A different view on current affairs & history
David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels. As a result, Livingstone became one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era.
Main picture: David Livingstone
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I thought the (Mis)Advent(ure) Calendar was to be the last SMAC for the year but, while popping antacid tablets like smarties after overindulging on Christmas eve with family and contemplating a huge Christmas lunch with friends, I was inspired by an aspect of Trump. Perhaps my distended stomach triggered an uncomfortable association with the detestable man.
Trump is a runaway shoo-in for the Republican nomination and he’s getting itchy bone spurs at the thought of sticking it to all his enemies when he returns to the White House. At his rallies, he has been testing out the various borderline dictatorial actions he will take and has found that his band of cult followers lap it up. With the exception of Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, all the Republican Grandees have obsequiously acceded to his de facto leadership and the Republicans have essentially become the party of Trump or a T party.
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South End, its people, its mosques and churches were all sacrificed on the altar of Apartheid. The people were relocated, a settled harmonious community was cast asunder, the buildings bulldozed. All except some places of religion escaped the carnage. Now in an island of destruction they represented no congregation as they had been transported to the northern most part of the metropole.
But survive they did. The Pier Street mosque suffered further threats as it forlornly stood erect in the path of the proposed freeway. It survived its near death experience as the route was amended to skirt the mosque but St. Peter’s Church barely survived as it was vandalised to within an inch of its life.
Main picture: A wantonly vandalised St. Peter’s Church
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In the nigh on 30 years of ANC misrule, it desperately tries to convince everyone and itself that it has done a good job. The two main metrics they quote are that they have rolled out electricity and water to virtually the whole population. True, but they are both running sores and for similar reasons – corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment.
Yes, they rejigged the racial distribution of wealth but mainly by making a few black people fabulously wealthy and giving a multitude of overpaid sinecures to black people in government while unemployment rose to amongst the worst in the world. Our consistently world beating GINI ratio changed from reflecting the black/white wealth divide to reflecting those who got to eat at the trough and those who missed out and are jobless and rely on a variety of grants.
By most other metrics, SA is a failing state.
Unfortunately, SMAC can offer no solace and only a cynical view of what will be a cheerless Christmas for many as they face a bleak time with nothing but Cyril’s platitudes to sustain them.
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Today New Brighton is a sprawling township between the Papenkuils River to the Fishwater Flats. But it was not always so. It commenced its modern life as a modest fishing village of a Settler Party from Deal in England who had high aspirations.
For the purposes of this blog, Deal Party and New Brighton have been combined as their histories are inextricably linked together. However this blog only covers the period 1820 to 1902 with a separate blog covering the period when it was converted into a Location.
Main picture: As there are no extant pictures of this era, I have included some related pictures instead. Photograph of a whale being cut up on North End beach. Supplied by Carol Victor of the NMBMPL.
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The meeting of the Khoikhoi – locally known as the Hottentots – and the white settlers in 1820 occurred on the day of their arrival as they were used to carry the settlers on their shoulders from their surfboats to the shore. How communication was possible is unknown but for good measure the Dutch farmers who were contracted to transport the settlers to Albany spoke neither Khoi nor English. Given the fact that the settlers arrived at the destination confirms that communication did occur, all be it, by means of gestures.
Of greater importance was the concept of housing. Simply put where did the Khoi stay? Being a nomadic people, the Khoikhoi would not have settled in one place but relocated as soon as the resources such as reeds or other resources were depleted in an area.
What has the discussion about housing have to do with a plague?
It will be made abundantly clear in a moment.
Main picture: The top of Hyman’s Kloof with Strangers’ Location in the background
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In unravelling the history of Port Elizabeth, very little is revealed about the history of black inhabitants of the area, with most problematic being that of the origins of the amaMfengu. For this purpose, it is assumed that the amaMfengu were those who had broken their allegiance with the amaXhosa chiefly families and decided to enter the Cape Colony and accept the laws and governance of the colonists.
Main picture: Beach labourers loading a surfboat with wool bales for onward transport to a ship at anchor in the roadstead
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Thomas Handfield arrived at Port Elizabeth as a 22-year-old settler from Ulcomb, Kent as part of Richard Daniell’s party. He later acquired land in the Baaken’s Valley on what is today Settler’s Park. In 1898 when the property was for sale, it was stated that the first colonial woolwashery had been located on this estate.
Main picture: Handfield’s Valley looking towards the sea
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In a town’s layout, topography matters and, in Port Elizabeth’s case, hugely important. Two geographical features guided the direction and type of development. These were the Baakens River valley and the steep hill immediately southwest of Main Street. Both factors impinged upon the direction and type of development.
Main picture: The Royal Engineer’s Map of 1810 shows the main roads of the pre-820 Settler era
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Sometime ago I wrote a blog about working in the motor industry during the 1920s in Port Elizabeth. This is a follow-up article on working life on the assembly line during the 1960s. Warwick Owen has kindly allowed me to use his article as the basis of this blog. As Warwick worked at SAMAD, the predecessor of VW, I have included a brief history of the company from its inception until Warwick is employed by the company in the 1960s
Main Picture: Original SAMAD Building
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