A different view on current affairs & history
Like a magnet, a murder or any barbaric act always draws the media’s attention. In the case of the “manless head” [the opposite of headless man] discovered on the Fishwater Flats in 1840, it certainly did. This case could have acquired the sobriquet “The Case of the Missing Corpse”
Main picture: View of Fishwater Flats
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Located between the Papenkuils and the Swartkops Rivers, New Brighton was established inside the Municipal Boundary of Port Elizabeth in 1901 in order to house the black residents of the inner-city locations such as Stranger’s and Gubb Locations’. The White property owners and ratepayers in these areas close to town had begun a process of were pressurising the Council to relocate the Black inhabitants of the locations from the inner-city areas to the outskirts of the town.
This blog will cover the history of New Brighton from this inflection point in the separation of residential areas.
Main picture: Semi-detached houses erected in New Brighton in 1912
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As a result of the poor state of the country roads, a trip by ox wagon to Graham’s Town – a distance of only 160 kms – would take eight days. The term road was a euphemism for a track through the bush, which through perpetual usage, had created a passage conforming to the contours, angle and levelness of the ground. No attempt had been made to remove boulders on the route or fill in depressions. Instead the road would skirt around such obstacles.
What roads were there and what was being done to address this issue?
Main picture: Typical condition of the rural main roads in the 1860s
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