Carol Hardijzer

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...

Worldwide early photographs have enjoyed a restoration to their rightful position in the history of art, photography and people – especially in Europe, America and Australia. Sadly, antique photographs (more than 100 years old) are still insufficiently preserved and appreciated in South Africa.

At the very start of photography (from the early 1840s to the end of the 1860s), cased Daguerreotype and Ambrotype photographic portraits were fashionable. From the early 1860s onwards they were however soon replaced by the Victorian photo album.

With the modern-day accent on pictorialism, rather than history and genealogy, these albums are being unnecessarily thrown away as “useless junk” largely due to indifference – valuable content included.

Long gone is the sentimental attachment to the Victorian photographic album, yet some of them have fortunately survived and continue surfacing occasionally.

Due to the age of these albums (more than 100 years old), plus general neglect, they are difficult to find in good condition. In most of the surviving albums, the inner pages are torn due to both old age and the modern owners not understanding how to remove photographs from the pages (a tricky exercise in itself) and when attempting to do so causing tears which often cannot be restored.

Fortunately, restoration by reputable book restorers is still possible in instances where the back has come off, clasps are missing or tears appear in the surrounding leather.

The author has made it his task to preserve and restore any Victorian album found in South Africa that is relatively...

Distinctly superior compared to many other photographs, the lady in the photograph is elegant and clearly a well-to-do individual. The name inscribed in the album – Hilda Duckitt - Who is she? 

In a pre-1910 photographic family album recently acquired by the author, two images were found of Hildagonda (Hilda) Duckitt taken at different stages in her life. 

Prior to 1915, names of sitters would have been recorded in less than 10 percent of instances, be that on the actual photograph itself or via an inscription in the photograph album. Where a name has been recorded, it is often worthwhile researching. 

Much information is available on the internet about Hilda. The purpose of this article is purely to share the photographic images of her with a brief synopsis of the information already contained on the internet. 

She was South Africa’s first celebrity chef!

She is described as the dame of Cape cuisine, celebrated hostess, homely spirit and matriarch of the Duckitt family. She was born at Groote Post (Darling) on 21 February 1839 and baptized during August 1839. It is recorded that she spent more than half her life at this historic farm. 

Hilda published two books, namely:

• "Hilda's 'Where Is It?' of Recipes" (published 1891) - Containing, amongst other practical and tried recipes, many old Cape, Indian and Malay dishes and preserves. The same book also includes guidance on how to polish furniture or cleaning silk as well as a collection of home remedies in case of illness.
• "Hilda's...

In a previous article on the Neilson brothers, the author states: “It is still not clear whether the Neilson brothers were South African or potentially foreign photographers who saw a commercial opportunity in photographing the South Africa deep-level mines.”

The veil around who the two brothers were has now been lifted by Jim Read, who resides in Sparta, Georgia, USA. After reading the original article published on The Heritage Portal (click here to read), he established contact with the author. Jim is currently conducting his own genealogical research.

Jim kindly shared family information available to him around the Neilson brothers plus adding additional information about his own grandfather, James Wilbur Read, who was also cited in the above-mentioned article. 

In short: - J. Wilbur Read and the Neilson brothers are family, all originating from the USA.

J. (James) Wilbur Read (1866 – 1946)

James Wilbur Read was born in Farm Ridge, LaSalle County, Illinois, USA and was a second cousin to the Neilson brothers.  

First landing in South Africa during 1899, aged 33, his emigration documents (dated 12 September 1899) listed his occupation as “Newspaper”.  He had been living in Chicago at the time and presumably came to South Africa as a journalist to report on the Boer War. On his arrival in South Africa, Charles Butler Neilson (the eldest of the Neilson brothers) signed James Wilbur’s “identification” documentation. At that stage Charles Neilson had been in South Africa for some two and a half years...

Historians, researchers and collectors often come across situations of surviving family members having thrown away or having destroyed historical family documents and photographs as they may either have no sentimental interest or simply cannot relate to their relative’s historical past. Sadly, in these instances, no thought is given to donating such documentation / items to charity organisations where researchers and collectors in turn can “scratch” out relevant material to record potential significant historical information that may be contained therein.

The author was given a box containing a variety of documentation some two years ago, the content of which all relates to a young man, Gerardus Bodde, dating from between 1911 and 1918.

This box, containing photographs, letters, certificates, newspaper and magazine cuttings, was picked up at a Johannesburg rubbish dump some 20 years ago, and retained with the intention of conducting research – a task the author gladly accepted when the find was brought to his attention. Accolades to the couple who had the intuition and foresight to comprehend the potential historical value of the content of the box.

Stories such as these are always strengthened where photographs are included. If there were no photographs included in the box, the author himself would probably not have been “attracted” to the content in any way. 

Some 85% of the information contained in this article was extracted from the content of the box whilst the remaining 15% was obtained from the South African National Archives or the author’s own photographic research collection (one picture postcard).

Gerardus Bodde, a first...

The value of the photographic postcard, a unique historical document in itself, has been vastly underestimated by historians. Today, these types of photographs are of immense value in both photographic as well as social historical research.

It was not until recently that the author himself started to incorporate these long-undervalued photographic formats, also commonly referred to as the Real Photo Postcard (RPPC), into his own photographic research collection.

The author conducts research on South African photographic history prior to 1915 and therefore had to consider including any South African Real Photo Postcard produced between around 1902 and 1915 into his research field to obtain a broader perspective around professional photographer activity during this period.

The first permanent photographic image was introduced in the Daguerreotype format (around the 1840's), followed by the Ambrotype, then the paper based versions of the Carte-de-Visite, Cabinet cards and stereo cards, with the tintype somewhere in between. The Real Photographic Postcard format was only introduced post these photographic formats around 1902 and remained popular until the 1930’s. RPPCs had significant advantages, the main one being that they were easier to produce than the photographic formats mentioned above. Local photographers quickly introduced this format as part of their service offerings.

A whole range of human experiences were photographically captured and produced on the RPPC. Although described as “all-time most popular photographic format” in the USA, the author is not convinced that this holds true in the South African context in that the number and variety of these...

Huge was the surprise when the author received multiple enquiries on a Prisoner of War (PoW) camp photograph that was included in a recent article on photography during the Anglo-Boer war (click here to view).

This Diyatalawa PoW camp photograph has the names of all 54 men captured on the back thereof (See Photo 5 below).

This unexpected interest confirms that genealogical research and natural curiosity around family links and history, even some 120 years after the event, are alive and well.

The intention of this article is therefore twofold, namely to list the names of the sitters identified in these 6 group photographs in order to assist current and future researchers and also to briefly reflect on the photographic activity at these PoW camps.

Prisoner of war camps

Around 24 000 boer prisoners were transported to various overseas camps. During this period some 577 men perished either at sea or in the camps – mainly due to natural causes. It has been recorded that the eldest prisoner was 78 at the time whilst the youngest was 7 years old. Camps existed in South Africa, Bermuda, St. Helena, Ceylon, India and Portugal.

Camp photographers

Although much has been published by historians about life and activities in these various PoW camps, little is known about professional photographers active in these camps. It is thought that the majority of these would have had no direct link to South Africa and that they were based in the countries or on the islands...

Joseph Calder Munro, a Scot by birth, made a significant contribution to Pretoria’s photographic history. Many of his photographs have survived and can be found in various national and private research collections. Photographs produced by him still surface on a regular basis - mainly at antique fairs.

After completing training and an internship in England, Munro continued his photographic career in Pretoria during 1890 (then aged 25), some 15 years after Pretoria’s first photographer the Swiss HF Gros established himself in Pretoria (click here for details).

Although he was not the first photographer to settle in Pretoria, he became known as one of the more prolific portrait photographers of his time. Many well-known personalities and leading citizens of the capital frequented his studios.

Amongst all those that attempted to earn a living from photography during Pretoria’s earlier years, Munro was the longest practising photographer – Some 50 years! His activity ranges from 1890 to 1940 (until the time of his death).

Two different poses. Why is it that men were typically seated during portrait photography sessions during this era? It has been suggested that it was protocol in those years, mainly for the female to show off her dress. Couple on the right have been recorded as Piet and Marta Rautenbach.

Scottish background...

Which one of the two above is the happier sitter? Would it be old Hottentot on the left (Carte-de-Visite photograph by Port Elizabeth based photographer J.E. Bruton- Circa 1878) or the lady with the comical facial expression (Carte-de-Visite format photograph – photographer unknown – Circa 1880)? Psychology students often have to attempt to link an emotion to the expression observed in others. Could her expression be viewed as anger, disgust, embarrassment or simply laughter that is being suppressed?

In the author’s vast photographic research collection, there are a number of photographs that deviate from the formal, dull or even stoic studio photographs produced during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Some of these simply have to be shared.

This article contains some images that may be of interest from both a humorous or curiosity perspective. Granted, some of the humour is purely from the viewer’s perspective. What one views to be humorous or even curious, another may not. Irrespective, the images included deviate from photographic norms in existence then.

Looking at photographs from the Victorian area and beyond, people are hardly seen smiling. Every-one looks so serious. Although it has been suggested that poor dental hygiene was the reason for this, the real reason was long exposure times which made holding a smile difficult.

The resultant images make it seem that there was no joy in their lives or that they could not have fun. Although they may have had their own social, political or economical challenges, they would have been full...

In researching this article, it became evident that hardly any photographer active during the Anglo-Zulu War (AZW) period has been written about. In the majority of sources consulted, photographers also generally have not been acknowledged where their work was used – be that as photographers out in the field or studio based photographers. This may be a simple matter of us not being aware of who the photographers were in the majority of instances. AZW photographic activity is therefore still a field with much research opportunities – this almost 140 years after the event.

Although hand-held cameras of the late 1870’s became more widely used in South Africa, they generally would not have ventured into Zululand by then.

Fewer soldiers would also have carried cameras during the AZW compared to the Anglo-Boer war some 20 years later. Photography during the 1870’s was a slow and difficult process appealing mainly to the professional photographer.

It was also impossible to take action photographs of any battle in progress resulting in the images available showing posed groups or views of historical sites taken some months later.

A large portion of images produced during the Anglo-Boer war would have been taken by soldiers and citizens alike, whereas the majority of images originating from the AZW period would have been produced by the more professionally inclined field and studio photographers. The AZW also took place over a much shorter period compared to the Anglo-Boer war, resulting in fewer images being produced compared to the latter...