Western Cape

In 1965 the residents of a section of the village of Riebeek Kasteel in the Western Cape, named Oukloof, were forcibly removed, and all the structures, including the church, demolished. A new location, across a dividing railway line, called Esterhof, was constructed.

View of the church in Oukloof, included in the demolition. (Pieter Franzen, local resident, pre 1965)

Esterhof under construction (Pieter Franzen, 1965)

In 2003, and subsequently in 2005 and 2006, Anna Bohlin, Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, visited the village and spoke to the affected parties, then published her research. This formed the initial basis for the later process which evolved.

In 2018 a meeting was held between the Oukloof survivors, who had formed a committee, and other interested parties, to discuss a way to commemorate what had occurred. This was the first of many over the following years.

The initial meeting between the Ouklowers and interested parties, 2018 (Chris Murphy)

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Wupperthal, established in 1830 as South Africa's first Rhenish mission station, sits in the isolated Tra Tra River valley, about 250 km from Cape Town. Founded by missionaries Baron Theobald von Wurmb and Gottlieb Leipoldt, it became a haven for freed slaves and surviving Khoe San people. The settlement grew rapidly, developing from its initial church and school to include a tannery, shoe factory, and residential areas with thatched houses by the 1850s. It transferred to Moravian Church management in 1965.

On December 30, 2018, tragedy struck when a fire devastated the historic town. The blaze, fueled by strong winds and dry conditions, destroyed 52 houses and several historic buildings, leaving approximately 200 people homeless and claiming one life. The disaster was considered the worst to affect South African built heritage since the 1969 Tulbagh earthquake.

The response to this catastrophe was swift and widespread. The Rupert Foundation emerged as the primary benefactor, funding most of the rescue restoration works in the town center. A team of specialists, including architects, heritage consultants, and structural engineers, was assembled to carefully restore the historic structures. The photographs below show the devastating impact of the fire and the inspiring restoration efforts.

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It is with great sadness that we have learned about the passing of our friend and  colleague, the esteemed conservationist and urbanist Nicolas Baumann, who died on his birthday (that he shared with his twin brother Sean) on the 7th January 2025.

Nicolas was always principled and committed to authentic urban values, the protection of historical cities and towns, and the conservation of Cape farmsteads and the cultural landscape. As a heritage consultant he viewed new developments through a committed vision and lens for appropriate re-development, preservation and respect for the past.

As a partner in the Revel Fox Architects practice he was involved in exceptional legacy  projects - extraordinary examples of adaptive re-use and restoration. These include the Breakwater Prison on Portswood Ridge at the V&A that was sensitively converted into the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business and the alluring restoration of parts of Groot Constantia - the pool at the Wine Cellar forecourt and the Wine Cellar at the  entrance gates.

He undertook numerous surveys and conservation plans for historic places and served as  heritage consultant - for The V&A Waterfront, Simon's Town, the Overberg and for Drakenstein Municipality, and undertook conservation plans that became benchmarks for Boschendal, Groot Constantia and Vergelegen. Many of the latter projects were undertaken with his long-time associate and colleague, Sarah Winter.

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In 1945 Southolme at 173 Main Road Kalk Bay, was sold to John Winchester Anderson shown below at age 45 with his son John. John snr. was known by his family as Jack and I will use that name from now on.

Jack Anderson with son John 1926 (Roddy Sparks)

He was the son of Captain James Anderson, a Scot who had captained trading ships for years. His mother was Mary Murison – related to the well-known Murison shipping company owners. Captain Anderson was descended from a line of Scottish sea captains and had salt in his veins having been born near Cape Aghulas on his father’s ship The Olive Branch. The family settled at the Cape and there was a period when James Anderson went to the Johannesburg gold rush.

At some point he bought extensive land opposite Green Point lighthouse and the couple lived at their large home Alexander Place near the Moulle Point lighthouse.

Green Point Lighthouse (SJ de Klerk)

Their son, John (Jack) Winchester Anderson was born on the 31st December 1881 in Cape Town. He was a great athlete and...

A Victorian photograph album can be described as an artefact, but so can the content. Each photograph included in these albums of old is therefore also an artefact in its own right. Where provenance, such as details of the photographer and/or sitter, is provided on a photograph, the value of the photographic artefact becomes even more significant.

A recent Victorian album acquired by the Hardijzer Photographic Research Collection (HPRC) contained a single cabinet card format photograph which immediately grabbed my attention. It is a rather playful image showing nine men, eight of which are medical students who underwent their training in Edinburgh between 1875 and 1883. The photograph, with a hand written inscription: “Cape Medical Students/Edinburgh”, was captured on 23 August 1878 by the Scottish photographer Jas. Howie Junior.

Also included in the album were some smaller Carte-de-Visite format photographs of the same individuals that appear on the Cabinet Card. In addition, the album also contained another two medical students who do not appear on the Cabinet Card image.

What makes the Cabinet Card unique is that each sitter’s name has been recorded on the back of the card. Without this provenance, this card would just have become another image of interest, but of little value as an artefact.

This creatively posed image is further of interest in that the medical students are seemingly studying a human skeleton (bones and skeleton). Two of the sitters are holding long pipes. These pipes are known as churchwardens or reading pipes (in German)...

The move of a former South African Navy Daphne-class submarine from the Dockyard to its permanent display site at the new annex of the Naval Museum in Simon’s Town must rank as one of the most significant achievements in local ship preservation and can only be described as truly monumental. This mega move was carried out by the heavy lift contractor Vanguard during July and involved a complex over-land move of the 58 metre submarine with its estimated weight of almost 700 tons.

Preparations for the move had already commenced in November 2022 with the laying of foundations on the new site for the mounting of the submarine, followed by the fabrication and fitting of lifting frames on the hull which was sponsored and carried out by Damen Shipyard and facilitated by Armscor Dockyard. On 25 June this year, all preparations on the submarine were complete and SAS Assegaai was finally moved to a position from which it could be lifted by the Vanguard hydraulic lifting platforms.

The move itself was not without its challenges and tested the resolve of both the project team, Dockyard workers and Vanguard, but all were reminded that ‘calm seas do not make skilled sailors!’ At the first attempt, on the 8th of July, the submarine came off the blocks in the afternoon and the trek towards the museum site commenced. But at the first 90-degree turn, it became apparent that the loading frames were not sufficiently compatible with the load points of the moving...

Some 25 years ago I bought a substantial portion of a homemade Victorian photograph album which has fallen apart. This album, containing more than 50 pages, was rescued by a Johannesburg-based book dealer. Each of these pages came neatly wrapped in plastic, with the detail of each page, where available, retained and included at the back of each page.

Years later, by absolute fluke, I cannot even remember when and where, I obtained the remainder of the album containing the hard cover front and back pages along with five additional pages with pasted photographs that the dealer possibly did not see as important to protect in a similar vein. It may even be that this second batch was not in the original dealer’s possession and that it surfaced from somewhere else. Irrespective, the likelihood of me finding the remainder of the album some years later, without searching for it, still boggles the mind.

By including the details of each page, the dealer ensured that some provenance was saved. Sadly, even after dissecting the content, the original owner of the album has not been determined beyond reasonable doubt. It is safely assumed to have belonged to the wife of a Royal Navy officer who was based in Simonstown between the period 1862 and 1869, the same period that the HMS Valorous did service in the Cape waters.

Unlike the majority of Victorian albums, where photographs could be slid into purpose-made pockets, photographs in this album are pasted onto blank pages. The original...

While spending several days at the South African National Archives in Cape Town researching a theme relating to South African Photographic History, I stumbled upon a file that contained two original antique photographs. It attracted my attention in that it is rather unusual to find early photographs of this nature in archival records.

Although still photography-related, the theme that grabbed my attention was not part of my primary research intent whilst at the archives.

The story that unfolded is a sad one, yet an important one to capture in that it relates to the use of photographs in making a legal determination as to whether passengers have survived a tragic incident at sea.

The photographs contained in the file were used during a commission directed by the Cape Town Supreme Court in 1917.

In this case, the two photographs, captured by the Cape Town-based photographer Akkersdyk (Adderley Street), were marked Appendix B & Appendix C respectively in the inquest documentation.

Amelia Mary Gormley (Wilkinson) applied to the court to have her parents announced dead. She provided the two photographs to assist in the process.

Here is the story.

The fateful night - 26 May 1917

On 21 April 1917, the ship Carlos de Eizaguirre left Barcelona carrying 35 passengers. She reached Las Palmas on 30 April, where she bunkered before departing again on 5 May 1917. When she left the Las Palmas port, she carried 50 passengers, including eleven or twelve women and five children between the ages of three...

South Africa has an exceptionally long coastline stretching over 3000 kilometers from the desert border with Namibia on the Atlantic coast southwards around the tip of Africa and then north to the border of subtropical Mozambique on the Indian Ocean. As would be expected, many a ship has foundered in our waters over the more than 500 years since the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeo Diaz first rounded the Cape in 1488. 

However, only a very few of these could be said to be true “treasure ships” carrying large amounts of coins struck in precious metals with examples like the Joanna (1682) and Merestein (1702) few and far between. And even these ships seldom carried large amounts of gold coins, unlike legendary ships sunk in foreign waters like the Nuestra Senora De Atocha and the SS Central America that foundered along the American coastline with the last mentioned carrying gold then valued (in 1857) at approximately US$8 000 000. The gold value today in South African currency would be approximately be R14.5 billion with the numismatic value much more.

Gold coins recovered from shipwrecks in South African waters were in most cases personal possessions carried by rich passengers and officers on the ships, although a ship like the Birkenhead (1852) was rumored to have had a military payroll of £240,000 in gold coins weighing about three tons on board. It is thought that the gold coins were intended as payment to soldiers fighting in the Eastern Cape boarder wars.

Two gold coins...

Both MTB South African Tokens (2021) and Hern’s Handbook on Southern African Tokens (2009) list six brothel tokens of which three were issued for use in Durban and the other three in Cape Town. These two port cities were the main entry points into Southern Africa for troops coming to fight in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

British troops disembarking at the Durban docks in 1899 (The South African Military History Society)

The tokens are the following: Berthe, Jeannette, Martha (Durban) and Mademoiselle Janne, Lina de Lorme, Mascotte (Cape Town).

Berthe (Hern’s Handbook on Southern African Tokens), Martha and Jeannette (MTB South African Tokens)

Janne (Noble Numismatics), Lina de Lorme (Hern’s Handbook on Southern African Tokens) and Mascotte (Noonan’s Mayfair)

As we shall see, with one exception, the tokens in most cases show clear similarities regarding their sizes, composition, place of manufacture (France) and maker, being Cartaux of Paris. In addition, their date of circulation being during the Anglo Boer war era and running into...