1689
The Dutch East India Company buys Port Natal from a chief called Inyangesi. They do not settle the area and, over the next hundred years or so, there are so many British shipwrecks in the area that it becomes known to the Dutch as ‘Engelsche Logie’ or Englishman’s Inn.

1827
The settlers need medicines and fittings for the ship, which Hatton and his men have nearly completed, and it is decided to send an expedition to the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay [now Maputo] to buy the necessary. The person chosen to lead the expedition is a 15-year-old red-headed Scot called John Ross and he is accompanied by a Zulu escort led by Langalibalele. No European has ever made the 600-mile round trip before but Ross accomplishes the trip in three weeks having averaged over 30 miles a day. The Portuguese believe Ross to be a spy for Shaka because they are convinced that no Christian would send a boy on such a journey. It emerges much later in a letter written by Ross that his name is actually Charles Rawden Maclean and that he adopted the nom de plume after running away to sea at the age of 12.

1837
Julia Gardiner, daughter of Allen Francis Gardiner, dies on the ship bringing her to Durban to join her father and is the first white child to be buried in Durban. [She was buried in the grounds of her father’s mission in Ridge Road and the grave is still to be seen there in what is now the cemetery of Old St Thomas’ Church. The road which runs next to the church from Ridge Road down to Brickfield Road was named Julia Road in her memory.]

1845
William Bell is appointed the first Port Captain of Durban on condition that he provides a lifeboat out of his own funds for use in the port. Bell had been the captain of the schooner Conch which arrived in 1842 bringing troops to relieve the British being besieged in their camp by the Boers. A lifeboat duly arrives from Britain aboard the Minerva in 1850 and luckily survives the wreck of that ship. It, and another in Cape Town, are the only lifeboats in South Africa until the formation of the National Sea Rescue Institute in June 1967.

1884
The Jummah Musjid Mosque in Grey Street is expanded to accommodate 200 prayer mats. It had been built a few years earlier by Aboobaker Amod Jhaveri, the first Indian trader in Durban. [The mosque can now accommodate about 6000 worshippers and is believed to be the largest in the southern hemisphere.]

1904
Work has been going on apace at the harbour and, on June 26th, the 12975-ton Armadale Castle enters the harbour and ties up at a jetty marking the success of the dredging operation in the harbour mouth. June 29th sees the first test of Durban’s spanking new floating dock which manages to lift the 7000-ton S.S. Kent out of the water.

1939
The 5th Cricket Test between England and South Africa begins in Durban at Kingsmead on March 3rd and it is decided that the game will be played to a conclusion no matter how long that takes. The match, which goes down in history as the Timeless Test, is declared a draw on March 14th [after eight days of actual play] when the touring side, requiring only 42 runs for victory, is forced to leave to catch the ship home. Five thousand and seventy balls are bowled during the course of the match and 1981 runs are scored. [One of the South African players was Durbanite Eric Dalton (he scored 78 runs and took six wickets) who was a great friend of my Grandfather and Grandmother Jackson and sang with them in various amateur theatre groups before and during WWII.]

Architecture

Much of Durban’s architectural heritage has not survived to the present day having been demolished along the way to make way for new developments. The situation is now much improved with legislation in place to protect buildings over 60 years old from summary alteration or demolition. Thanks to this and the support of many dedicated enthusiasts, Durban has an excellent inventory of beautiful historic buildings in a variety of architectural styles.

The Britannia Hotel at 1299 Umgeni Road was built in 1877 which makes it the oldest hotel in Durban which I regularly patronise.

City Hall

Designed by Stanley Hudson in Modern Renaissance style and completed in 1910, the current City Hall closely resembles the Belfast City Hall. It was built by Messrs. Cornelius and Hollis at a cost of £237,945.

Elephant House at 745 Ridge Road is the oldest house in Durban having been built in 1850. The house was apparently built by Joseph Bishop and was bought in 1863 by J Field who had the dubious distinction of shooting the last of the elephants living on the Berea. The house was owned at one point by prominent local merchant Edward Snell whose company [established 1848] is still in operation bottling my favourite brandy.

Lighthouses

For forty years, or more, I stared at a tall cylindrically-shaped building standing near the end of the Bluff and assumed that it was the Bluff Lighthouse. Only as it was being knocked down in 2002 did I find out that it had been the signal station for controlling shipping movements in and around the port [it stood slightly to seaward of where the Millennium Tower now stands]. My illusions were shattered but I was marginally comforted to find that there had once been a lighthouse on the Bluff.

The old station on the corner of Pine Street and Gardiner Street [which currently houses Tourist Junction] was built in 1892 with a roof that can support 16 foot of snow. This was apparently the result of a mistake by the architects in London who sent the roof plans for the Toronto station to Durban and the plans for Durban station to Toronto. The roof which had been designed for Durban did not cope at all well with the snowy conditions in Canada and collapsed during the first winter.

Second River Hindu Temple

The first Hindu Temple in Durban [and indeed Africa] was built on the banks of the Umbilo River in 1875 but was washed away by floods. The building was later reconstructed at 814 Bellair Road where it is still in use and known as the Second River Temple.

Sugar Terminal

The Sugar Teminal on Maydon Wharf is the largest in the world and can store 520,000 tons of sugar in its three silos. It can load ships with sugar at the rate of 900-1000 tons per hour. The terminal is well worth visiting and there are guided tours several times each weekday. (Tel: 3658100)

Hope you enjoyed these snippets. Now please go out and buy the book from your
favourite bookshop in Durban or here on this site!!