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Although East London's prospects looked good when the port was established in April 1847, almost nothing was done to improve the facilities until 1850. Lieutenant Charles Forsyth conducted several detailed surveys of the river mouth, but all his suggestions were shelved for lack of funds. A temporary wharf had been built in May 1847 but, when it was washed away in the floods of February 1848, it would have to wait a further three years before it could be replaced.
The problem was that Sir Harry Smith annexed the port to the Cape Colony in January 1848. Although this was meant to be a temporary expedient, to last only until instructions reached him from England, the situation would not change until 1859. Because the Cape believed that East London would soon be returned to British
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East London began to be used as a port on about 2 April 1847, but landing facilities were rudimentary. Although some small ocean-going vessels could cross the sand-bar and enter the river, the majority anchored in the roadstead, from where their cargoes would be rowed into the river by means of the ships' long-boats. A convenient flat rock at the river's edge was initially used as a natural quay, but clearly some type of development would soon be needed. This was provided in May 1847 in the form of a temporary wharf and slipway.
On 14 January 1848, Sir Harry Smith appointed a Board of Commissioners to investigate ways to improve the port. The Board consisted of four members, of whom two were traders, and it submitted its lengthy and comprehensive report in February 1848. The members called for two major changes. First, that a new jetty or wharf be built to replace the temporary one which had soon been washed away in a flood. Secondly, they asked that the merchants be given access to the government gear so as to encourage private enterprise in the landing and loading of cargo. Had these two recommendations been accepted, East London's trading prospects would have been brighter. As it was, however, two years were to pass before a jetty was built, and private enterprise took over the government Surf-Boat Establishment only in 1872.
Immediately prior to the meeting of the Board of Commissioners, there had been an unusually heavy and continuous rain which had caused the Buffalo River to rise some 40 feet above its normal height. The resulting flood had removed the sandbars at the river mouth and this allowed gale force winds to drive heavy waves through the unprotected entrance. The temporary wharf and slipway were destroyed.
The flood also served to place the Buffalo River in a new perspective. The Board rejected Forsyth's earlier proposal to channel the river. It would be a useless expenditure, it said, because the construction would be washed away by the first great flood. The Board, therefore, turned its attention to other more practical means of landing stores.
The Board stated that a new wharf was essential for the unloading of cargo and it suggested that a new slip be built so that boats could be repaired. The wharf, slip and the necessary roads could be built by the military, although this would entail that men be released from the construction of Fort Glamorgan.
Although the Governor himself had commissioned the Board, however, he totally ignored its report and recommendations. In September 1848, when no reply had been received, Major GH Smith of Fort Glamorgan took up the fight for a jetty. Without one, he said, the loading and landing of cargo had to be done from the river bank and this increased the danger of damage or loss to the packages. Moreover, the surf-boats had now to travel further up the river to a point suitable for this operation, and this increased the distances in travel both by water and by land.
This latter eventuality in turn created lengthier, more inefficient and greatly more expensive operations. Major Smith therefore requested that "some immediate steps" be taken towards the erection of a jetty and offered the services of the Engineer Officer at Fort Glamorgan to work out an estimate. This came to £429 for a wharf of the type recommended by the Board of Commissioners, the calculation being made on the supposition that military labour would be employed.
Had East London remained part of British Kaffraria, the cost of the jetty could have been paid by the military budget. Since it had become a colonial port, however, the expenditure had now to be defrayed by the Colonial Government. It therefore had to pass through official channels and be placed on the Colonial estimates before action could be taken. The Colonial Secretary informed Lieutenant General Mackinnon, Special Commissioner for British Kaffraria, that the request had to be deferred until the arrival and report of the Civil Engineer who had not yet arrived from England.
A year later, in November 1849, neither a wharf nor a jetty had yet been built. The new Commanding Officer of Fort Glamorgan, Captain Rooper, again appealed to the Government. Another estimate, which amounted to £1500, had been prepared. Since Rooper believed that such a sum would be unacceptable, he appealed instead for permission to construct a simple jetty at a cost of £35, which he would have built by military labour and with stones found at the port. Permission, however, was again refused, this time on the grounds that the Colonial Secretary had no power to sanction any expense for which no previous provision had been made in the Colonial estimates.
Rooper renewed the appeal in March 1850 and explained the enormity of the problem which now confronted the traders at East London. The risk of loss and damage because of the lack of a jetty had led to the enormous freight charges of over £2 per ton on goods bound for East London. As a result, Rooper said, even the East London merchants were trading via Graham's Town and Port Elizabeth, where the reduced freight charges more than compensated for the expense of the land carriage. The Colonial Government again rejected the request, "until circumstances admit of its being attempted."
The "circumstances" happened quite suddenly, so that the jetty was completed by the end of May 1850. The volte face was the result of military needs. The Governor decided that the Rifle Brigade in British Kaffraria needed to be relieved and that a jetty would be useful for the embarkation of troops. Mackinnon was therefore authorised to build a jetty at a cost of £50 and, since the Hermes was about to sail for East London, Sir Harry Smith requested that the project be carried out "without much further delay". The jetty was completed by the end of May at a cost of only £12, paid for out of the Commissariat Fund.
The problem of the construction of a jetty was a combination of bureaucratic procrastination and the uncertain position of East London's political status. The Cape Government hesitated to spend colonial money on the port because of the possibility of its imminent
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