CITICHAT 16/2008 - 25 April 2008
History Entertainment
A Mining Town’s Entertainment
An early history of Johannesburg records that “its inhabitants were men consumed with one idea, the finding of gold and the making of money.” Well, nothing much has changed except that gold isn’t so easily obtainable by the man in the street, but certainly the “making of money” largely still dominates the character of the city! Earlier Citichats recorded the huge influence of liquor and sex in the city’s formative years. The third issue was ‘entertainment’.
In the very early days of the mining camp, life for the ‘diggers’ was evidently enlivened by “rough and ready socials of the ‘smoking concert’ variety, held usually in the almost countless bars that sprang up” or, if you were lucky, an invitation to dances at outlying farms - “Boer beauties were renowned for their figures and their giggles”. The more resourceful diggers improvised all sorts of games and recreational activities – “bars, horse races, cricket games and athletics meetings were so well patronized that these activities became an integral part of general camp life.” There were no permanent facilities for these activities although some temporary seating and grandstands were erected in various parts of the city. Yet, within four years of the establishment of the mining camp, Johannesburg boasted 312 bars and hotels, four theatres, three social clubs and a host of sports clubs.”
Social clubs such as the Rand Club (1890), the Johannesburg Club, the New Club (1897) in Loveday Street, the Athenaeum Club (1903/4) in Smit Street flourished. The siting of the Rand Club was evidently decided by Cecil John Rhodes and Dr Hans Sauer. They had identified a site on the corner of Commissioner and Loveday Streets owned by a Jewish financier, Ikey Sonnenberg, and a Scot called Marshall. Sonnenberg, liking the idea behind the club, gave his portion of the ground over as a gift, the Scot, however, insisted on full payment for his portion - seventy five pounds! The aim of the club was originally published as “a residential club and exchange, both of which are much needed”. The first Rand Club was not the impressive building of today but a “thatched shanty designed in a somewhat mixed style said to be renaissance but with an otherwise massive aspect relieved by turrets of wood and iron. It comprised a dining room, billiard room, reading room and three bedrooms while the ground floor included premises for shops.”
Sports clubs included the Gold Fields Club, the Doornfontein Club (1889/90) and the Wanderers Club (1889). Boxing had a huge following with a particularly famous match held on the 26th July 1889 between one, Bendoff, “a giant of a fellow” and James Couper described as “of frail appearance”. Most of the money was bet on Bendoff. So important was the match that the day was declared a public holiday (clearly our leaning towards public holidays for any excuse comes from the ‘old days’!) and so many people tried to get into the temporary corrugated iron enclosure that it collapsed creating a number of subsidiary private fights between those trying to gain access The fight ended when a bloodied Bendoff threw in the towel in the seventeenth round!
Horse racing was also popular with the first race recorded in 1887 with 3 000 filling a temporary stand built of sods near the camp. Not long after, horse racing moved to a permanent track at Turffontein. As there were no railways at that stage the race-horses were walked from Kimberley to Johannesburg every month and after racing, were promptly walked back to Kimberley for their next appearance before returning to Johannesburg a month later..
Golf started in 1890 but the main recreation ground of the city was a stretch of land known as ‘The Wanderers’ ground presented to the town by the Republican Government and covering some thirty acres. J B Taylor in his autobiography, “Lucky Jim” reveals that the motivation for the Wanderers Sports Ground was not for sport per se. He and Herman Eckstein had bought sites and built houses for themselves on the northern boundary of the town - “we wanted to make doubly sure that there would never be any buildings in front of us to spoil our view … we conceived the idea of working up a demand for a large playground for the town which would be in front of our houses” Self interest ruled just as much then as it does now! Following receipt of their ‘demand’, President Kruger sent the Minister of Mines, Christiaan Joubert, to investigate the issue and, having satisfied himself, he declared that “it was necessary for the youth of the town that there should be a recreation ground”. The ground in front of Taylor and Eckstein’s houses was therefore reserved for that purpose and “the ground” made available to a properly constituted body at a peppercorn rental”. The Wanderer’s Club was formed but one can imagine the great dismay when, half a century later, its ‘sacred soil was excavated for the building of the new railway station.”
But it was the theatre that really was the focus of attention for entertainment. Symptomatically in the ‘mining camp’ atmosphere of the emerging ‘Golden City,’ theatre buildings played a more important role than church buildings.
The first attempt at organized entertainment came from one, Luscombe Serrealle, Johannesburg’s first theatrical impresario. He arrived in the Johannesburg mining town in June 1887 complete with a demountable, portable corrugated iron theatre, the “Theatre Royal” and its own players, mostly Australian opera singers. This was erected in ‘Market Street East’. For the rough and ready miners, grand opera was a diversion and the theatre played to packed houses. The ‘Theatre Royal’ was quickly followed by ‘Frank Fillis’ Circus’ which “was set up in a vast amphitheatre of wood-and-iron and rapidly established itself as a semi-permanent favourite”. The Fillis’ circus was erected in 1889 in Jeppe Street between Harrison and Loveday and was “a conical tent-shaped structure of wood and corrugated iron 15 metres high and 47,23 metres in diameter” which provided seating for 2 000. Fillis liked to provide grand spectacles such as a reproduction of the Niagara Falls using an immense tank filled with thousands of gallons of water. He also held ‘Grand Fashionable Nights” which were attended by the so called town’s ‘elite’ who paid ‘ten guineas a box’ for the privilege.
The first ‘permanent theatre’ was the ‘Globe’, built in 1889 at 47/49 Fox Street, “in the classicist style to accentuate the classic origins of the art form it portrayed”. It was devoted to “old fashioned melodrama and classic tragedy” and also used for concerts and recitals. A local newspaper described it as “this new Thespian temple, handsomely furnished, the stalls being of dark blue leather with white and gold backs,” while, “in the circle a very elegant foyer has been arranged for the ladies”, and adjoining this, “is an excellently appointed lavatory”. On the other side was “a pretty little promenade where the men will be able to enjoy a cigarette and a glass of water between the acts” Glasses of water apparently didn’t help when the theatre caught fire only a few months after its opening and it only re-opened again in June 1892. Eventually, ”the Globe degenerated into a second rate music hall and went into liquidation”. But, like the inhabitants of the town, it was hardy and re-opened yet again, in 1894, as the ‘Empire Palace of Varieties’. Here, it was the bar that became the centre of interest for the mostly male audience – “bookies turned it into an informal Tattersalls” whilst financiers set up their own informal Stock Exchange at which “thousands of pounds of stock changed hands nightly”.
The ‘Standard Theatre’ was opened on the 12th October 1891 in Joubert Street (behind where the Rissik Street Post Office now stands) and the ‘Gaiety Theatre’ opened in 1893 at 3/5 Kort Street. The Standard introduced one Arturo Bonamici with an operatic company of some sixty artistes “acquired at considerable expense” it drew ‘great crowds’ – including all the “young bloods” of the town who ‘clamoured for admission’ particularly to see the leading lady, Miss Agnes Delaporte who was described as “a creature of singular charm and beauty”
Drama unfolded not only on stage of the Standard on a night in 1913 but also in the streets of the town. The Quinlan Opera Company was presenting a season of “great music dramas” brought to Johannesburg by impresario Leonard Rayne who had chartered a whole ship to bring them to South Africa with their orchestra of sixty musicians and three conductors . On this particular night they were presenting Madame Butterfly. The cream of Johannesburg society was there ‘in boiled shirts and backless dresses’ (everyone wore evening dress even for going to cinemas!) “the audiences in those days were never sure whether they liked or understood “highbrow shows” but it was considered the thing to do” but this night they were so absorbed in the show that they didn’t hear the increasingly loud noises coming from outside the theatre – “a mingling of angry shouts and cries with the sudden startling spatter of gunfire” (so what’s new?) An usher went to see what was happening and stumbled on the bloodied body of a man at the entrance to the theatre – the crowd wanted to rush out but were stopped and told “Better stay inside, it’s dangerous out there. They’re shooting up the whole town by the sound of it” - the miners strike of 1913 had started!
The second ‘Empire Palace of Varieties’,1905/6, built at 135/7 Commissioner Street was described as “a spectacle of Edwardian luxury with 18 boxes, plush upholstery and drapes in green and gold - the handsomest theatre in the subcontinent” Following the Anglo Boer War the ‘Empire’ imported world-famous artistes such as Ada Reeve, Marie Lloyd, Harry Lauder, George Robey, Little Tich, Makeleyne and Pavlova. I am loath to admit it, but I recognize most of those names! The ‘Standard’ had become the ‘mecca’ of all who loved Victorian drama but who would also appreciate Shakespeare and Sheridan. The Johannesburg theatre-goer was described as “easygoing” and “joyfully accepted whatever he was offered responding with packed houses and vociferous applause. Individual players were feted and honoured, the impresarios themselves were treated like kings and money flowed in a golden flood into the box-offices”. Quite a number of conversions from commercial buildings to theatres also took place in the early 1900s. In 1903 the Goldreich Building, used as a Post Office until the Rissik Street Post Office was completed, was converted to the first ‘His Majesty’s Theatre’ with seating for 1 100. It presented a long series of variety shows also importing London stars. The YMCA building at 71 Pritchard Street was converted in 1912 into the ‘Vaudette Theatre’ and the Exchange Building into the ‘Palladium Theatre’ in 1912. Gerhard-Mark van der Waal comments “ The theatres were a popular form of relaxation where residents sought respite from the tensions brought on by feverish business activities. The fact that the theatres were located so close to the financial and business districts would seem to indicate that the former were regarded as a perfect foil for the latter. Compared with the hierarchical and insulated formalism of the banking and office buildings, the theatres represented a democratic and integrated approach to architecture” Democratic? Integrated? Hmmmm!
In the 1920s to 1940s the interest and taste in entertainment shifted to new and experimental social activities including spectacular shows. The first ‘talking pictures’ were shown in the city in 1929. Theatres and cinemas were clustered both in Jeppe and Bree Streets and then in Commissioner Street. The ‘Bijou’ was rebuilt in 1931 and the ‘Plaza Cinema’ in 1930/1 both in Jeppe Streets and the ‘Metro’ in 1932 in Bree Street. The ‘Colosseum’ (1932/4) in Commissioner Street, the ‘Twentieth Century’ (1939/40) in President Street and His Majesty’s (1937/41), Broadcast House (1935/7) and the ‘Colosseum’ were built in Commissioner Street as well as the second ‘His Majesty’s’. The Colosseum was demolished in the 1980s to make way for a block of offices (whereby hangs a number of tales!) whilst ‘His Majesty’s’ still exists but refurbished into offices and retail. I did hear last week that part of the original theatre still exists.
So how else did the population entertain itself? Well, the Country Club in Auckland Park dates back to 1906 where businessmen came “to be reminded of the sweet peacefulness of an English landscape…. a scene which will vividly recall teeming memories of the homeland”! The zoo was established on land donated to the city in 1903; Zoo Lake was built in 1908 and the Auckland Park Racecourse was a popular venue. The Johannesburg Art Gallery was built (1910/14) and the fascinating history leading up to its establishment is brilliantly told in Jillian Carman’s book “Uplifting the Colonial Philistine” published in 2006. . The Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Zoo, according to Addington Symonds, were “probably the most significant examples of how the prosperous mining magnates channeled part of their fortunes back to the city which permitted them to make those fortunes”. One other commentator wryly comments “one cannot help wondering whether this largesse was a token of their sense of social responsibility and an acknowledgement of the worth of community values or whether it was merely a twinge of conscience at their exploitation of the black workers”.
This then is a taste of the ‘white entertainment’ history of the early mining camp and mining town!
Enjoy the long weekends! Ciao neil
Monday, April 28, 2008
History - Likker Citichat 28 April 2008
CITICHAT 13/2008 - 28 April 2008
Jhb History
Likker and early Joeys
Have been reading Peter Ackroyd’s magnificent history of the River Thames. I have been struck by the vast differences between a city built around such a gigantic natural resource and one built in the middle of a savannah as it was in our case. Whereas there was a sense of almost natural evolution with London, our development was far more managed and manipulated, all in the search for wealth thus serving the base desires of mortals and, in particular, the early owners of the mines – known as ‘the capitalists’. So, inextricably woven into the story of gold and the beginnings of Joburg are the stories of a wide range of men from chancers to nobility (not that many of them weren’t chancers!) with all the appurtenances that accompany the male psyche, including wine, women and song! Thought we’d spend some time looking at these three aspects, intermittently, over the next few months.
At the time of the discovery of the reef, the area was an agricultural one. What became to be known as the Witwatersrand was the site of 25 farms with a population of about 200 people. The vast majority of the initial surge of hundreds of prospectors proved to be more speculators and ‘claim-traders’ than the capitalists that were needed to finance organized mining. They followed shortly behind and, more particularly, when it became clear that to truly extract maximum wealth, it was necessary to dig deep and to use far more complex, and thus expensive, extraction processes. But the area and the excitement generated acted like a magnet, drawing not just miners and prospectors, but also all sorts of speculators and traders on the look-out for a quick buck. This was a totally male dominated society with skilled mineworkers from Cornwall, Cumberland and Lancashire finding domicile in boarding houses in the working class suburbs of Jeppe and Fordsburg and unskilled workers, local as well as from Mozambique and the Cape, being housed in poor quality mine compounds in between. As Charles van Onselen records (New Babylon, New Nineveh) “Drinking, gambling and whoring……assumed a central role in the lives of thousands of skilled and unskilled miners.” A great deal of what follows is drawn from his research.
The pursuit of drinking appears to have been largely assisted by both government (the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek – ZAR- government of the time) and the mine owners/management. It is interesting that the ZAR President, Paul Kruger, who was known as a strong Calvinist, granted AH Nellmapius a concession in 1881 for the making of alcohol from the agricultural surplus of the Boer farmers, grain, potatoes, etc. The concession was designed to accomplish two ends. Firstly the Government would earn income through the concession and, secondly, the farmers, or boere, would have a market for their excess production. Nellmapius was an Hungarian mining engineer who had achieved a certain degree of success in the Pilgrim’s Rest diggings. He was quite an entrepreneur and also provided a ‘mule train’ from the diggings via the ships frequenting Delagoa Bay to other parts of the world. The story is told that when the mules returned from Delagoa Bay they were laden with ‘cheap contraband Portuguese liquor’ for the Pilgrim’s Rest mining camp. Nellmapius later started farming near Pretoria and became friendly with the ZAR President. The concession gave rise to a new business, De Eerste Fabrieken in de Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek Ltd., but it evidently struggled until the discovery of the Reef and then it flourished with the instant market provided. In fact it flourished to the extent that it went public as the Hatherley Company in 1892. Hatherley was the name of the farm on which the distillery was built – the farm had belonged to Sammy Marks who was, of course, the major shareholder of the distillery and a good friend of the President. By late 1889 the distillery was producing about a thousand gallons of proof spirit per day from grain supplied by local farmers. Rand mine owners were prominent amongst the company’s shareholders and directors. Nothing much changes - little in the way of real corporate governance and Presidents appeared to be above reproach!
The goldfields had proved to be a prolific base for the liquor trade from the very beginning. The first reference I could find was to the very first visit of Johannes Rissik and Christiaan Johannes Joubert to the Witwatersrand from Pretoria in 1886 to investigate the proclamation of the goldfields. They evidently addressed a meeting of about 250 men, near Ferreira’s wagon. After the meeting the gathering moved on to Edgson’s canteen, one of the first pubs on the goldfields and, it is said, drank firstly a toast to President Kruger and then continued drinking until they had cleared the pub of all stock.
In late 1886 when the new mining town was visited by Bishop Brousfield he recorded that of the 26 shanties erected, 16 were for the sale of drinks. Three years later the 16 had become 127 saloons!
Anna Smith in the early publication ‘Pictorial Johannesburg’ reflected that, considering the dust storms, it was not surprising that liquor brewing was one of the town’s first industries.
In 1891 an enterprising newspaper editor organized a ‘Barmaids Referendum’ – of a population of 30 000 men, women and children, 17 000 votes were cast using the then 288 bars as voting stations. At the final count a Mrs Groth of Kimberley Bar was declared winner by 2 000 votes – she was described as an “Aphrodite, blessed with an ample body and great personal charm”
Licensed ‘canteens’ skyrocketed from 147 in 1888 (just two years after gold was discovered) to 552 four years later! Mine owners in fact used alcohol as one of their methods of attracting and retaining cheap labour – many of the migrant workers spent a large proportion of their earnings on liquor and therefore were prepared to work for excessively long periods before returning home. They did this clearly to replace what they had spent on liquor so there would be money to repatriate home.
The Portuguese in Mozambique weren’t slow in realizing the potential for liquor profits from the goldfields especially as they had a deal with the ZAR Government that imports to the ZAR through Delagoa Bay would be tax free. Access became even easier once the railway line between Delagoa Bay and the Reef was completed in 1895. They manufactured rum from sugar which cost a fraction of grain distillation – in fact having exhausted the supply of locally grown sugar, they started importing vast quantities from Natal and Mauritius. Even cheaper was German potato spirit but all kinds of subterfuge was necessary before it could be landed in the ZAR due to the ZAR import duties. Potato spirit was therefore loaded onto German ships that then set sail for Lisbon where a 24 hour stay would enable them to receive a certificate of naturalisation which meant that when the goods arrived in Lourenco Marques they did so as ‘Produce of Portugal’! And here we are today unable to even sort out our power problems!
Once they reached Johannesburg the raw spirits had to be processed into something both drinkable and marketable for which three things were required, bottles, various chemicals and essences and forged cork tops and labels. All of these were easily come by locally. So Brandy for the mineworkers was made of 15 gallons of Delagoa proof spirit; 15 gallons of water, 1 gallon of cayenne pepper tincture, half a pound of mashed prunes one-and-a-half ounces of sulphuric acid and one ounce of nitric acid and the whole concoction coloured with burnt sugar! Whisky was slightly cheaper being made from 100 gallons of Delagoa proof spirit, one gallon tincture of prunes, three pounds of glycerine, one pint of green tea, half an ounce of acetic acid, 20 drops of creosote and twelve drops of oil of cognac. Liquor for the slightly more discerning taste was the same mixture as the rotgut but filtered more frequently!
All-in-all there was a liquor boom in Joeys for the ten years leading up to 1896 but at the cost of hundreds of workers who died from these concoctions – it was quite normal for ‘cause of death’ to be listed as ‘alcoholic poisoning’. As is so often the case today, life from the perspective of those who stood to gain most, was cheap; people were expendable. By 1895 it was estimated that between 15 and 25 percent of the black labour force was always unfit for work because of drunkenness. This was the ugly face of capitalism - exploitation at its most callous level!
But eventually as drunkenness and resultant absence from work began to affect the production and pockets of the capitalists, various countermeasures were proposed. By the beginning of 1897 a new law was enacted which declared a ‘total prohibition’ of sale of liquor to Africans. The ban badly affected Hatherley’s financial performance and Sammy Marks himself devised a recovery strategy that included buying out all the competitors situated in Mozambique and taking control of the liquor market. The ban also resulted in half the canteens being closed but this didn’t mean that there was a reduction in demand! Illicit liquor sales now started to generate super profits. Super profits attracted newly arrived Jewish Russian immigrants many of whom were penniless and without work. In 1869 they were estimated as 7 000 strong and the illicit liquor trade was ruled by what became known as the ‘Peruvian Connection’. Illicit liquor distribution ranged from one-person businesses (driving carts from place to place selling liquor to the black population but never being in one place for long enough to be caught), to legitimate bars selling liquor to white folk in the front and illegally to black folk at the rear. Some of the syndicates were large and engaged in wide ranging activities, some legal but mostly illegal. They went to great lengths to reap the profit from illegal liquor sales. Two adjacent buildings would be bought, a license applied for one property which would then conduct legitimate liquor sales. An underground tunnel would connect the two buildings, the second securely fenced off and with various look-out points – the tunnels were protected through a system of trapdoors and partitions and warning bells, etc and often the ‘seller’ would operate from a small space with a slit big enough to receive cash and deliver a bottle. The illicit liquor outlets were known as ‘dens’ or ‘forts’ and were the forerunners of the shebeens.
Huge fights broke out between those that supported prohibition and partial prohibition and the illegal liquor traders with various crusades that resulted in deputations to the President – remember that through the concession system the Government were provided with an income. Kruger’s main approach thus seems to have been towards creating a state liquor monopoly in which Hatherley would be the sole producer and the police would ensure the removal of the illegal suppliers. But the police, or ZARPS as they were known, were susceptible to bribes and the situation continued to be problematic. The solution came from an unexpected quarter. After Pretoria fell to the British on the 5th of June 1900, a proclamation under military law prohibited the manufacture and sale of all spirituous liquors. As with all such bans, the liquor trade wasn’t initially really seriously disrupted. However the military regime was far more effective than that of the previous government’s police in enforcement and all outlets were systematically shut, At the end of 2001, Milner proclaimed a new liquor law for the Transvaal totally prohibiting the sale of liquor to Africans and, in 1902, preventing the distillation of any spirits for commercial gain in the Transvaal. He also deported ‘undesirable immigrants’ and broke up the syndicates. The bars reopened in Johannesburg in January 1902 but, in terms of the new legislation, only for white persons and within certain limited hours when a meal had to be provided with any alcohol served. We’ll pick up the story next week.
Cheers, neil
Jhb History
Likker and early Joeys
Have been reading Peter Ackroyd’s magnificent history of the River Thames. I have been struck by the vast differences between a city built around such a gigantic natural resource and one built in the middle of a savannah as it was in our case. Whereas there was a sense of almost natural evolution with London, our development was far more managed and manipulated, all in the search for wealth thus serving the base desires of mortals and, in particular, the early owners of the mines – known as ‘the capitalists’. So, inextricably woven into the story of gold and the beginnings of Joburg are the stories of a wide range of men from chancers to nobility (not that many of them weren’t chancers!) with all the appurtenances that accompany the male psyche, including wine, women and song! Thought we’d spend some time looking at these three aspects, intermittently, over the next few months.
At the time of the discovery of the reef, the area was an agricultural one. What became to be known as the Witwatersrand was the site of 25 farms with a population of about 200 people. The vast majority of the initial surge of hundreds of prospectors proved to be more speculators and ‘claim-traders’ than the capitalists that were needed to finance organized mining. They followed shortly behind and, more particularly, when it became clear that to truly extract maximum wealth, it was necessary to dig deep and to use far more complex, and thus expensive, extraction processes. But the area and the excitement generated acted like a magnet, drawing not just miners and prospectors, but also all sorts of speculators and traders on the look-out for a quick buck. This was a totally male dominated society with skilled mineworkers from Cornwall, Cumberland and Lancashire finding domicile in boarding houses in the working class suburbs of Jeppe and Fordsburg and unskilled workers, local as well as from Mozambique and the Cape, being housed in poor quality mine compounds in between. As Charles van Onselen records (New Babylon, New Nineveh) “Drinking, gambling and whoring……assumed a central role in the lives of thousands of skilled and unskilled miners.” A great deal of what follows is drawn from his research.
The pursuit of drinking appears to have been largely assisted by both government (the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek – ZAR- government of the time) and the mine owners/management. It is interesting that the ZAR President, Paul Kruger, who was known as a strong Calvinist, granted AH Nellmapius a concession in 1881 for the making of alcohol from the agricultural surplus of the Boer farmers, grain, potatoes, etc. The concession was designed to accomplish two ends. Firstly the Government would earn income through the concession and, secondly, the farmers, or boere, would have a market for their excess production. Nellmapius was an Hungarian mining engineer who had achieved a certain degree of success in the Pilgrim’s Rest diggings. He was quite an entrepreneur and also provided a ‘mule train’ from the diggings via the ships frequenting Delagoa Bay to other parts of the world. The story is told that when the mules returned from Delagoa Bay they were laden with ‘cheap contraband Portuguese liquor’ for the Pilgrim’s Rest mining camp. Nellmapius later started farming near Pretoria and became friendly with the ZAR President. The concession gave rise to a new business, De Eerste Fabrieken in de Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek Ltd., but it evidently struggled until the discovery of the Reef and then it flourished with the instant market provided. In fact it flourished to the extent that it went public as the Hatherley Company in 1892. Hatherley was the name of the farm on which the distillery was built – the farm had belonged to Sammy Marks who was, of course, the major shareholder of the distillery and a good friend of the President. By late 1889 the distillery was producing about a thousand gallons of proof spirit per day from grain supplied by local farmers. Rand mine owners were prominent amongst the company’s shareholders and directors. Nothing much changes - little in the way of real corporate governance and Presidents appeared to be above reproach!
The goldfields had proved to be a prolific base for the liquor trade from the very beginning. The first reference I could find was to the very first visit of Johannes Rissik and Christiaan Johannes Joubert to the Witwatersrand from Pretoria in 1886 to investigate the proclamation of the goldfields. They evidently addressed a meeting of about 250 men, near Ferreira’s wagon. After the meeting the gathering moved on to Edgson’s canteen, one of the first pubs on the goldfields and, it is said, drank firstly a toast to President Kruger and then continued drinking until they had cleared the pub of all stock.
In late 1886 when the new mining town was visited by Bishop Brousfield he recorded that of the 26 shanties erected, 16 were for the sale of drinks. Three years later the 16 had become 127 saloons!
Anna Smith in the early publication ‘Pictorial Johannesburg’ reflected that, considering the dust storms, it was not surprising that liquor brewing was one of the town’s first industries.
In 1891 an enterprising newspaper editor organized a ‘Barmaids Referendum’ – of a population of 30 000 men, women and children, 17 000 votes were cast using the then 288 bars as voting stations. At the final count a Mrs Groth of Kimberley Bar was declared winner by 2 000 votes – she was described as an “Aphrodite, blessed with an ample body and great personal charm”
Licensed ‘canteens’ skyrocketed from 147 in 1888 (just two years after gold was discovered) to 552 four years later! Mine owners in fact used alcohol as one of their methods of attracting and retaining cheap labour – many of the migrant workers spent a large proportion of their earnings on liquor and therefore were prepared to work for excessively long periods before returning home. They did this clearly to replace what they had spent on liquor so there would be money to repatriate home.
The Portuguese in Mozambique weren’t slow in realizing the potential for liquor profits from the goldfields especially as they had a deal with the ZAR Government that imports to the ZAR through Delagoa Bay would be tax free. Access became even easier once the railway line between Delagoa Bay and the Reef was completed in 1895. They manufactured rum from sugar which cost a fraction of grain distillation – in fact having exhausted the supply of locally grown sugar, they started importing vast quantities from Natal and Mauritius. Even cheaper was German potato spirit but all kinds of subterfuge was necessary before it could be landed in the ZAR due to the ZAR import duties. Potato spirit was therefore loaded onto German ships that then set sail for Lisbon where a 24 hour stay would enable them to receive a certificate of naturalisation which meant that when the goods arrived in Lourenco Marques they did so as ‘Produce of Portugal’! And here we are today unable to even sort out our power problems!
Once they reached Johannesburg the raw spirits had to be processed into something both drinkable and marketable for which three things were required, bottles, various chemicals and essences and forged cork tops and labels. All of these were easily come by locally. So Brandy for the mineworkers was made of 15 gallons of Delagoa proof spirit; 15 gallons of water, 1 gallon of cayenne pepper tincture, half a pound of mashed prunes one-and-a-half ounces of sulphuric acid and one ounce of nitric acid and the whole concoction coloured with burnt sugar! Whisky was slightly cheaper being made from 100 gallons of Delagoa proof spirit, one gallon tincture of prunes, three pounds of glycerine, one pint of green tea, half an ounce of acetic acid, 20 drops of creosote and twelve drops of oil of cognac. Liquor for the slightly more discerning taste was the same mixture as the rotgut but filtered more frequently!
All-in-all there was a liquor boom in Joeys for the ten years leading up to 1896 but at the cost of hundreds of workers who died from these concoctions – it was quite normal for ‘cause of death’ to be listed as ‘alcoholic poisoning’. As is so often the case today, life from the perspective of those who stood to gain most, was cheap; people were expendable. By 1895 it was estimated that between 15 and 25 percent of the black labour force was always unfit for work because of drunkenness. This was the ugly face of capitalism - exploitation at its most callous level!
But eventually as drunkenness and resultant absence from work began to affect the production and pockets of the capitalists, various countermeasures were proposed. By the beginning of 1897 a new law was enacted which declared a ‘total prohibition’ of sale of liquor to Africans. The ban badly affected Hatherley’s financial performance and Sammy Marks himself devised a recovery strategy that included buying out all the competitors situated in Mozambique and taking control of the liquor market. The ban also resulted in half the canteens being closed but this didn’t mean that there was a reduction in demand! Illicit liquor sales now started to generate super profits. Super profits attracted newly arrived Jewish Russian immigrants many of whom were penniless and without work. In 1869 they were estimated as 7 000 strong and the illicit liquor trade was ruled by what became known as the ‘Peruvian Connection’. Illicit liquor distribution ranged from one-person businesses (driving carts from place to place selling liquor to the black population but never being in one place for long enough to be caught), to legitimate bars selling liquor to white folk in the front and illegally to black folk at the rear. Some of the syndicates were large and engaged in wide ranging activities, some legal but mostly illegal. They went to great lengths to reap the profit from illegal liquor sales. Two adjacent buildings would be bought, a license applied for one property which would then conduct legitimate liquor sales. An underground tunnel would connect the two buildings, the second securely fenced off and with various look-out points – the tunnels were protected through a system of trapdoors and partitions and warning bells, etc and often the ‘seller’ would operate from a small space with a slit big enough to receive cash and deliver a bottle. The illicit liquor outlets were known as ‘dens’ or ‘forts’ and were the forerunners of the shebeens.
Huge fights broke out between those that supported prohibition and partial prohibition and the illegal liquor traders with various crusades that resulted in deputations to the President – remember that through the concession system the Government were provided with an income. Kruger’s main approach thus seems to have been towards creating a state liquor monopoly in which Hatherley would be the sole producer and the police would ensure the removal of the illegal suppliers. But the police, or ZARPS as they were known, were susceptible to bribes and the situation continued to be problematic. The solution came from an unexpected quarter. After Pretoria fell to the British on the 5th of June 1900, a proclamation under military law prohibited the manufacture and sale of all spirituous liquors. As with all such bans, the liquor trade wasn’t initially really seriously disrupted. However the military regime was far more effective than that of the previous government’s police in enforcement and all outlets were systematically shut, At the end of 2001, Milner proclaimed a new liquor law for the Transvaal totally prohibiting the sale of liquor to Africans and, in 1902, preventing the distillation of any spirits for commercial gain in the Transvaal. He also deported ‘undesirable immigrants’ and broke up the syndicates. The bars reopened in Johannesburg in January 1902 but, in terms of the new legislation, only for white persons and within certain limited hours when a meal had to be provided with any alcohol served. We’ll pick up the story next week.
Cheers, neil
Friday, April 18, 2008
History Electrical ; Turbine Square Citichat 18 April 2008
CITICHAT 15/2008 - 18 April 2008
History Electrical;Turbine Square
The ‘Phenomenal’ Turbine Square Development
This past Monday I received an invitation to join a tour of the Turbine Hall development which was to take place this morning, which it did, and which provided the motivation to divert me from my planned Citichat programme for today. We’ll get back to Joburg’s early vices next week! In the meantime, some background and updating on this great inner city development which provides a spectacular example of sympathetic blending of old and new and much, much more. The invitation provided sufficient motivation to also break my hitherto rigid schedule of writing Citichats on a Thursday night! So, the first section on the History of Turbine Hall was written very early on Wednesday morning, ironically by the light of a battery powered lamp as we were experiencing ‘load shedding’ (!) and the balance was written after this morning’s tour.
The expert in regard to the history and significance of not just the building but also of the whole issue of electrical power in Johannesburg, is historian Sue Krige whose 2005 “Report on the History of Jeppe Street Power Station and Turbine Square Precinct, Newtown, 1905 – 2005” makes fascinating reading. It is actually more than fascinating when one reads it against the background of the current electricity supply debacle – it gave me a distinct sense of déjà vu. My thanks to Sue for letting me use her work as the basis for this Citichat.
By 1892, six years after the discovery of gold, Johannesburg had a small power plant built in President Street which, via two gas-engine dynamos, provided power for street lighting. A steam engine was added in 1893 and the system continually expanded up to 1899.
As is the case today, the installations were just not able to meet growing demand especially after the South African War ended. The British administration in Joburg under Lord Milner was determined to develop an efficient transport infrastructure but this would include an electric tramway system so more power was desperately needed.
The British consultants appointed to review the city’s needs recommended a gas engine approach, more expensive than steam but providing supposed savings in fuel consumption. The gaseous fuel was generated on site from charcoal or coal using special gas producers. A new building to house the plant was built on President Street in 1906 – it later became known as the Electric Workshop and now houses the Sci Bono science and technology centre. Unfortunately, no-one had checked the suitability of local coal nor the quality of imported materials and the project ‘ran into serious problems’ which culminated in an explosion in the Boiler House in March 1907 leading to the whole installation being shut down shortly thereafter. Maybe the coal was ‘too damp’ as is the current excuse! The power needed in Johannesburg at that time was about 10 MW. (We evidently now use about 3 700 MW - in his ‘State of the City’ address in February this year, Executive Mayor Amos Masondo advised that Eskom generates approximately 37 000 MW of electricity and that Johannesburg consumes 10% of this.)
Certain of the gold mines produced their own supply together with a company floated in 1906 to deliver ‘electric current and compressed air’ to the mining industry. This was the Victoria Falls & Transvaal Power Company known as the VFP. A new building was erected to the east of the Electric Workshop on the site which is now the SAB World of Beer, this became the second President Street Power Station. In 1910, 13 reciprocating steam engine-driven generators were installed in the new building producing just over 6MW and, later that year, three turbo alternator condensing sets were installed. By 1913 sufficient power, 13 MW, was being generated to supply the City’s needs.
Also by 1910, the VFP had already established a ‘near monopoly’ with a generating capacity of almost 100 MW. The City however determined that it would remain responsible for supplying electricity to its citizens and that the profits generated would be used to reduce rates. In the aftermath of the First World War, secondary industrialisation surged and, with it, the demand for power. Capacity was increased in 1921 and 1922 against the background of continuous pressure from VFP for the City to buy its power. Sue provides a wonderfully appropriate quote, given our current problems, dated April 9, 1925 from the General Manager of the Gas and Electric Supply Department of the Johannesburg Municipality: “The Council would be seriously jeopardizing the supply of electric energy to its consumers if it decided to take power from an outside source. Reliability of service is essential to a city of the size and importance of Johannesburg. A state of chaos would arise in Johannesburg if a reliable service could not be given, in fact it would be repeating the troubles experienced by Johannesburg some time ago when the gas engine plant proved unsuitable.” Ja, nee, 83 years later and those words are as apt now as I am sure they were then!
In fact it was the national government of the time that set us irrevocably onto the path that has led us into our current crisis (whoops, did I say ‘crisis’?) The British consultants employed by national government recommended that ownership of transmission systems should be flexible and all possible forms of ownership considered. They therefore proposed that ownership of the distribution system be shared among ‘private enterprise’ and local municipal bodies and that any overarching body established similar to the British ‘Electricity Supply Commissioners’ be regulatory only. Governments, as we know to our ongoing cost, always know better and when the Electricity Supply Act No. 42 of 1922 was promulgated it established Escom to “create a national power generating and transmission network”. All proposals for new power stations would have to now be sanctioned by the Administrator. The larger cities immediately objected and our own city minuted that “the Bill should be opposed in every respect where the Council’s present rights are infringed.” In 1923 the city received a consultant’s study of its future power needs and accepted its proposal for a new power station to be built in Jeppe Street next to the existing President Street installation. Of course, the proposal took a number of years and serious argument with the Administrator before it was accepted. In September 1927, the first section of the Jeppe Street Power Station came into operation utilising a 10 MW turbo generator. The physical development included the turbine hall, the north boiler house and three concrete cooling towers. The second section was completed three years later with two more 10 MW turbo generators that required extensions to be made to both the turbine hall and the boiler house and the construction of three more cooling towers, this time in timber. The President Street facility was gradually phased out until it was only used for peak demand and ultimately decommissioned and converted to a sub-station in 1937.
Demand grew, new applications to the Administrator were made for extending the system, they were refused and the City was ultimately forced to buy from VFP during peak demands. Eventually further extensions were sanctioned which involved overhauling the existing boilers, extending the turbine hall, providing a new boiler house (south) and a new boiler. Further extensions were made during 1935-8 and final extensions made in 1939. By this stage the building had 4X10 MW sets; 2X17 MW sets and 2X20 MW sets - that’s a total capacity of 114 MW. In 1939 permission was obtained to build the Orlando Power Station as a state-of-the-art facility. Delayed by the Second World War, it became the City’s main power plant in 1945 and Jeppe Street became a standby station.
In 1948 Escom bought out VFP and from then on, all power would be supplied increasingly by Escom. The private sector, and eventually the municipalities, were effectively shut out. However, Kelvin A was completed in 1959 and Kelvin B in 1970. Jeppe Street was shut down in October 1961. Later, in 1967, 22 MW aero-jet gas turbines were commissioned to act as back-up supply and various alterations made to the building to accommodate the technological changes.
In 1969 the Administrator finally totally rejected calls from various cities to build their own power plants although it was proved on factual evidence that the cities’ electrical generation would be cheaper than that of Escom. The City was now forced to take bulk supply from Escom. Between 1970 and 1972 the Jeppe Street Power Station was cleared of non-operational equipment, some cooling towers were demolished and the buildings used for workshops and offices – the gas turbines of course were kept operational as back-up. Major alterations were made with a view to still being able to operate the turbines if necessary whilst allowing for the possibility of some form of development of the balance of the site. The concrete cooling towers were imploded in 1985.
The City went out on a proposal call envisaging a retail and entertainment complex to be built on the site. In November 1990 the project was awarded to developers and the City announced that completion of the new project was anticipated for 1992. There was a great deal of controversy regarding the proposed development. The Council of the time awarded the project to the highest tenderer who, it transpired, did not have tenants in place and later evidently ran into major financial difficulties. Lower tenderers were not considered even though they had secured major tenants and finance. The award was perceived to be a typical short-sighted Council decision ‘looking for the biggest bang for the buck’ and ending with no buck and no bang, nor even a whimper! They certainly made a great deal of noise declaring that this was to be the start of the inner city’s regeneration and of investment returning to the city. It sure didn’t happen then! The site was left derelict and decaying. Turbine Hall and the boiler houses were invaded by squatters and in 2001 it was described as “one of the harshest living spaces in Johannesburg where the filth alone could drive away the most incessant compassion.”
Behind the scenes however, the developer had started talks with AngloGold Ashanti as to the building, or part of it, being redeveloped as their corporate headquarters. At the time, AngloGold Ashanti were accommodated in 11 Diagonal Street and known to be not particularly happy with their working environment. Isn’t it interesting to note that such talks were held over ten years ago, in fact before the Nelson Mandela Bridge was built? Big, meaningful projects such as this are never spur of the moment decisions. As I so often say, urban decay is rapid – urban regeneration takes a lot of time and patience. That such patience has been justified in what has been done is actually quite an understatement. If ever there was a brilliant example of not just old and new being blended together but also the past, with all its many blemishes, being interwoven with a vision of the future, it is in this development.
Two heritage plaques greet one at the main entrance to the building, one briefly recording the history of Turbine Hall and the other that of the Jeppe Street Power Station itself. Eric Itzkin, the City’s Deputy Director of Immovable Heritage, described the development as the “flagship” project of Newtown that hopefully will attract other investors to pursue further development in Newtown. He emphasised how history can be celebrated through new structures whilst retaining what was once a ‘magnificent ruin’ thus demonstrating the capacity of historic buildings to take on new lives and functions and for us to witness rebirth in the life of places and in the life of the city.
Sue Krige made a inciteful comment as to the fact that many people today cannot understand Newtown as ‘the industrial area of the city’ because it has, been designated from the late 1980s as the city’s ‘cultural precinct’. She pointed out that the Market Theatre and Kippies had in fact ‘held the line’ against the decay of Newtown for many, many years and that their action in doing so enabled people to envisage the area as a cultural precinct. In fact, standing in Newtown today, does make it difficult for those without knowledge of its history to believe that it was once a very busy industrial area. “It is probably easier”, she said, “to imagine the market precinct, to the north of Mary Fitzgerald Square being an industrial area rather than to imagine the south-eastern section being the electrical heartland of the city which it of course was until 1961. The Market precinct had resulted from the need to supply the city with fresh produce following the Anglo Boer War. “It’s hard to believe”, she commented, “that as late as 1938 there were still cattle in kraals in Newtown”. Sue paid tribute to Herbert Prins, the heritage consultant for the project, for his vision in recognising that the important essence of the complex could in fact be retained even if the North Boiler House had to be demolished, which was what the development team wished to do, but which was strongly challenged at the time.
Guy Steenekamp from the project architects TPC Architects, outlined their design philosophy and approach to the development: “Having demolished the north boiler house” and committed that particular ‘crime’ ” he said, “we tried very hard not to commit any others in regard to the existing fabric so our approach was two pronged. One, to reincorporate the underlying element of the existing structures which was to create hard street edges to Jeppe Street and secondly to create the ‘soft inner sanctum’ which is described as a set of pavilions. As opposed to wall structures and well defined streets and squares what we have is an almost random collection of objects accidentally describing interesting spaces and form. Our approach to creating this inner space was thus, rather than using a homogenous language in the architecture, to use several languages borrowing fairly freely from some of the existing structures and the detail you can see on the outside. The approach to the South Boiler House and the Turbine Hall was to touch them as lightly as possible and applying the test whether the intervention could be reversed if it had to be.”
The design team has maintained the patina of the buildings and the integrity of the interior spaces and yet expressed the unity of the original buildings and the cohesion with the new structures through the flow of the spaces. “It’s about promoting and obtaining the transparency of the public spaces within the three buildings and yet always having that sense of space beyond. “For me”, he said, “that was the most striking aspect of the composition of the original buildings - more so than the exterior architecture.”
Statistically AngloGold Ashanti takes up 14 000 m2 of space with another 4000 m2 in the Boiler House and the Turbine Hall for other occupancy. The developers, Tiber Bonvic, only developed the site to a fifth of its potential which in itself required great discipline in not wishing to maximise the development but rather to optimise it “The retention of the Turbine Hall has embraced a concept of a box within a box, the new structure sitting freely within the original shell and again maintaining the integrity of the space.”
This development is a success because, as was pointed out to us, it fulfils three basic requirements. A tenant who wants the space and is prepared to commit to it (AngloGold Ashanti demonstrated their commitment by being prepared to negotiate over a decade and then commit to a 15 year lease); secondly, an investor willing to work with and follow the spirit set by the heritage authorities and, thirdly, a site. The three elements combined with a very consultative process and working closely with City, who supported them fully, enabled the professional team to deliver what is a superb project.
AngloGold Ashanti undertook an interesting intervention to prepare their staff for the move. Working on the premise that ‘buildings are for people’ they spent over two years in ensuring that their staff would accept a move from cellular offices on small floors where communication was difficult to an open plan layout where people can communicate and connect freely. In this, the vision and leadership of their previous Chief Executive, Bobby Godsell, was critical.
For me where this development has been singularly successful is in the way in which the memory of the old buildings has been retained – as many of the elements from the demolished sections as possible were saved and built into the new structures, whilst new work was painted, the old was left as it was and every threshold or transition between old and new was emphasised with diagonal elements that makes a story of the buildings that is very legible and easy to understand.
Someone in the group remarked at some stage of our tour - “Phenomenal!”, and that is what this development is. A real tonic, a renewed optimism for the future of the city and a renewed confidence and respect for the design profession.
Regards, neil
History Electrical;Turbine Square
The ‘Phenomenal’ Turbine Square Development
This past Monday I received an invitation to join a tour of the Turbine Hall development which was to take place this morning, which it did, and which provided the motivation to divert me from my planned Citichat programme for today. We’ll get back to Joburg’s early vices next week! In the meantime, some background and updating on this great inner city development which provides a spectacular example of sympathetic blending of old and new and much, much more. The invitation provided sufficient motivation to also break my hitherto rigid schedule of writing Citichats on a Thursday night! So, the first section on the History of Turbine Hall was written very early on Wednesday morning, ironically by the light of a battery powered lamp as we were experiencing ‘load shedding’ (!) and the balance was written after this morning’s tour.
The expert in regard to the history and significance of not just the building but also of the whole issue of electrical power in Johannesburg, is historian Sue Krige whose 2005 “Report on the History of Jeppe Street Power Station and Turbine Square Precinct, Newtown, 1905 – 2005” makes fascinating reading. It is actually more than fascinating when one reads it against the background of the current electricity supply debacle – it gave me a distinct sense of déjà vu. My thanks to Sue for letting me use her work as the basis for this Citichat.
By 1892, six years after the discovery of gold, Johannesburg had a small power plant built in President Street which, via two gas-engine dynamos, provided power for street lighting. A steam engine was added in 1893 and the system continually expanded up to 1899.
As is the case today, the installations were just not able to meet growing demand especially after the South African War ended. The British administration in Joburg under Lord Milner was determined to develop an efficient transport infrastructure but this would include an electric tramway system so more power was desperately needed.
The British consultants appointed to review the city’s needs recommended a gas engine approach, more expensive than steam but providing supposed savings in fuel consumption. The gaseous fuel was generated on site from charcoal or coal using special gas producers. A new building to house the plant was built on President Street in 1906 – it later became known as the Electric Workshop and now houses the Sci Bono science and technology centre. Unfortunately, no-one had checked the suitability of local coal nor the quality of imported materials and the project ‘ran into serious problems’ which culminated in an explosion in the Boiler House in March 1907 leading to the whole installation being shut down shortly thereafter. Maybe the coal was ‘too damp’ as is the current excuse! The power needed in Johannesburg at that time was about 10 MW. (We evidently now use about 3 700 MW - in his ‘State of the City’ address in February this year, Executive Mayor Amos Masondo advised that Eskom generates approximately 37 000 MW of electricity and that Johannesburg consumes 10% of this.)
Certain of the gold mines produced their own supply together with a company floated in 1906 to deliver ‘electric current and compressed air’ to the mining industry. This was the Victoria Falls & Transvaal Power Company known as the VFP. A new building was erected to the east of the Electric Workshop on the site which is now the SAB World of Beer, this became the second President Street Power Station. In 1910, 13 reciprocating steam engine-driven generators were installed in the new building producing just over 6MW and, later that year, three turbo alternator condensing sets were installed. By 1913 sufficient power, 13 MW, was being generated to supply the City’s needs.
Also by 1910, the VFP had already established a ‘near monopoly’ with a generating capacity of almost 100 MW. The City however determined that it would remain responsible for supplying electricity to its citizens and that the profits generated would be used to reduce rates. In the aftermath of the First World War, secondary industrialisation surged and, with it, the demand for power. Capacity was increased in 1921 and 1922 against the background of continuous pressure from VFP for the City to buy its power. Sue provides a wonderfully appropriate quote, given our current problems, dated April 9, 1925 from the General Manager of the Gas and Electric Supply Department of the Johannesburg Municipality: “The Council would be seriously jeopardizing the supply of electric energy to its consumers if it decided to take power from an outside source. Reliability of service is essential to a city of the size and importance of Johannesburg. A state of chaos would arise in Johannesburg if a reliable service could not be given, in fact it would be repeating the troubles experienced by Johannesburg some time ago when the gas engine plant proved unsuitable.” Ja, nee, 83 years later and those words are as apt now as I am sure they were then!
In fact it was the national government of the time that set us irrevocably onto the path that has led us into our current crisis (whoops, did I say ‘crisis’?) The British consultants employed by national government recommended that ownership of transmission systems should be flexible and all possible forms of ownership considered. They therefore proposed that ownership of the distribution system be shared among ‘private enterprise’ and local municipal bodies and that any overarching body established similar to the British ‘Electricity Supply Commissioners’ be regulatory only. Governments, as we know to our ongoing cost, always know better and when the Electricity Supply Act No. 42 of 1922 was promulgated it established Escom to “create a national power generating and transmission network”. All proposals for new power stations would have to now be sanctioned by the Administrator. The larger cities immediately objected and our own city minuted that “the Bill should be opposed in every respect where the Council’s present rights are infringed.” In 1923 the city received a consultant’s study of its future power needs and accepted its proposal for a new power station to be built in Jeppe Street next to the existing President Street installation. Of course, the proposal took a number of years and serious argument with the Administrator before it was accepted. In September 1927, the first section of the Jeppe Street Power Station came into operation utilising a 10 MW turbo generator. The physical development included the turbine hall, the north boiler house and three concrete cooling towers. The second section was completed three years later with two more 10 MW turbo generators that required extensions to be made to both the turbine hall and the boiler house and the construction of three more cooling towers, this time in timber. The President Street facility was gradually phased out until it was only used for peak demand and ultimately decommissioned and converted to a sub-station in 1937.
Demand grew, new applications to the Administrator were made for extending the system, they were refused and the City was ultimately forced to buy from VFP during peak demands. Eventually further extensions were sanctioned which involved overhauling the existing boilers, extending the turbine hall, providing a new boiler house (south) and a new boiler. Further extensions were made during 1935-8 and final extensions made in 1939. By this stage the building had 4X10 MW sets; 2X17 MW sets and 2X20 MW sets - that’s a total capacity of 114 MW. In 1939 permission was obtained to build the Orlando Power Station as a state-of-the-art facility. Delayed by the Second World War, it became the City’s main power plant in 1945 and Jeppe Street became a standby station.
In 1948 Escom bought out VFP and from then on, all power would be supplied increasingly by Escom. The private sector, and eventually the municipalities, were effectively shut out. However, Kelvin A was completed in 1959 and Kelvin B in 1970. Jeppe Street was shut down in October 1961. Later, in 1967, 22 MW aero-jet gas turbines were commissioned to act as back-up supply and various alterations made to the building to accommodate the technological changes.
In 1969 the Administrator finally totally rejected calls from various cities to build their own power plants although it was proved on factual evidence that the cities’ electrical generation would be cheaper than that of Escom. The City was now forced to take bulk supply from Escom. Between 1970 and 1972 the Jeppe Street Power Station was cleared of non-operational equipment, some cooling towers were demolished and the buildings used for workshops and offices – the gas turbines of course were kept operational as back-up. Major alterations were made with a view to still being able to operate the turbines if necessary whilst allowing for the possibility of some form of development of the balance of the site. The concrete cooling towers were imploded in 1985.
The City went out on a proposal call envisaging a retail and entertainment complex to be built on the site. In November 1990 the project was awarded to developers and the City announced that completion of the new project was anticipated for 1992. There was a great deal of controversy regarding the proposed development. The Council of the time awarded the project to the highest tenderer who, it transpired, did not have tenants in place and later evidently ran into major financial difficulties. Lower tenderers were not considered even though they had secured major tenants and finance. The award was perceived to be a typical short-sighted Council decision ‘looking for the biggest bang for the buck’ and ending with no buck and no bang, nor even a whimper! They certainly made a great deal of noise declaring that this was to be the start of the inner city’s regeneration and of investment returning to the city. It sure didn’t happen then! The site was left derelict and decaying. Turbine Hall and the boiler houses were invaded by squatters and in 2001 it was described as “one of the harshest living spaces in Johannesburg where the filth alone could drive away the most incessant compassion.”
Behind the scenes however, the developer had started talks with AngloGold Ashanti as to the building, or part of it, being redeveloped as their corporate headquarters. At the time, AngloGold Ashanti were accommodated in 11 Diagonal Street and known to be not particularly happy with their working environment. Isn’t it interesting to note that such talks were held over ten years ago, in fact before the Nelson Mandela Bridge was built? Big, meaningful projects such as this are never spur of the moment decisions. As I so often say, urban decay is rapid – urban regeneration takes a lot of time and patience. That such patience has been justified in what has been done is actually quite an understatement. If ever there was a brilliant example of not just old and new being blended together but also the past, with all its many blemishes, being interwoven with a vision of the future, it is in this development.
Two heritage plaques greet one at the main entrance to the building, one briefly recording the history of Turbine Hall and the other that of the Jeppe Street Power Station itself. Eric Itzkin, the City’s Deputy Director of Immovable Heritage, described the development as the “flagship” project of Newtown that hopefully will attract other investors to pursue further development in Newtown. He emphasised how history can be celebrated through new structures whilst retaining what was once a ‘magnificent ruin’ thus demonstrating the capacity of historic buildings to take on new lives and functions and for us to witness rebirth in the life of places and in the life of the city.
Sue Krige made a inciteful comment as to the fact that many people today cannot understand Newtown as ‘the industrial area of the city’ because it has, been designated from the late 1980s as the city’s ‘cultural precinct’. She pointed out that the Market Theatre and Kippies had in fact ‘held the line’ against the decay of Newtown for many, many years and that their action in doing so enabled people to envisage the area as a cultural precinct. In fact, standing in Newtown today, does make it difficult for those without knowledge of its history to believe that it was once a very busy industrial area. “It is probably easier”, she said, “to imagine the market precinct, to the north of Mary Fitzgerald Square being an industrial area rather than to imagine the south-eastern section being the electrical heartland of the city which it of course was until 1961. The Market precinct had resulted from the need to supply the city with fresh produce following the Anglo Boer War. “It’s hard to believe”, she commented, “that as late as 1938 there were still cattle in kraals in Newtown”. Sue paid tribute to Herbert Prins, the heritage consultant for the project, for his vision in recognising that the important essence of the complex could in fact be retained even if the North Boiler House had to be demolished, which was what the development team wished to do, but which was strongly challenged at the time.
Guy Steenekamp from the project architects TPC Architects, outlined their design philosophy and approach to the development: “Having demolished the north boiler house” and committed that particular ‘crime’ ” he said, “we tried very hard not to commit any others in regard to the existing fabric so our approach was two pronged. One, to reincorporate the underlying element of the existing structures which was to create hard street edges to Jeppe Street and secondly to create the ‘soft inner sanctum’ which is described as a set of pavilions. As opposed to wall structures and well defined streets and squares what we have is an almost random collection of objects accidentally describing interesting spaces and form. Our approach to creating this inner space was thus, rather than using a homogenous language in the architecture, to use several languages borrowing fairly freely from some of the existing structures and the detail you can see on the outside. The approach to the South Boiler House and the Turbine Hall was to touch them as lightly as possible and applying the test whether the intervention could be reversed if it had to be.”
The design team has maintained the patina of the buildings and the integrity of the interior spaces and yet expressed the unity of the original buildings and the cohesion with the new structures through the flow of the spaces. “It’s about promoting and obtaining the transparency of the public spaces within the three buildings and yet always having that sense of space beyond. “For me”, he said, “that was the most striking aspect of the composition of the original buildings - more so than the exterior architecture.”
Statistically AngloGold Ashanti takes up 14 000 m2 of space with another 4000 m2 in the Boiler House and the Turbine Hall for other occupancy. The developers, Tiber Bonvic, only developed the site to a fifth of its potential which in itself required great discipline in not wishing to maximise the development but rather to optimise it “The retention of the Turbine Hall has embraced a concept of a box within a box, the new structure sitting freely within the original shell and again maintaining the integrity of the space.”
This development is a success because, as was pointed out to us, it fulfils three basic requirements. A tenant who wants the space and is prepared to commit to it (AngloGold Ashanti demonstrated their commitment by being prepared to negotiate over a decade and then commit to a 15 year lease); secondly, an investor willing to work with and follow the spirit set by the heritage authorities and, thirdly, a site. The three elements combined with a very consultative process and working closely with City, who supported them fully, enabled the professional team to deliver what is a superb project.
AngloGold Ashanti undertook an interesting intervention to prepare their staff for the move. Working on the premise that ‘buildings are for people’ they spent over two years in ensuring that their staff would accept a move from cellular offices on small floors where communication was difficult to an open plan layout where people can communicate and connect freely. In this, the vision and leadership of their previous Chief Executive, Bobby Godsell, was critical.
For me where this development has been singularly successful is in the way in which the memory of the old buildings has been retained – as many of the elements from the demolished sections as possible were saved and built into the new structures, whilst new work was painted, the old was left as it was and every threshold or transition between old and new was emphasised with diagonal elements that makes a story of the buildings that is very legible and easy to understand.
Someone in the group remarked at some stage of our tour - “Phenomenal!”, and that is what this development is. A real tonic, a renewed optimism for the future of the city and a renewed confidence and respect for the design profession.
Regards, neil
Friday, April 11, 2008
History Red Light Citichat 11 April 2008
CITICHAT 14/2008 - 11 April 2008
History Red Light
“Frenchfontein”
Two ‘faux pas’ last week! Firstly the date was wrong - should have been 4 April and not the 28th. Secondly, I wrote: “What became to be known as the Witwatersrand was the site of 25 farms with a population of about 200 people.” My apologies, what I should have said was that were approximately 200 settlers in the area – there is clear evidence of pre-colonial occupation although, up to now, inadequately researched. As was pointed out to me
“Oral historians, archaeologists and anthropologists however, are revealing that Sotho-Tswana, Bafokeng and Ndebele people had settled and/or passed through since the Iron Age, and there is a rich history beginning to emerge at last. And of course the Melville Koppies provides evidence of metal workings more than 500 years ago, not to mention the Lone Hill settlement and many other examples - the work of those cited give fascinating accounts of the pre-colonial human societies and - of great interest and relevance to us early 21st century Joburgers - the climate changes that affected their history.” Thank you for that, it is something I knew intellectually but fell into the “history started with the white settlers” syndrome.
Thought we’d break from last week’s tale of ‘likker’ to the third of what Van Onselen (New Babylon, New Nineveh) described as “central in the lives of thousands of skilled and unskilled miners - “drinking, gambling and whoring” Again I have drawn heavily on his research. From an urban background point of view, the digger’s camp was to make way for a miners town and then to a more settled working class city. As it did so, it’s sexual composition changed from almost exclusively male in 1886, to one that was still male dominated ten years later (25 000 white and 13 000 black males;14 000 white and 1 250 black females) leading to a male/female ratio of ten-point five to one and, thereafter, increasingly to a more ‘normal’ gender ratio. The first two periods thus provided fertile ground for prostitution to flourish.
The establishment of the mining camp drew diggers initially from the ZAR’s neighbouring states, the Cape Colony and Natal and, amongst them, were the first “ladies of fortune”. They were encouraged not only by the obvious prospects of a male dominated society, but also through the Contagious Diseases Act passed in the Cape in 1885 and by the extension of the railway line to Johannesburg in 1892. The Cape’s CD Act required the registration of all prostitutes and their compulsory medical examination and was obviously not popular with those to whom it was aimed. Johannesburg, clearly, was a better alternative. The first prostitutes operating on the Witwatersrand, drawn as they were from the ZAR’s southern neighbours were thus ethnically quite mixed - black, white and so-called “Cape Coloured”. Many of the ‘full-time workers’ located themselves in rooms behind the bars or canteens whilst the more part-time ‘vendors of vice’ also worked as bar-maids. The bar-owners recognised that many miners would be more attracted to bars that had ‘female accompaniments’ than those without and that they would benefit from the resultant increased liquor consumption! Bar-owners, acting collectively, sought to discourage the authorities from taking any action against prostitutes and prostitution was therefore “more or less openly tolerated”. Prostitution between 1886 and 1895 was also not ‘organised’ with most prostitutes being individual operators who conducted their trade “largely on their own initiative, and certainly without the professional assistance of pimps or madams.”
The population continued to explode – from 26 000 in 1890 to 74 000 in 1896, helped to a large extent by the opening, in 1895, of the railway link between Joburg and Lourenco Marques (Maputo). Its capacity was fully used through the sheer numbers of persons entering Mozambique thanks to the low fares of the German East African Shipping Line. But it was not only males who were attracted by this relatively cheap and easy route to the goldfields. The Great Depression of 1873-96 created a movement of poverty stricken rural women - Austro-Hungarian, German, French, Belgian - into urban prostitution. Then localised xenophobia forced many to leave Europe for the Witwatersrand.
This international group swelled the numbers of southern Africa locals. But they were soon to be further expanded and the industry dramatically changed through the entry of ‘Russian’ prostitutes with their New York pimps. Odd combination? Well, the story goes that from 1881, thousands of men and women had been forced to flee parts of western Russia and its neighbouring Hapsburg provinces through pogroms and dire poverty. Arriving in the United States, many females were ‘tricked, recruited or forced into the trade of vice”. Prostitution was then thriving in New York under corrupt municipal government until a series of Commissions exposed the level of corruption of both the politicians and police. As a result, in 1894 a large number of the ‘Russian’ prostitutes and their New York pimps decided to relocate. Their move to London was not a great success, London was well served by its own vice infrastructure! The new immigrants decided to move to more lucrative places and South Africa and South America became their new targets. 1895 to 1897 saw their numbers increase constantly. There were, for instance, between two and three-hundred pimps alone (collectively known as the macquereaux). They were as international as the women they represented – the majority being the New Yorkers, the French (souteneurs) and the Germans with a smattering of English, Australian and one known Afrikaner. An influx of French prostitutes predominantly serviced cheaper non-racial brothels which had a high clientele of miners and generally had local black pimps – the French prostitutes charged ten shillings and paid their touts a sixpence!
Prostitution led to a number of other activities in Johannesburg. Firstly so-called medical specialists in STDs. These ‘medical practitioners’ offered ‘special treatment with guaranteed success in all kinds of syphilitic diseases’.
The treatment was, however, hardly a success – the test for syphilis was only discovered in 1907! They also made a great deal of money issuing medical certificates to the prostitutes whilst the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea soared. Secondly, white slavery - the luring of young servant women particularly from Paris and Brussels to Johannesburg, where they would be either seduced or raped before being turned onto the streets – became another source of income for the local mafia, known as the ‘American Club’.
So, where did all the action take place? The area between Bree Street in the north and Anderson Street in the south, Sauer Street in the west and Kruis Street in the east, contained most of the town’s brothels and became known as “Frenchfontein”. Van Onselen, quoting from various media sources says “From the doors, windows and verandahs of brightly painted houses with large distinctive numbers on their gate posts, women – in various stages of undress – called out endearments and invitations to passing men. Other equally unambiguous offers came from the ladies employed in the large number of ‘cigar-shops’ in that quarter of town.”
The most famous brothel was known as ‘Sylvio Villa’ and was situated on one of the corners of de Villiers and Rissik streets. Detectives who kept surveillance on ‘Sylvio Villa’ recorded that, between approximately 8.00 am and 1.30 am in one week, there were 21 customers on Monday, steadily increasing over the week to 96 on Saturday and dropping to only 8 on Sunday - the gentlemen were presumably in church!
Other ‘houses of ill-repute’ included the ‘Greenhouse’ which was located at 19 and 20 Sauer Street and, amongst many others, the Monte Christo, Phoenix and Spire House.
Not only the highest concentration of brothels, but as Keith Beavon (Johannesburg – the Making and Shaping of the City) points out, together with the large number of bars, ‘Frenchfontein’ became the ‘swinging’ part of the city. In fact Beavon goes on to say that businesses in the whole Frenchfontein area “were devoted almost exclusively to organized vice, and the business day for downtown Johannesburg extended from just after breakfast through to very late at night. The significance of those revenue-earning hours soon translated into higher rentals ……….” Property owners were, of course, delighted with the higher returns they were earning and we are not talking about slum-lords! The newspaper, The Critic, commented that the properties were often “registered in the names of persons of repute, of banking corporations and eminent firms” Higher rentals eventually forced working-class and lower-middle class families, whose income was moderate, out of the CBD.
The official policy over these years was one of accepting prostitution as ‘a necessary evil.’ Whilst a number of laws were enacted, they were all made sterile due to high levels of bribery and corruption. It wasn’t until 1898 that a “Morality Act” was introduced that made provision for possibly banishing moral offenders from the ZAR. But it also made intercourse between ‘black males and white prostitutes’ an offence. However, at that time, the young State Attorney, Jan Christian Smuts, realizing that the police, including the Public Prosecutor, were accepting bribes, developed a new legal team who put some of the ringleaders of white slavery and prostitution into jail. But the real turning point came not through enforcement, but rather with the declaration of war, when thousands of prostitutes and pimps left Joburg for the safety of Cape Town! This resulted in the Cape passing the ‘Betting Houses, Gaming Houses and Brothels Suppression Bill’ in 1902, based to quite a large extent on the previous ZAR legislation. So, many prostitutes and pimps left the Cape, some returning to the Transvaal but also to Durban and Pietermaritzburg. As a result, in mid-1903, Natal introduced its own Immorality Act and Joburg again became the magnet for vice. It now had a substantial population of black and white miners, a large number of Chinese indentured labour and thousands of British troops. As Frenchfontein bounced back, white slavery was again introduced with Paris dominating this ‘export trade’. In fact, when the Chamber of Mines was negotiating in China for labour for the Witwatersrand mines, organised prostitution was simultaneously negotiating to bring out Japanese prostitutes (known as Karayuki-San) who subsequently joined forces with other Japanese prostitutes who had been operating out of Fordsburg since 1894.
Milner, as the new Administrator of the Transvaal, was put under pressure from various sources to introduce and enforce new legislation and in mid-1903 introduced a new ‘Immorality Act’ which went further than the previous legislation which had banned sexual intercourse between ‘black males and white prostitutes’, now outlawing ALL sexual intercourse between ‘African males and European women’. Whilst this aspect of the law seemed to have been enforced, Milner was not concerned with the operation of brothels allowing those that had up to 10 prostitutes “to operate openly provided their business was conducted in a suitably restrained and discreet fashion.”
Once again, prostitution boomed in Frenchfontein, which, along with the buoyant liquor industry, regained Joburg’s reputation as ‘the swinging city’ It was 1905 and the city was just nineteen years old!
Have a great weekend, regards, neil
History Red Light
“Frenchfontein”
Two ‘faux pas’ last week! Firstly the date was wrong - should have been 4 April and not the 28th. Secondly, I wrote: “What became to be known as the Witwatersrand was the site of 25 farms with a population of about 200 people.” My apologies, what I should have said was that were approximately 200 settlers in the area – there is clear evidence of pre-colonial occupation although, up to now, inadequately researched. As was pointed out to me
“Oral historians, archaeologists and anthropologists however, are revealing that Sotho-Tswana, Bafokeng and Ndebele people had settled and/or passed through since the Iron Age, and there is a rich history beginning to emerge at last. And of course the Melville Koppies provides evidence of metal workings more than 500 years ago, not to mention the Lone Hill settlement and many other examples - the work of those cited give fascinating accounts of the pre-colonial human societies and - of great interest and relevance to us early 21st century Joburgers - the climate changes that affected their history.” Thank you for that, it is something I knew intellectually but fell into the “history started with the white settlers” syndrome.
Thought we’d break from last week’s tale of ‘likker’ to the third of what Van Onselen (New Babylon, New Nineveh) described as “central in the lives of thousands of skilled and unskilled miners - “drinking, gambling and whoring” Again I have drawn heavily on his research. From an urban background point of view, the digger’s camp was to make way for a miners town and then to a more settled working class city. As it did so, it’s sexual composition changed from almost exclusively male in 1886, to one that was still male dominated ten years later (25 000 white and 13 000 black males;14 000 white and 1 250 black females) leading to a male/female ratio of ten-point five to one and, thereafter, increasingly to a more ‘normal’ gender ratio. The first two periods thus provided fertile ground for prostitution to flourish.
The establishment of the mining camp drew diggers initially from the ZAR’s neighbouring states, the Cape Colony and Natal and, amongst them, were the first “ladies of fortune”. They were encouraged not only by the obvious prospects of a male dominated society, but also through the Contagious Diseases Act passed in the Cape in 1885 and by the extension of the railway line to Johannesburg in 1892. The Cape’s CD Act required the registration of all prostitutes and their compulsory medical examination and was obviously not popular with those to whom it was aimed. Johannesburg, clearly, was a better alternative. The first prostitutes operating on the Witwatersrand, drawn as they were from the ZAR’s southern neighbours were thus ethnically quite mixed - black, white and so-called “Cape Coloured”. Many of the ‘full-time workers’ located themselves in rooms behind the bars or canteens whilst the more part-time ‘vendors of vice’ also worked as bar-maids. The bar-owners recognised that many miners would be more attracted to bars that had ‘female accompaniments’ than those without and that they would benefit from the resultant increased liquor consumption! Bar-owners, acting collectively, sought to discourage the authorities from taking any action against prostitutes and prostitution was therefore “more or less openly tolerated”. Prostitution between 1886 and 1895 was also not ‘organised’ with most prostitutes being individual operators who conducted their trade “largely on their own initiative, and certainly without the professional assistance of pimps or madams.”
The population continued to explode – from 26 000 in 1890 to 74 000 in 1896, helped to a large extent by the opening, in 1895, of the railway link between Joburg and Lourenco Marques (Maputo). Its capacity was fully used through the sheer numbers of persons entering Mozambique thanks to the low fares of the German East African Shipping Line. But it was not only males who were attracted by this relatively cheap and easy route to the goldfields. The Great Depression of 1873-96 created a movement of poverty stricken rural women - Austro-Hungarian, German, French, Belgian - into urban prostitution. Then localised xenophobia forced many to leave Europe for the Witwatersrand.
This international group swelled the numbers of southern Africa locals. But they were soon to be further expanded and the industry dramatically changed through the entry of ‘Russian’ prostitutes with their New York pimps. Odd combination? Well, the story goes that from 1881, thousands of men and women had been forced to flee parts of western Russia and its neighbouring Hapsburg provinces through pogroms and dire poverty. Arriving in the United States, many females were ‘tricked, recruited or forced into the trade of vice”. Prostitution was then thriving in New York under corrupt municipal government until a series of Commissions exposed the level of corruption of both the politicians and police. As a result, in 1894 a large number of the ‘Russian’ prostitutes and their New York pimps decided to relocate. Their move to London was not a great success, London was well served by its own vice infrastructure! The new immigrants decided to move to more lucrative places and South Africa and South America became their new targets. 1895 to 1897 saw their numbers increase constantly. There were, for instance, between two and three-hundred pimps alone (collectively known as the macquereaux). They were as international as the women they represented – the majority being the New Yorkers, the French (souteneurs) and the Germans with a smattering of English, Australian and one known Afrikaner. An influx of French prostitutes predominantly serviced cheaper non-racial brothels which had a high clientele of miners and generally had local black pimps – the French prostitutes charged ten shillings and paid their touts a sixpence!
Prostitution led to a number of other activities in Johannesburg. Firstly so-called medical specialists in STDs. These ‘medical practitioners’ offered ‘special treatment with guaranteed success in all kinds of syphilitic diseases’.
The treatment was, however, hardly a success – the test for syphilis was only discovered in 1907! They also made a great deal of money issuing medical certificates to the prostitutes whilst the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea soared. Secondly, white slavery - the luring of young servant women particularly from Paris and Brussels to Johannesburg, where they would be either seduced or raped before being turned onto the streets – became another source of income for the local mafia, known as the ‘American Club’.
So, where did all the action take place? The area between Bree Street in the north and Anderson Street in the south, Sauer Street in the west and Kruis Street in the east, contained most of the town’s brothels and became known as “Frenchfontein”. Van Onselen, quoting from various media sources says “From the doors, windows and verandahs of brightly painted houses with large distinctive numbers on their gate posts, women – in various stages of undress – called out endearments and invitations to passing men. Other equally unambiguous offers came from the ladies employed in the large number of ‘cigar-shops’ in that quarter of town.”
The most famous brothel was known as ‘Sylvio Villa’ and was situated on one of the corners of de Villiers and Rissik streets. Detectives who kept surveillance on ‘Sylvio Villa’ recorded that, between approximately 8.00 am and 1.30 am in one week, there were 21 customers on Monday, steadily increasing over the week to 96 on Saturday and dropping to only 8 on Sunday - the gentlemen were presumably in church!
Other ‘houses of ill-repute’ included the ‘Greenhouse’ which was located at 19 and 20 Sauer Street and, amongst many others, the Monte Christo, Phoenix and Spire House.
Not only the highest concentration of brothels, but as Keith Beavon (Johannesburg – the Making and Shaping of the City) points out, together with the large number of bars, ‘Frenchfontein’ became the ‘swinging’ part of the city. In fact Beavon goes on to say that businesses in the whole Frenchfontein area “were devoted almost exclusively to organized vice, and the business day for downtown Johannesburg extended from just after breakfast through to very late at night. The significance of those revenue-earning hours soon translated into higher rentals ……….” Property owners were, of course, delighted with the higher returns they were earning and we are not talking about slum-lords! The newspaper, The Critic, commented that the properties were often “registered in the names of persons of repute, of banking corporations and eminent firms” Higher rentals eventually forced working-class and lower-middle class families, whose income was moderate, out of the CBD.
The official policy over these years was one of accepting prostitution as ‘a necessary evil.’ Whilst a number of laws were enacted, they were all made sterile due to high levels of bribery and corruption. It wasn’t until 1898 that a “Morality Act” was introduced that made provision for possibly banishing moral offenders from the ZAR. But it also made intercourse between ‘black males and white prostitutes’ an offence. However, at that time, the young State Attorney, Jan Christian Smuts, realizing that the police, including the Public Prosecutor, were accepting bribes, developed a new legal team who put some of the ringleaders of white slavery and prostitution into jail. But the real turning point came not through enforcement, but rather with the declaration of war, when thousands of prostitutes and pimps left Joburg for the safety of Cape Town! This resulted in the Cape passing the ‘Betting Houses, Gaming Houses and Brothels Suppression Bill’ in 1902, based to quite a large extent on the previous ZAR legislation. So, many prostitutes and pimps left the Cape, some returning to the Transvaal but also to Durban and Pietermaritzburg. As a result, in mid-1903, Natal introduced its own Immorality Act and Joburg again became the magnet for vice. It now had a substantial population of black and white miners, a large number of Chinese indentured labour and thousands of British troops. As Frenchfontein bounced back, white slavery was again introduced with Paris dominating this ‘export trade’. In fact, when the Chamber of Mines was negotiating in China for labour for the Witwatersrand mines, organised prostitution was simultaneously negotiating to bring out Japanese prostitutes (known as Karayuki-San) who subsequently joined forces with other Japanese prostitutes who had been operating out of Fordsburg since 1894.
Milner, as the new Administrator of the Transvaal, was put under pressure from various sources to introduce and enforce new legislation and in mid-1903 introduced a new ‘Immorality Act’ which went further than the previous legislation which had banned sexual intercourse between ‘black males and white prostitutes’, now outlawing ALL sexual intercourse between ‘African males and European women’. Whilst this aspect of the law seemed to have been enforced, Milner was not concerned with the operation of brothels allowing those that had up to 10 prostitutes “to operate openly provided their business was conducted in a suitably restrained and discreet fashion.”
Once again, prostitution boomed in Frenchfontein, which, along with the buoyant liquor industry, regained Joburg’s reputation as ‘the swinging city’ It was 1905 and the city was just nineteen years old!
Have a great weekend, regards, neil
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