Arthur Elliott (1870–1938)
PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTIONS IN THE WESTERN CAPE ARCHIVES
The Western Cape Archives and Records Service, formerly known as the Cape Archives, preserves a number of important historical collections of photographs dating back to the late nineteenth century. This book includes numerous works from the collections of the photographers described below.
ARTHUR ELLIOTT was born in America in 1870 and grew up in great poverty. He made his way to South Africa in the 1890s, initially trying to make a living in Johannesburg. He fled to Cape Town at the time of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), and it was then that a remarkable stroke of luck led to him embarking on a photographic career.
A friend gave him a quarter-plate camera, and he began photographing Boer prisoners at the prisoner-of-war camp in Green Point. His photographs were popular, and he made a good living selling prints. Encouraged, he opened a studio in Long Street, where he remained for most of his working life.
Elliott was particularly interested in the history of the Cape and its architecture, and his many photographs of picturesque scenes record much that was soon to disappear.
A number of exhibitions of his work were staged, the first during the Union celebrations of 1910. His second exhibition in 1913 was entitled ‘The Story of South Africa told in 800 pictures’, and the subject of the third exhibition in 1926 was ‘Old Cape Colony’. His last exhibition, in 1930, was the most ambitious and contained over a thousand photographs.
Elliott’s offer, shortly before his death on 22 November 1938, to sell his collection of photographs to the government for £5 000 was turned down, but in 1940 the Historical Monuments Commission bought the main collection for £2 525. The Western Cape Archives and Records Service in Cape Town acquired these photographs and negatives in 1946, where they remain to this day – a priceless record of the past.
Arthur Elliott (1870–1938)
HENRY CHARLES HOPKINS was born at Heidelberg, in the Cape Province, on 3 April 1918. He studied theology at the University of Stellenbosch, after which he ministered to various Dutch Reformed congregations in the Cape, and later served as a military chaplain.
Hopkins earned a Master’s degree in History and had a great interest in genealogy. This led to his appointment as archivist to the Dutch Reformed Church in 1973. Eleven years later, he and his wife retired to the coastal town of Betty’s Bay.
He was a great collector of books and photographs. A collection of his papers and research notes is held by the National Library of South Africa, in Cape Town. In 1992 Hopkins donated his photographs to the Archives, to be known as the Hopkins Collection. He died on 20 November 1992.
EDWARD JAMES STEER was born at Maidstone, Kent, in 1863. When he left school he was apprenticed to a chemist and druggist. The Steer family (father, mother and children) settled in Cape Town, probably circa 1880. In 1883 Edward Steer was examined by the Medical Board of the Cape and licensed to practise in the Colony.
He became interested in photography and astronomy as a young man, and at the inaugural meeting of the Cape Astronomical Association in 1912 was elected Librarian. Later he became Treasurer and ultimately the Hon. Auditor of the association. He was the moving spirit behind the association’s collection of ‘lantern slides’.
Steer’s beautifully composed photographs are a delight to the eye, as well as providing a valuable record of the past.
Edward Steer died at Sea Point on 17 May 1944, having retained his interest in photography and astronomy throughout his life. Among the movable property listed in his estate were an astronomical telescope, a microscope and a micrographic camera and accessories.
Shortly after his death, his widow donated his fine collection of negatives to the Archives in Cape Town.
THOMAS DANIEL RAVENSCROFT was born at Swellendam on 1 May 1851. His interest in photography dates from his employment by a Cape Town photographer, in 1869.
He travelled widely throughout the Cape Province as an unofficial agent for the Cape Government Railways in the late 1800s, photographing the towns and villages served by the railway. He captured on film almost every aspect of the places he visited: the main streets and important buildings such as churches, schools, post offices, railway stations, and local industries. In most cases, he also took a panoramic view of the town from some elevated spot nearby. Many of these photographs were used by the railway as publicity material, and were the first photographs to be placed in railway carriages for the enjoyment of travellers. Ravenscroft also produced portraits of well-known figures such as Cecil John Rhodes and Sir Henry Bartle Frere.
His work, particularly that of his most prolific period, from 1890 to 1909, is of immense historical importance, and was later described as a ‘pictorial history of each town, village or city he visited’.
After living in Cape Town for many years, Ravenscroft retired to Hermanus. Dr EG Malherbe told how Ravenscroft was once photographing him, Jan Hofmeyr and some others, with the ‘blowhole’ at Hermanus as a backdrop, standing on a promontory with his back to the sea. Ravenscroft was waiting for the water to be forced upwards through the ‘blowhole’ when a swell came up behind him. He would have been swept out to sea had not some of the group dashed forward to his rescue. However, nothing could save his expensive camera, and Ravenscroft, who was not a rich man, was very upset by its loss.
In late 1944 Ravenscroft (still actively taking photographs at the age of 93) offered for sale his collection of negatives and two large albums of prints. Kathleen Jeffreys of the Archives travelled to Hermanus to evaluate the collection and subsequently recommended that he be offered £190 for the negatives and £10 for the albums. Ravenscroft accepted the offer, and by February 1945 the Ravenscroft Collection, as it is now known, had arrived at the Archives.
Ravenscroft died at Hermanus a few years later, on 24 March 1948. An inventory lists photographic equipment and a portable studio, together valued at £100, among the assets in his estate.
KATHLEEN JEFFREYS was born in Cape Town on 23 August 1893. After completing her schooling, she qualified as a primary school teacher and taught in the Free State for a few years before studying for a Bachelor of Arts and later for a Master of Arts degree.
She joined the Archives in Cape Town in 1919, and remained there for 29 years, until her retirement in 1948. She edited the seven volumes of Kaapse Archiefstukken, perhaps her greatest achievement. After retirement she ran the Africana Room at Maskew Miller Ltd, and later set up her own business as a dealer in Africana.
An enthusiastic traveller in her younger days, she spent time in Europe and India. As well as English and Afrikaans, she spoke German, French and Dutch, and even a little Hindustani. She began collecting Africana as a young woman, and over the years amassed a wide variety of books, pamphlets and photographs. Her will (dated 1938) bequeathed this valuable collection to the Archives in Cape Town.
Jeffreys died on 6 July 1968. GC Hamilton Ross, in an obituary in the Cape Times, described her as being ‘as genuine as the Africana she collected’.
The original entrance to the prison now leads to the Western Cape Archives and Records Service building.
WORK BEGAN ON THE NEW JAIL IN ROELAND STREET IN 1856. Its exterior was designed in an ornamental style which the Governor, Sir George Grey, believed would ‘have an influence, by no means to be neglected, on the taste of the inhabitants and encourage improvements in the erections of private edifices’.
Shortly afterwards, it was decided that it would be preferable to build a prison nearer the harbour, and work was abandoned. Roeland Street jail was finally completed towards the end of 1859, and the Colonial Engineer, George Pilkington, informed the Governor in a letter that most of the original design had been completed as intended, and that the total cost (including the ornamental work and the steps) was just under £15 000.
A reporter from the Cape Argus toured the prison at the end of 1884 and described it as ‘quite a palace’, whereas the former jail had been ‘of the kennel order’. The kitchen, he stated, was able to produce both ‘soup of superlative excellence’ and ‘rice water of homeopathic weakness’.
The prison closed in 1977 when the last prisoners were transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Tokai. The Secretary of Public Works had announced two years earlier that the prison building would be demolished after closure. Later it was decided to preserve the prison façade and part of the outer wall, and to erect a new, purpose-built building to house the Western Cape Archives and Records Service.
The Archives traces its beginnings to 1876, when a commission was appointed to collect and classify the archives of the Cape Colony. The collection was housed in the basement of the new Parliament buildings from 1886, later moving to a building in Queen Victoria Street, formerly the home of the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
In 1990 the Archives moved to the new building at Roeland Street. In this repository are the earliest documents created in South Africa. The archives of the Council of Policy, the highest authority of the Dutch East India Company, for example, contain the earliest resolutions of this body, passed on the ship Dromedaris on 30 December 1651.
Collections include various public and non-public records, as well as maps and books. There are also extensive photograph collections, from which the photographs for this book were chosen.
Aerial view of the Cape Archives Depot, 1989
Roeland Street Prison entrance, 1977