of PE in the 1880s.

From “Memories” by the Lionel Cripps, C. M. G.

Published in Looking Back Volume IV No. 1

The first sight I had of Africa was when we passed Cape Verde, with its white sands and a quivering heat to match. I felt drawn towards it by an attraction that, up to now has never waned; not a bad start for a youngster who had great longing for adventure in the half empty continent!

Main picture: 1872 Watercolour entitled View of Port Elizabeth from the hill behind the cemetry by Oliver Lester in 1874 in NMM AM

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: New Brighton – “A Model Native Settlement”

Located between the Papenkuils and the Swartkops Rivers, New Brighton was established inside the Municipal Boundary of Port Elizabeth in 1901 in order to house the black residents of the inner-city locations such as Stranger’s and Gubb Locations’. The White property owners and ratepayers were pressurising the Council to relocate the Black inhabitants of the locations in the inner city area.

This blog will cover the history of New Brighton from this inflection point in the separation of residential areas.  

Main picture: Semi-detached houses erected in New Brighton in 1912

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Expeditions by Carl Thunberg in the 1770s

Preceding the arrival of the Dutch farmers in Algoa Bay, intrepid adventurers and naturalists were exploring the area. Amongst this band of hardy individuals was a Swedish naturalist, Carl Peter Thunberg, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. Due to Thunberg’s discoveries in the Cape Colony, he has been awarded the sobriquet of “the father of South African botany”.

Of all the observations made by Thunberg during his three-year stay at the Cape Colony, two of them resonate with me but for vastly divergent reasons. This is the story of Thunberg’s brief sojourn in the wilderness that was Port Elizabeth in the 1770s.

Main picture: Carl Peter Thunberg in later life

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Outspans and Road Inns on the Inter-Town Roads of later 1800s

Like modern day motorists, the waggoners of yore also required a place to rest, eat and refresh themselves except that their “facilities” were vastly more primitive than today’s Ultra City. 

What facilities, if any,  were provided and where were the outspans and road inns situated?

Main picture:  Outspan House built by JJ Berry in 1862 as an Inn for travellers. It was situated about a mile from the Rawson Bridge, halfway between Zwartkops and Deal Party Estate

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Inter-Town Roads of the Mid 1800s – Part 1

As a result of the poor state of the country roads, a trip by ox wagon to Graham’s Town – a distance of only 160 kms – would take eight days. The term road was a euphemism for a track through the bush, which through perpetual usage, had created a passage conforming to the contours, angle and levelness of the ground. No attempt had been made to remove boulders on the route or fill in depressions. Instead the road would skirt around such obstacles. 

What roads were there and what was being done to address this issue? 

Main picture:  Typical condition of the rural main roads in the 1860s

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Lost Artefacts of Port Elizabeth: Swartkops Mineral Spa

Today taking a cure at a mineral spa is definitely out of vogue. However in the past, the belief in the curative properties of the various minerals was widely extolled. Even Erwin Rommel, at the height of WW2, spent time at a spa. Perhaps it was the relaxation that was the cure and not the minerals. Nevertheless, the supposed healing properties were invoked by all and sundry.  

Even Port Elizabethans adopted this cure, now a distant memory 

Main picture:  Swartkops Mineral Baths after the developments in 1936 

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