In South Africa and especially within Port Elizabeth, the picture of Grey High School is evocative of high academic standards and sporting prowess. The dream of every parent in Port Eliabeth is that their child would step inside the portals of this iconic school. All except one. The parents of my brother, Blaine, who was awarded a bursary to Grey due to his academic achievements at Hubert Hurd Primary School, but my parents rejected the offer. So, he never graced the portals of the school.

Main picture: Grey High School

In the 25 years since the arrival of the 1820 Settlers, Grahamstown had been larger than Port Elizabeth. To many, especially those in Grahamstown, this seemed to be preordained. Many relished the idea of a harbour on the Kowie River as this would undermine Port Elizabeth’s only supposed advantage in the development stakes.  

By 1850 Port Elizabeth was clearly in the ascendancy with vibrant growth and its enterprising mein. From now on, Port Elizabeth would be Grahamstown’s bete noir.

Main picture: Market Square

Port Elizabeth’s dams in order of date constructed

Main picture: Churchill Dam (now called the Kromme Dam although nobody really uses that name) is fed by the Kromme River. Commissioned in 1943

On the second anniversary of the establishment of the Port Elizabeth public library, the Rev. Francis McCleland was requested to deliver the main address at the Commercial Hall on the 4^th July 1851.  The title of his talk was The Progress and Advantages of Literature. At a later stage, somebody deemed it necessary to release this 30-page address in booklet form. In the hope – perhaps forlorn – that it would provide an insight into the character of my great great grandfather or the milieu of that era, I obtained a copy of this book.

Main picture: Cover of the book

A Port is defined as a town or a city with a harbour making Sir Rufane Donkin’s christening of the hamlet on the sweeping littoral in Algoa Bay as a Port presumptuous as it would be 50 years before the first stage of North Jetty would be constructed in the 1870s. In a country of modest means conflated with political considerations, Port Elizabeth would have to wait another 60 years until a fully-fledged harbour was built in the 1930s.

Nonetheless, the residents were extremely proud of their jetties with their outmoded modus operandi. So as not to be mired in resentment and anger, instead they transformed this old technology into an efficient methodology with which they were justifiably proud.

Main picture: Surfboats landing on the landing beach