A different view on current affairs & history
Blogs on Port Elizabeth
Today this little-known hotel has escaped from the memories of even the oldest residents of Port Elizabeth. Yet in 1821 it was the very first hotel to be established in the town.
Main picture: View from Scorey’s Hotel in 1835 painted by Lt William Vernon Guise
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By the 1890s, Port Elizabeth Port Elizabeth possessed four Locations: Strangers’ Location off Russell Road, Cooper’s Location off Albany Road, the Reservoir Location off Mount Road and Gubb’s Location in Mill Park. Despite immense pressure from white residents to relocate the residents to Locations further from white residential areas, this had never materialised mainly due to inertia and cost.
Events after the turn of the century would ultimately witness the actualisation of these dreams and the clearing of the original western Locations.
Main picture: Burning of huts in Stranger’s Location in 1903
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It was only subsequent to the establishment of the first Location in Port Elizabeth – Strangers’ Location – that the pattern of future residential developments in Port Elizabeth would become apparent.
This blog deals with the trials and tribulations of the African population in their quest for accommodation in the rapidly expanding town of Port Elizabeth as their needs were increasingly subordinated to those of the larger white community. Both were settlers in a new land, yet the Africans were allocated tiny pockets of land at the extremities of the white residential area, required for their labour but otherwise to be hidden from view.
Main picture: In the 1800s, the first Location was called Strangers Location, in what is now Richmond Hill, between Campbell and Stanley streets
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At the risk of overstatement, dynamite was characterised as being extremely volatile in prior centuries. Just like Johannesburg, where the explosives factory was established at Modderfontein which was originally located far outside the municipal boundaries, so it was in the rest of South Africa. This blog deals with how Port Elizabeth dealt with this risk or in modern parlance, its Risk Mitigation Strategy, during the 19th century.
Main picture: Overhead ropeway to transport the explosives from the landing stage to the magazines of the various importing companies
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This is a definitive list of all 238 vessels which were sunk of Algoa Bay from the period 1552 to 1984.
Main picture: 1902 Gale with wrecked sailing ships on the North End beach
Francis Henry Carpenter might not have been at the pinnacle of mid-nineteenth century society, but he certainly was in the upper echelons of the nascent colonial community. Apart from his prominence in business circles, he was also a churchwarden at St Mary’s church for over a decade. Carpenter’s son-in-law, David Grey Devenish, had a successful business in Port Elizabeth until one day in the early 1890s, he and his family abruptly “absconded” from town, eventually settling in America. Was David Devenish attempting to evade justice and, if so, why?
Most of the information and photos for this blog have been provided by David’s great great grandson, George Sauvigne, of Florida, America.
Main picture: The house in which the Carpenter family lived circa 1880s at 95 Pearson Street
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The name Samuel Makama Martin Masabalala is not well-known in Port Elizabeth nor is the fact that twenty-four people were killed in what subsequently became known as the Masabalala Riots of 1920.
What is the background to this massacre and what triggered this deadly train of events?
Main picture: Scene outside the Baakens Police Station
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Main picture: The Bank of Africa
As Port Elizabeth is prone to violent south-easter wind storms in the latter half of the year, optimism that there would not be a repeat of the 1902 disaster was profoundly misplaced.
1903’s storm season would test whether the rescue services were adequately prepared when nature would once again do its damnedest. Timeless lessons would once again be learnt and relearnt. Would the authorities once again be assailed by a raft of criticism for their maladroit handling of the situation, be damned with faint praise or receive a chorus of approval?
Only time would tell.
Main picture: Rescuers go out on the line during the gale of November 1903
The Ango-Boer War, or as it now known, the South African War, might not have physically ravished the town, yet it did affect Port Elizabeth in manifold ways. The denial of the right to citizenship of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal Republic was the ostensible reason for the declaration of war by Paul Kruger on Britain on the 11th October 1899.
Main picture: No. 2 Remount Depot
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