From Preface: Although East London exists today as one of the major ports of South Africa, the city appears to have been forgotten by historians. Little has been done to chronicle its history. In 1932, Bruce Gordon set out to initiate this research and he investigated East London's history to the end of 1865. However, Gordon's thesis, though accurate, is short and inadequate by today's standards. Furthermore, no-one continued from where Gordon left off. Several articles have been written over the previous six decades, each dealing with aspects of East London's past but these, on the whole, are inaccurate and misleading. The time is ripe, therefore, to begin again the research into the history of East London. East London owed its foundation to the state of unrest which existed on the eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope between 1834 and 1847. Although the geographic and climatic conditions were in the port's favour, East London remained in a suppressed condition until about 1870. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the factors which gave rise to this truncated growth. The thesis will examine first the wider perspective of imperial and colonial policy in which East London was conceived and in which it had its early existence. The implications of this policy for East London at the various levels of the port's development will be explored in subsequent chapters. British and Cape colonial policy, however, evolved in a chronological sequence and so the examination of this policy likewise will tend to follow a chronological pattern within each chapter. The establishment of Port Rex in November/December 1836 enters into East London's story in several ways: its political development, the creation and development of the harbour on the Buffalo River, the evolution of trade, the growth of the community and the status of the black population at the mouth of the Buffalo River. It has been found necessary, therefore, to refer often to this beginning of East London's history. Although several theses have already been written which deal with topics related to British Kaffraria, none of these do more than allude to the creation and development of East London. Although, for example, the German Settlers played an important role in the growth of the port, Schnell's thesis hardly mentions the two communities at Panmure and Cambridge. The research for this thesis led me to two important and little known sources of early information, both in Cape Town. The first was the multiple volumed "Unsorted Archives" on East London which consists of reports and letters to the Resident Magistrate. It is a treasure chest of information on East London's early years. The second source was G.M. Theal's newspapers, The Kaffrarian Recorder and East London Shipping Gazette and, later, The Kaffrarian, East London's second newspaper which was believed to have been lost until copies were discovered recently in the South African Library in Cape Town. Theal, later prominent as a historian, had a clear insight into the problems which confronted the community at East London and the editorials of his newspaper make interesting reading. East London's first newspaper is, unfortunately, still lost. It was the East London Times which had its first issue in January 1863, and lasted a mere two months. It consisted of half a sheet of foolscap printed on one side, the other side being left blank, the editor of the King William's Town Gazette wrote, "'for want of room' or from lack of matter."
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:2580 |
| Date | January 1985 |
| Creators | Tankard, Keith Peter Tempest |
| Publisher | Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, History |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | 299 pages, pdf |
| Rights | Tankard, Keith Peter Tempest |
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