Port Elizabeth of Yore: Chimneys as a Barometer of Progress

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

Today chimneys are viewed as a curse and a blight on one’s health and the environment. Unlikely as it now is seen, the filthy black smoke spewing out of these pencil-like structures was once viewed as the epitome of progress, a harbinger of wealth and prosperity.

As well-paying holiday jobs, chimney cleaning was a much-coveted job in the early 1970s when I was “recruited” to clean the chimneys of the Algorax factory at Swartkops. Even a half hour shower did not remove the fine granules from one’s skin pores!

Main picture: Henry Coleman’s steam mills with the first chimney

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: New Brighton – “A Model Native Settlement”

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 1 Comment

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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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Korsten – A Subtext for Freedom

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 3 Comments

Human nature seeks freedom and the best for themselves and their children. It is an innate urge. By now the dismal track record of politically motivated false choices should have been exposed as a chimera. So it was for Korsten. Instead of readily agreeing to their being relocated to the new “model township” of New Brighton, the black residents of the inner-city locations defied the authorities and moved to an unserviced area outside the municipal boundaries called Korsten.

Thus Korsten’s roots are nourished by the natural human desire for freedom.

Main picture: Elkana Street, a respectable area in Korsten where children play happily in the street

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Port Elizabeth of Yore: Albany Road formerly Cooper’s Kloof

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

For me and possibly other Port Elizabethians, the road up Cooper’s Kloof, commonly known as Albany Road, does not have the same prominence or cachet of either Russell or White’s Road. Nevertheless, it does serve as a vital arterial road carrying traffic both to Cape Road and through to Walmer via Target Kloof. 

Main picture: Albany Road in 1865

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