Western Cape

Pious Muslims believe it was prophesied some two and a half centuries ago, that a ‘circle of Islam’ would eventually surround Cape Town. According to local lore, this circle consisting of two dozen ornamental tombs or Kramats of ‘Auliyah’ (friends of Allah), is now complete. These are the mausoleums of important historical figures from the early Cape Muslims brought here as during the rule of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) as slaves, convicts, or exiles.

Reputedly, this sacred circle or crescent, safeguards Cape Town and surrounds from natural and other disasters. Many Muslims therefore view these Kramats as places of blessing, where intimacy with God can be attained.

I have been meaning to visit some of these historic Kramats, after reading The History of the Tana Baru and visiting this old Muslim cemetery on the slopes of Signal Hill.

Fortunately, I discovered the Cape Mazaar (Kramat) Society had published a handy, Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape.

This little booklet is the ideal travelling companion to these Kramats. It contains guidelines on the etiquette for visiting a Kramat, the local term for the tomb of a saint. There are also brief descriptions and histories of the twenty-four Kramats, complete with map and GPS co-ordinates.

A visit to the Kramat of Sheikh Yusuf at Faure, supposedly the most important Muslim tomb in the Western Cape, soon beckoned. My interest was stimulated by discovering Sheikh Yusuf’s life commenced in distant Makassar, on the island...

In the article below, Graham Ross and Tony Murray celebrate the achievements of Richard Thomas Hall, the man responsible for the railway line connecting Okiep and Port Nolloth. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Ore from the Namaqualand copper mines was shipped to Cornwall for treatment, so it was perhaps natural that the Cape Copper Company appointed a Cornishman to investigate its transport problems. Richard Thomas Hall, the engineer who conceived, designed and built the narrow gauge railway through the forbidding country from Port Nolloth to Okiep, was born in Falmouth, Cornwall in 1823. His experience as Superintendent of the narrow gauge Redruth to Chacewater Railway and of its conversion from horse to steam traction stood him in good stead when it came to tackling the transportation problems of the Namaqualand copper mines.

The Port Nolloth to Okiep railway line (DRISA)

He arrived in Namaqualand in 1865, enlisted the help of surveyor Patrick Fletcher, and carried out extremely thorough investigations into the various options for getting the copper to the coast. He did not exclude road transport from his studies, but he must soon have become aware of the difficulties attached to this mode, particularly...

In the article below, Tony Murray unpacks some of the details from the life of engineer Mathew Woodifield. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

The cosy pub at the inn on the top of the Zuurberg Pass is known as Woodifield's. The name celebrates the engineer Mathew Woodifield who completed the pass after Fancourt White had resigned after building the southern section from the Addo plains to the top in 1853. According to local folklore, Woodifield perished in 1855 when he and his horse fell over a cliff on the pass about 1 kilometre north of the inn, at a spot known as Woodifield's Krantz. The event is recorded by large lettering inscribed in the cliff face: "Woodifield's Krantz 1855". As is the case with such legends, the story is sometimes extended to include sightings of his ghost which visits the pub on cold and windy nights.

Unfortunately for such romantic notions, Woodifield appears to have been very much alive after 1855.

Zuurberg Pass (Robert Harris)

Woodifield arrived in the colony in about 1853 as an assistant to the Colonial Engineer, George Pilkington. He was posted to Algoa as the regional engineer, and he...

On 23 November 2003, the last of the SA Navy’s Daphne class submarines, SAS Assegaai (ex-Johanna van der Merwe) was paid off for the last time and destined for disposal along with her two sisters. However, with the scrapping of our first submarine, SAS Spear (ex-Maria van Riebeeck) that same year, a number of naval enthusiasts, both serving and retired, felt that she should be preserved as a museum vessel and campaigned for her retention.

As a result of their efforts, in 2005 the Naval Board approved her retention as the Navy’s first museum vessel and an annex of the Naval Museum under the conditions that it be done at no direct cost to the SA National Defence Force and carried out by volunteers who would raise funds to place it ashore where it could be used as an educational tool to promote the sciences amongst the youth as well as function as a museum exhibit.

An Assegaai Preservation Team consisting of volunteers under the auspices of the Naval Heritage Trust (NHT) was formed for this purpose. The Naval Heritage Trust is a registered Public Benefit Organization established in July 1994 with the primary objective being to  generate an awareness of the South African Navy and to educate the general South African public about our naval heritage, culture and traditions.

Planning and fundraising to move the vessel ashore at the Naval Museum commenced, a major engineering challenge and very time consuming. Thus Navy Headquarters gave authority to the team of volunteers to temporarily...

In the article below, Tony Murray profiles civil engineer John Scott Tucker. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Tucker was born in England in 1812, the son of a naval surveyor. He was in the forefront of the many talented young men who joined the exciting emerging profession of civil engineering, and after being articled to John Rennie and serving his pupillage on the construction of the new London Bridge, gained experience on railway work on the Great Western Railway under I.K. Brunel. Thereafter he was engaged in harbour works in the Azores, Bermuda and Malta, and between 1857 and 1858 he was employed on railway construction in Brazil.

Brunel (Wikipedia)

In 1857 a select committee of the Cape Government met to investigate the construction of a railway to the interior. Tucker, acting on behalf of a consortium of London businessmen, appeared before the committee with a proposal to build a line from Cape Town to Wellington with branch lines to Malmesbury, Wynberg and Stellenbosch. His most important submission was that, in order for the project to be viable, any private railway company should be guaranteed 6% interest on capital by the Colonial Government. The government accepted this proposal, thereby gaining...

In line with the important political reforms of 1994 and in time for the International Fleet Review of 1997, the Ministry of Defence initiated the renaming of nine South African Navy Minister class strike craft on 28 February 1997. On 1 April 1997 strike craft P1568 SAS Kobie Coetsee was renamed SAS Job Masego [sic]. Boat 8 – as it was more commonly referred to – remained in commission for another two years until 5 November 1999 when it was disposed of and eventually sold for scrap in 2008. In a further act of remembrance, the SA Navy also named its officer’s wardroom in Simon’s Town – the Job Masego Wardroom. This wardroom was previously known as “Rhodesia-by-the-Sea” after a former hotel built by the Rhodesian government in the 1950s.

But since the renaming in 1997, the correct spelling of Job Maseko’s surname, i.e. whether it should be spelled ‘Masego’ or ‘Maseko’ has often been contested, most notably by those living in members of the wardroom. The matter was brought to the fore this year and Chief of the Navy requested the Navy Command Council to resolve this ambiguity once and for all. The Officer-in-Charge of the Naval Museum was therefore tasked by Chief of Fleet Staff to determine the correct spelling of the surname and associated nomenclature and to provide guidance and recommendations for further actions to remedy the fault.

To conduct the necessary research, the historian Commander Leon Steyn therefore visited the DoD Archives in Irene in early May this year...

In the article below, Tony Murray profiles civil engineer and artist Charles Davidson Bell. The town Bellville was named in Bell's honour. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Bell was born in Scotland in 1813 and as a sixteen-year-old emigrated to the Cape, where his uncle, Sir John Bell, was the Colonial Secretary. He was energetic, blessed of an enquiring mind, and possessed a prodigious artistic talent, and he was soon accepted into Cape society. In 1834 he was a member of Sir Andrew Smith's scientific expedition which ventured north beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, and he returned to Cape Town over a year later with a splendid record of the trip in the form of some three hundred sketches and paintings of life in hitherto unexplored Africa.

He joined the Surveyor-General's Department as a clerk and was taught land surveying (and very apparently quite a bit about engineering) by Charles Michell. Very soon he became his chief assistant, spending extended periods in the field surveying the troublesome Eastern Frontier. After Michell retired in 1848, the posts of Surveyor General and Colonial Engineer were split and Bell was promoted to the former. He proved to be an energetic and competent officer who set the standards for the meticulous work carried out by his department from then onwards.

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In the article below, Graham Ross looks at the career of George Pilkington, Civil Engineer and Superintendent of Public Works of the Cape Colony from 1848. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Pilkington was born in Dublin in 1784. After passing out of Woolwich Military Academy in 1801, he was gazetted to the Royal Engineers and made steady progress. In 1809 he was sent to the West Indies, where he was made commander of an engineering detachment on St Kitts. He retired on 19th December 1816 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars with the honorary rank of Captain.

He served as Civil Engineer and Surveyor-General of Sierra Leone, and in 1822 held the same post in Trinidad, after which he travelled for two years in Brazil. Here he was chiefly concerned with promoting the emancipation of slaves, which did not endear him to local landowners.

His middle years are unchronicled, but it appears likely that he spent them on engineering works in Britain.

In December 1848, at the age of 64, he was appointed Civil Engineer and Superintendent of Public Works of the Cape Colony, succeeding Charles Michell. Here his first duty was to build, to Michell’s design, the lighthouse on Cape Recife.

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In the article below, Graham Ross profiles Thomas Bain, arguably one of South Africa's greatest engineers. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

The younger Bain is well known for the many mountain passes and pioneering roads with which he was involved. He is probably the best known of the nineteenth century road makers who played such a major part in opening the hinterland of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope for economic development and the concomitant expansion of settlement.

Thomas was born in Graaff-Reinet on 29th September 1830, the second son and seventh child of Andrew Geddes Bain and Maria von Backstrom. As was common in the frontier settlers’ families of that day, Thomas and his siblings were educated largely at home. His father had enjoyed a classical education in Edinburgh, and his mother, of well-born German stock, had also had an excellent education. 

Andrew Geddes Bain as an older man (Wikipedia)

Thomas Bain (Past Masters)

Andrew Bain was an esteemed engineer and geologist...

In the article below, Graham Ross tells the story of Murrell Robinson Robinson, a man who made a significant contribution to the development of the Cape Colony. The piece first appeared in the publication 'Past Masters: Pioneer Civil Engineers who contributed to the growth and Wealth of South Africa'. Click here to view the stories of other great engineers.

Robinson was a conscientious and dedicated public servant who has the rare distinction of having an engineering work named after him - the Robinson Pass between Mossel Bay and Oudtshoorn is a tribute to the high regard in which he was held in the Colony.

Robinson Pass (DRISA)

Robinson was born in Southwark, England in 1820. Initially he worked as a surveyor, and in his early twenties served in the Falkland Islands with a small contingent of Royal Sappers and Miners, engaged in laying out the original capital Port Louis (renamed Anson) and then the new capital of Stanley. He became Private Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor, and was appointed Superintendent of the Survey Department.  After some unfortunate personal differences had arisen, he was dismissed...