JOUBERT HOUSE IN MONTAGU

Joubert House in Long Street, Montagu is a house museum depicting the country lifestyle of the 1850s. It is the oldest dwelling in Montagu. The house was built by then 22-year old Pieter Gideon JOUBERT for his parents from sun-baked bricks and clay, in what was then called Agter Cogman's Kloof. His father, also Pieter Gideon, was the town’s first Justice of the Peace. The wallpaper in the Ken Birch room is unique, being specially printed in the Netherlands from a sample of the original that was found in the room. The peach pip floor in the kitchen and pantry was laid according to a the old local method. A small room houses a large collection of toys from bygone days, including some individually numbered handmade porcelain dolls. The dolls costumes are historically correct, including underclothing and leather shoes. On 25 January 1981 the house was almost lost after a devastating flood. The Montagu Museum trustees and Ken BIRCH helped fund the restoration. The house was declared a national monument in 1975 and was re-opened on 14 October 1983 by State President Marais VILJOEN. There is an indigenous medicinal plant garden behind the house. The museum has been researching and recording the oral history and traditional uses of medicinal plants, in the Montagu district, passed down by the Khoikhoi, San and early farmers. A book, Herbal Remedies of Montagu Museum, was published, and the garden is often visited by foreign botanists and pharmacologists. Dirkie JOUBERT, daughter of Pieter who built the house, wrote a book, Crab Soup and other stories, in which she relates how she began gardening with herbs, helped by a local Khoi who brought herbs from the surrounding mountains for her to use.

OLD PHARMACY STILL EXISTS

Johan and Ursula BRESLER bought the Robb & McLees Pharmacy in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, in 1998. They have kept many old pharmacy items, including a 101-year-old prescription book. The first prescription filled at the pharmacy is dated 1903, the year the pharmacy was started by two Scots, David Wallace ROBB and John Prentice MCLEES. They are both listed as Chemists and Druggists in the Government Gazette dated 29 January 1915, both qualifying in the UK in 1900. David's address is given as 414 Paisley Road West, Ibrox, Glasgow, Scotland; whilst John's is Middelburg, Transvaal. John registered as a Chemist in South Africa in 1903 and David in 1905. John was married to Edith Ann MITCHELL. She passed away in 1928. John died in 1962, and had married three times - first to Edith, then Harriet Helen TRACEY (died 1958), and lastly to Magdalena Petronella DU TOIT. David died in the Cape Province in 1931. Bottles containing various old remedies, are still to be seen in the pharmacy. The prescription book lists each prescription filled, along with the person's name. Most of the early prescriptions were for stomach ailments and skin problems. The Scots kept two large glass bottles, one red and one green. When there was a contagious disease in town, the red bottle stood in the window to warn the residents. Once the disease had passed, the green bottle was placed in the window.

EAST LONDON SEAMEN IN WWII

Alan HARRIS is trying to create the most comprehensive record of Est London servicemen who died in World War II, something he started working on 11 years ago. He has photographed war memorials in the Border area for a number of years. He would like to make contact with all living relatives of the 44 East London seamen who served on-board Royal Navy ships in the war. He hopes to build a history of the servicemen with pictures and biographical information. He also wants to include information about the engagements in which they lost their lives, the area where they were stationed, the ships they were on or the regiments they belonged to. As an example, the ship HMS Neptune, a cruiser based in Simon’s Town, went down in the Mediterranean, north of Tripoli, on a mission to intercept transporters carrying Panza tanks. They sailed into a minefield and struck a mine. They then tried to reverse out of the minefield and struck another mine. The ship went down quickly, and of the 764 crew on-board, only 30 survived the initial sinking. However, by the time an Italian cruiser rescued them, only one man was still alive. None of the six seamen from East London who were on-board survived. The incident in 1941 was also New Zealand’s biggest loss of servicemen in any single engagement in WW2. They lost 150 personnel. One of the East London servicemen on-board was Signalman Cecil RANKIN, who attended Cambridge High School before enlisting in the Royal Navy. His father, Freddy, was a typesetter at the Daily Dispatch and the first president of the Typos Bowling Green. One of the bowling greens is named after Cecil.

Alan, whose father served in WWII, still needs information and pictures on the following seamen:
Roy AINSLIE, son of George and Kate, on HMS Cornwall, buried in Simon’s Town. John Robinson AUSTIN-SMITH on HMS Gloucester.
Cecil BOARD, son of William and Annie, buried in Simon’s Town.
Herbert Charles GERAGHTY, son of Christopher and Florence, on HMS Gloucester. Raymond HARRIS, son of Frederick and Lily, buried in East London.
Cedric KRETSCHMER, son of Edward and Rosanna, on HMS Duchess.
Douglas Edward MORROW, son of Thomas and Agnes, on HMS Dorsetshire.
John George MOSCOS on SS Ceramic.
Clifford SCOTT, son of William and Edith, on HMS Jaguar.
Jack VORSTER, son of Mrs M.E. VORSTER of Cambridge West, on HMS Hermes.

Anyone who can help Alan can call him on 043-7343092 or 0760408398 or e-mail: alanandirene@telkomsa.net

KOOS SAS' POSTCARD

Tertius ARCHER, of the farm Pedroskloof in Kamieskroon, is a fundi on Namaqualand history. He has collected old books and other items and photos from days gone by. He owns an original postcard with a photo of Koos SAS' lifeless body - which was sold by the then Namaqualand ACVV to raise funds. The photo was mass printed as postcards and sold to raise money for the ACVV, a Christian women’s organisation.

Koos, a Khoisan, lived a nomadic life in the Montagu area in the early 1900s, allegedly stole sheep and was often caught by the local constable Tonie SWANEPOEL. After Koos murdered his employer Danie (Boetatjie) BOTHA, the son of a Stellenbosch church minister, he was arrested in Touwsrivier. Danie ran a farm stall on the farm Hoek-van-die-berg near Montagu. Before his day in court in Worcester, Koos escaped and hid in Namaqualand. On 06 February 1922, Koos was in Droodaap, about 45 km north of Pedroskloof, where a policeman, Jurie DREYER, recognised him from a police file photo. When he approached Koos, he ran away. Jurie tracked him and shot him on 08 February. His body was taken to Springbok, where a posed photo was taken of Koos by the local church minister Willem STEENKAMP's son. This photo was used by the minister for the ACVV postcard. Steenkamp later exhumed the body and took the skull to America where he went for studies. When he returned to the Cape, he gave the skull to Prof. Hercules BRINK of the University of Stellenbosch. It eventually ended up on display in the Montagu Museum, where David KRAMER saw it, prompting him to write a song Ballade van Koos Sas in 1983.

HISTORIC ROUND HOUSE IN CAMPS BAY

The Round House restaurant in The Glen, between Cape Town and Camps Bay, is the oldest surviving building in Camps Bay, possibly built in 1786. It was originally built as a small round guards house that served to protect against enemies entering Cape Town from the Camps Bay side. Since the 1840s it has been used as a lodge, tea room or restaurant. The historic double-storey building suffered fires twice - one in 1860 and one in 1923 - and was left forsaken for many years. In the centre of the building, you can still see the gun cupboards where Lord Charles SOMERSET kept his firearms when he used the building as his hunting lodge. The restaurant was used as a ballroom in the 19th century. One of the outbuildings, a flat roofed house, was converted into a dwelling about 1860, it was used as an annexe to the Round House Hotel. In 1957 this became a youth hostel called Stan’s Halt, named after Stanley SENNEY who lost his life climbing Table Mountain. His father helped restore the building in his son’s memory.

From 1814 to 1817 it was owned by Jan Carel HORAK who used it as a livestock farm. He was the grandson of Jan Andries HORAK, a magistrate in Swellendam. Lord Charles SOMERSET, Cape Governor from 1814 to 1826, used it from 1817 until 1823 as a hunting lodge to shoot lion, leopard and buck on the slopes of Lions Head. He changed the rondawel to a double-storey. In 1837 it is believed that HORAK had to sell after which the building was used as a restaurant, tearoom and hotel. It was very popular in Victorian times and had two large ballrooms. With the new road (Lady Smith’s Pass, later renamed to Kloof Road), the Round House was turned into an hotel offering skittles, quoits and pigeons for sportsmen at 1s 6d a pair. The hotel with dance hall and amusement resort was run from 1849 by Mr. M. DONALDSON. A fire in 1860 destroyed the thatched roof, leaving the walls intact. The owner of the tearoom at the time was Thomas William Langley TITMUS but the proprietor was Edmund TILLEY, who had insured it for £300, and opened an hotel in Stellenbosch instead. Thomas was in the Royal Field Artillery. Edmund married Sophia Dorothea EXTER on 14 Nov 1849 in Cape Town. By 1863 the Round House was back in business under a new owner, Mr BRAZIER. Edmund TILLEY was back again in 1895 and on 23 December had been granted the land above the Round House. By 1901 H. TILLEY was the owner of the Round House Hotel, possibly Edmund's son as Edmund died in 1901. Two years later John KELLY took over. In 1904 the Cape Town City Council bought the property and leased it out. Mr D.J. WATSON was the proprietor of the tea room. In 1923 Thomas William Langley TITMUS again leased the property. After the second fire, the building had to be rebuilt - only the original walls and gun cupboards remaining. A plan of the area known as The Glen was found in the National Archives in Cape Town and dates back to 1881. In June 2008 The Round House Restaurant re-opened and is now one of Cape Town’s most exclusive restaurants.

PORT ELIZABETH'S FIRST TRAMLINE FOUND

In June 2010, a piece of Port Elizabeth’s original tramline was unearthed next to an old condemned bridge at the bottom of Brickmakerskloof by an excavator digging a channel for a new sewer line. An undamaged 2m long piece was donated to the Bayworld Museum. The tramline was part of the link between the Brickmakerskloof tram sheds and the main shed near the mouth of the Baakens River. The piece was found about one metre below the surface. Possibly after the 1968 flood, the level of the roadway was raised by about half a metre to keep vehicles safe and dry. As trams were no longer in use, the rails were tarred over. James BRISTER, who owned a furniture business and later became Mayor of Port Elizabeth, was involved in starting the public transport system in early Port Elizabeth.

The Port Elizabeth Tramway Company Act was passed by the Colonial government on 11 September 1878. Five horse-drawn tram cars were brought in from the United States of America and the service started operating on 14 May 1881. The first line ran from Market Square to Adderley Street, and took 25 minutes. A ticket cost sixpence first-class and threepence second-class. On 22 February 1888, the line was extended to Prince Alfred’s Park (the present-day Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium). In 1895, Parliament passed an Act allowing the municipality to construct an electric tramway and the Port Elizabeth Electric Tramway Company was registered on 09 May 1896. Ten trams were ordered from the JG Brill Company of Philadelphia, USA. Electricity to power the trams was provided by a power station. The first electric tram in Port Elizabeth was driven on 16 June 1897 from Market Square to Prince Alfred’s Park. Two weeks later the company put their 26 horses, stables, smithy and residences in North End up for sale/rent. On 04 July 1897 a double-decker tram was tested up Russell Road. A new single-decker tram was also successfully tested. The journey started at the power station, to Walmer Road, then to Prince Alfred’s Park in North End. The route was opened to the public on Tuesday, 20 July 1897 and the trams Port Elizabethans until the last car returned to the tramways building on 17 December 1948.
Source: Port Elizabeth - A social chronicle to the end of 1945, by Margaret Harradine.

LARGEST RUGBY MEMORABILIA COLLECTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Barry NAUDE has built up a rugby museum on his farm, Driekoppen, in Hanover, Free State. It is South Africa's largest collection of rugby memorabilia, including books, jerseys, ties, photographs and badges. In 1974, at the age of 10 years, he started collecting rugby memorabilia and making scrapbooks from articles in newspapers and magazines. He has more than 1000 rugby books. More than 200 rugby jerseys, 200 ties and 30 jackets are also on display. In 1995 the North-Eastern Cape Rugby Union closed down and Barry became the keeper of its memorabilia. Most of the items on display have been donated. Barry and a friend, Hannes KOTZE, are working on making the Test Programmes from 1891 to 2009 available in book form. They also want photos and/or signatures of all the 814 Springbok players for the book. Visitors are welcomed by appointment (this is a working farm). The farm is just off the N1 south of Hanover. Contact details: Mobile No. 0823177655 / 0832348779 or barrynaude@webmail.co.za or jmk@intekom.co.za