Established during 1786, Graaff-Reinet is the fourth oldest magistrate district in South Africa. At the time, this town was also the most important Eastern Cape based interior centre of trade in South Africa in that it was on the route of many travellers, mainly to and from the Algoa Bay harbour.
Photographic history of the Cape is older compared to that of the other provinces. Following the invention of photography during 1827, Jules Léger is recorded as the first photographer active in South Africa, initially based in Port Elizabeth during 1846 and later Grahamstown and Cape Town.
In a recent article on the Pretoria based photographer JC Munro (click here to read), it was pointed out that Munro practiced the art of photography for some 50 years whilst based in Pretoria. There is at least one other South African based photographer that exceeds this, namely the Graaff-Reinet based photographer William Roe.
Roe resided in Graaff-Reinet for almost 57 years (1859 to 1916). During this period, he documented the growth and development of Graaff-Reinet by photographing a broad spectrum of topics and in doing so captured the social context as well as the history of the town - extensively so.
Roe also captured immensely valuable landscape images. Few photographers were willing to commit to taking landscape photographs due to the heavy photographic equipment that had to be carted around. Roe’s landscape photographs have been described as his best work. This article however only includes images originating from Roe’s studio work...
