Sir John Coode's Harbour

East London harbour development,
1872 - 1895

The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1869 brought a flood of wealth to the Cape Colony, enabling the administration to embark upon ambitious public works. Among these was the construction of a proper harbour at East London. The work done by Woodford Pilkinton between 1856 and 1870 had all come to nought, and so a start had to be made virtually from scratch. Coode's scheme was to construct training walls on either bank of the Buffalo River, so that the scour of the water itself (especially from the occasional "freshet" or flood) would wash the sand out to sea. The idea was partially successful but a period of protracted drought meant that the expected "freshet" failed to materialise. It was only after 1886, when the suction dredger Lucy went into operation that the river channel and sandbar radically increased in depth.

See also: Read more on this subject Woodford Pilkinton Suction Dredgers

The result was unprecedented prosperity for the port and town, as a greater number of steamers were able to enter the river, instead of discharging their cargoes into lighters in the roadstead.

Dr Keith Tankard

Coode's Harbour
1872 - 1895

• the Hercules and Goliath cranes
• the "Crab" dredger
• the dredgers "Lucy" and "Sir Gordon"
• the "Buffalo" and "London" tugs
• the Blinders Rocks
• the "Great Depression" of 1883-86

The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1869 brought unexpected funds to the Cape Colony, enabling the administrators to undertake major projects that were hitherto unthinkable. In March 1870 Sir John Coode, Civil Engineer and adviser to the Government, was requested to draw up plans to improve the various harbours of the Colony, including East London. Although the main object of Coode's plans for East London remained similar to Pilkington's earlier project, that is to build training walls to guide the river current into deepening the river channel by natural means, the greatest difference lay in the sum of money which the Cape Government was prepared to spend on the project. Parliament accepted Coode's plans in July 1871 and voted the sum of £100 000 for the construction, although in practice the annual expenditure varied considerably and had to be placed on the Government Estimates each year and could not exceed £15000 per annum.

No work took place until the arrival of William Lester as Harbour Engineer in April 1872 and, in any case, a period of preparation was needed in order to establish officers' quarters. Furthermore, since construction was to rely heavily on convict labour, new convict barracks had to be built on both the eastern and western banks of the Buffalo River. The year 1872 also marked the arrival of the equipment, and shipments of rails were soon being landed at East London. By the end of 1873 the concrete machinery had been erected, a locomotive assembled, the platform for a giant crane levelled and construction was at last started on the south breakwater.

By December 1874 the work on the harbour was already bearing fruit. A flood that year cleared sand from the river and created a channel of between 21 and 36 feet in depth and for some months thereafter steamers and sailing vessels were able to enter the river and discharge their cargoes alongside the jetties. The "freshet", as such a flood was called, also proved conclusively that there were no rock outcrops either in the river or in the channel out to sea, which reinforced the prospect of a satisfactory and safe harbour. Furthermore, the deepest water was found where the work had already been executed, which indicated that vessels of heavy tonnage would be able to enter the river once the construction was completed.

Severe gales continually hampered the efforts and caused several shipwrecks, which led in turn to loss of material and stores, and prevented various pieces of equipment from being landed. Nevertheless, by the end of 1874 the south breakwater had been constructed for a sufficient length to allow for the dropping of concrete blocks directly into the sea. At the same time, progress was being made on building the training wall on the eastern bank and another on the western bank. Railway lines were also laid to connect the harbour with the several quarries which provided stones for the concrete work.

By 1875 two giant cranes, theHercules and the Goliath, had been landed and were steadily at work laying the Titan blocks into the sea. Construction of the breakwater now made steady progress, although moving more slowly as it advanced into the deeper water. By the end of 1876 its length already measured 480 feet and in December 1877 it extended 800 feet, or half its planned distance. The work on that part of the construction was completed in 1884.

Major problems were experienced in the progress of the breakwater because of the inclement nature of both sea and weather. The men often had to contend with continuous heavy surf which at times became extremely dangerous. The year 1876 was reported to have been "exceptional", with more wind and heavier seas than at any season for the previous six years. So heavy was the surf that on one occasion a 22 ton concrete block was pushed off the wall and into the water. The most difficult part, however, was the construction of the breakwater over the irregular and slippery "Blinders" rocks on the western side of the river over which the sea dashed wildly, but the work became safer once it reached deeper water.

The combination of training walls and the breakwater saw a marked improvement in the depth of the river. The "freshet" of 1874 gave the Harbour Works a good start but it was followed by a decade of drought. Coode's design relied on periodic flooding of the Buffalo River, yet no further heavy rains were received before 1883 and the drought, together with constant gales, prevented the sand from being carried out with the tides, so that the river gradually grew more shallow. Despite that, the channel remained open whereas, in the years prior to 1872, the river was often completely closed because of a sand-bar across the mouth. Even the East London Dispatch, constant in its criticism of the Harbour Works, had to admit that there was a marked improvement. The channel was not only wider but straighter, the editor wrote in September 1878, and although the water was still shallow, the average depth in the channel was improving which, he was forced to admit, could only be attributed to the Harbour Works, "there having been no fresh water down the river."

By 1879 two tugs, Buffalo and London, which had earlier been commissioned for the East London harbour, were able to tow lighters in and out of the river at all times and at last the warp was dispensed with. Furthermore, the class of cargo vessel was now also improving. Previously, ships which entered the river had been able to carry only 25 to 40 tons of cargo at a time, but the greater depth of water enabled the landing and shipping companies to use lighters with a capacity of between 80 and 90 tons which in turn led to a reduction in landing charges, as well as on rates for freight and insurance.

Sir John Coode visited East London in April 1881 and presented a most satisfactory report on the harbour construction. When he had last been there in 1870, he said, the entrance to the river was almost entirely blocked by immense sand-banks and, at low-water, the sand extended for some 1 300 yards up the river. By 1881, despite the six years of drought, there were 500 yards less sand at low-water. Without the aid of a "freshet", Coode concluded, "many thousands of tons of sand have been driven out of the river, and there can be no doubt that a satisfactory navigable channel is being slowly but surely established .... Upon the occurrence of the next freshet very considerable benefits cannot fail to be produced."

Trade and shipping statistics attest to the remarkable improvement in East London's status as a port. The total value of imports rose from £21 496 in 1869 to £2 115 930 in 1882, an increase of nearly 10 000 percent. Although the construction of the new harbour was a factor, trade had already started to escalate long before the works became significant and an absence of wharves meant that the renovations simply could not keep pace with the growing trade.

Indeed, as early as 1874 the Dispatch carried a scathing attack on the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works because of the lack of landing facilities. It really seemed, the editor wrote,

"as though the Government .... were doing all in their power to shirk their just responsibilities in matters connected with the landing and shipping of merchandise. This, and all their pettifogging haggling with the newly-created Municipal Council .... is doubtless due to the unfortunately characteristical tendency of the gentleman at the head of the Public Works Department to carry out in an extreme manner the proverb relating to the advisableness of taking care of the pence whilst leaving the more valuable coin to take care of itself."

Repeated "urgent" appeals for extra landing facilities finally bore fruit during 1875 and a new wharf was constructed on the eastern bank, near the pontoon but it did not relieve the extreme congestion caused by the hopelessly inadequate landing arrangements. So many wagons were being outspanned alongside the wharf to wait for the lighters to unload their cargo that the access roads were completely blocked. Goods may have been landed and lying on the beach, a letter to the press complained,

"and sometimes you have no chance to get near them to take them away .... If the long-looked-for freshet comes now, opens up the River and all the vessels lying outside come in and discharge cargo as fast as even the present landing accommodation allows, the goods will be laying [sic] on the beach to the mercy of wind and rain and block up the road altogether."

The system proved especially detrimental to the sailing ships. The landing and shipping companies were so anxious not to offend the owners of steamers and drive them from the port that they gave them priority. The sailing vessels, on the other hand, still found it dangerous to attempt entering the river and were often left unattended in the roadstead for periods which sometimes ran to months. In February 1876 a captain of one of those ships wrote to the Dispatch complaining of having had to wait 51 days in the roadstead, during which time 11 anchors had been lost from various vessels because of the constant gales. Yet if one surf-boat had come to discharge his cargo, he said, his ship would have been light enough to enter the river.

In October that year, the Dispatch drew attention to the anxiety caused by the inadequate arrangements. As the ships went on "accumulating", the editor wrote,

"the unfortunate captains lounge about in their hotels on shore, cursing the unlucky fate which brought them here, and the still more unfortunate crew toss about week after week outside, occasionally obliged to lose an anchor and put to sea in order to avert the probability of a berth on the rocks."

The complaints led to the construction of another wharf in 1876, for which purpose the pontoon had to be moved further up the river and a new pontoon access road built, with a teak pile bridge across what was known as the First Creek. Work on a third jetty was also started that year, to be completed in 1877, and represented a substantial improvement because it was built alongside the railway lines which allowed for the more rapid removal of the inland cargo. Two steam cranes and two more warehouses were also constructed on the wharf.

By 1880 the wharfage facilities had again become inadequate for the increased demands of the port. Moreover, it was found that the existing wharves were "inconveniently arranged and overcrowded", and needed remodelling. An extra 200 feet of wharfage was therefore provided that year, together with another two steam cranes. In 1882 two more wharves were built for the Railways Department, as well as three smaller temporary ones.

Although the Harbour Works appeared to be making good progress by 1883 and trade was increasing by leaps and bounds, much of the good work was soon to be undone by the onset of what contemporaries called the "Great Depression" which struck the Cape between 1883 and 1886. There was also considerable political squabbling in Parliament. A major problem was the fact that Coode's scheme was simply not as successful as it had promised to be. The training walls depended on the natural flooding of the Buffalo River to maintain the depth over the sand-bar but the decade of drought had illustrated that far too much was being left to chance. A dredger was therefore essential.

The East London Advertiser raised that question as early as 1879. Whether the Harbour Works could eventually clear away the bar from the river mouth, the editor wrote, was a problem which time alone could solve but one thing that was clear was that it could only be achieved over a long period. It was therefore worthwhile to consider procuring a dredger to relieve the port "of much of the stagnation" under which it was labouring. The editor further pointed out that, although there had been recent rains, it had merely moved the position of the sand-banks and had placed them "more awkwardly for the navigation of the bar". Trade was increasing, he concluded, but the sand-bar was becoming worse and worse as time passed by.

In 1875 the Commissioner for Public Works had tentatively suggested that the sand-bar could be eradicated by having one of the tugs drag a scraper behind it but the Government eventually recognised the need for some form of dredger and ordered a "crab", or floating grab dredger, to remove the shoal from within the river. The "crab", together with four barges to hold the dirt, arrived in 1882 but was found to be not efficient enough to accomplish the required work. Within months, therefore, another call went out for a large "hopper", or suction dredger, which would have the advantage of being able to operate over the bar where the water was too deep for the "crab". In 1884 Coode himself advised that two "steam hopper barges" with dredging pumps would be the best means to deepen the channel as they would be able to drop the excavated sand out at sea and so prevent its re-entry into the river.

The moment, however, was no longer opportune. The Cape had fallen into the grip of the recession, trade had slumped and the Government had resorted to a policy of retrenchment. The recession was not noticed at East London until 1883 but thereafter imports fell dramatically until 1886, when the trough was reached. At the same time, work on the harbour ground to a halt as the Government was forced to slash expenditure on public works. By late 1884, therefore, all construction had ceased, most of the work-force had been retrenched and those who were retained had to settle for reduced wages.

It was not the ideal time for the Government to lay before Parliament a vote of £50 000 to continue the East London harbour works. Colonel Schermbrucker, Member of Parliament for King William's Town and Commissioner of Public Works under the Upington Administration, defended the motion on the grounds that the works had to be protected to prevent deterioration. In addition, he said, East London needed a bridge over the Buffalo River as well as a powerful "hopper" dredger along the lines suggested by Coode. The cost of the latter would be £35 000.

It was not just the recession which made the moment inopportune. There was also a power-struggle being waged in Parliament. John X Merriman, who had served as Commissioner of Public Works under the previous Scanlen ministry till its fall from power in May 1884, used the East London Harbour Works debate as the opportunity to humiliate the new Government and simultaneously attack Schermbrucker and Sir John Gordon Sprigg, Government Treasurer and representative for East London. He therefore expounded in biting sarcasm at the port's expense, a common feature of Merriman's parliamentary technique. The people of East London, he claimed,

"were in favour of a Hopper dredger. They would be in favour of a Hopper or anything else to hop the money out of the tax-payers' pockets .... The place had already fattened on public money .... So long as they had only three or four feet of water on the bar, it was no good putting a great ship there to bump up and down .... till she bumped her bottom out .... Don't let them throw any more into the sea."

Already £500 000 had been spent on East London, Merriman claimed, and yet there was no visible improvement at the harbour. On the contrary, he said, there was no more water over the bar than there had been in 1875. He did not accept that a dredger would be of any use at all and so he would see enough funds voted for the completion of the works and then "leave the matter as it is".

Merriman's figures were questionable, however, because he was referring to total expenditure on the harbour and not solely to the Harbour Works and yet he ignored the sum which had already been repaid by means of increased customs revenue and wharfage fees which, if based on official figures for the period 1872 to 1882, more than trebled the amount spent on the harbour works. The outstanding balance, if any, Sprigg argued, was negligible and so, far from being a drain on the Colony, East London was a source of wealth. Furthermore, the prosperity of the entire region hinged on the successful completion of the harbour.

In the ensuing debate, Merriman was well supported by other members who had the interests of their own electorates to protect. The representative for Port Elizabeth, for example, stated that if East London wished for a better harbour, the people there should pay for it themselves. The residents of Port Elizabeth, he said, were satisfied with a jetty and therefore those of East London should be happy with the same.

The delegate, however, overlooked the vital point that Port Elizabeth already had a major advantage because it had a Harbour Board, a corporate body with powers to raise loans and which represented both the Chamber of Commerce and the Town Council. The residents therefore had a means by which they could foster their interests at the harbour. East London, on the other hand, had no such body but depended entirely upon Government charity for development. It suffered therefore at the hands of such men as Merriman who did not necessarily know or care about local circumstances but used the port as a pawn in a larger political game.

In the end politics won. Upington was not certain of support in Parliament and could not force the issue. He had been in power for only two months since Scanlen's resignation and, as a result, his ministry had not yet had time to consolidate itself. He therefore had either to compromise or risk a lost vote and a possible fall from power. As a result, the Government succumbed to pressure and lopped the dredger from the budget, begging instead a mere £20 000 for the Harbour Works. Merriman was still not content and saw the chance to score another point. He therefore moved an amendment which dropped the figure by a further £5 000 and proclaimed that he would vote not a penny more. He would, he said, die on the floor first. His amendment succeeded.

Merriman's action evoked intense anger at East London. The Advertiser described his antics as another "slap" for the port. It would just enable the work of the harbour "to drag out its miserable existence" for another twelve months, the editor wrote, and progress would be entirely out of the question. East London felt quite bitter against Schermbrucker as well, he added,

"when we see that by his ill-advised haste such disastrous results have occasioned. Perish the £35 000, and stand up once more on thy feet, thou 6 ft. 4 in. of sarcastic aggravation! And we will in gratitude vote that the £35 000 be spent on a colossal statue of thyself like that at Rhodes, striding across from breakwater to training wall, an undying memento of those works thou lovest if not wisely, but too well!"

In much shorter fashion, a naval man at East London sent a telegram to Merriman which parodied a contemporary advert for a pesticide. "Hopper, East London, to Merriman, Cape Town," it read. "Try Well's 'Don't die in the House, Rough on Rats.'" An effigy of Merriman was burnt on the West Bank.

It was fortunate for East London that Upington managed to consolidate his position and so prevented Merriman from blocking the acquisition of the suction dredger for much longer. The vessel was placed on the budget the following year and was ordered from a ship-building firm in Holland, to be constructed under Coode's supervision, but that was all that the port was able to gain.

As the depression deepened in 1885 and 1886, little work could be undertaken at the harbour. Even the horses and oxen were sold, together with those wagons and carts which could not be housed. Extensive lifting and hauling equipment, brought out at a cost of many thousands of pounds, was left to rust. "The knife of retrenchment," the Advertiser reported, "is being pushed in to the very hilt, and blood is taken profusely in quarters remote from the seat of Government where the influence of Parliament is but small and public opinion weak."

In the meantime, the sand-bar again began to form so that from August to November 1885 the river mouth shoaled up and became almost dry at low tide. The cessation of work also adversely affected the condition of the structures already in existence. An inspection in December 1887 revealed that sand was being scoured continuously from beneath the foundations of the south breakwater, leaving huge cavities, and in May that year a large mass of masonry, together with its parapet, collapsed.

Eventually concrete blocks had to be lowered into the slopes at those sections and the breakwater head had to be rebuilt. At that stage Coode realised that the south breakwater also needed to be extended if it were to be successful in maintaining the depth of the channel but he could not make an official proposal because of the state of the economy.

Nevertheless the year 1886 proved to be a turning point for the East London harbour development. Not only did the recession begin to turn but at the end of May the suction dredger Lucy arrived and in July began its work to deepen the river channel. By the end of the year she had already made good progress and had straightened the channel as far as the bar, and even that was showing a marked improvement. By the end of 1887 the depth of water had reached eleven feet at low tide.

So successful was the Lucy that in February 1888 Coode suggested that a second dredger be acquired. The entire channel could then be maintained at a depth of some fifteen feet which would place the harbour "in a first class condition". The Harbour Master echoed his sentiments and argued that the acquisition of a second dredger was vital to open both the sand-bar and the river. It would, he wrote, even place the East London harbour in a far better maritime position "than our neighbour in Natal".

Parliament, however, refused the request but the clamour for a second suction dredger was maintained. The Lucy often had to be laid up for repairs which, it was argued, tended to result in inefficient work. Should the vessel suffer some major mishap, then the effect of all its labour would be entirely undone, with serious consequences for East London. Eventually the upturn in the economy through the discovery of the Witwatersrand goldfields made another dredger possible and the Sir Gordon, named after Sir John Gordon Sprigg, arrived in February 1891.

The work of the two dredgers was to have a marked effect on trade at East London. Although fewer ships now called at the port, there was a constant increase in the tonnage of imports and exports during the following decade. Steam vessels were much larger and of a better class than their predecessors and, because of the depth of the river, a greater proportion of cargo could be shipped in the harbour itself as vessels with a draught of up to 19 feet were able to enter.

The acquisition of the dredgers had therefore enabled the harbour to succeed far beyond Coode's estimates and in one decade they had achieved for East London what the previous four decades of Harbour Works had failed to do.

See also: Woodford Pilkinton Suction Dredgers

So successful had they been that by 1895 it was decided that there was no longer sufficient work to keep them both busy and one was therefore put out of commission but kept in readiness in case of accident to the other, a decision that paid dividends because in November 1895 the Lucy struck some submerged blocks and was wrecked.

Dr Keith Tankard