A different view on current affairs & history
Blogs on Port Elizabeth
This is a comprehensive history of Volkswagen South Africa. It is not based on research as it is direct copy off the internet. As the original source cannot be traced, I have been unable to attribute it to the authors.
Main picture: The SAMAD plant in 1950
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Today chimneys are viewed as a curse and a blight on one’s health and the environment. Unlikely as it now is seen, the filthy black smoke spewing out of these pencil-like structures was once viewed as the epitome of progress, a harbinger of wealth and prosperity.
As well-paying holiday jobs, chimney cleaning was a much-coveted job in the early 1970s when I was “recruited” to clean the chimneys of the Algorax factory at Swartkops. Even a half hour shower did not remove the fine granules from one’s skin pores!
Main picture: Henry Coleman’s steam mills with the first chimney
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Initially it was conceived that the main use of electricity would for lighting as prior to the arrival of electricity, human activity virtually ceased at sunset. Before the age of domestic appliances, there were few uses for electrical power other than for lighting. To solve this drawback, gas had been introduced but its use had never gained traction.
This blog details the various attempts at generating electricity in Port Elizabeth, initially by means of generators and then later by means of a power station. In the case of Port Elizabeth, the first power station was erected at the foot of Mount Road.
Main picture: Installing overhead electricity cables
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Growth in electricity demand in Port Elizabeth surged by greater than double digits for most of the first fifty years of supply. This was primarily as a consequence of vigorous industrial expansion. Once the Mount Road Power Station was unable to meet the power demands of the rapidly growing town, the Swartkops Power Station was constructed in the early 1950s. Both plants had an exemplary service record in being able to meet demand 24/7/365. Apart from some minor incidents and two major incidents of which I am aware of, and excluding the recent load shedding, the whole system has only been down twice for an extended period.
This blog details these two major incidents and what the implication of a system crash is.
Main picture: Eskom transmission lines
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By now, the winning technology is well known. Even though gas for lighting and many other uses was introduced a half century prior to its competitor, electricity’s versatility ensured that it would be the ultimate winner in the lighting stakes. Gas would never completely disappear as it filled certain niche markets. Even in those countries in which natural gas is abundant, it is still chiefly used to generate electricity.
Main picture: The North End Gas Works as it was in the 1900s.
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Maybe not quite as prominent as the Mosenthal family in 19th century Port Elizabeth, but the Richardson’s were a close second. Similarities abound between the two families; both were Jewish immigrants who operated in the agricultural sector and both introduced innovations into their market segment and operated locally and internationally. Even their headquarters were contiguous to one another in Market Square. Mosenthals occupied the corner premises of Jetty and North Union Street whereas Richardson’s building was next door in North Union Street.
At the risk of overstatement, these two Port Elizabeth entrepreneurs were in the top tier of those companies which were largely instrumental in Port Elizabeth’s rise as an economic force in the 19th and early 20th century.
Let me introduce the Richardson’s and some of their businesses.
Main picture: Richardson’s head office in Market Square
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Historically the arrival of the 1820 Settlers obscures the fact that Algoa Bay, as the outpost was then called, had already been settled; by not many, however. In total there were no more than a dozen farms, but they covered the whole area from Cape Recife to the Gamtoos River and they were occupied by Dutch speaking Afrikaners. Amongst this hardy band of Trek Boers was Thomas Ignatius Ferreira. Of Portuguese extraction, his father is the progenitor of the vast Ferreira family in South Africa.
Ferreira settled in Algoa Bay 44 years prior to the arrival of the 1820 settlers and was banished from the area 17 years before the settlers arrival.
Main picture: 1803 Gesigt van Fort Frederick en Algoa Baai by Willem Bartolome Eduard Paravicini Di Cappelli
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When I first saw the photograph with this prominent sign on the building in North End, presumably Queen Street, advertising “Richardson’s Wool Washery and Carbonising Works”, I was perplexed. How does the process of carbonising operate and why is it performed?
I sent my ever-willing technical editor scurrying off to answer another inane question and this is the result.
Main picture: Richardson’s works
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After badgering the authorities since the mid-1850s, finally a dream would come true for Port Elizabeth, the quintessential triumph of the human spirit over adversity. An enclosed harbour would finally be constructed instead of cargo being transshipped in fragile surfboats to and from ships in the roadstead. Churning wind-swept seas prevented transfer of cargo for days at a time and in the windy October month, weeks could be lost. Despite the primitive nature of this method, Port Elizabeth held records as the most productive roadstead “port” in the world. Like the hansom cab being supplanted by the car, so the roadstead would be replaced by quays, breakwater and the accoutrements of quayside loading and unloading.
To celebrate this transition, a festival entitled Harbour Day was organised for Saturday 28th October 1933.
Main picture: Ceremony on the opening of the Charl Malan Quay. The H.M.S. Dorsetshire was the first vessel to dock at this quay
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Large quantities of rock and stone are only required for extensive civil engineering projects. The first project to require such quantities was the construction of the abortive breakwater in the 1860s. Even greater quantities were required for the new breakwater and quays in the 1920s and 1930s.
With the second and third wave of buildings on the southern side of Main Street, copious quantities of rock were generated. As this construction did not coincide with harbour construction and an alternative use could not be found for this material, it was merely dumped into the Baakens Lagoon, converting the lagoon into a narrow canalised stream.
Main picture: Thomas Bowler’s painting the railway line ferrying stone from the quarry in St. Mary’s cemetery to the breakwater being constructed south of the Baakens River. Interestingly, the painting shows the rail link running through the graveyard.
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