Port Elizabeth, like so many South African towns, suffered severe water shortages as it developed during the 19th century. It was the duty of John Gamble, the Colonial Hydraulic Engineer, to sort out such problems, and for PE his solution was to build a weir on the Van Stadens River, linked to the town by a 30-mile-long pipeline. John Hamilton Wicksteed, AMICE was selected for the post of Resident Engineer and arrived in Algoa Bay on 29 December 1877 aboard the vessel "Edinburgh Castle".
John Hamilton Wicksteed
Wicksteed, born at Leeds on 21 January 1851, was the fifth son of the Reverend Charles Wicksteed. When he was fourteen he was sent to the University College School in London. Two years later he was articled to the engineer Edward Filliter, MICE, of Leeds, with whom he remained as a pupil and assistant for a period of ten years and by whom he was employed on several works of water supply and sewerage engineering.
It is interesting to read his comments on seeing Port Elizabeth for the first time: “Port Elizabeth, I am sorry to say is rather like a quarry in outward appearance. Nothing more uninviting could be conceived: ugly houses and warehouses, and broad, hot streets creeping up the side of the hill, and not a spot of green anywhere.”
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