South Africa General

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...

Heritage or Conservation Management Plans (HMPs/CMPs) are vital tools that provide an opportunity to conserve and manage heritage sites for future generations to enjoy. However, most of these HMPs/CMPs are developed specifically for site conservation in the context of tourism or research purposes. However, there is a clear gap for effective HMPs/CMPs within the development context when one looks at the amount of large scale operations such as mines, wind and solar farms etc. These developments have the potential to have a significant impact on vast areas and innumerable heritage resources within their respective development footprints and impact areas. The management of heritage sites within an area outlined for development requires a different approach to HMPs/CMPs. CMPs/HMPs aim to conserve heritage sites, while Development Heritage Management Plans (DHMPs) aim to manage the activities and phases of a development that may impact heritage resources within the application area.

As part of the mandate as directed in the National Heritage Resources Act, No 25 of 1999 (NHRA), the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and other relevant Heritage Resources Authorities (HRAs) are required to provide comments on development cases conducted in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, No 107 of 1998 (NEMA), and the NEMA Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 2014 Regulations. As part of these investigations, an assessment of heritage resources within the proposed development footprint is completed in the form of a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) in terms of the NHRA.

As a result of the HIA, some heritage resources...

An article published in the May 2015 “Popular Mechanics” magazine (RSA edition), was entitled “SUPERTRAINS coming down the line” in which it was stated “Let’s get one thing straight: we don’t send much freight via railway because the country’s extensive rail network is too narrow”. Yes it is true that South African wagons run on a narrow gauge track (1065mm) - narrow by definition being a gauge less than the standard gauge of 1435mm (4’-8½”). However our loading gauge with the height and width of rolling stock being 3.965 metres (13’-0”) and 3.050 metres (10’-0”) respectively is no more restrictive than that of the United Kingdom. In point of fact the width allowance for wagons in the UK is only 2.745 metres, 305mm (12”) less than ours.

May 2015 Popular Mechanics Cover

The narrow rail gauges that were chosen by the European colonial powers during the nineteenth century were right for the time but have now become quite a bone of contention on the African continent as they are blamed by politicians and railway administrators as being the root cause for the poor performance of railways in the post colonial period (1960 onwards).

It has been mooted that the Durban to Johannesburg main line should be replaced by a R300 billion (at 2012 values) high speed standard gauge...

Human behaviour that deviates from the norm has always incurred curiosity. It is thus unsurprising to discover that photography was used to capture images of the mentally ill as early as 1848.

The photography of mental illness can be defined as the practice of depicting people whose behaviour has been deemed markedly abnormal by their contemporaries. Photographs taken of the mentally ill once served to document case histories, but occasionally also as therapeutic instruments. The patient seemingly only needed to recognize himself in the image of insanity and to note his difference from the images of normalcy in order to restore himself to reason and sanity.  

Some 100 photographic glass negatives, recently donated to the author, are images of individuals, or small groups of people, many of whom are clearly mentally ill and held in some sort of captivity. These images, in all probability were taken in South African mental asylums and some prisons.

A prominent photo from the collection

These images date from between 1908 and 1912. Both the location and the photographer details are unknown, yet these unusual images leave the viewer saddened, surprised, shocked or even in denial as in some cases they portray images of clearly abnormal behaviour – a dimension of human pain and imbalance that the majority of normal functioning human beings are not exposed to on a daily basis...

Death, or more specifically images of the dead, remind us of our own mortality. During the mid 1800’s to early 1900’s, photography played a vital role in capturing images of loved ones, not only whilst alive, but also at the time of their death.

Where citizens could not afford a painted portrait of a loved one, photography was a cheaper and quicker alternative, providing the middle class with a photographic image in memory of a loved one who had passed away.

Postmortem photography (meaning after death), also referred to as bereavement or Momento Mori (Remember you are mortal) photography, was an integral part of the mourning and memorializing process during a time when death played a more visible role in the population’s day-to-day life.

These photographs were especially common for infants and young children as Victorian/Edwardian childhood mortality rates were high.

Postmortem photographs of young children were common

Although the words postmortem and memorial photography are used interchangeably when referring to photos of the dead, postmortem photographs relates to images taken of individuals after they have passed away, whereas memorial photographs are reproductions of photographs taken of the remembered from when they were still alive (see image below of four young people who drowned in the Witte River during 1895...

Rust by definition is a reddish brown coating formed on a ferrous metal (i.e. iron or steel) by oxidation, especially in the presence of moisture, which gradually corrodes the metal. Rust would seem to be Nature’s way of restoring iron and steel back to the state of the iron ore found in the earth’s crust. This process could well be called metallurgy in reverse.

Pliny (AD 23-79), the Roman Philosopher, wrote about Ferrum Corrumpitur or spoilt iron and was perplexed by iron’s susceptibility to rust. He asked the question: why does iron corrode more easily than other metals? He reasoned that iron rusts because it was both the best and the worst of man’s servants; although very useful domestically, it was also the metal of war. Had he had the benefit of modern science he would have known that rusting is an electrochemical process, which requires an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte (a solution containing ions, which are particles bearing an electric charge). In order to prevent an electrolytic cell from occurring, it is usual to provide a barrier, which prevents the surface of the steel coming into contact with the environment. This can be accomplished by several methods, the most common being to paint the surface.

The cost of rust, both financial and social (the premise being that rust is inevitable) varies from place to place. In South Africa, atmospheric corrosion is far worse at the coast compared to the Highveld. The old joke is that people living...

The tragedy of the present day Migrant Crisis caused by the Syrian Civil War has an earlier precedent which occurred in the late seventeenth century when the King of France – Louis XIV (the Sun King) revoked the Edict of Nantes (a law protecting religious tolerance).  It was on the 22nd October 1685 that the King formally outlawed the Protestant religion in France, however, prior to that date the Huguenots (French Calvinists) had been persecuted rather like the Jews were in pre-war NAZI Germany. The King’s aim was to end the schism between Catholics and Protestants and bring back into the Papal fold people considered to be Heretics. Many Protestants were converted to Catholicism at the point of the sword, but the King’s repression did not destroy the faith and large numbers decided to flee France even though it was made illegal to do so.

Even before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Protestant families had immigrated to the United Provinces of the Netherlands where they met with greater religious open-mindedness and where they found gainful employment. The Revocation turned the flow of refugees from a trickle into a flood and it was soon realised that the Netherlands could not absorb all those fleeing France. Fortunately for the Huguenots they were welcomed by other Protestant countries in Northern Europe, as they were known to be hard working and skilled and thus would be an asset to those countries.

It is reckoned of the Huguenot Exodus of 210 000 people...

In the passages below, Johan van den Berg provides a fascinating account of the various blockhouses built by the British during the South African War. The details form part of a larger report titled 'The Evolution of the Block House System in South Africa'. Thank you to Jayson Clark from the Tulbagh Valley Heritage Foundation for sending the report through. The pioneering work of Richard Tomlinson on this topic must be acknowledged. His seventeen year journey set the standard for Blockhouse research in South Africa. Click here to read his epic piece: Britain's Last Castles: Masonry Blockhouses of the South African War, 1899-1902.

1) Corrugated Iron Blockhouses

The earliest rectangular examples in the eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga Province) were built in January 1901 by a civilian contractor from Lourenço Marques. After that, the octagonal and the final circular patterns were designed by Major Spring R. Rice, of the 23rd (Field) Company, Royal Engineers, manufactured in kit form at RE factories in Middelburg (Transvaal), Bloemfontein, Cape Town and other centres, sent by train to the station nearest to their final site and delivered to site by ox wagon. There they were erected by infantry soldiers who dug a sentry trench round each blockhouse and surrounded the site with a barbed-wire entanglement. After the war ended, most of these buildings were sold or given by the military authorities to the owners of the land on which they were built. The provisions of the Vereeniging Peace Treaty also stipulated that the blockhouses be removed as soon as possible...

When the British army first reached Pretoria in 1900 during the South Africa War, Lord Roberts (Commander of British Forces) increasingly realised that the railway was of great strategic importance and that its long lines of communication lay undefended. This was further underlined by the destruction of the railway line and the detrimental effect this had on the transporting of troops and supplies to the front by train.

Relief Map of South Africa showing Railway Lines – 1900-1902

Safeguarding the railway lines, therefore, became an urgent necessity. Orders were accordingly issued that all posts along the railways were to be fortified. By July 1st, 1900, defences consisting of trenches and stone-sangars had been prepared at most points, and their numbers and strength increased as the attacks of the Boer Commandos grew more frequent. The wrecking of the railroads reached its climax at the end of 1900. The most important points along the railway line were safeguarded first, namely the stations and the train bridges. The oversight and/or the inability of the British, as they penetrated the Boer republics, to occupy the area properly, together with the Boers' will to resist and the decision to resort to mobile or guerrilla warfare (the classic strategic principles of time vs. space) and to take the battle...

In today’s world, large infrastructure projects such as the state of the art “Gautrain” rapid transit railway between Johannesburg and Pretoria (80 km in length) are constructed using mechanised plant and equipment for better productivity when working to tight project schedules (fast tracking). Occupational Health and Safety on construction sites has become a main concern when it comes to planning and executing large civil engineering projects with hazard operability studies (HAZOPS) and risk assessments being mandatory. A Safety Officer is now an important member of the project management team and is responsible for safety awareness and ensuring that safety procedures are adhered to, for the welfare of construction workers.

Gautrain at OR Tambo Airport (The Heritage Portal)

Health and Safety was not always a priority and going back in time to the Industrial Revolution (1740 to 1860) the lot of a manual worker was fraught with danger and his life was often cut short by the hazardous work he undertook. His physical and mental wellbeing was of little importance to those men of inventive genius who transfomed human existence from a pastoral way of life to that of an industrial one.

Britain is where the Industrial Revolution began. It was more of an evolution over many decades as there was no...