Kathy Munro

This last week brought a spectacular media scoop to Steve Humphrey of the BBC when an anonymous tip off (presumably telephonic) led him to a bell shaped parcel left at the entrance to the Swanage Pier in Dorset, England. The BBC team was on hand to film the careful unwrapping of the parcel to reveal a ship's bell with the word “Mendi” deeply etched in capital letters on the side (main image from Steve Humphrey and BBC TV South). The bell of the SS Mendi, lost in World War 1, had been found. 

Mendi Bell (BBC)

Attached to the parcel was an envelope, addressed to Humphrey, containing an unsigned letter giving him the responsibility to do “the right thing” and ensure the bell finds an appropriate home. Humphrey reported that he had been looking for the bell of the Mendi for the last 30 years, so its return was an emotional and significant moment. Our congratulations to the BBC on a wonderful piece that is far more than a regional news story.

The anonymous letter (BBC)

The news was immediately picked up by The Argus (click here to view)and word spread across South Africa. I learnt about the find because I received a breaking news flash in...

Most commentaries on Johannesburg of the decade of the thirties takes 1936 and the city's fiftieth birthday as the year for reflection and anticipation. See, for example, the Star Newspaper's popular history, Like it Was. Johannesburg A Sunshine City Built on Gold (1931) is an unusual publication that takes us back to the start of the decade to discover Johannesburg.

Book Cover

What was Johannesburg like in 1931? One source of information is this small 56 page booklet issued in that year by the Johannesburg Publicity Association and the SA Railways and Harbours (a national state department). It was meant to promote tourism to Johannesburg specifically and South Africa in general in an upmarket authoritative way to the elegant visitor or potential immigrant. The new Johannesburg Station (Leith and Moerdyk) was being built, the foundation stone was laid in 1928, but it did not open until 1932, when arriving train passengers saw the city for the first time as they came up the marble steps and gasped when they viewed fashionable people going shopping in Eloff Street. This is a small promotional book that might have fitted into your leather valise to be read on a sea voyage out to South Africa by mail ship. 

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Following my earlier post on T D Ravenscroft (click here to view), I have delved a little further into a couple of online archives and printed bibliographic records.

There is a most comprehensive entry for T D Ravenscroft in Vol 3, page 702 of the Dictionary of South African Bibliography  (HSRC, 1977). This entry, by M Bull records Ravenscrofts’s dates precisely as 1/5/1851 to 24/3/1948. In brief, Ravenscroft in 1869 was a pupil of the photographer William Moore of Hout St Cape Town. He married Elizabeth Viljoen of the Robertson district in 1871 and within a few years had set out with his wife by oxwagon on a journey for Krugersdorp and the Victoria Falls with their two young children. The photographic interest is that this resulted in a record of some 3000 scenic photographic views and panoramic views. “He first captured a panoramic view of the place by photographing it from a high-lying position; he then took more detailed pictures of the buildings, farming operations, mountain passes and whatever else was of interest”.  (It would interesting to have a more precise time line for that clearly historic series).

The DNB records that it was in the late 1890s that Ravenscroft became “the unofficial agent of the Cape Government Railways when commissioned to photograph all towns, cities and places served by the CGR, and between 1890 and 1909 his pictorial history of railways and places was “unequalled in breadth and detail”. The 1977 glass negatives were bought from Ravenscroft by the South African...

I was recently given four photographs of early 20th century Cape Town. They are all in sepia brown shades. The dimensions are 8.5 x 11.30 inches. The edges of the photos are in poor condition but the main scenes are clearly visible. I would love to date these photographs.

They are clearly from the photographic studio of TP Ravenscroft and the one of Sea Point has a stamp on the reverse TD Ravenscroft. 

Sea Point (TD Ravenscroft)

Some internet research shows that the Ravenscroft family is interested in their genealogy and run a website www.ravenscroft.co.net. A great deal of information about TD Ravenscroft and the Ravenscroft family is accessible on this site. Crofts the popular Parkview coffee shop on Tyrone Avenue, Johannesburg belongs to Grant Ravenscroft. 

Thomas Daniel Ravenscroft was clearly an extraordinary man. He was an early photographer in the Cape. His dates were 1851 or 2 to 1948 which made him the "world's oldest working professional photographer" during his long life. In the latter part of his life  (from the 1920s or 1930s, he lived in Hermanus or as it was called then Hermanuspietersfontein and was well known as a photographer of the town and he also did a photographic study of Stanford. Many of Ravenscroft's photographs are to be found in the De Wets Huis Photo Museum in Hermanus. 

Based on internet...

Da Gama Park is a little known, underused and under appreciated Johannesburg park. It is a rare beauty spot because it is located on spectacular open high ground bordering Observatory Extension, Cyrildene and De Wetshof (click here to view on google maps). It has the feeling of open, unfettered common land where your dogs can roam freely across tufty African grass. There are no fences and no playground equipment. The air is bracing and clean, there's no pollution or smog. Traffic is remote and though no more than 5 kms from the Jozi CBD you could be in the country. Here you are on one of the classic quartzite ridges of the Witwatersrand and you view the City from a natural peak.

It is a unique Jozi experience. It is my favourite spot for falling in love with the city of Johannesburg again. You have a 180 degree viewing range from west to east across a southern arc. The city skyscraper skyline is etched almost as a silhouette.

Stand firm in the gentle winter breeze, smell the honey golden grass, wild flowers and acacia trees, let the red Gauteng earth run through your fingers. Come with a camera. If you look to the South and West you can pick out the Towers that define the cityscape. Your camera lens takes in Ponte, the Hillbrow Telecommunications Tower, the apartheid era government mini tower installation on the Observatory Ridge and the two Yeoville Water towers. All of this fits in...

The recent discovery in the cellar of a home in Saxonwold, Johannesburg of an old discoloured, brass plaque is a heritage opportunity and opens space for reviewing the motives and outcomes of the Royal Visit to South Africa in 1947.

The plaque commemorates the visit of the Royal Family to the Zoo Lake Sports Grounds on 5th April 1947. The current owner of the house does not know how the plaque came to be in the cellar of her home. She has generously passed the plaque on to the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation for preservation. The JHF has arranged for the professional restoration of the plaque by two of its members; it has been rebuffed and black enamel lettering repainted. A quality photograph will be taken and this will be presented to the Zoo Lake Sports Club, while the plaque will be presented to Museum Africa to become part of Johannesburg’s history. The Zoo Lake Sports Club’s website shows that it was renovated some years ago and it was possibly during that renovation that the plaque was discarded. It is time for a reappreciation.

This discovery has led me to delve into records of the 1947 Royal Visit. In 1947 the Royal Family (King George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth and his two daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret) undertook a leisurely three month journey (February to April) through their Southern African dominions (South Africa itself, Southern Rhodesia, Swaziland, Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate).  The trip involved 10 000 miles of travel including 4920 miles by rail (though the family flew to Rhodesia). The...

Johannesburg celebrated its 50th Golden Jubilee in 1936, a worthy year to recall as this year, 2016, is the 130th anniversary year. Johannesburg was called the Wonder City, the City of Achievement, the Golden City. The pride pulsates in the tourist and promotional literature. The Empire exhibition at the Milner Park showgrounds of the Witwatersrand Agricultural society was an enormous and ambitious celebratory event. The Tower of Light, designed by The Wits Professor of Architecture, Geoffrey Eastcott Pearse, confidently showed off the wonders of Pretoria Portland Cement and electrical power with search lights that lit the summer Highveld Sky (the Tower of Light was visible across Johannesburg).

A more recent photo of the Tower of Light (The Heritage Portal)

The Empire exhibition was a national effort in collaboration with the City of Johannesburg. It ran from September 1936 to February 1937 and attracted the then enormous total of over 2 million people. The mining city had come of age. 1936 was the year for souvenirs, mementoes, jubilee publications and official guides. The mayors of Johannesburg in 1936 to 37 were Edmund Maldwyn Edmund (1935-36) and Donald Mackay (1936-37). A golden mayoral chain was worn for ceremonial occasions and every year another gold medallion and stretch of chain was added to include the badge of office of each new mayor.

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“Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place now is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the drill of death. I, a Xhosa, say you are all my brothers, Zulu, Swazis, Pondos, Basutos, we die like brothers, for though, they made us leave our weapons at home, our voices are left with your bodies.”

In February 1917, another First World War centenary commemoration will be held. The 21st February 2017 marks the centenary of the tragic loss of 625 lives when the SS Mendi, a troop ship carrying over 800 members of the South African Native Labour Contingent, officers and crew, sank in tragic circumstances off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. The ship departed from Southampton on the 20th February and the men having made the long voyage from Cape Town were on the final leg of the journey to take them to France to work as labourers in support of the British Empire war effort. 616 of the men who lost their lives were part of the 823 South African non-combatant servicemen (or labouring members) of the 5th Battalion.

The Mendi sank in less than half an hour when another British ship, the SS Darro, a much larger vessel, smashed into the Mendi with such force that a gash opened from keel to deck to a depth of about 20 feet. There was thick fog and no lights showing, the...

Johannesburg celebrated its 130th birthday on 4th October 2016 in great style with a memorable happy event organized by the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) under the direction of its incomparable founder Flo Bird. The executive mayor, Herman Mashaba, as first citizen of Johannesburg was guest of honour at the birthday party held at Museum Africa in Newtown. Johannesburg city  Councillor, Nonhlanhla Sifumba, member of the Mayoral comittee responsible for Community Development was also a guest of honour. Children, cake, candles and a rousing Happy Birthday cheered Johannesburg into its 14th decade. 

Flo Bird and Kathy Munro welcome Herman Mashaba (Gail Scott WIlson)

There were six birthday cakes with the 130 years marked in candles, with the principal birthday cake iced in city colours of  green and gold made by Win Job. 

One of the birthday cakes (Gail Scott Wilson)
 ...

This month it was my pleasure to visit Sappersrus. The occasion was a gathering of the tourism association of the Hartbeestpoort Dam/Magaliesberg area to meet and learn about Sappersrus and its history and attend a small memorial ceremony. We enjoyed excellent hospitality and a lunch in the well-designed lapa close to the water. I was asked to deliver a short talk on the Battle of the Somme, Delville Wood and memorialization. Our hosts were Irene Small and Ashley Williams, who run the Sappers facility and Foundation. They keep the faith of past traditions, recruit new members and educate people about the Sappers and their role in World War II and other South African military engagements. Their task is to continue the charitable work of the Sappers Foundation (as the older Sappers Association is now known) and promote the Heritage Centre. Sappersrus also offers weekend accommodation to anyone wanting a break in pleasant country surroundings.

Sappersrus is located on the road from Hartbeestpoort Dam to Magaliesberg on the north bank of the Magalies River. It is at this point that the river flows into Hartebeespoort Dam. It is about 42 kms from Pretoria and about 1 hour 15 minutes drive from Randburg. It is very accessible and the roads from all directions are excellent.

The history of Sappersrus dates back to the Second World War and the comradeship among the South African Engineers Corp. The Sappers were the engineers of the army and South African Sappers saw service in East Africa, North Africa and in Italy...