Notes and Queries

MONITORING BOYCOTTS: BLACK CONSUMERS AND WHITE BUSINESSES IN PIETERMARITZBURG, AUGUST 1985 Christopher Merrett writes:

S the struggle against apart two conciliation boards and arbit heid intensified in the 1980s, ration failed to move intransigent Aworkplaces became major management. A go-slow and ban on sites of conflict as trade unions rapidly overtime brought in white schoolboy expanded both membership and scab labour. After further negotiations influence. A primary tactic, boycotts failed, 1 000 workers went on an and stayaways, was monitored by the intermittent strike. More conciliation Development Studies Research Group board hearings made no headway and (DSRG) at the University of Natal in on 30 April 1985 the strike resumed. Pietermaritzburg using volunteers to On 3 May, 970 workers were sacked, collect data. One such event was an BTR-Sarmcol claiming that their strike offshoot of the long-running BTR- was illegal. The replacement workers Sarmcol strike in Howick, a call for a were mainly Inkatha supporters. boycott of white business throughout A consumer boycott in Howick the Pietermaritzburg region from 15 to caused considerable hardship for 26 September 1985.1 shopkeepers. Demonstrations by dis The strike was basically the result missed workers took place in Pieter of a struggle for full recognition of maritzburg in June followed by a the Metal and Allied Workers Union stayaway organised by the Federation (MAWU) by BTR-Sarmcol against of South African Trade Unions a background of mechanisation and (FOSATU) on 18 July that reportedly downsizing of the work force. An reduced the city to a “ghost town”.2 industrial court case, negotiations, The boycott followed on 15 August.

It was called off six weeks later, in the neighbourhood. There seemed but had effectively collapsed in late to be no obvious fear of being seen August in the face of organisational with branded shopping bags. During disarray, financial problems and police the monitored fortnight a branch of harassment. It was condemned by the Kentucky Fried Chicken opened and business community and city council, about 30% of the lunchtime custom which argued that it undermined appeared to be black. Three businesses efforts to mitigate unemployment and were observed on nine occasions in hunger.3 A week later they produced August at 1.00 pm on weekdays and an anti-boycott pamphlet and dropped 9.00 or 10.00 am on Saturdays. The thousands of copies over Imbali, number of black shoppers at Checkers Edendale and Ashdown from the air. peaked at 20, at CNA at six, and at Vitus Mvelase speaking on behalf of Fitzroy’s Tea Room at five. These Inkatha rejected the boycott.4 figures seemed to confirm low levels Shopkeepers and managers were of black custom that had not altered phoned or interviewed and asked significantly because of the boycott how they felt in general about the call. boycott and whether trade was being A city centre liquor store manager affected. Businesses were divided into claimed that its black custom was three geographic zones: Scottsville/ insubstantial and a boycott would Hayfields; Pietermaritzburg city not affect business, but referred centre; and the south-east end of the the monitor to the Durban office. It central business district, officially an painted a different picture saying Indian group area. that 30% of customers were black In Scottsville, Checkers claimed that and turnover was down. This was only 5−7% of turnover related to black attributed, however, to an economic shoppers. On 19 August the manager downturn. A furniture store spokesman said that he was not expecting the said that “blacks are too intelligent to boycott to have any effect, which he join the boycott” and that he expected confirmed on 25 August. Staff at Pick ’n improved business because of damage Pay refused to comment, except to say to private property as a result of unrest. that only 2% of shoppers were black. McNamees, another furniture store, A butcher at Nedbank Plaza expressed declined to comment. sympathy with black shoppers, but Contacted four times, Game, said his clientele was small and only known to have substantial black purchased one type of cheap meat, custom, provided no comment. OK although he thought custom might Bazaars behaved likewise, refusing increase as he used unmarked bags. to say anything without head office Contacted at the end of August, he permission. Woolworths also failed refused any further comment and his to produce anyone with sufficient manner was evasive. authority to comment, but cashiers Observation suggested no decrease volunteered the information that in the small number of black shoppers black shoppers were still using the at Nedbank Plaza. They were mainly store and there was no noticeable university staff, local domestic workers drop in takings. However, two large and labourers temporarily working department stores, The Hub and John

Orr’s, did report a drop in the number business of supermarkets in this part of black customers and purchases but of Church Street had increased by 25% preferred to attribute this to depressed on average.6 economic conditions. One manager The overall impression was that the expressed bewilderment at the boycott, consumer boycott call had not been arguing that business had no influence widely heeded in Pietermaritzburg, over government.5 A spokesperson for although the edginess of business The Federation of South African Trade spokespeople suggested that the Unions (Fosatu) made the point situation might be more complicated. that white traders and consumers had Casual enquiries suggested some considerable political power. resentment amongst black people Observation of the city centre that their shopping habits were under on Monday 26 August at 12.30 pm scrutiny, a certain level of shopping provided no visible evidence that a by whites for blacks, and a rumour boycott was in force. Numerous black that liquor store purchases were not shoppers walked in and out of stores questioned. Press reports suggested in Church and Longmarket (Langali that black-owned township businesses balele) streets between Commercial were taking advantage of the situation (Albert Luthuli) Road and Chapel after taxis entering Imbali were (Peter Kerchhoff) Street with parcels subject to searches by youths. They and bags. Tearooms and bakeries were disowned by The Metal and were also well populated, but many Allied Workers’ Union (Mawu), but of these customers would have been on 23 August a bus was torched at purchasing on behalf of nearby offices. Mpophomeni after some passengers A rough count on the same day around refused to have their bags inspected.7 noon produced 60 black shoppers at The historical role of consumer OK Bazaars, 20 at Woolworths, 15 at boycotts has not been addressed in CNA and 12 at The Hub. great depth even though they date The most informative shopkeepers back to the heyday of the South were from the Indian sector of the African Congress of Trade Unions in business district. A furniture store the 1950s. A revival was successfully manager supported a short boycott instigated by the South African in sympathy with the BTR-Sarmcol Council on Sport (SACOS) in the late strikers, but felt it ran the danger of 1970s against Simba Quix (potato earning them resentment. He did chips) after sponsorship for non-racial not expect the boycott to affect his school sport had been refused; and this trade, a feeling confirmed at the end was followed by the famous Fattis and of August. A cash-and-carry store Monis (pasta) and Wilson Rowntree owner working on six months account (confectionery) boycotts in 1979 and expressed similar opinions and felt 1981. The Black Christmas campaign that by mid-month there was a loss of 1984 was followed by a series of of interest in the strike. However, he consumer boycotts in the Eastern did report quieter business over the Cape, and then by the BTR-Sarmcol second half of the month, which he action. attributed to the economic slump. In general, bad publicity was more Press reports suggested that the of a threat than financial loss for larger

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries companies, although small retailers Bhamjee. The monitors in this particular case were highly vulnerable.8 While were Marie Dyer, Fidela Fouché, Christopher Merrett, Pat Merrett, Leonie Prozesky and township geography and the dom Pessa Weinberg, which suggests an organised inance of commuter transport by buses link between the DSRG and Black Sash. made consumer boycotts of white 2 Peter Kerchhoff, “The role of the churches” businesses an apparently promising in Hope Beyond Apartheid: The Peter Kerchhoff Years of PACSA edited by Lou tactic, it is clear that enforcement was Levine (Pietermaritzburg: Pietermaritzburg not easy. Those same factors made Agency for Christian Social Awareness, security force counter-action feasible 2002), 166−167. while boycott enforcers were highly 3 Strini Moodley, “Boycott of city’s white businesses begins today” Natal Witness 15 visible and vulnerable to both police August 1985. and angry members of the public.9 4 Zodwa Maseko, “Consumer boycott: mixed It is probable that the BTR-Sarmcol reaction”, Echo 22 August 1985. consumer boycott had limited impact 5 The press experienced the same problem in eliciting information. in a political sense except to generate 6 Strini Moodley, “Boycott may spread to other publicity that kept the industrial Natal shops” Natal Witness 22 August 1985. dispute in the public consciousness. 7 Natal Witness 27 August 1985. Sustaining a broad campaign over a 8 Steven Friedman, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970−1984 wide area in pursuit of very specific (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), 199−200. demands was inevitably difficult and 9 Glenn Moss, “Stay-aways: mass strike or focus and cohesion appear to have demonstration?” Work in Progress 25 (1983), succumbed to more nebulous, general 34. 10 10 Gail M. Gerhart and Clive L. Glaser, From objectives. Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, NOTES 1882−1990: Challenge and Victory, 1 The DSRG was headed by Norman Brom 1980−1990 (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2013; berger and staffed by Yunus Carrim and Yusuf v.6), 84−86, 411. THE “DAWN OF VICTORY” John Deane writes:

eventy years ago, in 1945, Chief among those were servicemen the Second World War came to who had returned badly disabled, and San end. In the previous year, after the dependants of those who had died. the D-Day landings in Normandy and There was a huge national campaign the Americans’ success at Okinawa, it to increase the size of the fund, and was clear that the defeat of Germany that included the staging of “Dawn of and Japan was assured, even if not Victory” Cavalcades in various parts imminent. of the country. From the 12th to the 16th In South Africa the Governor- of September 1944 the Cavalcade for General’s War Fund existed to give Pietermaritzburg, the Midlands and additional help to those whose lives had Northern Districts was held in the city’s been most severely affected by the war. Alexandra Park. It was the scene of

displays and entertainments on a scale On the first two pages is a programme not seen during the preceding years of of the afternoon and evening events on anxiety and austerity. Recently a 32- the Oval itself: the SA Police Band, page souvenir programme of the event the Caledonian Pipe Band, a school was discovered among old papers by choir, girls’ and boys’ PT displays, a Pietermaritzburg resident, providing displays by the city’s dance schools, a interesting details of the memorable boxing tournament, a Zulu war dance, event. gymnastic display by the YMCA.

Then there is a full-page portrait of the the Hon. George Heaton Nicholls, Fund’s Acting President, the Rt Hon. the Mayor of Pietermaritzburg, Mrs N.J. de Wet, who was the “Officer Eleanor Russell, and Major-General Administering the Government” after Evered Poole, CB, DSO, Officer the death of the Governor-General, Commanding the Sixth South African Sir Patrick Duncan, in 1943. Then Armoured Division. A portrait of follow brief appeals for support of the the strikingly handsome 42-year-old fund by the Administrator of Natal, general accompanied his message. The

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries introductory pages conclude with two shows 39 different stalls, exhibits optimistic and encouraging messages or facilities. A description of the datelined “Italy, August 20”, from an local leather industry’s exhibit is anonymous South African airman and accompanied by an advertisement soldier. “[On our return] many of us stating “Leather for almost 3 000 000 will have to start anew, and we will pairs of army boots has been produced need all the assistance you can give by the Sutherlands Tannery.” For some us, but remember that in helping us reason the advertised Maze was not you are helping to build a new and built, to the great disappointment of better South Africa.” “The Rome- some schoolboys who had read Jerome Florence campaign has been the K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat and best we South Africans have fought thought they would be able do better in. Brisk, purposeful, full of interest. than Harris. More important still, we have found The souvenir programme itself, ourselves at last completely superior quite a lavish publication by wartime to the Germans in men, equipment, fire standards, was donated by the Pieter power and air strength. The Hun star maritzburg Chamber of Printing, but is setting. We shall continue the fight there is no indication of how much until it sinks never to rise again.” visitors paid for it. Advertisements The various attractions that awaited – ten full-page and one half-page – visitors are then described, each make up about a third of the souvenir with a black-and-white “artist’s booklet, and clearly the advertisers had impression” sketch. They included made considerable contributions to the the main gateway, art and craftwork Governor-General’s War Fund. Some from the schools, places where of the brands and firms advertised refreshments could be bought, the St are still with us today – Sunlight John’s Ambulance and the Red Cross, Soap, Trotter’s Jelly, Eddels Shoes, a MOTH and BESL reconstruction of Baynesfield meat products – while a First World War trench in Flanders, others have long since disappeared. the History of Natal Sugar, Sheepskins There is only one cigarette advertise for Sailors, exhibitions by the railways ment, and it has pride of place on and the police, a temporary post the back cover: “Smoke ‘C to C’ for office, an information bureau, an Quality. Enjoyed by the Million. Cape open-air dance floor, a Netherlands to Cairo.” display with an almost full-size Dutch The “Dawn of Victory” Cavalcade windmill, a Norwegian display, a was probably the most extensive provincial Roads Department exhibit, public display Pietermaritzburg had a funfair/amusement park, and many seen since 1939, and it seemed to more. The site plan of the Oval and hold out the promise of better times to adjacent areas (by Ernest Rose MIA, come. who possibly also did the sketches)

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLER HOMES IN KWAZULU-NATAL Val Ward writes: ver the past few years I have stream and carried it to the site in a read diaries and memoirs of home-made sling made from a box Othe mid- to late 19th century. I on two poles. It was such a laborious began noting how the settlers had built task that they decided to use stone their homes with what was available for the foundations only. Intending to to them. make the walls with mud bricks, they Franco Frescura in his Rural went to the brickworks to learn how Shelter in Southern Africa shows to make bricks. The brickworks lent how house forms underwent several them moulds. Clay, mined near the distinct stages – from the earliest cave bottom of Town Hill, they carried to dwelling, through beehive, to beehive their building site where they made on cylinder, to cone on cylinder and the bricks. Embarrassed at trampling eventually to houses with corners and the mud themselves, they did this task hip roofs. This evolution involved under the cover of darkness. Soon they the introduction of new materials and found a local man who was prepared new building technologies. So it was to trample the clay. With experience, not surprising that when European the Mason brothers were able to make settlers arrived in KwaZulu-Natal they 700 bricks a day. The walls were built frequently started off with a beehive of green mud bricks to a height of 12 structure – a wattle1 frame covered in feet, wood-framed windows and doors thatch. This was followed by either a being set in as the walls were built. A wattle-and-daub2 house with thatched roof frame was made, and placed on roof, or unbaked brick house and the walls. Verandahs, supported by eventually stone and/or bricks, either thick posts, were added back and front home-made or from the brickworks, to protect the green bricks from rain. and iron sheeting. Availability of The roof was thatched. building materials was important. A G.H. Mason stayed in Natal for dressed sandstone house would not two years, returned to England, and have been built where sandstone was eventually returned to Natal as a absent. clergyman. G.H. Mason, who arrived in Durban Isabella Giles, in her diary written in July 1850 on the Henrietta, built over two decades, wrote about his first shelter on the Vley (Pine moving to the farm Blaauwkrans, Street/Winston Road area) in Pieter near Bushman’s River (now Estcourt), maritzburg. He cut timbers from the where they took occupation of a Dutch forest across the stream and made a house in July 1863. Later she called it frame onto which he nailed his tent. an “ugly Dutch house”. She did not He lined the shelter with “common describe its form, but she did mention white calico”. Here he lived with his the frequent fixing and sealing of the brother while they built their house floors. Presumably these were dung with little help. floors. For their more substantial home, Marianne Faure travelled with they quarried stone from across the her husband Revd Faure from

Pietermaritzburg to Ladysmith and told Moreland that they had lived in a back in 1853. En route the party “common canvas tent” until the house stayed overnight at Boer homes. She was built. described Boer houses in her account When the Ralfes moved to of her first African excursion in 1853.3 Bushman’s River area, Robert Ralfe “Most Boers live in houses made of Junior built a turf- or sod-house. Later wood, plastered with clay, as when they he built a house using unburnt bricks first came to the Colony.” Presumably for Mr F.W. Moor. On his own farm this was wattle and daub construction. Heavitree he built a “nice little stone There was a front door and the front room” in which he lived occasionally. room was the living room. Usually His livestock had stone-built sheds. In there were two bedrooms at the back 1864 Robert Junior built a house with where several generations slept. If three rooms – a sitting room, a bedroom there were windows they were small, and a kitchen – to which he took his and had wooden shutters as there was bride, Emily Wilkes of Mielietuin. no glass. Except for the front door, The house had a thatch roof, sod walls doorways were closed with a curtain. and yellowwood from the Karkloof. Roofs were thatched and there was no Isabella Giles, and Robert’s mother ceiling. If there was a ceiling, it was Mrs Moor, visited the house and in her made of timber boarding. This type of journal Isabella Giles described it as construction frequently gave way to “a bachelor’s establishment”. Robert brick or stone-built homes. Jnr records that he was grateful to his Robert Ralfe Senior, with his sons sister Annabella (the young Mrs Moor) including Robert Junior, on arrival in for making it “very nice” for the bridal Byrne in 1850 had a Zulu hut built, couple. Subsequently this house at divided into three compartments. Heavitree was given a calico ceiling Later they engaged a man to help and an iron roof was placed over the build a house. They made shuttering thatch. with 12-inch planks into which was At his brother William Ralfe’s farm placed mud mixed with dry grass to Knowle they built a cottage with two a height of 18 inches. Into this they rooms as well as a dwelling house stuck timber uprights, taken from the with two bedrooms and four verandah nearby bush, which they then wattled. rooms This house had large, deep Subsequently mud was “thrown on” verandahs at front and back, with a to the wattling. When this wattle-and- kitchen at the back. daub wall reached a height of eight When Robert Ralfe Jnr moved to feet, a wooden roof frame was put on Bethlehem, Orange Free State, to and this was thatched. The roof frame set up a trading store he built a six- would have been made separately and roomed wood-and-iron house with a lifted onto the wall much like today. I kitchen. It measured “36 × 12 feet at think the house might have been four- the front and 12 or 14 feet at the back”, sided. When Mr Moreland, the settler the latter divided for an office store agent, visited the Byrne valley in 1852, and a bedroom for his clerk. Robert he wrote that the Ralfes had erected a Ralfe Junior’s reminiscences included substantial house and out-buildings descriptions of most evolutions in on their town allotment. Mrs Ralfe home-building technology.

In 1852 Moreland, the settler agent, cottage and kitchen – the clay being visited Richmond, Byrne and Illovo mixed with cut grass to strengthen where he interviewed settlers who the walls. He did not consider it a had arrived in mid-1850. Mr G.M. lasting structure unless the walls were McCleod had built a neat cottage protected from the weather. Isaac composed of two capacious rooms Gordon, who also arrived with nothing shaded by a verandah in front. William 18 months previously, hoped to have a Jefferies had built a large house of substantial house before long. bricks, made on the spot by himself, Dobie, a Scotsman who came to all completed except windows. Henry Natal from Australia to farm sheep, Tarboton had erected about the “best also recorded different building tech house in the neighbourhood, 36 feet niques. During his travels in 1862 to by 15 feet”, with verandahs still under 1866 in the Natal midlands and the construction. Joseph Landers’ house Eastern Cape he remarked that a Mr of unburnt brick and outbuildings was Armstrong’s house was in transition in the course of construction. William from thatch to iron roofing. At Mzim Watson, who lost everything in the khulu he visited a wattle-and-daub hut wreck of the Minerva, had a wooden belonging to Joseph E. Hancock. The house 30 x 15 feet built with a well- nearby mission houses were wattle and thatched roof as well as a kitchen, daub with “round roofs” and square piggeries and other outbuildings. doors, while in Queenstown the farm John Baseley, who was the first settler ers had stone houses, stone fences and in Richmond, where he pitched a tent stone stock enclosures. Obviously in 1850, had by 1852 substantial stone there was a lot of stone about. buildings – a house with a large cellar, Back in the midlands of Natal, at a dairy, a smith’s forge, a joiner’s shop, Fort Nottingham foundations were a large cattle kraal, stable etc. James made of sandstone while upper walls Weir erected a pretty little cottage, of were of sun-dried bricks and roofs two rooms with a kitchen and pantry, were thatched. The chimney did not on his country land. go through the roof and windows were At Illovo Anthony Pigg had, in the unglazed. At The Dargle, Fannin’s first 18 months since his arrival in 1850, house was made of sods. built a little cottage of two rooms, a Cow dung was used for plastering cook-house and workshop, with out- while a mixture of loam and fresh cow buildings for pigs, calves and other dung was used to finish off the plaster stock in the village. On their country and for smearing floors. Apparently farm land they had built a similar this treatment killed fleas and kept dust house. Both Robert Aitken and Henry down. On his return from the Eastern Newland intended moving to their Cape, Dobie was amazed to find locals country farms so had not built houses. papering the walls (presumably inside Robert Aitken was living in “kafir” walls) of his corrugated galvanised huts. Ambrose Voss had a mud-walled iron wool-shed. In his absence, a cottage, a cow shed and stable under lightning conductor had been installed one roof, and piggeries. John Crouch on his roof to protect the house against immediately on arrival built a grass a strike. He did not record what hut and then erected a mud-walled constituted the lightning conductor.

Dobie recorded seeing Africans Mason, G.H. 1855. Life with the Zulus of carrying a hut frame on their shoulders Natal. London: Longmans, Brown, Green & Longmans. – probably made where the material Ralfe, Robert Jnr. Untitled reminiscences. No was harvested and then carried to the date. homestead.4 Spencer, Shelagh. File: Natal Witness cuttings However inadequate, these few on Moreland’s visit to Richmond and Byrne, 1852. instances show how building methods changed over time in the second half of Notes th the 19 century in the Natal midlands, 1 Interwoven twigs, not necessarily of the and how some remained the same. Australian Acacia sp., locally known as “wattle”. Bibliography 2 Interwoven branchlet structure covered with Dobie, John Shedden, South African Journal mud or clay. 1862-1866. ed. A.F. Hattersley. Cape Town: 3 The diary of Marianne Faure, Mijne eerste The Van Riebeeck Society, 1945. Afrikaansche excursie, is housed in the Drummond, R.R. 1962. “When a Viking con William Cullen Library of Witwatersrand quered a corner of Natal.” Farmers Weekly, University. Ref: A35 M (A) Faure. In the 1950s December 5th 1962. the diary, in an exercise book, was translated Faure, M. A. (1853). My first African excursion. into English by her great-granddaughter Anna Pietermaritzburg: Natalia 36-37, 2007. Maria Entrop-Le Poole. In 1987 I read a copy Frescura, Franco. 1981. Rural Shelter in Southern of this English translation, My first African Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. excursion. Giles, Isabella. 1862 to 1866. Part of her 4 Almost a century and a half later while I was unpublished diary in two foolscap hard- visiting Dundee in 2009, I saw, for sale, a silk- covered books, in possession of Mrs Gay screened wall-hanging, made by an African. Wedderburn, Howick, KZN. This showed a group of Africans carrying a Kearney, Brian. Verandahs in the Mist. National hut-frame on their shoulders. Monuments Council. No date (c. 1990). ERGATES UNVEILED? Val Ward has been playing Sherlock Holmes …

OR years I have puzzled about My first encounter with Ergates “Ergates”. I realised it was a was a reference to an article on stock- Fpseudonym and wondered who raids published in the Agricultural it was that hid behind a pen-name and Journal and Mining Record of 1905. what that pen-name meant. I tried E.R. Then I found another reference while Gates. I tried anagramming it. I tried searching for other material in a 1904 reversing the letters but failed to find volume of the journal. This led to the author. At dinner one evening I searching all the volumes of the journal asked my guest Michael Lambert what, for “Ergates” material. It dawned on if anything, Ergates meant. He wrestled me that these articles were probably with my pronunciation and then decided written by a farmer. I felt, too, that that Ergates meant “farmer”, “worker”. they might have been “fillers” in a thin Later he confirmed this having consulted monthly volume of the publication. a Greek dictionary. Perhaps they had been written by the

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries editor. The name of the editor was not Charles Barter’s pen-name, included in the volumes from 1898 “Hippias”, was acknowledged in to 1902 but in Volume 6 of 1903 the Volume 3 (1901) of the Agricultural editor was named as H. Ryle Shaw for Journal and Mining Record. Yet the first time. there is no mention in the editorial, H.R. Shaw appears in the Natal in the same volume, of the name Almanac of 1905 as living at Corylton, or pseudonym of the author of the Winterskloof, as belonging to the interviews to be included in the Judges’ Association of the Natal Agri journal thenceforth. Ergates turned out cultural Society and as Editor of the to be the interviewer, and he ranged Agricultural Journal. Since he was so far and wide from Port Shepstone in active in the Agricultural Society he the south to Newcastle in the north. may well have been a farmer. Was he In over 80 articles between 1901 and also “Ergates”? My hopes were dashed 1907 he chatted to farmers about fruit when I found in the Natal Who’s Who? problems, cane growing, “old times”, of 1906 that H. Ryle Shaw of Corylton, stock-farming, Bushman raids, winter Kloof had been educated in London, feed, farm machinery, soils, poultry, Holland and France before becoming Mariannhill Monastery, “native drugs”, an engineer in Germany. He was also cold storage and more. The farmers he a military man. There was no sign of interviewed included names still well- his being a farmer. Then in 1874 he known in KwaZulu-Natal today. Since came to Natal and bought the farm H. Ryle Shaw ceased to be editor at the Carshalton at Mooi River but dashed same time the published interviews by off to Barberton for the gold mining Ergates stopped, I presume they were and when that rush ended he went to one and the same person. Were they? Johannesburg where he became mine H. Ryle Shaw seems to have been a manager for the Salisbury Mine. He crusty old colonist as far as officialdom returned to Natal and became editor was concerned. In 1899 he fought over of the Times of Natal, published from his salary, which was £300 a year 1899-1912. He started the Agricultural when he thought the original estimate Journal and Mining Record in 1898. It for the editor’s salary was £400. Later, was first published in March 1899 as in 1908 when his case against the Volume 1. It then became the Natal Colonial Government for wrongful Agricultural Journal and Mining retrenchment was settled, to his Record in 1905 with Volume 8 and satisfaction, he said he had expected two years later, in October 1907, £450 pa at the time he left the service Volume 10, it was shortened to Natal in May 1907. Agricultural Journal. 

CERAMICIST HONOURED Moray Comrie writes: HE University of KwaZulu-Natal has Tthis year conferred an honorary doctorate on ceramicist and entrepreneur Fée Halsted-Berning, wide ly known for the work being done at her Ardmore stu dios. First established some 30 years ago on Ardmore Farm in the Winterton area where Ms Halsted-Berning lived after graduating from the University of Natal, the much-enlarged studios, to gether with a selling gallery and museum, are now situ ated in the Caversham Val ley in the Natal Midlands. Ardmore is internationally known Ardmore pieces emerge from an for the remarkable ceramic pieces unusual combination of artistic crea produced there, and this reputation tivity, innovative technical skill, has made the studio, together with entrepreneurial enterprise and con its selling gallery and museum, an structive philanthropy. Flowing from attraction for art loving tourists her award-winning collaboration with from all parts of the world. Typical Bonnie Ntshalintshali, daughter of the Ardmore pieces are often utilitarian housekeeper at Ardmore Farm, and vessels – jugs, bowls, pots and so on – profoundly concerned about the im embellished with an array of creatures pact of HIV/Aids (which has taken the sculpted in clay and then decorated lives of Ms Ntshalintshali and many with complex designs in vivid colours. other Ardmore artists and workers) Fée Ms Halsted-Berning has herself Halsted-Berning has taken in many remarked that the idea of adding community members and equipped moulded clay animals came to her as them with both the knowledge to pro a way of covering unwanted cracks tect their health and the skills to make in the ceramic tiles that she would the ceramic pieces. While she retains make, and Professor Ian Calder of the oversight of the themes to be devel university’s Centre for Visual Arts has oped and the overall design of the observed that there were hints of her pieces made, the artists working in the future work at Ardmore in her student studio influence those decisions and production. He has pointed to a piece express their individuality in the deco still on display in the UKZN ceramics ration of the vessels. studio as an illustration of this.

In recent years Ms Halsted-Berning poverty, disease and lack of formal has extended the range of Ardmore’s education. This recognition has output to include printed fabrics of high enriched the communities from quality, further increasing the value of which the artists come, economi the enterprise and its contribution to cally as well as through educa the local economy. The university’s tion, opportunity, and pride and award of the honorary doctorate was dignity in their work. As part of made with the following citation: a commitment to uplifting local artists, the Ardmore Excellence Ceramicist Fée Halsted-Berning’s Fund was established in 1998 to contribution in nurturing artists help cover medical expenses for in rural KwaZulu-Natal through Ardmore artists suffering from Ardmore Ceramic Art has been HIV/AIDS and also to serve as hailed throughout the interna an educational programme on the tional arts world as a triumph of prevention of HIV. creativity and empowerment over A COMMEMORATIVE BOOKLET John Deane writes: T is difficult to refer to this com War. In her Foreword she mentions memorative booklet about Italian her regret that she did not question her Iprisoners-of-war in South Africa in father more closely about his experi the 1940s by name, as the words on the ences during the war years. cover are a dedication rather than a title. Fifty-nine of the booklet’s 65 pages The words “Alla Madonna della divina are a facsimile Italian text of the 1944 grazia. To Our Lady of divine grace” are booklet In Attesa and an English trans accompanied by the figures “1944 70 lation of it (“While waiting”) by Mil 2014” and two photographs, indicating via Verolini. It describes in some detail that the publication marks the seven the life of the prisoners-of-war in the tieth anniversary of the stone church, Pietermaritzburg camp, their sports bearing that same inscription above its and pastimes and the facilities in the door, which Italian prisoners-of-war camp. But the main focus is on the built in their camp on the outskirts of building of the church and its dedica Pietermaritzburg. (cf. Natalia 18 article tion in March 1944 by the papal del “Italians in Pietermaritzburg”, Natalia egate in South Africa, Archbishop Van 39 article “From metropolis to village” Gilswijk. Surprisingly, since it was and Natalia 39 Notes and Queries item produced in wartime and in a prisoner- “Italian graves in Pietermaritzburg”.) of-war camp, the text is accompanied The compiler of the booklet, Mrs Il by a number of photographs of camp lona Osso-Fairbrother, is the daughter buildings and activities. The compiler of one of the 870 Italian prisoners-of- and translator deserve appreciation, war who remained in South Africa or not only for making this rare publica returned here after the Second World tion more widely known, but also for

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries making it accessible to those who can Transvaal where Italian prisoners were not read Italian. also held, and there is reference to the Apart from the reproduction of In Zonderwater Block Ex-Prisoners of Attesa, this booklet contains a brief War Association under the jurisdiction history of the church building itself – of the Italian Ministry of Defence, and from its completion, through years of to the graves of those who died while neglect, dilapidation and vandalism, in captivity here. The Zonderwater to a first and then a second restoration, prisoners also compiled a commemo to its present state as a well-tended rative booklet, and its Foreword, writ place of worship in suburban Pieter ten by the humane and popular Camp maritzburg. One page tells the story Commandant Col. H.F. Prinsloo, is of the altarpiece, a copy of Raphael’s reproduced. “Madonna of the Goldfinch”, painted Its compiler hopes this booklet will by one of the prisoners. There is also be of particular interest and value to a page devoted to the sinking of the South Africans of Italian descent, and troopship Nova Scotia off the Natal to their connections in Italy. Others coast by a German U-boat in Novem wishing to know more about the war ber 1942. The death toll in that disaster years in South Africa will also find it a included 650 Italian civilian internees useful source of information. It is pri being brought from Egypt to South vately published: fairbrosso@wessa. Africa. There is a section dealing with co.za . 65pp. illus. R100. the Zonderwater POW camp  in the “SHE SAVED NATAL IN 1842”: FROM “MAN O’ WAR” TO HISTO- RIAN’S DESK. THE STRANGE FATE OF THE TIMBERS OF HMS SOUTHAMPTON Graham Dominy writes:

RECENT episode of the popular This note has its origins in a mean TV programme, “The Antiques dering conversation on our verandah ARoadshow”, shown on South looking across Pretoria to the Union Africa’s main satellite television chan Buildings, glowing mellow in the nel, featured a curious item that piqued summer evening light. Our guest was my interest. It was a wooden column, visiting historian, Hugh Macmillan, made from a large baulk of timber who was in South Africa to promote his from Admiral Nelson’s famous flag history of the ANC in exile in Zambia ship, HMS Victory. The show’s expert entitled, The Lusaka Years 1963-1994. remarked that about a century ago, the We were discussing historical writing in manufacture of furniture and memen general and Hugh idly remarked that his toes from the timber of scrapped and late father, Professor W.H. Macmillan, obsolete warships was very popular and author of Cape Colour Question (1927) initiated a fashion which spread across and Bantu, Boer and Briton: The Mak- the then British Empire. ing of the South African Native Problem

(1929), had written his books while seated at a desk which had affixed to it a brass plaque stat ing, “She saved Natal in 1842”. Hugh added that the desk still stood in his study in Oxford and was made from the oak timbers of HMS Southampton. This prompted Hugh and me to undertake a little research and I must thank Hugh for visiting the Bodleian library and tracing and perusing the 1912 catalogue of ship-breakers, Messrs Hughes, Bolckow & Co. Ltd. First, the ship of war: HMS Southampton was built in 1820, in the dying days of sail as marine propulsion, a decade or two be fore iron, steel and steam changed ocean fighting and ocean travel for ever. She carried 60 cannons and was classed as a warship of the “fourth rate”. This means she would have been a little too small to have been effective in Nelson’s line of battle, but was large and imposing enough to serve as a In June 1842, Southampton was flagship on a colonial station. despatched in haste to Natal after Dick This became her main duty and she King and Ndongeni’s frantic ride to served in the East Indies for several Grahamstown to obtain reinforcements years. There was a brief sojourn in the to rescue Captain Thomas Smith and lift North Sea in the early 1830s, during the siege by Andries Pretorius and the which she was badly damaged after Voortrekkers of the British encampment being struck by lightning. After exten now known as the “Old Fort”. sive repairs she sailed to join the Cape When Southampton arrived off Squadron at Simonstown in 1841, Port Natal, she fired a few impressive pausing en route to visit various ports in broadsides into the sand dunes on the South America. Her commander when Point and into the base of the Bluff. The she arrived at the Cape, was Captain bombardment was to cover the landing Stephen Fremantle (fifth son of Sir of the reinforcements from the schooner Thomas Fremantle, one of Nelson’s Conch. The boats crossed the bar and captains at Trafalgar). Stephen was also the troops of the 25th Regiment landed the younger brother of Captain Charles on the inland side of the Point to pursue Fremantle, who annexed Western Aus the retreating Trekkers and lift the siege tralia to the empire in 1829. of Captain Smith’s camp.

The rest of HMS Southampton’s indoor and outdoor furniture by master lengthy career was relatively undistin craftsmen. Hughes and Bolckow’s guished, although she played an active promotional literature lauded the quali role in anti-slave trade patrols in the ties of the seasoned teak and played early 1850s. However, it seems that the on patriotic and sentimental feelings, only time she fired her guns in anger encouraging buyers to acquire “a bit was in 1842, at Port Natal. Eventually, of old British sentiment”, as the pieces after years of anchored service as an have a “distinction quite of their own”. accommodation ship and after being Besides, the seasoned wood made downgraded to a hulk, she was sold for the items of furniture impervious to scrap in 1912. weather. Second, the hulk: This was a case of It seems that Hughes and Bolckow enterprising re-purposing and recycling. also specifically aimed their propaganda The hulk of the Southampton was sold regarding the timbers of the Southamp- to Britain’s leading ship-breaking yard, ton at the South African market, as the Messrs Hughes, Bolckow & Co. Ltd, catalogue at the Bodleian refers to a based at Blyth in Northumberland. The South African catalogue, which I have company had been formed in 1911, to not yet been able to trace. Not only has “scrap” – today we would say “recycle” Hugh Macmillan inherited his father’s – obsolete ships from the vast Victo desk (which has travelled back to Eng rian Royal Navy. It seems that HMS land from South Africa), but the Durban Southampton was their first Admiralty Local History Museum has a wooden commission. Their wharf was known as bench bearing a plaque indicating that “Battleship Wharf” and was still in use it, too, was made from the timber of the at the end of the Cold War when some ship that “saved Natal”. submarines of the Soviet navy were The desk supported the historical broken up there. research and writing of one of South The ship breakers not only broke Africa’s earliest and foremost “liberal” up old ships, but they had a good (and historians in the 1920s, and Hugh was opportunistic) eye for business. The still using it in his Oxford study when material from the hulks was reused (and he published the history of the ANC in marketed) in innovative ways. The recy Zambia in 2013. This is just over a cen cling of HMS Southampton pioneered tury since the old ship was turned into approaches they took with many a ship furniture and seven years short of two over the next few decades. centuries since trees felled during the The seasoned teak of the Southamp- reign of King George IV were fashioned ton was ideal for the manufacture of into a warship.

STATUES OF QUEEN VICTORIA1 by Adrian Koopman

ROM her plinth in front of the Legislative Buildings in Piet Fermaritzburg, Queen Victoria gazes serenely over the speeding taxis whizzing just under her feet in Lan galibalele Street. In Farewell Square, Durban, another Queen Victoria gazes just as serenely at the Post Office Building, originally the Town Hall of Durban. The traffic at her feet is a lot quieter, consisting mainly of pigeons gathered together to feed on the bread crumbs thrown by passers by. These two Victoria statues are two of six such statues in South Africa, the others being in Cape Town, Kim berley, King William’s Town and Port Elizabeth. There are, however, well over 100 statues of Queen Victoria scattered around the world, with 60 of them in the United Kingdom alone, and the others in various parts of the erstwhile British Empire. Smaller places like Jersey, Gibraltar and Malta only have one statue each, but Canada and Australia boast 10 statues each. There are seven in London alone, not counting the two at Windsor. Statue of Queen Victoria, Pietermaritzburg The two KwaZulu-Natal statues The Queen Victoria Monument in show Queen Victoria in her most Lancaster displays a sculpture of the characteristic pose: standing, while Queen guarded by four monumental holding orb and sceptre. Some of the lions; beneath them are four allegories other statues around the world show to freedom, wisdom, truth and justice, her seated on a throne or mounted complete with a generous collection of putti2 and four bas-relief friezes of on a horse. The two statues in Pieter fifty-three eminent Victorians, two of maritzburg and Durban are mounted whom were women.3 on a simple plinth but statues of Queen Victoria can be part of enormous and Queen Victoria was born in 1819, as complex monuments, like the Imperi cended the throne in 1837, celebrated al Monument in front of Buckingham her golden jubilee in 1887 and her dia Palace, or Hampton’s 1906 monument mond jubilee in 1897, and died in 1901. in Lancaster, England, described as A time-line of the hundred and more follows: statues erected in her honour shows the

tual erection. The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro website says of the Port Elizabeth statue that a movement to raise money for the statue was started in 1897, but it was only completed and unveiled in 1903.4 The renowned British sculptor E. Roscoe Mullins was commissioned to sculpt the statue, which is made of Sicilian marble. Mullins was also the sculptor of the Queen Victoria statues in Cape Town and Pietermaritzburg. Cape Town’s statue was unveiled in 1903, and the Pietermaritzburg statue, commemorating the golden jubilee, in 1887 (good planning by the city fathers there!). The date of the unveiling of the Durban statue is unclear. The inscription on the plinth reads: VICTORIA QUEEN AND EMPRESS THIS STATUE WAS ERECTED BY THE CITIZENS OF DURBAN TO COMMEMORATE THE SIXTIETH YEAR OF THE GLORIOUS REIGN OF OUR BELOVED SOVEREIGN. A.D. 1837 A.D. 1897 The inscription on the plinth of the Piet Statue of Queen Victoria, Durban ermaritzburg statue is far more laconic. earliest being erected in 1837 (the hon It simply reads our going to Edinburgh), and the latest VICTORIA erected in London in 2007. The time- QUEEN-EMPRESS line shows two distinct periods of statue 20 JUNE 1887 erection, one from 1887 to 1892, all celebrating her golden jubilee, and then Given that the Pietermaritzburg statue another period of even greater activity was erected well before the Durban from 1897 to 1906 where it is difficult to one, it is possible that the Durban statue tell whether the statues were erected to committee inspected the Pietermaritz celebrate the diamond jubilee or to mark burg statue, found the inscription much Queen Victoria’s death and the end of too brief and less than enthusiastic, and her long reign. It should be noted that felt they could do far better. it often took quite some time between Many of the statues around the world the decision to erect a statue and its ac are placed in parks and squares with

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries appropriate names, such as Victoria created the imposing Imperial Victo Square (Birmingham, London, Mon ria Memorial in front of Buckingham treal, Adelaide, among others), Queen Palace in London, and it is said that Victoria Square (Ballarat), Queen’s at the unveiling in May 1911, King Square (Sydney), Victoria Gardens George V was so moved by the excel (Brighton), Queen Victoria Gardens lence of the memorial that “he called (Melbourne), Queen’s Gardens (Bris for a sword and knighted Brock on bane, Dunedin) and many more simi the spot”.5 Clearly George V got into larly named sites. In Valletta, Malta, the habit of doing this, for Sir Bertram however, the queen sits less comfort Mackennal (sculptor of a statue of Vic ably in Republic Square. There is no toria in Blackburn, England in 1905) appropriately named square or garden was created a Knight Commander of for the Pietermaritzburg statue, and in the Victorian Order in 1921 by King Durban the statue is one of several in George V on the occasion of the un Farewell Square, named after an early veiling of Mackennal’s statue of Ed citizen of Durban. One wonders in ward VII.6 George V, it must be said, the cases of the statues in the various was only following an example set by Victoria Parks, Square and Gardens, his grandmother, Queen Victoria her whether the square (garden, park) was self, who knighted Sir John Steell in first named after Queen Victoria, and 1876 immediately after she had un then the city fathers felt they needed a veiled his statue The Prince Consort statue of the queen to justify the name, in Edinburgh.7 Steell was the sculp or whether the statue was acquired tor who created the very first statue of first, and officialdom changed the Queen Victoria in 1837 (the year she name of the location to suit the statue. ascended the throne), an astute move As we saw above, the Cape Town, on his part as in 1838 he was appointed Port Elizabeth and Pietermaritzburg Sculptor to Her Majesty the Queen. statues are all ascribed to British One sculptor, of two statues of sculptor E. Roscoe Mullins. I have Queen Victoria, did not need to be not, however, been able to ascertain knighted as she already belonged to the sculptor of the Durban statue. It royalty – Princess Louise, Duchess is noteworthy that no less than 41 dif of Argyll, the fourth daughter of Vic ferent sculptors between them created toria and her husband Prince Albert. the hundred and more statues of Queen Princess Louise was an accomplished Victoria found around the world, some artist and sculptor who studied under of them creating more than one statue. Sir Joseph Boehm, another person Sir George Frampton (1860-1928) was knighted for his services to the arts, responsible for seven statues, as was which included three statues of Queen Francis John Williamson (1833-1920). Victoria.8 Charles Bell Birch (1832-1893) was How long will these hundred and the sculptor of five statues of Queen more statues of Queen Victoria con Victoria, and Sir Thomas Brock (1847- tinue to gaze serenely over their re 1922) was responsible for a splendid spective corners of Empire? Two have total of 10 statues. Many of the sculp already bitten the dust: the statue in tors were knighted for their services to Quebec, erected to celebrate the Dia the arts. It was Sir Thomas Brock who mond Jubilee in 1897, was blown up

Natalia 44 (2014) Copyright © Natal Society Foundation 2014 Notes and Queries by Separatist radicals in 1963, and public process which involves total the statue erected in Nairobi, Kenya public participation. It would seem, in 1906 was destroyed by vandals as for the present at least, that in Pieter recently as February 2015. Follow maritzburg Queen Victoria can be left ing the uproar about the statue of Ce to gaze at the taxis racing past on Lan cil John Rhodes on the campus of the galibalele Street, and that her sister in University of Cape Town earlier in Durban can continue to keep the Fare 2015, and its subsequent removal, are well Square pigeons company. the statues of Queen Victoria in Piet Endnotes ermaritzburg and Durban threatened? 1 Most of the data used for this note were Yes, say the Economic Freedom Fight taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ th ers, in a News 24 report dated 30 List_of_statues_of_Queen_Victoria April 2015. The EFF want to remove 2 Chubby boys, usually depicted naked and the Pietermaritzburg statues of Queen with wings. 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_ Victoria, Sir Theophilus Shepstone Hampton and (surprisingly) Mahatma Gandhi 4 www.nelsonmandelabay.gov.za on the grounds that they (the EFF) “do 5 https://en.wikipedia.rorg/wiki/Thomas_ not support the statues of oppressors”. Brock 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_ Not only that, “these statues do not Mackennal provide a solution in solving the pov 7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steell erty in South Africa”. Amafa-Heritage 8 https://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_ KwaZulu-Natal, however, has said Louise_Duchess_of_Argyll that the removal of statues is a lengthy