Grahamstown

Following the expulsion of the Xhosa chief Ndlambe and some 20,000 of his followers from the Zuurveld in 1811, the British government at the Cape was able to proceed with their plans for the colonization of this region. However, the original residents of the area were not so understanding and made repeated efforts to return to their ancestral lands. In an attempt to "maintain order" Governor Sir John Cradock decided to station the Cape Hottentot Corps in the Zuurveld. Initially the Commander of the Regiment, Colonel John Graham, decided to establish his headquarters on the loan farm Noutoe, now known as Table Farm, but at the recommendation of Ensign Andries Stockenstrom it was moved to the homestead of the loanfarm De Rietfontein, belonging to Lucas Meyer. Construction on the new headquarters, located on the site of the present Church Square, began in June 1812, and was named by Governor Cradock after Colonel Graham. Initially it was planned to develop Grahamstown as the new headquarters for the Hottentot Corps. Plans for the village were drawn up in 1814, and the first plots were sold by public auction the following year. However after it became the seat of the Landdrost of Albany, both its character and demographic make-up changed considerably. When it was visited by James Backhouse in December 1838 he wrote the following:

"On approaching Grahams Town, we were struck with the uninviting appearance of its site, which is in a naked country, at the foot of a low, rocky, sandstone ridge ... The present town consists of a few streets, one of which is spacious, and serves as a market-place. The streets are regularly laid out; and the houses are neat, and white, or yellow. The inhabitants are about 4,000, almost exclusively

English. There are places of worship belonging to the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Independents. Adjacent to the town there are kraals or villages of Fingoes and Khoikhoi."

Thomas Baines visited the town in March 1848 and reported that: "... we entered the town by New Street which seemed, by far, more prolific of canteens and ... retail stores, than of private dwellings ... (Graham's Town) contained at the time of my arrival a population of six thousand persons, of whom one-fourth were coloured, and houses to the number of seven hundred and fifty. Its principal streets cross each other at right angles, and at their point of intersection is placed the English Church, a plain Gothic building..."

The 1865 census indicated that Grahamstown had a population of 8,072. In 1875 this number had dropped to 6,903, although by 1891 it had grown to 10,498. By 1904 it stood at 13,887, of whom 7,605 were literate http://www.gardenroute.org/grahamstown/

PART II – Gaols of Southern Africa

The Pair - The Grahamstown Gaol

by Bernadine Gindra

Brief history of Grahamstown:

While we know Grahamstown today as the City of Saints or Makhanda, it was founded as a frontier military outpost by Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham, where martial law ruled and punishments were harsh.

Following the expulsion of the Xhosa chief Ndlambe and some 20,000 of his followers from the Zuurveld in 1811, the British government at the Cape was able to proceed with their plans for the colonization of this region. However, the original residents of the area were not so understanding and made repeated efforts to return to their ancestral lands. In an attempt to "maintain order" Governor Sir John Cradock decided to station the Cape Hottentot Corps in the Zuurveld. Initially the Commander of the Regiment, Colonel John Graham, decided to establish his headquarters on the loan farm Noutoe, now known as Table Farm, but at the recommendation of Ensign Andries Stockenstrom it was moved to the homestead of the loan farm De Rietfontein, belonging to Lucas Meyer. Construction on the new headquarters, located on the site of the present Church Square, began in June 1812, and was named by Governor Cradock after Colonel Graham. Initially it was planned to develop Grahamstown as the new headquarters for the Hottentot Corps. Plans for the village were drawn up in 1814, and the first plots were sold by public auction the following year. However after it became the seat of the Landdrost of Albany, both its character and demographic make-up changed considerably. When it was visited by James Backhouse in December 1838 he wrote the following:

"On approaching Grahams Town, we were struck with the uninviting appearance of its site, which is in a naked country, at the foot of a low, rocky, sandstone ridge. The present town consists of a few streets, one of which is spacious, and serves as a market-place. The streets are regularly laid out; and the houses are neat, and white, or yellow. The inhabitants are about 4,000, almost exclusively

English. There are places of worship belonging to the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Independents. Adjacent to the town there are kraals or villages of Fingoes and Khoikhoi."

Thomas Baines visited the town in March 1848 and reported that:

"We entered the town by New Street which seemed, by far, more prolific of canteens and retail stores than of private dwellings. Grahamstown contained at the time of my arrival a population of six thousand persons, of whom one-fourth were coloured, and houses to the number of seven hundred and fifty. Its principal streets cross each other at right angles, and at their point of intersection is placed the English Church, a plain Gothic building."

The 1865 census indicated that Grahamstown had a population of 8,072. In 1875 this number had dropped to 6,903, although by 1891 it had grown to 10,498. By 1904 it stood at 13,887, of whom 7,605 were literate.

First Gaol:

In 1812 Major GS Fraser, deputy Magistrate of Uitenhage, was sent to Grahamstown to establish a sub-drostdy or magistracy there. Jacob Cuyler, the Magistrate of Uitenhage, instructed Fraser to select a suitable site for a house and gaol, and to submit plans and estimates for the building to him. Fraser chose this site because it was close to the area he had in mind for the drostdy.

In January, 1813, the plans for a house for the Magistrate, a house for the Messenger of the Court and a gaol were submitted to Col Cuyler and approved by him. On 16th April 1813 contracts were entered into with Lt WL von Buchenroder for erecting these buildings but the work progressed so slowly, on account of the lack of trained workers, that by June 1814 the Messenger of the Court's house and the gaol had only reached the height of the roof. Baron Knobel, the government land-surveyor who laid out the town in that month, took the northern wall of the gaol as the line of High Street which thus served as the basis for the layout of the whole town.

In June 1817 Lt von Buchenroder had still not yet finished the building. The government paid him for what he had completed and cancelled the contract. The date of the completion of the building is not known but in January 1822 the Magistrate of Albany, H. Rivers, reported that the gaol, to which a pound had meanwhile been added, was not only too small, but that its situation in the middle of the town was most offensive to the inhabitants. He recommended that it be sold and the proceeds be used for a new gaol. Shortly after this the little gaol building became the Grahamstown Public School until about 1842 and then served as the first public library of Grahamstown until 1863.

After 1863 the building was used for various purposes until 1930 when the government transferred it to the City Council for preservation as an historical monument on condition that it may not be disposed of without the consent of the government. By 1948 it was so dilapidated that the City Council was about to request permission to demolish it. At this stage the historical importance of the building was brought to the attention of the Historical Monuments Commission at whose instigation, supported by the Eastern Province Branch of the South African National Society, was restored by the City Council and preserved for posterity.

Visual Description: Single storey - single pile plan, corrugated iron roof, rough plaster to walls, sash windows with raised margins, thick walls to back and side.

The building was declared a national monument on 27 December 1985 - Item 32 of Government Notice 2836, page 12 of Government Gazette No. 10047.

The SAHRA Property Register lists the historical importance as being:

“The construction of this gaol commenced on 16 April 1813. In April 1822 the Magistrate of Albany reported that the gaol was too small and was offensive in that a residential area adjoined it. It was sold in 1824 where after it became a school and later a library.”

Some of the plaques on the wall are from the first 1820 Memorial.

Second Gaol:

The construction of the second gaol started in 1823 and completed in 1824 in Somerset Street. It replaced the original prison in High Street. Designed by William Oliver Jones and built by AB Dietz.

William Oliver Jones, born in Pontesbury, was considered as a notorious figure, named Oliver the Spy. In England in 1817, when the Leeds Mercury disclosed that an instigator and informer of this name had been employed by the Government in order to discover the leaders of insurrections and riots in the industrial districts of England after a temporary suspension of civil rights in Yorkshire from 1812 to 1817. He was among several well-known informers, many of whom were enabled to leave the country under Government protection. It was thought that Oliver the Spy had been given employment in South Africa, and when William Oliver Jones arrived at Cape Town in 1820 it was generally believed that he was the notorious agent. Here he operated as a builder and contractor in the Cape from 1820 to about 1825.

The second gaol was built in 1824 and is of great historic interest in the architectural history of the Eastern Cape Frontier. It is the second oldest public building in the City of Grahamstown. The Governor of the Cape Lord Charles Somerset, agreed to the construction of a new gaol which cost 70 000 Rix Dollars (about £5 250) to build. The initial structure (central block) was planned to house up to 200 prisoners. The building originally had a flat roof and the entire structure plastered with shell lime. By 1828 the roof had already decayed and the structure was roofed over with a pitched shingle roof. Beams and floors are of yellowwood. The complex grew over time to include a range of cells for different classes of criminals including separate cells for debtors, women's quarters, awaiting trial quarters, police cells and hospital and gaoler's quarters.

Executions:

Those who had been condemned to death were shackled at the feet and hands and led on a humiliating shuffle from the Old Gaol to the military parade ground where they were to be punished in front of the jeering townspeople.

Cpl Antony Meyers and Pte Stephanus Windvogel were singled out as the most serious offenders in the mutiny at Fraser's Camp on 19 February 1838 and the killing of Ensign IC Crowe and their execution took place on 21 April 1838 as depicted in this illustration by HC de Meillon.

Governor Sir George Napier supervised the execution, ordering some of the mutineers, members of the Cape Mounted Riflemen, to form the firing squad and the others to watch.

The last person known to be publicly hanged there was Henry Nicholls, Watching a hanging like this was great entertainment for the people of Grahamstown and the rest of the surrounding areas. According to the stories, people rode for as long as seven days to behold the execution of Henry Nicholls by Old Provost. A black flag was hung to indicate that the death sentence had been carried out.

On 19 February 1862 was the last day for the convict and it was also his last walk. He was led out from the Old Provost and had to walk past the gathering crowd towards the gallows. He never got a chance for last words or prayers. He was simply strung up and hanged to his death in front of a blood thirsty crowd.

Many say that because rape did not actually carry the death sentence and because of the rough, undignified exit Nicholls made from this life, his spirit could not be freed. Instead, he is condemned to forever walk the dead man's walk between the Old Gaol and the gallows, passing right by the entrance to the modern university.

The gaol served its purpose until 1975 and, at the time of its de-commissioning, was the oldest functioning prison in South Africa. After the last prisoner left, the gaol attracted the attention of other criminals, thieves who stole the lead riding from the roof. In April 2014 a huge restoration undertaking was started and overseen by Gordon Verhoef & Krause.

The greatest care was taken to use only original materials in the restoration project. The first part to receive attention was the roof. The then existing, very attractive, Welsh slate was removed, sorted out and then re-used.

A number of doors callously bricked over by the prison authorities were opened up again and restored to their original beauty. The original yellowwood floor and ceilings were treated and restored.

After renovations were complete the administrative block of the gaol was used as the new museum to commemorate the role played by the early Dutch Settlers in the history of the region. The interior of the building was transformed into a series of tableaux and displays showing different aspects of the culture and lifestyle of the first white colonists in that part of the country. The building also house the regional offices of the National Monuments Council under whose jurisdiction it now falls.

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PART II – Gaols of Southern Africa

The Pair - The Grahamstown Gaol

by Bernadine Gindra

Brief history of Grahamstown:

While we know Grahamstown today as the City of Saints or Makhanda, it was founded as a frontier military outpost by Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham, where martial law ruled and punishments were harsh.

Following the expulsion of the Xhosa chief Ndlambe and some 20,000 of his followers from the Zuurveld in 1811, the British government at the Cape was able to proceed with their plans for the colonization of this region. However, the original residents of the area were not so understanding and made repeated efforts to return to their ancestral lands. In an attempt to "maintain order" Governor Sir John Cradock decided to station the Cape Hottentot Corps in the Zuurveld. Initially the Commander of the Regiment, Colonel John Graham, decided to establish his headquarters on the loan farm Noutoe, now known as Table Farm, but at the recommendation of Ensign Andries Stockenstrom it was moved to the homestead of the loan farm De Rietfontein, belonging to Lucas Meyer. Construction on the new headquarters, located on the site of the present Church Square, began in June 1812, and was named by Governor Cradock after Colonel Graham. Initially it was planned to develop Grahamstown as the new headquarters for the Hottentot Corps. Plans for the village were drawn up in 1814, and the first plots were sold by public auction the following year. However after it became the seat of the Landdrost of Albany, both its character and demographic make-up changed considerably. When it was visited by James Backhouse in December 1838 he wrote the following:

"On approaching Grahams Town, we were struck with the uninviting appearance of its site, which is in a naked country, at the foot of a low, rocky, sandstone ridge. The present town consists of a few streets, one of which is spacious, and serves as a market-place. The streets are regularly laid out; and the houses are neat, and white, or yellow. The inhabitants are about 4,000, almost exclusively

English. There are places of worship belonging to the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Independents. Adjacent to the town there are kraals or villages of Fingoes and Khoikhoi."

Thomas Baines visited the town in March 1848 and reported that:

"We entered the town by New Street which seemed, by far, more prolific of canteens and retail stores than of private dwellings. Grahamstown contained at the time of my arrival a population of six thousand persons, of whom one-fourth were coloured, and houses to the number of seven hundred and fifty. Its principal streets cross each other at right angles, and at their point of intersection is placed the English Church, a plain Gothic building."

The 1865 census indicated that Grahamstown had a population of 8,072. In 1875 this number had dropped to 6,903, although by 1891 it had grown to 10,498. By 1904 it stood at 13,887, of whom 7,605 were literate.

First Gaol: (jail)