Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Wreck of the Lyngenfjord

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

The Gale of 1902 in which a dozen ships were driven onto North End beach and wrecked, would be the last such mass destruction of vessels in a gale. The conversion from sailing vessels to steam powered ships was driven by productivity considerations but as an ancillary benefit, they would eradicate weather-related disasters. The Lyngenfjord was one of the sparse diet of wrecks over the next century.

Main picture: The Lyngenfjord taken by George Wood. Tins of petrol had just offloaded onto the cliff edge when the disaster occurred.

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: A Lighter Meets its End at Chelsea Point

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Prior to the opening of the first quay, the Charl Malan, in 1933, most freight was unloaded from a cargo ship in the roadstead onto a lighter which would transport the cargo to one of the jetties protruding into the Bay. As North Jetty was used predominantly to offload passengers from tugs & lighters, the jetties that were used to offload cargo were the South and the Dom Pedro Jetties. There the cargo was again manhandled being offloaded from the lighter onto the jetty from which it was loaded onto a train as the age of the truck had not yet arrived.

Main picture: Lighter aground at Chelsea Point

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Mount Pleasant & its First School

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

With few exceptions, most whites at the turn of the 20th century received a minimal education especially if they lived in outlying areas such as Draaifontein / De Stades area which both of my grandparents did. Most residents of Port Elizabeth assume that as both the Grey Institute and Collegiate Girls’ School had been operational for at least 25 years that most children would have attended them or alternatively that other schools of similar ability were readily available.

I would hate to disabuse you but taking the McCleland family as an exemplar, that idyll is far from  reality. This is the story of one family, one school and one village.

Main picture: The Mount Pleasant Primary School in 1904

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Port Elizabeth of Today: The Future of No. 7 Castle Hill

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Perhaps I should have titled this blog “Quo Vadis” or maybe something more apocalyptic such as the End of No. 7. Whatever it should be will never encompass my dread more for its future. When I left PE on 11th February 1980 to seek my fame & (mis) fortune in the City of Gold, the future of No. 7 was sanguine. For the most part, its future now, like many other historical buildings, is precarious at best. 

Why do I anticipate such a gloomy future?

Main picture: Painting of Port Elizabeth by W.A. Harriers showing No 7 Castle Hill at the crescent [or is that the brow] of the hill

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Congregational Church in Pearson Street

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Before the end of the 19th century, the central areas of Port Elizabeth could proudly boast of at least a dozen churches with certain denominations having multiple churches. The Anglicans are a case in point represented by three separate churches being St. Mary’s, the Holy Trinity and St. Paul’s. This is probably indicative of not only the head count of Anglicans but also the need for a church to be in close proximity to their residences due to the lack of transport.

This blog is largely based upon the excellent book by A.D. Herholdt entitled Eight Beautiful Gothic Revival Churches of Port Elizabeth.

Main picture: The Pearson Street Congregational Church

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Dunning’s Memoirs of Bagshaw Gibaud

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Prior to Bagshaw Gibaud’s closure at the rapacious hands of asset strippers in 1973, it was a prominent producer of shoes in South Africa. Like most of the foremost companies commencing operations in the 1800s, at the helm were visionaries and entrepreneurial men. The duo of Gibaud and Bagshaw were no exception.

Main picture: Original buildings of Bagshaw & Gibaud

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Rutger Metelerkamp & Papenkuilsfontein

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

As daunting as the challenge was, Rutger Metelerkamp rose to meet it by acquiring the farm previously owned by Thomas Ignatius Ferreira known as Papenkuilsfontein. Part of this danger stemmed from restive Khoikhoi and Xhosa tribesmen but also due to the utter isolation from civilisation. Taken all together, Rutger Metelerkamp [1780-1849] must have risen to the challenge. He also foresaw the potential of Klaaskraal, a former Khoikhoi “village” on the property later to be known as Bushy Park owned by the well-known local family of Lovemores.

It was intrepid entrepreneurs such as Rutger who would become the backbone and mainstay of economic development in this land. For that we should salute such men. Yet history now casts many pejoratively as colonisers and worse.

Main picture: Painting of Cradock Place by Thomas Baines

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Jan Hoets: Connected to both Chase and Korsten

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

While Jan Hoets might not strictly have been a full-time resident of Port Elizabeth, he was closely connected to two residents who were intimately involved in business in Port Elizabeth and who were largely responsible for Port Elizabeth’s initial growth: These prominent citizens were John Centlivres Chase and Frederick Korsten with the latter person being Hoets’ son-in-law. This arose due to his marriage to Korsten’s eldest daughter, Maria Johanna Charlotta. Of course by marrying a Chase meant that Hoets was also related to the Chases.

By all accounts Hoets was a successful merchant in Cape Town with its more lanquid less frenetic lifestyle. Here the bureaucrat predominated unlike Port Elizabeth which possessed a more energetic business like mien, the very anthesis of Cape Town.

Main picture: Jan Marthinus Hoets, grandson of Jan Hoets, and his wife Arabella Helen Centlivres Chase

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Port Elizabeth of Today: Not a Fairy Tale Ending

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 3 Comments

Once upon a time, in the time of our forefathers, a hamlet was accidentally created on the shores of Algoa Bay. Without inlets, coves, and navigable rivers, the littoral lacked a natural harbour. The need for freshwater is what attracted the passing vessels like a magnet to this nondescript point on the otherwise barren coastline. Being unintended, the town grew frenetically but without hindrance, plan or scheme to become the butt of derision for its unkempt, scruffy appearance and undefined & also unnamed roads if these tracks could be called that. Quaint was not one of the epithets used by visitors to describe the village.

But this was about to change

Main picture: The carcass of the Victoria Hotel. Note the bricked up windows in a futile attempt at preventing further destruction by the vandal hordes [Photo by Anton de Klerk]

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Walmer Golf Club

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

The oldest golf club in Walmer and one of the oldest in South Africa, the Walmer Golf Club is still in existence and is prospering despite initially not possessing security of tenure as it operated on a year-to-year basis. This constraint over its first twenty years of existence made the members and the committee loath to invest in its development. Hence development lagged behind the members’ ambitions for the Club. Largely based upon FA Longworth’s book, succinctly entitled Walmer, this blog provides a comprehensive history of the trials and tribulations as well as the birth pangs of a golf course in another era.

Recognised as Port Elizabeth’s premier 9 hole golf course, Walmer Golf Club, commonly known as Little Walmer, lies in the heart of the city.

Main picture: Walmer Golf Club

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