The East London Harbour

The Harbour Board, 1894 - 1904

In May 1894 a Harbour Board was at last established at East London. As early as 1857 the Chief Commissioner for British Kaffraria had suggested the creation of such a body as the solution to many of the harbour's problems but Sir George Grey believed that every aspect of the port's existence should remain in military hands as the frontier was still regarded as a possible flashpoint. Moreover, at the time, East London's own political status was still unclear. A Harbour Board was nevertheless a logical development if the port was to prosper because it placed management largely in local hands and was more in tune with the pulse of development in the region. In addition, it had the power as a corporate body to raise loans to undertake the material development of the harbour without being dependent on Government handouts, with its consequent political implications.

The establishment of the Harbour Board was an instant success. It immediately undertook the construction of a slipway on the western bank to allow small vessels, like the dredgers, to be repaired at East London instead of having to sail to Cape Town and so lose valuable time. The project had been started in February 1891 while the harbour was under the direct control of the Government but by September that same year operations had been suspended because of lack of funds. No further work was done until the Harbour Board made it one of its main priorities in 1895, with the result that the slip was completed within two years. Another slip was also built on the western bank to haul up smaller craft, such as barges.

The Harbour Board also made rapid improvements to the landing facilities at the harbour. In 1896 there was a flurry of activity while a new siding timber yard was constructed, together with a passenger landing jetty near the First Creek, with better waiting- and baggage-room facilities. A new paraffin shed was also built and two cranes were purchased. So rapid were the extensions undertaken by the Harbour Board that within the first decade of its existence the facilities at the port more than doubled those established during the previous twenty years under Government control.

Another factor in the Harbour Boards's favour was the rapidity with which it was able to act. Within a month of theLucy being wrecked, the Board had put in a claim of £6 050 on insurance and ordered a new dredger along the lines of theSir Gordon. The Kate (named after Kate Rees, wife of David Rees) arrived in July 1897 and went to work in August, less than two years after the Lucy had been lost. Moreover, its equipment was superior to the other two dredgers and so between it and the Sir Gordon, which was also re-fitted with more efficient gear, the channel was dredged to an even greater depth. Whereas in 1896 the depth of water over the bar varied from between 9 and 13 feet, by 1903 vessels with a draught of over 21 feet were regularly entering the harbour.

The greater depth of water over the bar and within the channel meant that an ever increasing number of vessels were able to enter. The figure rose from 38 in 1887, the first year an official figure was given, to 374 in 1902, the year the Boer War came to an end. The statistics tend to be misleading, however, for they indicate a rather minimal increase during the era of Harbour Board jurisdiction but there was a constant growth in the size of ships which entered the river. In 1899 only one vessel with a draught of over 20 feet was able to cross the bar whereas by 1903 no less than 75 such ships entered the harbour. Indeed, by 1897 over 80 percent of the total imports were landed directly from within the river.

In theory East London's trade should have been able to grow in equal proportion to the rapid expansion of the harbour. That did not happen because the Harbour Board had control only of the river and the landing, loading and storage facilities. The Wharfage Department, on the other hand, was transferred to the Cape Colonial Railways in September 1896 which proved to be the fly in the ointment because the amount of cargo that the harbour could handle was to be directly proportional to the Railways Department's ability to transport the goods to and from the wharves.

The Harbour Board first raised the problem in 1900 when the outbreak of the Boer War led to an increase in the amount of military stores and equipment landed at East London. The work had nearly doubled, the Chairman of the Board reported, but lack of trucks made it difficult to rail all the goods. In 1901 the port was described as congested so that there was an urgent need for increased facilities and more accommodation for shipping but its capacity for landing and forwarding cargo was still "greatly in excess" of the facilities provided by the Railways Department for the removal of cargo. The congestion, the Chairman claimed, could have been greatly eased if the truck supply had been adequate, yet the matter was being compounded by the fact that rolling stock was appropriated for military cargo and by the "general disorganisation" of the traffic.

With the cessation of the war in 1902, business at East London reverted to normal. Military importations gradually declined and ceased altogether by the end of the year. That enabled the Harbour Board to deal with the "great quantity" of civilian cargo which had accumulated at the port. Despite the military withdrawal, however, the Board's operations were "extensively curtailed" by what the Chairman called the "extremely inadequate and irregular truck supply" and on the rare occasions when that was satisfactory, insufficient steam engines were provided. In desperation the Harbour Board decided to purchase 100 short trucks and 25 bogey trucks "of the largest capacity" to attempt to relieve the congestion by transporting the goods out of the harbour area. Eventually the problem solved itself as yet another depression descended on southern Africa in the wake of the Boer War, and imports began to drop.

A further problem which the war brought to the fore was the extremely inadequate berthing facility because over 300 ships now entered the harbour each year. Because there was still no bridge over the river and the western bank had to rely on the pontoon for transportation and cartage, all wharf construction had taken place on the eastern side which was serviced by the railway. The result was that the harbour was utilized to less than 50 percent of its capacity. Another limitation was the fact that the harbour had still not been extended beyond First Creek, despite the fact that there was considerable frontage which could be utilized further up the river.

The Harbour Board brought the Government's attention to those problems in 1900 and called for future development both on the western bank and beyond First Creek. With vessels of an ever increasing mass using the port, the depth of the river was also proving to be a problem. The larger vessels could now only enter the river at high tide and would lie on the bottom at low water, with possible damage to their hulls. In 1903 the Harbour Board reflected the urgent need to examine the future development at the port. The harbour's utility and capacity to compete for the inland trade of the sub-continent had passed out of the probation stage, an annual report stated, and a general scheme of development had to be taken in hand. Every natural advantage needed to be taken and "every modern appliance introduced" so as to be able to retain and enlarge the share of commerce in the country.

The Harbour Board did not survive long enough to see its recommendations come to fruition. The onset of the post-Boer War depression led to a rapid drop in trade and, although the Board initially saw the economic downturn as a temporary setback "referable to the exceptional conditions" which prevailed in South Africa, by 1906 the depression was causing "grave anxiety". The continued decline in revenue lead to an increase in tariff rates and the Harbour Board had to resort to severe retrenchment. An aggravating factor was the re-routing of the Transvaal traffic to Delagoa Bay, whereas it had mostly passed through East London during the pre-Boer War days. Although a large number of importers in the Transvaal still used East London, the tonnage was small and therefore unprofitable.

Despite the depression, plans went ahead to construct a new quay on the western side, to come into use as soon as a temporary bridge over the Buffalo River was completed (1908) and it promised to place the Harbour Board in a good position once the depression lifted. Furthermore, an increasing trade with the Orange River Colony, mainly the importation of equipment for railway construction, was already off-setting the downturn in the Transvaal trade.

The concept of Harbour Boards was ended by Act 38 of 1908 and in January 1909 the East London harbour was transferred to the Cape Government Railways. It was not a promising prospect because the Harbour Board had looked after East London's interests well. More money had been spent and greater development had taken place under its brief tenure than during any preceding period.

See also: East London Harbour & Shipping East London trade, 1868 to 1914 The suction dredgers South African War

Furthermore, the Board held East London's trading interests at heart in a way in which the Railways could never hope to emulate. The Railways Department, on the other hand, had never shown much concern for East London's rights or needs, and its relationship with the Harbour Board had never been a happy one, with the harbour suffering from its inefficient service. By 1909, therefore, the harbour's future looked bleak.

Dr Keith Tankard