Johannesburg

Drawing on a rare collection of souvenir photographic printed albums of Johannesburg, dating from the period approximately 1890 to 1910, we are able to build up a composite picture of Johannesburg's main thoroughfares, buildings and street life. These visual images show how Johannesburg's founding and growth coincided with the coming of age of photography.

These albums are to be auctioned at a Jelly Fish Tree online auction in late January 2018 (click here to view website), but ahead of the auction I photographed a selection and present a few images here as an exclusive record and an early alert to an opportunity.

This particular album titled 'Souvenir of Johannesburg' has no printed date but has the name Maude M Morgan and the message 'from NCH' on the cover, plus the hand written date 'January 1902'. The name of the publishing photographer is Mendelson and Bruce Ltd., Johannesburg and London. This set comprises 16 hand coloured images, slightly out of focus, they look almost like period post cards. Each picture is on a separate page and is pasted down on thick ivory card paper embossed with a decorative  pink floral edge.

Album Cover

1902 was the year of the return of peace. Pretoria and Johannesburg now fell under British rule with the Transvaal an occupied province. Lord Milner arrived in Johannesburg in March 1901 and took up residence at Sunnyside in Parktown. As South African High...

I really enjoyed reading the piece by Lucille Davie on the Hillbrow Tower (click here to view). As with many others, I watched in awe as it went up. There was this orange plastic around the top bit where the concrete was being poured. The more concrete, the higher went the orange bit until it got to where the “double disc” is now.

I went up the tower several times in my early teenage years and remember depositing coins in the telescopes in a bid to find the spot where I was growing up.

A few years ago, I went up to the top once more thanks to some work my employer was doing for Telkom, which owns the tower. I’ve included some photographs taken that day with a mobile phone.

From one of the 'disc' levels looking towards Auckland Park. Sentech tower roughly in the centre. (Trevor Jones)

Another view from one of the "disc" levels. The hospital is on the lower left below the microwave disc. Killarney is in the centre. (Trevor Jones)

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In the feel good article below, journalist Lucille Davie describes the epic return of Joburg's first stamp mills to the area where they were originally installed in 1885. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 21 May 2009. Click here to view more of Davie's writing.

It always feels good when something is returned to where it originally belonged. So it is with the stamp mills owned by Joburg's first gold prospectors, Fred and Harry Struben.

Last Saturday, the two stamp mills or batteries that the two men used to crush rock in search of gold at their Confidence Reef in Roodepoort, were moved back to the site in the 100ha Kloofendal Nature Reserve. They were the first stamp mills to be used on the Witwatersrand, imported from England and arriving here by ox wagon in 1885, a year after the men found gold in 1884.

The first stamp mills on the Rand (The Heritage Portal)

"We are elated that the stamp mills are back," said Roland Cundill, the chairperson of the Friends of Kloofendal Nature Reserve. He explained that the idea of returning them to the mine workings was raised some two-and-a-half years ago, and approval was given by the mayoral committee in late 2008.

The stamp mills have been on display for some...

In the article below, well known Joburg explorer and writer, Lucille Davie, reveals the layered history of a special site south of Johannesburg. The piece was first published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 2 February 2011. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

A short drive south of the city, some 10 kilometres outside the CBD, are remnants of Joburg's first settlement of Khoisan, South Africa's oldest people.

They are to be found at the Eikenhof Khoisan Farm, portion 80, consisting of 247 hectares of land immediately south of the Klipriviersberg mountain, on the banks of the Klip River. The site has been occupied by Khoisan people for about 100 years, squeezed between several farms belonging to whites, who moved into the area from the 1850s onwards.

The Khoisan community appears to have settled on the site in the mid-1890s. A cluster of houses was established in the veld around a church, which doubled as a school. In those days it was known as Jackson's Drift, a reference to a crossing point about a kilometre downstream.

Over thousands of years the original peoples of South Africa – the San or Bushmen, and the Khoi – have lived side by side, and are now commonly called the Khoisan.

There are other interesting elements to the site: Stone Age artefacts, early traces of gold mining exploration, the battleground for control of Joburg in 1900, and a wetland.

Today the site consists of four buildings: the Ebenezer Congregational Church (see main...

An interesting collection of Johannesburg, Transvaal and South African printed photographic albums has recently come to light*. Kathy Munro was lucky enough to be able to photograph over four hundred images from the various albums including some from an 1892 volume on Johannesburg produced by the Davies Brothers. A few of these early images along with notes from Munro have been reproduced in the article below. 

Johannesburg was a photogenic place and its birth and growth coincided with the coming of age of the camera and the photograph. It did not take long for professional photographers to take up residence and show off the new town in its modern splendour as roads and buildings crept over the veld and koppies. Black and white photographs were the primary métier but sometimes a photo could be hand coloured. Souvenir albums of variable sizes and types were speedily produced in book form, usually with handsome covers to be carried home by ambitious gold seekers, intrepid travellers and adventurous hunters. Home could be another part of South Africa, somewhere in Europe or America or right here at the mining camp.

Photographs of Johannesburg are important documentary evidence of change and together with early diaries and letters give a first hand insight into the layout of the streets and the rapid move from temporary single story structures to permanent prosperous business buildings, commercial enterprises, shops, banks and mansions. There is an immediacy in the photograph in giving us a record of Johannesburg "then".  

By the late 19th century there were hundreds of photographers active in South Africa (click here for a list). On this list the name...

In the article below, well-known journalist and Joburg enthusiast, Lucille Davie, explores the layered history of Somerset House. The piece was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 7 November 2003. Be sure to read all the way to the end where Davie provides an inspiring 2017 update. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

It must be the dustiest, mustiest bank basement in town. It's in the former United Building Society's 97-year-old building on Gandhi Square, now known as Somerset House. The basement has got an eery, stopped-on-a-day feeling about it. 

I recently went down into the basement and felt as if I was entering Johannesburg's version of an ancient Egyptian tomb - it was mouldy, very dusty, very musty and it looked like the bank officials had finished up work on a day, locked up and left the city, although it was operational up until three years ago.

It's actually the safety deposit box vault of the United, now Absa Bank, secure behind a 25cm thick double steel vault door. There are around 1 000 boxes behind those doors and another set of vault doors, from floor to ceiling, most of them firmly shut, with their keys lost years ago. Some boxes have their doors open, revealing empty insides.

Entering Johannesburg's version of an ancient Egyptian tomb (Lucille Davie)

 ...

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...

Earlier this year I wrote a piece highlighting a few amazing places to see the Joburg skyline (click here to view). Since then I have received several requests to do something similar for Sandton so here it is. If you know of any great places not mentioned, please add them in the comments section.

St Stithians School

Saints is one of the places that most Sandtonites will identify as having great skyline views. In my opinion the best spot is above the dam a short walk from Higher Ground (the restaurant - click here to view location). The combination of the dam, sports fields, school buildings and then the skyline is iconic.

View from above the Saints dam (The Heritage Portal)

Bryanston Shopping Centre

This is one of my favourite views of Sandton. I love how the buildings rise from the green of the urban forest and River Club golf course. I've been taking photos from the same spot for some time and will continue to do so for years to come (click here to view location). The plan in a few decades time is to create a very cool time lapse video showing the growth of Sandton.

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In the article below, researcher and journalist Lucille Davie, tells the story of Nongoloza, the mythic figure who established the infamous Ninevites gang. The piece was first published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 9 January 2008. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

It all started with a horse back in 1886 - a horse that went missing and had to be found or paid for by somebody. That somebody was Nongoloza, and he felt he was being treated badly, so badly that he moved from KwaZulu-Natal to Johannesburg, where he started his career as a crime king.

"On informing my master of this [the missing horse] he accused me of being negligent and blamed me for it and told me to go and look for it," recounted Nongoloza in a statement many years later. "I told him that as I was working in the garden on that day and he could not hold me responsible for the loss, as all the horses were out grazing alone."

Nongoloza described how his "master" threatened to put him in jail if he didn't go and look for the horse, so he went and looked but did not find the horse.

"He [Tom J] then told me to go back to my kraal and work for Mr Tom P again, and added that Tom P would then bring to him the value of the horse that was lost. This amount would represent my wages for about two years."

It was this...

In the article below, Lucille Davie unpacks the story of the Foster Gang, a tale that continues to fascinate South Africans. The piece was first published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 3 January 2003. Davie has spent a large part of her life writing about the people and places of Johannesburg. Click here to view more of her work.

The police were out in force. Roadblocks were thrown up around the city. Residents were tittering with nervousness. Word spread: the gangsters had been traced to a hideout in a cave.

The crowd had to be held back behind a fence as the tension mounted. Then shots were heard from deep inside the cave, and it was all over. The Foster Gang, wanted for murder and robbery, had chosen to take their own lives rather than surrender to the police.

It was one of the most remarkable criminal sagas in early Johannesburg history. The gang, consisting of William Foster, John Maxim and Carl Mezar, had evaded police for months during the year 1914. They were wanted for a string of robberies across the Reef, and the murder of three policemen and a passerby. But nine other people also died because of the Foster Gang, among them a distinguished Boer war general.

Foster Gang Mug Shots (source unknown)

Tracker dogs had led...