The Opinion Pieces are an eclectic bunch on current affairs & history often with a human interest aspect. The Movie/DVDs reviews are mainly on documentaries with a smattering of movie reviews.
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
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]
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.
From very young, F.A. Longworth started to explore the Baakens Valley. From these explorations, Anthony would develop an abiding interest in the Baakens and for that reason it probably defined him. Longworth would come to love everything about the Baakens during the 1920s and 30s. It was only in the twilight of his life that under his wife’s incessant urgings would he put pen to paper not only about the Baakens River but also the whole town of Walmer, the centre of his universe.
This descriptive essay is extracted from his book simply entitled Walmer.
South Africa entered the Korean War on the side of the United Nations issued with their WW2 era Mustangs. During January 1953, Number 2 Squadron had their Mustangs replaced by North American F86F-30 Sabres on loan from the USAF. This would be the first jet flown by the SAAF. After the war, the SAAF would acquire Sabres. It was one of these that would crash in Port Elizabeth. On the 15th July 1960, Canadair CL13B Sabre Mk6 #379 was written off near the main airport after colliding with Sabre #353. Fortunately, the pilot, Lt HJW Bothma, survived.
Most residents regard the Baakens River, apart from its lower extremity, as being a vital green lung for the expanding city. Despite this, to solve a seemingly intractable transport problem, the solution proposed by the City Engineers Department was to convert a treasure into a paved highway.Would the nascent conservation/environmental groups win the battle over the engineers’ dream project?
Main picture: Aerial view of the lower reaches of the Baakens Valley with the freeway superimposed upon it
In the mistaken belief that diamonds were scattered on the ground waiting to be picked up, the discovery of diamonds in 1870 caused an exodus to the Diamond Fieldsin search of their fortune.In many cases Port Elizabeth, being the nearest port, would be the starting point for many fortune hunters travelling north, by wagon or even on foot, covering the 420 miles to De Beers’ New Rush.Soon a dose of reality would set in and many would retrace their footsteps back to Port Elizabeth.
What is little known is that it was not a one way street. Enrepreneurs in Port Elizabeth grabbed the opportunity with both hands and organised the first South African diamond auctions in the town being yet another first for the town.
By the 1960s and after a decade of spectacular economic growth, traffic volumes had increased substantially. Burgeoning vehicle ownership had exacerbated the situation. Lest we forget, the road grid was designed to cater for the central business district and North End whereas the commercial and industrial growth was northwards. Something had to be done to arrest the traffic situation.
The proposed solution was the construction of a freeway network.
This blog covers Edgar Brocas Walton’s experiences during the Anglo Boer War. Unlike most participants he saw action not once but multiple times being also wounded numerous times but the third and last time was particularly severe causing life-long negative consequences. After being employed by E.H. Waltons, the owner of the Herald during this period, Brocas, as he was known, retired as Chairman after 50 years’ service.
This information has been extracted from Neil Orpen’s excellent book “Prince Alfred’s Guard 1856 -1966” supplemented by extracts from The History of the E.H. Walton Group 1845 to 1995”
Prior to the invention of vaccines, swaths of prior generations of children were struck down by numerous maladies with poliomyelitis being one. One forgets how disabling polio was. Usually contracted as a child, one of the most visble manifestations arose when one’s leg was “shrivelled” preventing one from walking normally. Various forms of aids were constructed to mitigate the effects, but none was a panacea. Imagine when a child was placed in an iron lung to facilitate breathing. My father was struck down as a youth in the 1920s by polio but fortunately it was a mild strain. Nevertheless, his one leg was shorter and the one foot smaller than the other.
To prevent his children from contracting this debilitating disease, in an experiment reminiscent of Edward Jenner and the small-pox vaccine, one local doctor tested the polio vaccine on his own children as guinea pigs.
Man picture: Deformed limbs of children afflicted with polio
Facility for treatment
In lune 1938 an Orthopaedic Dept was opened at the Hospital under Dr Edward Colley and in April 1940 an E.P. branch of the National Council for the Care of Cripples was convened by NCW. As the Hospital was not equipped to handle long-term patients, they were compelled to send them home too soon.
Long term treatment
In August 1942, Mrs F.H. Holland raised the question of an Orthopaedic After-Care Home Society due to the fact that patients afflicted with EB of the bone, war injuries, and also polio, created patients needing long convalescence. The Council provided land in Conyngham Road, while the Nuffield Trust gave a grant for the building and E.H. Walton and Co gave £4000 to the Care for Cripples Fund on the occasion of the centenary of the Herald.
On 15 March 1947 Lady Walton, wife of the Chairman of EH Waltons (Pty) Ltd, the owners of the E.P. Herald laid the foundation stone of the new Walton Orthopaedic Home, designed by Siemerink and Brinkman, and it was opened on 11 November 1948 by Mrs Holland as President of the National Council of Child Welfare Societies.
Above: When poliomyelitis attacked the lungs, the young children were placed in these so-called “iron lungs” which assisted with their breathing.
Selection of guinea pigs
Even though society had been clamoring for a vaccine to prevent children from contracting the virus poliomyelitis, or “infantile paralysis,” for generations, fears were nevertheless raised about the possible negative effects of the vaccine developed by Dr. Salk. The production of a defective batch of vaccine did not assist in allaying the public’s concerns.
The number of people who were stricken made everyone aware of the scourge. The Medical Officer of Health for Port Elizabeth, Dr. D.L. Ferguson, was naturally keen to obtain the vaccine in order to vaccinate the children of Port Elizabeth as widely as possible and as a soon as possible.
So that he could gain ready public acceptance of vaccination, Dr. Ferguson approached his own daughter and son-in-law to seek their co-operation in allowing themselves and their two sons, his grandchildren, to be vaccinated. He was so confident of its safety that he had no qualms in persuading them, but it was, nonetheless, for them a decision not lightly taken. After much serious thought, they agreed and were vaccinated without, of course, any ill-effects. Based upon this test, Dr. Ferguson could easily persuade people of the wisdom of his plans for mass vaccination by telling them that he had “risked” vaccinating his own grandchildren.
Later years
By 1988 there was no longer a need for the Home, and it was closed and turned into offices.
The later oral vaccine was, of course, much easier to administer and has been very widely used so that today the disease has been eradicated. Unfortunately the world has witnessed the resurgence of diseases such as small-pox due to actions of the anti-vax mobs.
