Kwazulu-Natal

As a callow teenager, Joseph Kirkman left an indelible mark on the annals of early Natal history. He is remembered for his efforts in assisting the American missionaries to establish a bridgehead in Zululand and his subsequent heroic exploits in assisting the evacuation of those missionaries following the turbulence consequent on the Retief massacre. He will also be remembered for having the expedient foresight to commit his observations of those calamitous happenings to paper, which provided unique insights and enabled historians to interpret some of the causes and consequences of those events more precisely. Regrettably, his records disappeared before qualified historians could carry out adequate studies.

Joseph was a scion of the 1820 Settlers. The young twin sons of 1820 Settler John Kirkman, John and Joseph, were orphaned in the early months of the 6th Frontier War. Their father and stepmother succumbed to the rigours of escaping the sacking of the Rev John Brownlee’s Mission station on the Buffalo River (the site of present-day King Williamstown), where they had taken refuge. With the missionary’s party, they experienced a harrowing flight to Graham’s Town, fraught with protracted terror and hardship.

Shortly after these tragic events, three young children of the folk involved were placed in the employ of parties of American missionaries who were destined for the hinterland and for Port Natal. These missionaries had been sent to South Africa by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, of Boston, Massachusetts, as a result of advice sent to the Board by Dr...

About four years ago I popped into the premises of Cannon & Cannon (auctioneers in Hilton) and, whilst looking around for nothing in particular, came upon a rather battered, leather covered box on which was embossed, if you looked very carefully, ‘His Excellency The Governor’. I asked the attendant if they had a key to the box and was told that they did but were having difficulty in opening it but duly handed it over. After several attempts, I found that if you pushed the key, turned it and then turned it back on itself again, the lock opened.

Inside were about thirty documents which obviously had some age to them and included a couple which had what appeared to bear the signature of Paul Kruger and I decided to take a chance, attend the auction and try to purchase the box.

At this stage, I must say that all of my schooling had been in London and South African history was not a strong point.

I attended the auction and after bidding against two other gentlemen, managed to secure the box for R2 800 – more than I had intended to spend.

Once I got the box home and started to unload its contents, it became clear that I had the deed box of a family named Stockenstrom from the Eastern Cape. The name Stockenstrom meant absolutely nothing to me. The first thing I did was to Google and establish that the Stockenstroms were an extremely important family in the...

German missionaries and colonists left their mark in the form of churches along the northern border of KwaZulu-Natal. These were mainly the missionaries sent out by the Hermannsburg Mission Society (HMS), who entered Natal from the 1850s onward. Missionary work amongst the Zulus was their predominant aim. Later they spread out to the Transvaal.

In this article, I’ll restrict myself to the churches of the colonists along the KZN/Mpumalanga border. Initially, the instruction to the missionaries was that they must go and live among the people, become part of their day to day lives, learn about their ways and preach the gospel. It was very quickly found that this was not very practical and the society thought it necessary to send out tradesmen and farmers to establish mission stations. These were to become an economic entity to provide for daily bread and spiritual comfort and worked reasonably well until the mission society ran out of money and was unable to pay their staff.

In 1860 the superintendent of the HMS, Hardeland, had obtained permission from the Zulu king Mpande to establish stations in the north near the Pongola river. He sent out two missionaries, Prydtz and Moe, plus supporting staff to establish stations at eNcaka and eNtombe. When the money ran out the people of the stations had to make a plan, and they did. 

One of the schemes was to chop down big trees, cut them into planks and sell them in Barberton and Durban. This provided some cash to buy agricultural implements and various other requirements...

In the article below, Lucille Davie unpacks the story of Kirti Menon, activist, educator and great granddaughter of Gandhi. Davie is a researcher, writer and passionate Joburger. Click here to view more of her work.

Main Pic: Kirti (centre) with her brother Satish and sister Uma, at Phoenix

“There wasn’t a point in my life when I didn’t know who I was,” says Kirti Menon. “How we saw things, how we did things, whether we participated in things or not. It was a ticket to seeing the world differently.”

Menon is the great granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. She and her extended family, which reaches across the world, walk his path. His principles are seemingly in their DNA, three generations down the line.

Menon was born and raised in Durban. In the 1960s and 70s she spent weekends at Phoenix, the historic settlement that Gandhi established just outside the city in 1904. Phoenix was his experiment in simple, communal, and self-sufficient living, replicated 25km south of Johannesburg, at Tolstoy farm.

At Phoenix Menon was immersed in her great-grandfather’s spirit, his teachings and his message of being an activist for human rights, almost 70 years after he left South Africa in 1914.

Kirti Menon

Arrival in South Africa

The lawyer Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893, to take up a case for a Joburg-based Indian businessman. He ended up...

In the brief article below, Arthur Bowland digs into the history of Durban's old Toll House and describes how it was 'rediscovered' in Kloof in the 1970s when many believed it had been lost forever. At the end of the article, Bowland talks about the 'shifting' of the house. Here's hoping it is still in existence somewhere. If any enthusiasts on the ground have current information please add details in the comments section below the article. The piece first appeared in Restorica, the journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa). Thank you to the University of Pretoria (copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

Durban's old Toll House, built in 1866 and believed to have gone the way of so many of the city's historical buildings, has been found alive and well - indeed being lived in - at Kloof. 

The Toll House with its gate was sited at the top of Berea Road as a means of raising funds for the hardening of Durban's main outlet. Tolls ranged from two shillings and sixpence for a wagon to sixpence for a saddled horse. Pedestrians were allowed in free.

Not everyone was so determindly honest. Some of the transport riders with their wagons tried to evade paying tolls. One of their tricks was to muffle the wagon chains with sacks and try to sneak through the gate at first light. However, one particular toll keeper, Harry Bird, was equal to such manoeuvres although confined to...

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...

We found the following article by B.I. Spaanderman in the 1991 edition of the old Johannesburg Historical Foundation's journal Between the Chains. It looks at a number of South African mills with a particular focus on Millbank, the closest to Johannesburg.

For a mere fifty cents you can ask the watchman at Bradshaw’s Mill in Bathurst to set its wheel in motion. It costs a few cents more in Graaff-Reinet. The beautifully restored Josephine Mill in Rondebosch is a delight, and an informative booklet has been produced by the Historical Society of Cape Town describing its history and restoration.

The water-mills of South Africa are mainly located in the Cape Province by virtue of the settler population. These were built from the late 1600s to the late 1800s. Mills in Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal were built from the middle to the late 1800s. The most definitive study to date is Water-mills, windmills and horse-mills of South Africa by James Walton, published in 1974. Owing largely to his interest, a number of the mills have been restored, such as the Josephine Mill, but more sadly, many have been left to decay, or have been destroyed by fire and other natural disasters.

Bradshaw’s Mill was built by the 1820-settler Samuel Bradshaw and his brother. He was assisted by the young Jeremiah Goldswain, who worked for “Measerss Bradshaws and Wiggall for servel months, at this time cash was so scarce that it was almost imposable for andy one to...

An ongoing task for heritage enthusiasts, history teachers, parents and others is to get young people excited about history and heritage. While browsing through the 1982 edition of Restorica, the old journal of the Simon van der Stel Foundation (today the Heritage Association of South Africa), we found a wonderful piece by Dr Ruth E Gordon on this matter. Her advice is still as relevant today as it was then. These days we have a spectrum of technological innovations to help us in this endeavour. We loved the letter from Claire Thompson by the way. It would be interesting to see what impact Dr Gordon has had on Claire's life. As always thank you to the University of Pretoria (Restorica copyright holders) for giving us permission to publish.

At the last Annual General Meeting of the Foundation held in Pietermaritzburg on May 1st 1982, there was some discussion about how the young people of the country might be attracted to an active interest in the aims of conservation and the restoration of our old buildings and historical sites. lt was deplored that young people are so keenly searching for the future that the past fails to hold them until they themselves reach middle or old age. Various ideas were mooted and Dr Eily Gledhill of Grahamstown described the tours in that area which familiarised school children with the historic importance of their environment. As the meeting was pressed for time I refrained from making my own small contribution to the discussion but do...

A few years ago we were involved in a battle to save historic Nedbank documents that were being thrown away by the company. For a while the future of the documents looked bleak but thankfully the story had a happy ending when top Nedbank executives got involved. The documents were moved to the Sandton head office and the execs committed to hire an archivist to go through the collection.

During the early stages of the saga we found an old booklet compiled to celebrate Nedbank's 50th birthday (1938). The publication contained photographs of a number of Nedbank branches which we have reproduced below.

Benoni Branch

Bloemfontein Branch

Durban Branch

East London Branch (main image as well)

[[{"fid":"1542","view_mode":"media_adaptive","fields":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Nedbank Ermelo - 1938 Nedbank Jubilee Publication"},"type":"media","link_text":null,"field_deltas":{"5":{"format":"media_adaptive","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Nedbank Ermelo - 1938 Nedbank Jubilee Publication"}},"attributes":{"title":"Nedbank...

We are very grateful to Fred Smith for submitting this fantastic description of 'The Laurels' (Weston Street, Mooi River). The historic home and its magnificent garden are an integral part of the heritage of the area. [Originally published in 2013]

There is very little documentary evidence available on the first owner who initiated the building of the modest red-bricked Edwardian colonial house. He was an English born pharmacist, Mr Peck, who had established a pharmacy in Lawrence Road in the village of Mooi River. He was also an accomplished photographer. Peck built the house for his English bride in 1909.

Peck‘s site was large and the house was South facing, overlooking the picturesque Mooi River with its meandering path and verdant willow trees whose branches dipped into the water. At the time, the river was a popular boating venue and picnics were held by locals on the banks. Weston Road linked the village of Mooi River with the older village of Weston, over the Helen Bridge on the Mooi River. On the banks was also the popular Lakeview Hotel, which was later destroyed in a fire.

“The Laurels” as the house came to be known, had many features of that period in Natal. It had a wrap-around verandah along three sides of the house, with sash windows and shutters. Only two of the original sash windows remain. The original verandah tiles are still in place and have an interesting history. Ships bringing imported goods from England often contained ballast in...