The Paintings of The Bay of Natal

by Nigel Hughes

196 pages

72 Full colour plates

R 2 000 + R109 courier

Aus$ 170 + Aus$ 22 postage

Limited availability of this deluxe half-leather edition

 

Foreword by Gillian Scott-Berning

The Bay is the aesthetic and economic heart of Durban and it has played a crucial role in both respects. The dilemma between aesthetic considerations, usually associated with conservation, and the need for industrial and commercial development is played out in every modern city with Durban no exception. In fact the early settlers were anxious to develop the harbour as last as they could and in true nineteenth-century Victorian style described the impediment to development in battle terms. The Achilles heel to economic growth was the sandbar at the entrance to the harbour, which prevented large steamships from entering the Bay to offload cargo and passengers. Indeed, the ‘battle of the Bar’ was played out through 50 years of effort to deepen the water at the harbour entrance from the 1850s to 1904 when the Union-Castle mailship, the Armadale Castle, triumphantly conquered the bar and entered the Bay. The debate between conservation and development, entertainment and employment are issues that will always be at the heart of managing the Bay as an integral asset to the very nature of Durban as a City.

It is important that the tension between the two forces be kept in mind as Durban faces the twenty-first century and, no doubt, this important visual record of the Bay will help to focus on the significance of both aspects of this debate. The dividing line does not fall easily down the middle of the opposing positions, for man-made environments can have an appealing beauty of their own — as many of the pictures attest. The Bay provides a protective womb-like feature around which the City has grown. The long, straight African coastline with few inlets and indentations is broken by the bold foreland that projects into the Indian Ocean. The Bluff dune provides a protective barrier to cold winds and storms by encapsulating the southern end of the Bay. The Zulu word fot this promontory is ‘isibubulungu’ meaning ‘the long bulky thing’. To the west, the Berea ridge forms a natural amphitheatre with grandstand views of the harbour and each evening residents are presented with the magical play of lights on the water. It is from this magnificent Bay that Durban derives its Zulu name: ‘Thekwini’. The architectural centre of the City is based on the delta built up over millennia by the Mgeni River. Together these elements provide a unique, compelling sense of place for Durban citizens.

Durban lies to the north of the notorious seas of the Wild Coast and south of the monsoon system responsible for the fascinating diaspora of people and trade that have spread through the Indian Ocean. Influenced by ocean currents and winds, Durban is characterized by a warm, humid climate. This determines the tropical lushness that defines the visual and physical experience of the City. Durban is the busiest port on the African continent and provides an important economic gateway to the southern region. With its proximity to Zululand, this ensures the City’s strongly African character. The forthright certainty of Zulu people about the aesthetic beauty of their country is reflected in the translated meaning of Zululand: ‘a land called heaven’.

Indeed, this is a fact about which many concur and, in particular, the 1850 European settlers were awestruck by the beauty of the Bay and likened it to a Garden of Eden. The accounts of the natural abundance and exotic fauna and flora are exuberant in their wonder and it is hard to believe (although not to imagine) that the sylvan-rimmed Bay was once home to flamingos and hippopotamuses (while elephants, lions and leopards roamed the Berea) The Bay was a playground for swimming, fishing. crabbing and sailing. Many early Durban residents recall having holiday beach cottages on Salisbury Island where they would get away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. This fact emphasizes the dramatic change that has taken place and contrasts our perspective and sense of time and distance with those who lived here 150 years ago.

The paintings help us to span the leap in time and to understand many of the changes that have taken place in and around Durban Bay. They capture the essence of Durban in visual imagery and form a vital documentary record adding to our sense and experience of the place and its history. The Bay is the magnetic point of interest; the pictures reflect on the transformation of this expanse of water not only across time, but also at different times of the day and night and in different seasons. At the very least this compilation presents a chronological record of the changes through time demonstrating the transformation of a verdant, quiet place to that of a commercial and industrial centre. The pictures also provide a record of the major changes and events that have taken place in Durban from the installation of electricity to the grim experience of two world wars, for example. A close `reading’ of the pictures will point to the influences, trends, traditions and peoples that have defined Durban; a silent catalogue of the changes told with the energy and power of vision and colour. This book provides us with examples of works by a host of South African artists prominent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Well known topographical artists include Thomas Bowler and Thomas Baines, and among KwaZulu-Natal artists are lesser known names such as John Sanderson, James West and James Loyd. However the record left to us by the competent. local artists, Cathcart Methven and Clement Seneque, provide us with the strongest record of transformation of the Bay from an expanse of water to a hard, industrial workplace. Topographical depictions were a favourite of Victorian men and women. This tradition had a foundation in the Enlightenment when an emphasis was placed on personal observation and experience and this, in turn, was closely linked to the process of colonialism where maps and illustrations were important sources of information. For example, it was only in the 1820s that the British government began to take an interest in the Natal coastline. Captain William FitzWilliam Owen undertook the first hydrographical surveys in 1822 and 1823 and Lieutenant Joseph Dayman’s chart of the Bay published in 1856 formed the basis of all navigational charts to the end of the century. Most of the -paintings collated here are in this topographical, colonial tradition. Although archaeological records indicate early stone age settlement around .the Bay dating back 200 000 years and Portuguese records date back 500 years, no earlier images of the Bay are known.

In the hierarchy of preferred cities, South Africans may well rank Durban behind others. However, nobody can deny that the City and Bay of Natal demand attention — as these paintings so ably demonstrate.

Gillian Scott-Berning

 

Author’s Preface (edited extract)

This book combines my interest in the art of early Natal with that of Durban Bay. The result is not a history of Durban Bay and the harbour for that has been admirably covered by others, nor is it a dissertation on a group of artists and their art as that is a specialized field field for which I am ill equipped to write. Rather, this is a selection of images covering an era that is long gone, with brief explanatory texts that will help the viewer better appreciate the subjects depicted. In some instances, I have wandered away from the strict confines of the Bay when I felt it contributed to a better insight of the times.

The selection of plates is entirely personal and my choice has been influenced largely by my interest in the subject matter,and perceived attractiveness of the artworks. Biographies on the contributing artists are appended, describing, where possible, their links wilh Durban.

Nigel Hughes
August 2001

 

 

Durban in the 1920s and 1930s

by Nigel Hughes

177 pages

70 plates

R 650 + R109 courier

Aus$ 55 + Aus$ 22 postage

 

Foreword by Trevor Jones

The images in this book present a unique account of Durban in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when it was consolidating its position as one of the leading port cities on the continent of Africa, in the Indian Ocean rim and in the southern hemisphere. The photographs show a city and community significantly different from other coastal cities of southern Africa — culturally and ethnically diverse, verdant and subtropical, but increasingly stylish and modern. Above all, Durban is revealed as the maritime centre — par excellence — of southern Africa.

Durban’s maritime nexus has always been its defining characteristic as an urban community. What distinguishes Durban from other picturesque but economically considerably more minor locations on the east coast of South Africa has (at least until the much later development of Richards Bay), been the establishment of port facilities on a scale that eclipsed those in all other coastal centres. By the 1930s, the traffic base of the port of Durban exceeded the combined cargo volumes moved through the Cape ports. The pivotal nature of the port-city interface, however, goes far beyond mere statistics of cargo volumes, as the development of the port has shaped the spatial characteristics of the city in a number of ways.

This was particularly the case in the period between the two world wars, when the port and city were drawn together more intimately, but at the same time became more separated. The greatest integration of the city and the port can be seen in the commercial and industrial terrain, where the city developed as the natural entrepot for the industrial and mining heartland of the inland Witwatersrand. This created a myriad of economic opportunities in what is now termed the ‘back of port’, where the construction of a pivotal asset such as the Prince Edward graving dock at Congella (at the time of its commissioning the largest dry dock facility in the southern hemisphere) forged powerful economic linkages with the steel fabrication and engineering industries. These assets were later to prove of gigantic strategic importance during the Second World War.

A gathering transition from coal to oil as the dominant energy source for maritime transport also shaped the development of the Bluff, Island View and Fynnlands areas of the city, and laid the foundation for what was to become the largest petrochemical complex on the South African seaboard, with its attendant economic advantages and social and environmental challenges

In the early twentieth century, the location of choice for water-based recreational and leisure activities was not principally the ocean beachfront of Durban, but rather the Bay of Natal. The inter-war period, however, saw a greater physical separation of the city from the port, with some important spatial and behavioural consequences. This can be seen most obviously at the interface between Central Durban, the Esplanade and the Bay of Natal, where the construction of the Esplanade railway interrupted what had been a soft waterfront frontage of the central city to the harbour area.

The creation of a rail barrier between the city and the Bay certainly did not spell the end of recreational activities in the Bay, many of which remain vibrant to the present time, but it must have assisted an irreversible shift of the centre of gravity of the city as a leading leisure and tourist centre to the city’s seafront rather than its bay waterfront. Developments in all these areas are captured graphically and in rich fashion in the images in this important publication.

The post-millennial community of Durban has been shaped in several important ways by the developments that took place in the inter-war period, and that legacy remains indelibly on the present city in the form of its modern port that aspires to regional hub status, its rich tapestry of art deco, international style and art moderne architecture, and its world-class leisure and tourist infrastructure. These dimensions, and many others, are captured with great charm, elegance and depth in the many images presented here.

Trevor Jones
March 2021

Author’s Preface (edited extract)

This book paints a picture of Durban, almost a century ago, between the world wars — in the 1920s and 1930s. It was then a settler town but a little later, from 1935, it became a city and thriving seaport on the south-east coast of Africa — its inhabitants comprising many a hue and creed. All this happened in less than a century.

In 1930 when Durban was still within the boundaries of the Umbilo River, Ridge Road and Umgeni River, the total population was 125 670, of which 60 560 were Europeans, 43 640 Africans, 17 330 Indians and 4 140 others of Mixed Race.

The selection of images is entirely personal and reflects my abiding interest in an aspect of Durban, namely the Bay. Apart from one (Plate 64 in the collection of David Hughes), the photographs have been chosen from my own library. Where I felt that it would not unduly disturb the book, I have in a few instances used images that are later than the 1930s. In these cases the image would not have been materially different from the earlier period.

For the sake of simplicity I have remained with the original place and street names of the period. To aid readers, however, I have included a small section reflecting the old and the recently changed street names.

Nigel Hughes
March 2021

 

 

 

 

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