A different view on current affairs & history
Blogs on Port Elizabeth
Amongst Port Elizabeth’s civic minded businessmen, there was a local merchant Charles Frederick Kayser. Like many unfortunate residents, Kayser would also suffer a huge conflagration which would consume his posh house Glen Lynden in Park Drive.
Main picture: Park Drive. Glen Lynden on 26 Dec 1906 after the devastating fire of the previous night
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Alfred Herbert Brookes will not be remembered for his stints as Town Councillor, Mayor or parliamentarian representing Port Elizabeth and he will probably also not be remembered for his numerous bequests to various bodies but should be remembered for his bequests for the improvement of Humewood.
Even if he not remembered for his philanthropy, he will be remembered as Brookes’ Hill is named after him.
Main picture: Camping on Brookes Hill in the 1920s
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This blog provides a skeletal biography of every City / Town Engineer that Port Elizabeth has ever employed except for three engineers viz Wicksteed, Butterworth and Clayton. In those cases, I have written a detailed blog on each one.
Main picture: John Hamilton Wicksteed
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What all local and central government authorities suffer from in the new South Africa is not only the blatant criminality in the form of corruption and nepotism but the appointment of wholly incompetent and corruptible employees. As a direct consequence, the signs of decay and neglect are visible everywhere.
The vignette below highlights and underscores the requirement to uphold not only the laws and bylaws but the ethos imbued and distilled in them as well as their enforcement, otherwise collapse is inevitable. The fastidious nature of the previous brand of civil servant such as Arthur Clayton embodied these concepts which ensured the optimum functioning of society.
“This morning, I heard the sound of rushing water and went to investigate. I found that because of the water restrictions, a furrow had been dug from the tap into the flower beds. The tap was gushing. Was this wrong though? A hose was not in use”. It was yet another ironic moral and legal problem for Arthur James Clayton, City Engineer of Port Elizabeth, the man who was obliged to ban, albeit temporarily, the use of garden hoses except for an hour a week. He solved it with characteristic directness. “I told my mother to turn the tap off immediately.” he said.
This example albeit petty was the moral dilemma personified.
Main picture: Arthur Clayton
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Being Port Elizabeth born and bred and being the descendant of prominent 1820 stock, the fact that “other people” could have inhabited this area prior to the arrival of the 1820 Settlers never crossed my mind. Ironically, I was disabused of the notion that the original residents of the area were English speaking people from England, or Ireland in my case, when I accepted the notion that the khoikhoi predated the Whites by perhaps 10,000 years.
In due course, i.e. years later, the realisation dawned that the Afrikaner must have played a role in the creation of town even if it was not as significant as the English settlers. This epiphany arose when I asked myself a simple question, “How did the Afrikaans place names such as Buffelsfontein, Nooitgedagt and Welbedacht arise?
The fact that the arrival of the Trekboers was in the 1770s led me to a fuller understanding of the people of this part of South Africa and the role that they played in it.
Main picture: Trekboers
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During the 1800s the area known today as Hobie Beach was originally called The Fishery. As the coast south of the harbour was rocky and inland of the shore was covered with fine, soft sand dunes into which ones feet would sink much like into a soft jelly, the direct coastal route was considered impassable. Instead, a circuitous route which bypassed this sand belt, was created. It was this road that was the improvised roadway known as the old Fishery Road which vended its way inland before making a sharp left turn towards the sea.
As The Fishery was the centre of a thriving fishing and whaling operation, its lifeline to civilisation was via this non-descript road for over half a century. It should be noted that minor adjustments were made to this route, the Mark 2 version, which did reduce its length. However, there was never access to the Fishery along the beach, but only by the overland “Fishery Road“.
Main picture: Map of the Fishery Road
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Butterworth, a civil engineer by training, played a key role in the development of the town. The Fire Brigade also fell under his remit during the period of growth and professionalisation of this service.
Implicit in the fact that Butterworth was involved with many of Port Eizabeth’s most pestigious and technological projects during that age, it should be acknowledged that he was the right person in the right place at the right time.
Main picture: Arthur Butterworth at the Military Road Fire Station
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The first Mormon missionaries from the United States arrived at the Cape in 1853 and several months later were propagating their new doctrine in the Eastern Cape. The two leading converts were Eli Wiggill and Henry Talbot. As the epicentre of the religion was Salt Lake City, Utah in the USA, the converts decided to relocate to America.
Only three unusual incidents regarding Mormon members will be covered in this blog.
Main picture: Mormons arriving in the new land – Amerixa
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Up until the outbreak of the Anglo Boer War, Port Elizabeth had never been inundated with refugees. However the ABW was another matter altogether. This situation arose due to the fact that the “Uitlanders” or foreigners were at the heart of the dispute between the Boer Republics and the British Empire. Being a British colony and as they were often English subjects, the Cape Colony was morally obliged and responsible to assist the refugees.
Main picture: Refugees from the Boer War living in cattle stalls
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Two members of the Geard family gained prominence in Port Elizabeth – Charles Geard and his son John Geard. Despite the blog’s title, it will encompass the lives of both Geards. The death of John Geard was an “inconvenient” loss because at the time of his death he was compiling a biography of their lives. Such a loss inevitably reduces the depth of the resulting end product. So it is in this case.
This blog encompasses the two segments of John’s life; first the autobiographical section and then the rest of his life recreated by the author of the biography A Memoir of the Late John Geard from “scraps of paper, correspondence and newspaper clippings“.
Main picture: John Geard
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