East Bank Location

The DeclineYears
1890 - 1910

The East Bank Location was established in 1890, at the start of a period of great prosperity for East London. Despite the economic boom, however, the Black community lagged financially behind the White sector. The reason was twofold. First, wages were not immediately increased to allow Africans to participate in the boom. Indeed, according to the testimony of Location Superintendent Charles Lloyd, wages rose substantially only during the period of the South African War, a full decade after the start of the economic take-off. Second, the African still relied to a great degree on subsistence agriculture to provide food to supplement his earnings but the extreme drought of the 1890s destroyed the crops and brought famine.

The Expansion Years

The boom years did, however, lead to a dramatic increase in the population of the location, especially in terms of Xhosa and Fingo residents. From a mere 1 939 residents in 1894, the population peaked at 12 111 in 1905 at the start of the post-war depression, a growth of 624 percent. During that period, however, no new extensions were made to the locations and the construction of huts was not able to keep pace with the population explosion. The total of huts numbered 236 in 1894 and rose to 1 070 by 1905, an increase of 435 percent but lagging almost 200 percent behind population growth.

Overcrowding had already become noticeable by early 1894, when Location Superintendent Percy Potter made an initial call for stricter control. The regulations allowed for six adult boarders per hut yet in numerous cases, he reported, he had found 12 or even 14 people there. The surplus was always attributable, he said, to "visitors just come". At that stage he believed that the overcrowding could be prevented by tightening the regulation on passes, for it was not the holders of passes who violated the law, he argued, but "the loafers and dregs" of society who would only obey by force.

Overcrowding

In February 1897 Potter reported that the population was increasing "daily" with the result that the existing huts were "quite inadequate". The Africans, he said, were crowding into the town, suburbs and the bush, and were "lying about anywhere and everywhere". It was not uncommon to find huts accommodating as many as 15 people, with door closed and no windows.

There was simply no other place for the people to sleep, he was frequently told, as all the other huts were full. "Give us a place to sleep and we will willingly pay for it," had become the general cry throughout the location. The municipality responded by constructing two lodging houses and by 1907 a further two had to be built. The first of these houses consisted of 18 rooms and a kitchen while the second had 36 rooms and two kitchens.

A complicating factor was that the African had to build his own house. He was given a plot measuring 40 feet square (about 10 metres square) on which one hut could be erected, and for which he paid a sum of two shillings per month to cover sanitary and water rates. If he wished to accommodate lodgers, he had to pay an additional 4s. per month. The regulation laid down that the house had to be built to certain specifications and of good material, but only a man of means was capable of meeting the requirements. The rest had to seek lodgings and the critical housing shortage was thereby severely aggravated.

The Beginning of Decay

The rapid urbanization had another repercussion in that the traditional Xhosa round hut was gradually replaced by square shacks of wood and iron. A major reason for the change, Superintendent Lloyd stated, was that the roofs of the round huts were not extended far enough to protect the walls which then became sodden during the rainy season, and collapsed. It was also probable that the availability of grass had diminished with the increase in the population and the constant droughts which afflicted East London.

Anthropologist Desmond Reader argues, on the other hand, that there was also a change in African philosophy in which he no longer saw the house as a dwelling but simply as a place of lodging. He therefore strove to build as inexpensively as possible, making use of material which could be scrounged from the town, and designed in such a way as to allow the addition of further rooms as the owner's capital increased.

Such houses, Reader states, were draughty, leaky and highly sensitive to temperature changes, and were ideal breeding grounds for diseases of the respiratory system, particularly amongst infants. Superintendent Lloyd stated at the time that it was a "regrettable error" because the round huts were the "most healthy and comfortable", and were suitable for all climates. Furthermore, he believed that fires lit in the huts tended to have a disinfecting effect. Nevertheless, a few of the wood and iron constructions were large, he said, some with six or seven rooms, and several were fitted with proper flooring and ceilings.

The South African War

There is little information about the effects of the South African War (1899-1902) on the Black community at East London. Although it was reported that, along with the Uitlander refugees, over a thousand Africans, Coloureds and Asians also fled to the port, the local authorities tended to ignore their plight in face of what was regarded as the more pressing problem of White refugees.

The Town Relief Committee erected some large shelters in the East Bank Location and initially some funds were earmarked for the relief of the non-White exiles but, as economic pressures mounted in 1900, they were the first to be struck off the lists. Furthermore, there was a tendency towards retrenching the Black labour force to help alleviate White unemployment.

Post-War Recession

Information is also scarce on the effects of the post-war depression (1904-11) on the African community but there is no doubt that it suffered badly. The Town Council concentrated on alleviating the distress of the White establishment and, to achieve that end, replaced Black labour with unemployed Whites, despite the fact that it was more expensive to do so.

With work already in short supply, the labour market for Blacks was seriously disrupted and hundreds of men were forced to leave the port to seek employment elsewhere. An examination of the official location statistics reveals that the total non-White population dropped from 12 111 in 1905 to 8 800 in 1910, a decrease of 27.3 percent. The recession hit the Xhosa group hardest, with a drop of 33.3 percent. The Fingo loss was 27.9 percent while the Khoisan and Coloured population showed a combined loss of only 12 percent.

The Ramshackle Township

The depression also took its toll on the Council's determination to keep the locations as models of discipline and hygiene. Evidence of mounting disquiet became more frequent during 1908 and thereafter, and yet the Council appeared unable or unwilling to take action to reform the rapidly declining Black residential area.

The local East London newspaper, Izwi Labantu, was particularly harsh in its criticism of the East Bank Location. In May and June 1908 it carried a series of editorials on the appalling conditions which had been allowed to develop. It compared the White area, with its "superior buildings, good streets, and fine sea-frontage" with the location where there was "not a decent street....in the whole place". The people were "pigging it", the editor wrote, "in ramshackle tin shanties, or miserable huts for which rents are extorted, and without ground rights to give them the incentive to improve their houses."

The Council was also criticised for allowing sanitation to collapse. In another editorial, Izwi Labantu stated that there was only a "semblance of cleanliness" in the locations. It was "mere surface show", however, and the surroundings were "sodden and rotten with percolations of decaying animal matter" and other refuse.

Furthermore, the editor wrote in yet another edition, there were no lights, no recreation grounds, no fencing, no street repairs, no kerbing and guttering, no "application of the common laws of hygiene to the health of the people", no public day-schools and no night-schools. The most prosperous thing, he said, was the cemetery, "in a bad condition and rapidly filling up". This criticism was corroborated by the Location Inspector himself in July 1909.

Municipal Procrastination

Despite repeated appeals for action, the Town Council did almost nothing to improve the situation. Eventually, in September 1913, the Native Vigilance Association approached the municipality to take urgent action. The water was inadequate, the delegation stated, the streets were a danger "to health as well as limb", gutters had become such deep channels through erosion that people who attempted to cross them were likely "to have a nasty accident".

Furthermore, the lack of lighting had lead to insecurity and growing numbers of assaults after dark. Only in 1914, however, did the Council at last see its way to taking action and placed a sum of £1 275 on the estimates for the provision of some electric lighting, street construction and the building of a slop-water drain. The funds set aside nevertheless came nowhere near the amount collected by the municipality by means of location taxes. Furthermore, by as late as 1918, none of the proposed improvements had been carried out.

Conclusion

Although the Town Council was extremely proud of the East Bank Location during the years 1890 to 1900, the onset of the South African War saw conditions deteriorate quite markedly. Once the war was over, a post-war depression set in and the location residents became too poor to care for their houses. Furthermore, since they did not own the land on which their houses were situated, and since they could be evicted from the location with only 24 hours notice, it did not make sense for them to spend money on major repairs.

It is difficult, on the other hand, not to criticise the Town Council over this issue. Taxes were collected regularly from the location residents but never in any year between 1890 and 1923 was more than 50% of the revenue ever spent on the locations. Had the

See also: East Bank Location The township community

Council been fair in its allocation of funds, the East Bank Location could quite easily have been maintained as an attractive residential area for the proletarian class of townspeople.

Dr Keith Tankard