North End Defense Force Memorial

One of the things I discovered while in North End Cemetery is a Defense Force Memorial remembering soldiers who died in service of their country during the first and second World Wars.  According to the main plaque the memorial stones commemorate soldiers that were buried elsewhere but who's glory won't be forgotten.

Indian memorial at the Donkin Reserve

I was taking a couple of pictures on the Donkin Reserve the other day and noticed this plaque on the stone wall by the Great Flag.  I don't know if it is a recent addition or if I've just never noticed it.  Weird, but anyways.  The plaque marks the 150th anniversary (as on 16 November 2010) of the arrival of the first group of Indians to South Africa as indentured labourers.  Although the arrival was in Natal and not Port Elizabeth, the plaque was probably put up by the Port Elizabeth Indian community.  Worth a bit further investigation me thinks...

Lister Memorial - reposted

During my weekly tourism slot on LuisterFM 90.6 last week the Lister Memorial in Summerstrand came up in the conversation.  Even though the presenter had seen the stone monument before he had never knew what it was for.  I just realised again that there aren't many people who did know about it and even if you had seen it you wouldn't know who Joseph Storr Lister was.  So I decided to report a post I did about it in January 2011.  Please excuse the recycled picture as I didn't have a chance today to swing past there to take a new photo.

The area along Port Elizabeth's southern coastline which is reached via Marine Drive is where the Driftsands area can be found.  In the late 1800's the movement of sand dunes towards the town was very worrying to the town council and plans were devised to stop the sand from "invading" and overrunning Port Elizabeth.  One of the things done was a railway line that was built along the dunes and all the town's garbage was taken out there by train and dumped on the dunes.  In the late 1880's Josep Storr Lister came up with an idea to stabilise the dunes by planting Port Jackson trees and exotic grasses.  He commenced his work in 1890 and was successful in stabilising the dunes both in Port Elizabeth as well as on the Cape Flats in Cape Town.  Only problem though is that the exotic species have today become a problem in the area and we now work towards eradicating them and allowing indigenous coastal bush to take its place.  A small stone monument stands in Summerstrand next to Marine Drive as a memorial to the work Lister did.  Unfortunately the plaque that told the story on the memorial got wings and disappeared many years ago.

The Riderless Horse Memorial

The Horse Memorial has always been one of my favorite monuments around Port Elizabeth.  Not just for what it looks like, but more importantly for what it stands for.  Port Elizabeth was the main port of entry for horses and mules used by the British forces during the Anglo Boar War (1899 - 1902).  During the war more than 300 000 horses died in British service.  The people of Port Elizabeth was very much aware of the plight of the horses and after the war fund were raised to put up a memorial to commemorate the horses from the war.  Not to remember fallen soldiers on either side, not to celebrate apartheid as some political parties want their followers to believe and not to even commemorate the actual war.  To remember the horses.  The plaque on the monument says:

THE GREATNESS OF A NATION

CONSISTS NOT SO MUCH IN THE NUMBER OF ITS PEOPLE

OR THE EXTENT OF ITS TERRITORY

AS IN THE EXTENT AND JUSTICE OF ITS COMPASSION

Perhaps in South Africa we need to take this to heart more often.  In this case I mean for each other, our friends and families for strangers for our animals, for our environment, for our country.  But that isn't what the post is about.  

In April 2015 the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema's EFF, decided to vandalise the memorial because of their perceived perverted idea that it celebrates something linked to the Apartheid era and pushed the soldier giving the horse water over.  The monument wasn't about the soldier but about him showing the animal compassion.  Compassion these hooligans didn't show the memory of these horses.  The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality promised that the memorial will be repaired and the soldier returned to its place.  Ten months down the line and it still hasn't happened.

I stopped at the memorial this week and felt sad. Sad for the fact that the horse looks so lonely with nobody showing him compassion.  Sad that this unfortunately is also the state that our country seems to find itself in.  Sad that promises made to return the soldier seems to be just that.  Promises.  Something we are used to in South Africa and something we are going to see a lot more of over the next few months as the local elections approach.  Referring to signs that has been appearing over the beachfront lately aimed at the major and pointing to the lack of service delivery I want to say, "Hey Danny, fix the horse and bring back the soldier."

Why do I feel so passionate about it?  Not just because of what the memorial stands for but also the fact that it is one of Port Elizabeth's most famous historical memorials.  One that thousands of visitors to the city pass while on their tour of the city.  One that gets photographed by these tourists.  One that in the past have been used extensively to promote the city and its historical and cultural diversity and now is everything but that.  One that now tells a sad tale and is effecting the city's tourism image.  I really hope the soldier will make his way back to the horse some time soon and that more unfulfilled promises isn't just made in this regard.     

Moth Memorial - walled off

In January I did a post about the Grave of Joseph Crowe at the Moth Memorial Hall in Uitenhage.  Last week I was in town for a meeting at the NMB Science Centre nearby and drove past the Moth Memorial Hall just to find a vebracrete wall has been erected behind the little boundary wall that looks like sand bags.  How thoroughly disappointing that the public can't see this anymore.

Bashoto War Memorial in Uitenhage

In Magennis Park just off Church Road (Graaff-Reinet Road) in Uitenhage is a monument that seems kinda out of place in this part of the province.  It's a memorial commemorating those who died in the  Morosi Mountain and Basuto Campaigns of 1879 and 1880-1882.

Morosi's Mountain was the name given to a fortified mountain in the Drakensberg mountain range on the banks of the Orange River in southern Basutoland (modern day Lesotho).  This was the site of a siege during the Gun War, also known as the Basuto War.  It was given the name Morosi's Mountain after the Chief of a local tribe, who, after committing acts deemed as hostile to the Cape Colonial administration, fortified himself on the mountain.  The Gun War itself was the 1880-1881 conflict in the British territory of Basutoland (present-day Lesotho) in Southern Africa, fought between Cape Colony forces and rebellious Basotho chiefs over tribal rights.

The St Georges Park war memorial cross

People interested in history in Port Elizabeth should know the war memorials around St Georges Park.  The Cenotaph, the Prince Alfred Guard Memorial and the bronze plaque where the South African Heavy Artillery Memorial used to be.  Not many people know though that there is a fourth war memorial in the park.  Right behind the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Gallery is a plaque with a small hedge in the form of a cross.  Unfortunately the one side of the cross has died a bit and is in need of some green finger restoration.  The plaque at the foot of the cross reads: 

In memory of all those South African men and women who lost their lives in the various wars.  Not for themselves but for others. 

The Fugard kite from Master Harold and the Boys

The iconic South African playwright, Athol Fugard, famous for plays like Master Harold and the Boys, Sizwe Bansi is dead and The island, has very close links to Port Elizabeth.  Fugard's mother ran the St Georges Park Tea Room which sadly stands empty today.  It was here in 1950 that a teenage Fugard insulted his friend and father figure, Sam Semela, a waiter at the tearoom.  Thirty years later still shamed my the incident he wrote the play Master Harold and the Boys based around that day and his relationship with Sam.  

In the play Sam makes Hally (Fugard) a kite from junk and teaches him to fly it as well.  Sam also teaches Hally that flying a kite means holding the head high and it was very special advice for Hally who was having a bad day. From that day a special bond was created between Sam and Hally.  Later on the in the play Hally, in a moment of anger, mistreats Sam and Willie - another worker at the tea room.  But I'm not going to explain the whole play here.  All this does work up to the next point I want to make.  Outside the old tearoom artist Mark Wilby has created a memorial to Fugard referring to the play.  Inspired by the kite Sam crafted for Hally, the memorial is a simple stainless steel kite on top of a lamp pole.  I bet not a lot of Port Elizabeth folk knows about the kite.  

Langa Memorial

Most South Africans are familiar with the 1960 Sharpeville massacre where the South African Police opened fire on a protesting crowd, killing 69 people.  Very few people know though that on the 25th anniversary of Sharpeville, something similar happened in Langa township in Uitenhage when the Police opened fire on a crowd of mourners on their way to a banned funeral.  Twenty people were killed in the incident on 21 March 1985 and it became known as the Langa Massacre.  The incident was followed by an international outcry and a Commission of Inquiry (the Kannemeyer Commission) was immediately appointed to investigate the cause of the shooting.  This Heroes Monument marks the spot where the tragedy happened.

St George and the dragon

Most people who have been to or driven past St Georges Park know the Cenotaph (war memorial) in front of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum.  I wonder though how many people know that one of the figures forming part of the Cenotaph is St George himself,  sheathing his sword moments after killing the dragon.

 

St George's dragon slaying story is told as follow on Wikipedia:

 

"...a dragon or crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene in Libya or the city of Lydda in the Holy Land, depending on the source). Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the Cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess. The citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to Christianity."

The Arc of the 30th Meridian

Someone once sent me an email asking if I've ever been to the trig beacon on Lovemore Heights along with all the information about the beacon.  I'd never even heard of it and decided to drive up there, coming up against a closed gate and filing it away for future exploration.  After I took up Geocaching I noticed that there was a cache hidden close to the trig beacon and grabbed the opportunity to try and find it again, this time with directions from one of the previous cache finders.  The trig beacon is just that, a trig beacon, so there isn't really something very interesting to see.  The story behind it is of a lot more interest though, but I can now finally tick this spot as visited.  

The beacon is one in a series of 26, which are the first set of historic astronomical stations measured in order to establish the groundwork of the Arc of the 30th Meridian. The Arc of the 30th Meridian is a set of triangulation measurements effectively creating an arc from Port Elizabeth in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt through the entire African continent.  The purpose of the measurement was to determine the size and shape of the Earth.

 

This beacon represents the Southern most point of a chain of triangles Measured along the 30th meridian through Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and ending near Cairo in Egypt.
Prior to 1999 the beacon was also the origin of the geodetic survey of South Africa.
The project was initiated by Sir David Gill, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape in 1879 and the final measurements were completed in the Sudan 1954.
The arc, known as the Arc of the 30th Meridian, can be connected across the Mediterranean Sea through Crete and Belarus to a similar arc measured through Europe terminating at North Cape in Norway. The European arc is known as the Struve Arc and together these two arcs cover nearly 105º in latitude which is over 11650 Km in length.

This plaque on the trig beacon was unveiled by the President of the Institute of Professional Land Surveyors of the Eastern Cape, Mr C J Bollaert-Davies, on 8 June 2004, 125 years after the initiation of the project and 50 years after the completion of measurements.

War Memorial plaque

There are a couple of war memorials around St Georges Park commemorating those from Port Elizabeth who have died in various wars over the years.  A number of them refer to the two World Wars with the most prominent one being the Cenotaph in front of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum.  One of the lesser known ones is a plaque on the front wall of the art museum.

Mother and children

Yesterday's post I did about the Port Elizabeth Cenotaph wasn't the first featuring this great memorial.  A little while ago I received a comment on a previous post featuring the Cenotaph from Andy Gardner in Durban.  Andy's father was James Gardner who designed the memorial and also did the sculptures which are part of it.  On two sides of the memorial are sculptures, one representing a mother and child and the other St George, placed so for the purpose of symmetry.  The woman symbolises the warrior's wife protecting the home while St George represents those who have done their duty by crushing the evil threatening our homes.  The mother is seated and has gathered the child in her arms for protection, whilst on her face the expression is of the calm.

In his comment Andy said that that the woman was his Grandmother, Doris Gardner, while the boy is his father Frank (the artists himself) and the baby girl his Aunt Bubbles. There is no way I would have known something like that if it wasn't for this blog and the readers sending me this kind of information. 

Cenotaph and art gallery

One of the prominent memorials in Port Elizabeth is the Cenotaph standing in front of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Gallery.  The city's war memorial was unveiled by former mayoress Mrs WF Savage on 10 November 1929.  The memorial was the work of James Gardner of the Art School and was originally erected to the memory of the men from Port Elizabeth that fell during the Great War.  After the Second World War memorial panels were added to the walls behind the Cenotaph.

If you would like to read more about the memorial and what everything on it represents, pop into the St Georges Park History website.

PAG Memorial for Remembrance Day

Today, 11/11/2011, is Remembrance Day, also known as Poppy Day and Veterans Day.  It is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty.  Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918 with hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.  Without thinking I posted the War Memorial cross I was keeping for today on Wednesday, but decided to post another war memorial which can be found in St Georges Park in Port Elizabeth.  The Prince Alfred's Guard Memorial was erected in remembrance of men from the Guard that have died in a number of wars which are inscribed on the memorial.

Both history and Art in the Park

While walking around Art in the Park a couple of weeks ago I spotted an angle of the Prince Alfred Guard Memorial in St Georges Park that I have never photographed.  One tends to always to to the memorials themselves for a photo, but seldom take one from afar with something else in the foreground.  In this case its people and one of the stalls at the monthly Art in the Park.

Mendi Memorial

One of the lesser known, but by far not lesser in importance, monuments in Port Elizabeth is the Mendi Memorial in New Brighton.  The SS Mendi was transporting 823 members of the 5th Battalion, South African Native Labour Corps to France during the First World War and was struck by the SS Darro in think fog off the coast of Plymouth.  616 South Africans, 607 of them black troops, plus 30 British crew members died in the disaster.  The majority of the men of the South African Labour Corps were from the rural areas of the Pondo Kingdom in the Eastern Cape and this memorial remembers them.  I did a more extensive post on the SS Mendi a little while ago on The Firefly Photo Files.  Please click the link and read the whole story.

James Maxwell Memorial

Here is a post for my friend Doné who is always amazed when he reads something new about Port Elizabeth on this blog.  It just shows that there is always something new to learn on here.  There used to be a building on the corner next to the Public Library in the city centre in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  Fireman John Maxwell died fighting a fire in this building on 6 May 1896 and a small memorial erected on the site remembers him.  The plaque is just across the road from the Port Elizabeth City Hall. 

1902 Great Gale Memorial

I took some time at the 1902 Great Gale Memorial in the South End Cemetery last week and tried to imagine myself what that day must have been like.  On Sunday, 31 August 1902 there were 38 ships at anchor along the then North End Beach.  Rain and a south-easterly wind started to lash the bay and by midnight the storm turned into a hurricane.  By the end of the storm on 2 September 1902, 18 of the ships had been stranded on the beach, while the rest all had major damage.  The dead were buried in the South End Cemetery and thousands lined the route to the cemetery as the funeral processions went by with surviving ship-mates carrying the coffins of those that died during the storm.

During the storm four men from the town tried to take a rope out to a ship to try and help the sailors ashore.  More tragedy striked when their line broke and all four drowned.  Their names are also inscribed on the monument.

For more information and a account of the Great Gale, visit the Christiania Seilskuteklubben website and scroll to about halfway down the page. 

"Never before in its history has this port suffered under such overwhelming disaster as we record today. On Sunday morning some 38 craft rode at anchor under the leaden sky. Heavy rains had fallen and the wind gradually rose until, as the shadows of evening hid the shipping from view, a fresh gale was blowing in from the south-east, which, as the midnight hour was reached, had developed in to a hurricane. As the turmoil of wind and wave continued, so the toll of ships mounted, until 18 vessels were aground, with a raging sea adding a high toll of human lives.” - The Eastern Province Herald, 2 September 1902

Lister Memorial

The area along Port Elizabeth's southern coastline which is reached via Marine Drive is where the Driftsands area can be found.  In the late 1800's the movement of sand dunes towards the town was very worrying to the town council and plans were devised to stop the sand from "invading" and overrunning Port Elizabeth.  One of the things done was a railway line that was built along the dunes and all the town's garbage was taken out there by train and dumped on the dunes.  In the late 1880's Josep Storr Lister came up with an idea to stabilise the dunes by planting Port Jackson trees and exotic grasses.  He commenced his work in 1890 and was successful in stabilising the dunes both in Port Elizabeth as well as on the Cape Flats in Cape Town.  Only problem though is that the exotic species have today become a problem in the area and we now work towards eradicating them and allowing indigenous coastal bush to take its place.  A small stone monument stands in Summerstrand next to Marine Drive as a memorial to the work Lister did.  Unfortunately the plaque that told the story on the memorial got wings and disappeared many years ago.

Thanks to regular PEDP visitor Roche who reminded me of this very unknown monument.