James Ball

Pritchard Street is one of Johannesburg’s iconic streets. For many decades, the most prestigious shops in the city craved a Pritchard Street address and shoppers came from all over South Africa to marvel at the latest goods and fashions from around the world. By the 1970s, the rise of suburban malls saw a major shift in shopping patterns with upmarket customers abandoning the historic retail district. This shift in buying behaviour led to the closure of landmark department stores such as John Orrs and Stuttafords.

Pritchard Street adapted to changing customer needs but few could argue that by the 1980s the era of glitz and glamour was well over. With the general decline of the CBD in the late 1990s and early 2000s many buildings on the street fell into disrepair while others operated well below their potential. In recent years, however, a revival has been underway and if you walk along Pritchard Street today it is hard not to get excited about all the activity!

On the corner of Pritchard and Rissik Streets, Afhco has completed a residential conversion of the Stuttafords Building. Over 100 units have been created many with magnificent views over the city.

Stuttafords - restored in 2015-16 (The Heritage Portal)

Next door to Stuttafords as you move eastwards is the Game Building painted in the colours of the South African flag. While...

For many years, members of the heritage community have been talking about establishing guidelines for the blue plaque world. For a variety of reasons none have yet been set but renewed efforts appear to be emerging in Johannesburg. To aid the discussion we thought it would be helpful to publish the results of a survey we conducted during February and March 2014. 

The purpose of the questionnaire was to get a preliminary idea of how people would feel about the establishment of an enabling body for plaquing across the country. Key questions included whether or not minimum 'blue plaque criteria' should be set, if yes how these should be set, who should approve a blue plaque application, what role should an enabling body play, how this body should be funded etc.

If you have any thoughts on the matter please add them to the comments section at the bottom of the article.

2014 Blue Plaques Survey Results

Should formal minimum criteria be set for a site to receive a blue plaque?

44 questionnaires were submitted. Every person agreed that minimum criteria should be set (some qualified their answers). The follow up question asked respondents to explain their answer. Below are a few responses:

• As a tourist, when I travel, I'd like to know the meaning behind something. It will be confusing if everyone does his or her own thing
• Otherwise the plaque is meaningless. Every building could have one.
• Yes, they need to be special, so go to deserving places, not...

In the middle of August 2016 employees from South 32 began the move from the landmark 6 Hollard Street in downtown Johannesburg to offices in the Worley Parsons Building in Melrose Arch. The move marks the end of a long and historic association that the firm (via its predecessors) has had with the Johannesburg CBD.

Old South 32 Head Office at 6 Hollard Street (previously the BHP Billiton / Gencor Head Office)

Worley Parsons Building Melrose Arch (The Heritage Portal)

South 32 was established in 2015 when it was unbundled from BHP Billiton but its origins go back to 1895 when the General Mining and Finance Company was formed. After a long and complex corporate battle in the 1970s, General Mining acquired Union Corporation (founded in 1897 as A Goertz and Company) and the General Mining Union Corporation Ltd. was born (known as Gencor by 1980). In 1994, after lengthy negotiations, Gencor took control of Billiton from Shell to become a global giant. Then in 2001 Billiton merged with BHP to become one of the biggest diversified mining companies in the world. This very...

Last month we published an article from the Restorica archives where the author spoke about the power of excursions to heritage sites to inspire the youth (click here to read). We are sure most readers can remember at least one phenomenal trip during their childhood that has left an impact to this day. Over the last few weeks we have been sent some wonderful stories and photographs of recent adventures.

The stand out submission came from Holly Muggeridge from Riverview Prep School in Malalane. Teachers from the school arranged a visit for Grade 4 and 5 pupils to the landmark Samora Machel Monument and Museum near Mbuzini (commemorating the air crash that killed the Mozambican President, top government officials and Soviet airmen in 1986). Muggeridge was so moved by the experience and the explanation of the Monument’s design and symbolism that as soon as she arrived home she set about building a scale model. This was not part of an assignment set by teachers but a spontaneous reaction to what she had seen and felt on the trip. She also experimented with various sounds for a video recreating the wailing sound that the Monument makes when the wind blows (architect José Forjaz placed small holes in the steel tubes to create this sound). If this wasn’t enough Muggeridge turned from artist and director to journalist, recording how her fellow students had experienced the outing. It is truly amazing to see how the excursion acted as a catalyst for a creative explosion...

A while back we spent a few hours paging through the 1904 Minutes of the Johannesburg Town Council (still a town at that stage). It was a remarkable experience travelling back in time and imagining what life was like for people from all walks of life when Joburg was still a teenager. Below is a short selection of some ordinary and extraordinary events from 1904.

A Smallpox Scare

In mid 1904 a man named Mtumbela died of smallpox in Charlestown. This caused some panic among council officials as he was employed by a company based in Anderson Street. Urgent instructions were sent to disinfect the company’s premises and to ensure that all employees were vaccinated.

As more information emerged the chances of an outbreak seemed minimal. Mtumbela had been out of town for some time and no cases had been reported in the interim. Nevertheless, with outbreaks in the Orange River Colony and Natal happening at the time, the Council put stringent measures in place to increase the vaccination rate across the town.

Norwood Petition

The year 1904 brought good news for the residents of Orange Grove and those wishing to travel to the suburb’s famous Hotel: the Council had approved funding for the construction of a tramline. The proposed extension of the line from the Hotel to the southern boundary of Norwood was, however, rejected. Residents of Norwood were incensed and sent a petition with 80 signatures to the Council. The Council’s response to this petition and others was minuted as follows:

After...

In August 1988 an article appeared in The Star with the headline 'Sandton historians seeking facts about mystery man'. Researchers from the Sandton Historical Association (SHA) had found a neglected grave in the veld just off Sloane Street in Bryanston but knew nothing of ‘John Richard Davis, born 8th December 1876, Died at Craigieburn, 25th May 1948’. The case generated significant interest and caught the attention of Davis’ daughter Molly Steel and others who helped researchers to build a picture of Bryanston’s mystery man.

Davis grew up in Rossacarbery, County Cork in Ireland, was schooled in England and completed a Diploma in Engineering while studying in Glasgow in the 1890s. The reasons why he came to South Africa at the turn of the century are unclear but according to Steel he arrived ‘with only 6d in his pocket… and spent it on a cup of coffee!’ He worked on the mines for many years before starting a spare parts business, specialising in Austin engines, in Motortown in 1920. The same year he met and married Nora Coventry from Bergville, Natal. The couple had Molly in 1923 but separated a few years later.

By the mid 1930s Davis was a wealthy man thanks to hard work and the rapid growth of the motor industry. Along with his partner John Macrae, he established Craigieburn, a grand hunting estate located to the east of where the Bryanston CBD is today. He was active on the social scene and counted many affluent Johannesburg citizens...

The 50th floor of the Carlton Centre was once known as the Carlton Panorama. It opened in the early 1970s as a whites-only facility in a vastly different context to the one in which it was planned. Tough economic times replaced the boom of the 1950s and 1960s and the apartheid regime was coming under increasing pressure - internally and externally - to implement reforms. In this context the Carlton Centre management team applied to the government for permission to open the Panorama to all races at all times emphasising the ‘international appeal’ of the complex.

The approval of the application was held up by government red tape leading to Carlton Centre officials having to turn away many professional ‘non-whites’ who were barred from the facility according to the laws of the country. After months of tenacious effort, the team secured the necessary approvals and people of all races were able to visit the viewing deck. This was only a partial victory, however, as petty apartheid still operated in force with separate toilets for the races and ‘non-whites’ barred from eating at the Wimpy restaurant.

In early 1975 a protest occurred at the Carlton Panorama when a large group of 'coloured' adults accompanied by an even larger group of children entered the deck and demanded to be seated at the Wimpy. Sympathetic officials explained that the laws of the country did not permit this. As the situation become heated, Nigel Mandy (Manager of the Carlton) was called to the scene. He attempted to diffuse...

The following article, adapted from James Ball's 2012 masters dissertation, looks at the practical compromise made by the apartheid government and the Johannesburg City Council not to 'relocate' black communities living in Pimville in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is a bit heavy in places but a fascinating read nonetheless.

In 1904, after the outbreak of bubonic plague near present day Newtown, the African population in the area was moved to the farm Klipspruit twelve miles south west of the city. This settlement became Johannesburg’s first municipal location and in 1934 was renamed Pimville (after Howard Pim, a man who had dedicated a large part of his life to the ‘upliftment’ of Africans in Johannesburg).

A graph of plague cases (1905 Plague Report)

In the early 1950s a planning committee chaired by Mr FE Mentz responded to complaints from white residents in surrounding areas and recommended that the Potchefstroom road and railway be the dividing line between black and white (see map above and below). As Pimville fell on the ‘white’ side of this line the committee recommended its removal – a long-term project - so that ‘tensions between the races could be eliminated’.

Position of Pimville

The Johannesburg City Council appealed for the retention of Pimville as it was in the process of considering...

Every day thousands of people pass Sandton's first monument without realising it is there. On a small piece of land tucked away near the top of South Road lie the graves of some of the original settlers in the area and the monument erected in their honour. The Esterhuysen family owned the farm Zandfontein in the middle of the 19th century. It is on a portion of this farm that the modern skyscrapers of Sandton have emerged. Below are a few passages from various old Sandton Historical Association journals providing some background on the heritage site.

"Just as we go to press comes the news that the graves of the Esterhuysen Family in Sandown, Extension 24, are finally to become Sandton's first historical monument . On October 30th [1982] there will be a ceremony at the Monument, when the Mayor of Sandton will receive from the developers Schahat Cullum, the deeds to the stand on which are buried Jan Christoffel Esterhuysen and his wife Maria Buitendag and others."

The Monument from a distance (The Heritage Portal)

"Eight years have passed since our association first started trying to ensure that these graves were preserved for posterity, and we can justly claim credit for helping to bring this campaign to a successful conclusion."

"The Esterhuysens came to the farm Zandfontein in 1836 and we hope that their monument will stand for many more centuries." [this date needs to be...

About five years ago I stumbled over weeds and litter to get a glimpse of the crumbling Edwardian Lavatory in Newtown. I wondered how many more times I would be able to visit the heritage gem before the forces of neglect consumed her. When Atterbury announced its plans for the massive Newtown Junction development I prayed that this would mean a second life for the historic structure. Thankfully my prayers were answered and the developers along with their heritage consultants kept the building safe and secure during three years of construction.

In a few weeks time a new bar and eatery will call the lavatory home. This kind of adaptive reuse must be applauded. We trust patrons will fall in love with this unique venue!

Below are photographs taken over a period of just over three years. They reveal the changing environment around Newtown's Famous Edwardian Lavatory. Enjoy!

Photo taken in early 2012 showing the poor state of the structure (The Heritage Portal)

A different angle taken on the same day (The Heritage Portal)

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