THE NATAL SOCIETY OFFICE BEARERS, 1983 - 1984 President Vice-Presidents Cr Miss P.A. Reid M.J.e. Daly A.e. Mitchell (died 12.8.84) Dr J. Clark S.N. Roberts Trustees A.C. Mitchell (died 12.8.84) Dr R.E. Stevenson (died 1.6.84) M.J.e. Daly Treasurers Auditors Messrs Di?" Boyes & Co. Messrs Thornton-Dibb, van der Leeuw & Partners Chief Librarian Mrs S.S. Wallis Secretary P.e.G. McKenzie COUNCIL Elected Members Cr Miss P.A. Reid (Chairman) S.N. Roberts (Vice-Chairman) Dr F.e. Friedlander R.Owen W. G. Anderson A.D.S. Rose R.S. Steyn M.J.e. Daly Prof. A.M. Barrett T.B. Frost Associate Member F.J.H. Martin, MEC City Council Representatives Cr H. Lundie Cr W.J.A. Gilson Cr R.J. Glaister (resigned Feb. 1984) Cr N .M. Fuller EDITORIAL COMMITTEE OF NAT ALIA Editor T.B. Frost W.H. Bizley M.H. Comrie J.M. Deane Dr W.R. Guest Ms M. P. Moberly Mrs S.P.M. Spencer Miss J. Farrer (Hon. Sec.) Natalia 14 (1984) Copyright Natal Society Foundation 2010Cover Picture Durban Bayside, 1900. (Local History Museum) SA ISSN 0085 3674 Printed by Kendall & Strachan (Pty) Ltd., Pietermarit7burg Contents Page EDITORIAL ..... . 5 REPRINTS Old Days at N.U.C. (By a Foundation Professor) 7 Early 'Varsity Days (By a Foundation Student) ... 13 ARTICLE John William Bews - A Commemorative Note William Bizley .......................... 17 NATAL SOCIETY LECTURE The Revd John David Jenkins (1828-76), Canon of the Cathedral of Natal Frank Emery ........................... 22 ARTICLE The Great Flood of 1856 Pamela Barnes " . . . . . 33 ARTICLE Durban's Court-House: Its opening and early years Peter Spiller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 42 ARTICLE Beyond School: Some developments in higher education in Durban in the 1920s and the influence of Mabel Pa1rner Sylvia Vietzen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 48 ARTICLE 'The Fate of the Natives': Black Durban and African Ideology Maynard Swanson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59 ARTICLE Sense or Fashion! Victorian Architecture in Durban Srian Kearney .......................... 69 ARTICLE The New Republicans: A Centennial Reappraisal of the 'Nieuwe Republiek' (1884-1888) Graham Dominy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 87 OBITUARIES Norman Wynnc Bowden ................... 98 Robert Elliott Stcvenson ................... 100 Allan Carlyle Mitchell .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 103 Solomon Levinsohn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 105 NOTES AND QUERIES i.M. Deane ............................ 107 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES ................ 115 SELECT LIST OF PUBLICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 REGISTER OF RESEARCH ON NATAL ............... 130 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 132 5 Editorial The compOSItion of each edition of Natalia seems increasingly to be determined by centenaries or anniversaries. This issue is no exception. 1884 was the year of the founding of the New Republic by Transvaal boers under Lukas Meyer, and Graham Dominy has given us a worthy centennial piece. But 1985, which will be upon us almost as Natalia 14 appears in print, marks anniversaries nearer home and perhaps more significant: 150 years since the meeting, presided over by Captain Allen Gardiner R.N. decided to layout a town at Port Natal and name it after the then Governor of the Cape, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, and 75 years since the Natal University College first opened its doors in a wood-and-iron shed in the grounds of Maritzburg College. It is therefore upon the City of Durban and the University of Natal that this issue will focus. It is moreover, a focus of personal relevance in so far as several members of the editorial board were either born or educated in Durban, and all, without exception, are graduates of the University of Natal. Our reprints, from Natal University College Magazines of 1919 and 1934 contain the personal reminiscences of S.E. Lamond, an 'aboriginal' student (who became a legendary Mr Chips-like figure at Maritzburg College) and the equally legendary Professor Alexander Petrie, first incumbent of the Chair of Classics. John William Bews is today a name most students would associate with a building. We are grateful to Mr Bizley of the editorial committee, for recreating the man after whom the building is named, the first Professor of Botany and first Principal of the Natal University College whose untimely death in 1938 deprived Natal of a figure of international stature. Dr Sylvia Vietzen achieves two objects with her article on Mabel Palmer and developments in education for adults in Durban in the 1920s, while Professor Maynard Swanson of Miami University, in evoking a picture very different from the stereotype of slow-moving colonial affluence and gracious living, provides a salutary reminder that not all of Durban's inhabitants were (or are) white. Little of Durban's colonial architecture has managed to survive the ravages of 'progress' and 'development'. Professor Brian Kearney's photographic essay in recording some of what remains, is a telling indictment on the impoverishment of the Durban townscape, while to a province with memories of the havoc wrought by cyclone 'Demoina' still fresh, Pam Barnes's piece on the great flood of 1856 will be of particular interest. It has been the wish of the Council of. the Natal Society that where appropriate, the annual Natal Society Lecture be published in Natalia. This 6 year it was given by our old friend, Frank Emery, Vice-Master and Senior Dean of St. Peter's College, Oxford, on Canon John David Jenkins, a member of Bishop Colenso's first Chapter in 1857. We are happy to make the life of this Natal pioneer more widely known. Sadly every year Natalia must publish obituaries of distinguished Natalians. This year they include two who have served education well, Mr N.W. Bowden and Mr Solly Levinsohn, together with a former President of the Natal Society Council, Dr R.E. Stevenson and former Honorary Treasurer, Mr Allan Mitchell, both of whom, at the time of their deaths, were Trustees of the Society. One of the founders of Natalia in 1971 was Professor Colin de B. Webb who served as editor for five years before moving to the University of Cape Town to take the King George V Chair of History. We are pleased to welcome him back to Natal as Vice-Principal of the University in Durban. To all the contributors to Natalia we extend our grateful thanks. May the enjoyment and profit of our readers be their reward. T.B. FROST 7 Old Days at N. U. C. (BY A FOUNDAnON PROFESSOR) "Round about" nine o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 19th of April, 1910 - when the majority of present N. U. C. students were still quite young - two, perhaps slightly nervous, figures might have been noticed in the vestibule of the Camden Hotel, in Pietermaritz Street. They were the present Professors of Classics and Chemistry - only twenty-four-and-a-half years younger than they are to-day. They had landed at Durban the day before ex the "Kenilworth Castle," and had travelled up to Maritzburg (by train) the same evening under the sheltering wing of Mr "Jock" Robertson, then Acting Registrar of the infant N. U. c., now the popular Secretary of the Natal Education Department and father of a recent Rhodes Scholar. At the hour and the place referred to, they were awaiting the arrival of Sir Henry Bale, then Chief Justice of Natal and first Chairman of the N.U.C. Council, to pilot them to the Maritzburg College, which was to be the scene of their labour pro tern. After an exchange of greetings and a few minutes conversation with his two proteges, the great man surveyed them benignly from his height and remarked, 'T'm beginning to think professors are not so formidable people after all!" That, naturally, was a little bit of a knock for them to start with, for what good were professors, anyway - the very first of the genus to be seen in these parts - if they could not inspire a little awe in the inhabitants - at least until familiarity should breed contempt? However, the writer, at any rate, remembering, very opportunely, that the two things that had made Scotland great were John Knox and hard knocks, waved away the remark with as little apparent discomposure as possible and took his place alongside his colleague in the brougham, trusting that the (free) ridc and some of the sights of the City en route might do something to repair the damaged amour prop re. Arrived at their destination, "without (like Dr Johnson) any memorable accident," and after sundry introductions, the two not-so-formidable-after-all people addressed a few - one of them, it was alleged, rather more - words to the assembled senior pupils, after which they were put in touch more particularly with such of them as had been nursing a long-standing thirst for their respective subjects, and with the members of the M.C. staff who had been doing their best to satisfy it. The talk, in either case, must have been largely time-table, if things even got as far as that. But, whatever happened, it was an epoch-making morning. The work of the N.U.C. had begun! For the new-corners - and here it should be mentioned that Dr Warren was already in situ at the Natal Museum and catering for Zoology - work at 8 Old Days at N. U. C. Professor Alexander Petrie in the 1930s. (Photograph: Natal University College Magazine 1934) the Maritzburg College had at least the attraction of the novelty of the conditions under which it was conducted. The ancient Classics, which had survived so many rude shocks before then, were not to be put out of countenance by the humble environment of a "tin shanty," which froze one on a winter morning and baked one at mid-day. Given enough texts to go round, a classical teacher could be happy on a desert island. But the Professor of Chemistry (and Physics!), it is to be feared, was set to the intriguing task of making bricks without straw, in the matter of the requisite apparatus. This, of course, is no reflection on the school equipment, which was no doubt adequate for school purposes; but it was obvious that advanced science teaching must be carried on under difficulties until such time as the N. U. C. buildings proper should be available and reasonably furnished. And here it is a pleasure to recall the generous co-operation of the M.C. staff in reducing difficulties, of whatever kind, to a minimum. That the conduct of University classes alongside their legitimate school work constituted, for them, a mild nuisance, cannot be gainsaid: to their credit, they never let it appear so, and lasting friendships were formed in those first few months both with the headmaster (Mr Barns, later, and until recently, Registrar of the N.U.C.) and with other members of the staff, some of whom have since passed on or have been transferred to other spheres of labour. And so, from the middle of April till the end of June, 1910, the trail was blazed at the Maritzburg College. The first of August, however, saw another and considerable, fluttering in the academic dovecotes when Professors Bews, Roseveare and Waterhouse (all very formidable!) arrived from overseas; and with the appointment of Professors Besselaar and Inchbold (both already in South Africa) the college of eight professors as originally provided for was complete. Of these, it may be noted, four (including the 9 Old Days at N. U. C. Principal) are still active members of the staff; three have retired; one (Inchbold - Law), to our great sorrow, was carried off by enteric at the end of 1916, and his memory, appropriately - for he was the life and soul of the College Debating Society - is kept green by the annual Arts v. Science debate which bears his name. When one sets the eight teachers of 1910 against, roughly, the score (in Maritzburg) of 1934, and remembers that the number of subjects taught has remained fairly constant in the interval (though the student body, it is true has grown out of all knowledge), one is prepared to find that the designation of the original chairs was comprehensive and generous to a fault. Practically all of them were doublebarrelled, either expressly or implicitly (English and Philosophy, Chemistry and Physics, Botany and Geology): indeed, a man with two barrels only was, comparatively speaking, in clover: precisely how many barrels were to be counted to, say, "Modern Languages and History," was a moot point. It was a touching tribute - for all its suggestion of Aberdeen (or may be Yorkshire) inspiration - at once to the mental agility and to the physical endurance of the appointees: a man, in those simple days, was quite clearly expected to do a man's, and a day's work! In practice, however, as it was easy to predict, the demands made by the composite chairs upon their occupants were soon found to be excessive, and the breaking-up process, which has gone on more or less continuously since, started almost immediately. Lectureships in History and Physics, for instance, were instituted as early as 1912, both being erected in course of time into the present substantive Professorships. The Chair of Education, an entirely new creation, dates to 1921. Simultaneously with the arrival of the full staff, as has been described, the Arts subjects, at least, were housed in the Town Hall, mainly on the first floor on the side adjacent to Church Street. Unfortunately, however, no attempt was made to secure what would now be known as a "zone of silence" in our neighbourhood: the clang of the tram gongs made sleep difficult even in the Latin classes, and passing motorists - though admittedly much less numerous than to-day ~ did not seem to care two hoots, or even three, that an earnest attempt was being made to conduct the Higher Education a few feet above their blatant horns. The result was that the classes were later transferred to the top floor on the opposite side, where the greater distance lent a little more enchantment to the din, and where a teacher had to stick to his work if for no better reason than that he might get dizzy and topple over the sill if he ventured to look into the street from his crow's-nest. Now, too, regular meetings of Senate began to be held, the venue being (as it continued to be for the duration of Dr Warren's connexion with the College) the Director's room of the Natal Museum, and several more or less apocryphal stories which are still current regarding the earliest meetings of all under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Bale - after whom members of staff acted in this capacity, for a year or more, in turn show that the administrative spade-work was not without its humours. Our first regular Registrar, appointed about this time was J.A.P. (popularly known as "X") Feltham. B.A. (Cantab.), D.S.O., Feltham was the most human and genial of men, but, without doing him injustice, a little harumscarum in his methods. The writer remembers finding him one day rather hot and bothered over some document which had gone astray, when he 10 Old Days at N. U. C. presently exclaimed, with a triumphant air, "Ah, here we are! I wondered how I couldn't lay hands on it. It was in its proper placef" There was a deep significance, as well as humour, in that remark, and it will be sufficient to add that before many more months had passed the work of the office was proceeding at the steadier and more reliable pace set by David Robb, whose reign was destined to cover the bigger half of the first quarter-century of the College's existence. All this time the N.U.C. had been represented, in its own right, by some forty acres of virgin veld on the hill of Scottsville, towards which we hopefully waved such as had the temerity to inquire where the College buildings were situated. In the later months of 1910, however, mounds of earth and stacks of bricks, as well as a crane or two breaking the sky-line in the direction mentioned, told that something, or somebody, was getting a move on at last, and things were sufficiently advanced to allow of the foundation-stone of our future home being laid with due ceremony (by the Duke of Connaught) on December 1. Dr Sormany, whose services to the College, it may be remarked, had been co-extensive with its life, was the chief spokesman for the Council, deputising for Sir Henry Bale, who died, by a singular, and sad, coincidence that afternoon. "0 fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt!" we exclaimed, with Aeneas, as the walls, after seemingly endless weeks of burrowing, began to show above the veld, and the townsfolk sat up and took notice. From then on, the new buildings were naturally the subject of occasional visits to mark the progress that was being made, and the writer recalls giddy climbings of ladders and walks along rafters in charge of the Clerk of Works, when a wrong step might have meant Latin-less and Greek-less weeks for a certain number of the students. As it was, their luck was out! At length, after the winter vacation of 1912, we were able to move into our new abode, and the official opening by the then Minister of Education (Hon. F.S. Malan) followed on the 9th of August, before a representative gathering which filled the Hall. Then, if not before, it was really felt that the N.U.C. had "a local habitation and a name," and staff and students alike walked about their new domain with an air of proprietorship. There was still, of course, a considerable amount of work to be done on the buildings, and in the matter of noise we were really, for some time following the occupation, "out of the frying-pan into the fire:" however, the smiths, "with busy hammers closing rivets up" gave not so much "dreadful note of preparation" as the happy note of approaching completion, and the thought that it was so enabled us to carry on. With the passage of the weeks, the hammering died away, and the city on the hill settled down into the "serene, academic calm" to which it was entitled. In those disturbed days, professors who had their pitch on the ground floor had to keep a sharp eye for the possible sudden disappearance of members of their audience through some trap-door (the better 'ole?) that had been left to give access to a fitting underneath which had still to be adjusted. On one notable occasion, at least, when unauthorised subterranean ventriloquism competed somewhat prominently with "the master's voice," the Senate - a rare experience in the history of the College - had to take mild disciplinary action. The self-contained quadrangle, as completed in 1912, continued to house all the College departments - with the exception of Zoology and Law 11 Old Days at N. U. C. until 1923, when the clamant need for increased accommodation was met by the provision of the spacious Science Block erected in close proximity. Up till then, Chemistry shared the back wing with Physics - a fact which was frequently, and forcibly, conveyed to sensitive noses, or indeed noses of any kind, in other parts of the building. Particularly when the wind blew towards the town, the Arts people would have found gas-masks invaluable; and it was actually alleged that the budding Faradays in the Chemistry "lab." took advantage of that atmospheric condition to let loose upon their unfortunate fellows all the weird odours ever boasted by a Cologne or a Wigan - with perhaps a few extras thrown in! Whether it was a specially virulent species of stink-bomb that was being tried out, or whether it was that some enterprising heckler on the eve of a general election had placed an order for a consignment of synthetic "election" eggs, could only be conjectured: it was obviously out of the question to investigate the cause of the trouble on the spot! The existence of the N.U.C. in visible form unquestionably did much to stimulate social life among the sixty or seventy undergraduates then in attendance by providing it with a permanent rallying-point. The hostels, of course. which have revolutionised things in this respect in more recent years, were then the dream of a far distant future, and students were scattered in lodgings throughout the town - a fact which was illustrated by the unexpected sources from which missing library books were sometimes recovered. A drive through the Y.M.C.A. alone would usually be good for half-a-dozen volumes. Sports grounds and tennis courts, too, if more practical politics than hostels, were necessarily a matter of time. And yet in those early days, in spite of all handicaps, the foundations of the bulk of student activities, as they are to-day, were well and truly laid: the hour brought the men and the women. The S.R.C., for instance, the Debating Society, the Rugby and Tennis Clubs, soon to be followed by a number of others, were practically coeval with the College itself, and it is almost startling to recall that the N.U.C. Rugby team were actually finalists in the Senior Murray Cup of 1912, and runners-up in the York and Lancaster the same season. Memory descries through the haze of the years the giants who in those days carried the N.U.C. Rugby colours to victory: the evergreen "Bill" Payn - who, by the way, has had the distinction of sending to us the first representatives of the second generation of students Bertram Vanderplank, Charlie ("Station") Norman, Hugh Rymer, and others. "Give the ball to Rymer!" was the slogan of Rugby "fans" of the day when 'Varsity were on view, and if Rymer got it, it was pretty much in the same case as the almost-sold Arab steed of one-time school readers: "who overtook him might have it for his pains." And so we were settling down nicely, both to work and play, when along came 1914 and with it, in August, like a bolt from the blue, the European Armageddon. The honourable part played by the N.U.C. students who were of age for service in the far-flung conflict is best, if sadly, told by the not (we trust) unworthy War Memorial in the College Hall, where, among the thirteen names recorded - Dutch as well as English - one reads those of such ornaments of our early student body as Norman Lucas and Norman Watt. The first and immediate effect of the war was to send our numbers down with a bang to the low figure of barely forty, and for the next year or 12 Old Days at N. U. C. two work was conducted in the all-pervasive atmosphere of tension and depression. Eventually, in 1918, the College buildings were placed at the disposal of the authorities as a soldiers' convalescent hospital, and the Arts classes were once more housed in the City - this time in the then Railway Offices (now the S.A.P. headquarters) opposite the Imperial Hotel, provision being made for the retention of access to the science laboratories at Scottsville. However, on the historic 11th of November in the same year came the Armistice, bringing promise of a brighter day for the N.U.C. as for the world at large, and in due course we resumed occupation of our familiar quarters, which we trust we shall not have to vacate again for a similar purpose. The return of happier conditions was immediately, and strikingly, reflected in the attendance roll, which jumped, in 1919, to the hitherto undreamt-of figure of over 120, and from then till now the College, in this matter, has gone from strength to strength. The war years were trying ones in other respects for the youthful N.U.C., for the future of University Education in South Africa was in the meltingpot and much of the time of both Council and Senate was occupied in scanning and considering successive legislative proposals or commission reports which were mostly abortive. It was accordingly with a sense of relief that something like stability was achieved by the Malan (F.S.) Acts of 1916, which definitely replaced the old examining University of the C.G.H. by three new teaching Universities, the N.U.C. taking its place (which it still occupies) as a constituent college of the University of South Africa, which (with Cape Town and Stellenbosch) came officially into being on April 2, 1918. With the worrying problem of its place in the general scheme of things settled, the College has since been able to concentrate on its own individual expansion, and though this is a matter which belongs to its modern, rather than to its ancient, history, there are two things which are too outstanding to pass over. The first is the important step of the institution of University courses in Durban in 1922, culminating later on in the splendid Howard College. The second is the appointment of a Principal (in the person of Dr Bews), which the task of co-ordinating the work in the two centres rendered both desirable and necessary, in place of the floating Chairmanship of Senate, which, if it had served the College well in its time, had outlived its day. And now - if we may venture to peep into the future - the UNIVERSITY OF NATAL? That is a consummation which, if it should fall to some of the "old contemptibles" to witness it within the term of their active service, might well make them content to say, with Simeon of old nune dimittis. But the fact that we are in a position even to visualise it shows how far we have travellcd since that near far-off day when there was lit, in Maritzburg, a candle which, under Providence, has not been put out. In the course of the twenty-five years that lie between, it has languished sometimes, maybe, for lack of nourishmcnt: it has tlickcrcd, almost to extinction, before some ruder blast, but ever and again it has revived and shot up into new life. And as those who bore a humble hand in the lighting of it see it to-day burning with a steady, and hopeful, flame, they may exclaim with more than a touch of pardonable pride, "nee {amen eonsumebatur." ALEXANDER PETRlE (Reprintcd from the N.U.C. Magazine, 1934) 13 Early 'Varsity Days (BY A FOUNDATION STUDENT) As the end of the present term will be also the close of the first decade of the Natal University College's existence, the following reminiscences will be something new, and perhaps of a little interest, to the present students of the 'Varsity. When one looks at the 'Varsity of to-day, that magnificent and conspicuous building clearly visible from whatever route one approaches Maritzburg, whether by rail or road, one can hardly believe that, at the beginning of February, 1910, the first 'Varsity classes were held in a tworoomed wood and iron building especially erected for the purpose in the grounds of the Maritzburg College! These two rooms were merely of ordinary dwelling-room size, one being for the B.A. and the other for the Intermediate students. The furniture in each room consisted of a chair and small table for the Lecturer, with a trestle-table for the students! Until Easter, the Lecturers, except Dr Warren, were all members of the Maritzburg College, sharing their time between the two institutions. But the unpleasant conditions caused by the February sun on a wood and iron building induced a change in the plans of the Lecturers, acccustomed to the comparatively cool, tile-roofed Maritzburg College building; so very soon we B.A. students attended lectures in the carpentry-room, sacrificing dignity to comfort! The Science students were fortunate in being able to spend most of their time in the chemistry and physics laboratories of the school. In passing, one might add that the official name of Pietermaritzburg College School was given to the old College, with the instituting of the N. U . c.; however, a few years ago the original name was restored. Besides law students, for whom special lectures were arranged in town, there were about twenty-five men students and a dozen lady students enrolled in the 'Varsity's first term. Naturally, the classes were rather small; for instance, the B.A. students, in a natural minority to start with, were arranged into four groups - the Literary and Science sections, each subdivided into Junior and Senior classes! The Senior Greek Class consisted of two students, the French Class of one! Under such circumstances, individual tuition was quite feasible! Naturally, with these divided classes, extra rooms, wherever possible, were used, the Prefects' study and reception room of the College School being first choice. After Easter, the Professors in Classics and Physics arrived. One wonders what must have been the feelings of Professor Petrie at having to wander from one room to another far distant, looking for his various classes! Dr 14 Early 'Varsity Days Mr S.E. Lamond. (Photograph: Maritzburg College Archives) Denison, of course, would confine himself to the Chemistry and Physics laboratories. One should add that the medical students used to attend at the Museum in town for lectures in Anatomy, etc., given by Dr Warren. From February to June of the first year, the N.U.C. was tucked away inconspicuously in the College School grounds and buildings; but after that the 'Varsity was to be found entirely in the Maritzburg Town Hall, with the exception of the Chemistry, Physics and Anatomy classes, which carried on as during the first term. When the August term opened the institution was fully staffed, according to the original plan, and all the Professors (there were no Lecturers in those days) were formally introduced on the opening day to the students by the Chairman of the University College Council (Sir Henry Bale, Chief Justice of the Colony), who, by a bitter coincidence, died on the day of the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone of the p r ~ s e n t building at Scottsville. Before we had been settled at the Town Hall long we realised that the change from the College School was not altogether for the best. The frequent interruptions to lectures caused by the nerve-racking din of heavy trolleys, trams, traction-engines, and a motor-taxi with a particularly shrill and long-winded hooter on which the driver seemed to take an unnatural pleasure in practising, made us appreciate the quiet working hours in our original quarters. There was nothing for it, however, but to adapt ourselves as comfortably as possible to our uncongenial surroundings: it was Hobson's choice. Only for one purpose during the whole of the year did the students hold any formal meetings, and those in order to choose the 'Varsity colours. At the first meeting, two committees - one composed of lady, the other of men, students - were elected to visit the local outfitters and select patterns; curiously enough, at a subsequent open meeting, the colours chosen were those selected by the male committee. 15 Early 'Varsity Days It was not until October that the first undergraduate caps and gowns were ordered by a local outfitter; the wearing of these gowns during lectures became quite "the thing," but no objection was made to a student attending a lecture without one. Practically at the end of the year - almost too late to be of any use to the Senior B.A. students - the 'Varsity Library was started, the borrowing of books being under the control of the recently-appointed Registrar, Mr Feltham, who, if I am not mistaken, held the rank of Captain and had gained the D.S.O. At the beginning of December of 1910 the foundation stone of the present building was laid by H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught. Practically every student attended the ceremony in his own, or a borrowed, cap and gown. The importance of the occasion, combined with the presence of His Royal Highness, naturally made the function one of great interest to the town. In spite of the adverse conditions under which work had been carried on throughout the year, and probably because of the individual tuition of which the smallness of the classes had permitted, the successes in the Cape University Intermediate and B.A. Examinations at the end of the year were practically 100 per cent, one of the students gaining honours in Botany in the latter examination. Towards the end of the B.A. Examination, which, for the Literature students, was held in the Supper Room of the Town Hall, a violent thunderstorm, accompanied by a deluge of rain, made it necessary to resort to electric lights, because of the comparative darkness; before long the electric current failed, so that we candidates were now quite in the dark. The Presiding Commissioner had to grope his way to the caretaker's quarters and borrow a candle or two, from which to give each candidate a few inches. What a chance for unscrupulous candidates! However, partly out of curiosity and partly out of an unspoken desire to set the Commissioner's mind at ease, each of the three candidates present went to a window well apart from the other two, and there amused himself watching the miniature cloud-burst pouring on to the street outside, until the Commissioner had placed a lighted stump of candle at each desk. Fortunately, the storm did not last long, and soon the sun appeared again. It is mteresting to note that among the foundation members were the Rhodes Scholars for the four years 1910-1913, inclusive. Proficiency in athletics played then, as now, a considerable part in the selection of the Rhodes Scholar; but, curiously enough, of corporate 'Varsity sport there was none in the foundation year, although most of the fellows had been in the cricket and rugby teams of their respective Colleges the year before. It so happened that most of the students, not realising the possibility of the formation of a 'Varsity team, had promised themselves to local cricket and rugby clubs, the result being that, when the sporting members ",ere approached, it was too late. Some enthusiasts attempted to obtain funds from the authorities for the purpose of hiring a tennis court for the students, but in vain. In fact, the first 'Varsity Rugby was only started two or three years later. The two most successful students in the B.A. and Intermediate Examinations, respectively, of the foundation year, were both killed on active service while holding commissions. The latter student, N.C. Lucas, 16 Early 'Varsity Days came top in South Africa in the examination, and several years later, for a little time during the course of the war, was appointed to lecture temporarily at Edinburgh University, until he received his commission and went on active service. G. V. Pearse, another foundation member and Rhodes Scholar, after long service as an Artillery Captain, has rejoined his Oxford College, of which he is cricket captain, and was recently awarded his cricket Blue. Several other 1910 students gained their commissions during the war, but space forbids me to go into details. S.E. LAMOND (Reprinted from the N.U.C. Magazine, 1919) 17 John William Bews John William Bews a commemorative note A South African academic might pinch himself today to read of the 1931 centenary meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a meeting which drew delegates, in the phrase of the time, from 'the whole civilised world.' Not only was the large South African delegation led by the Principal of the Natal University College, Prof. l.W. Bews, but none other than General Smuts was appointed to the presidential chair of the meeting. Such easy prominence of South African men of letters must occasion some nostalgia, but shouldn't obscure the fact that these two men, Smuts and Bews, were linked intellectually by more than a passing burst of fame: the 1920s saw Smuts develop his 'holistic' philosophy, and Bews's Life as a Whole of 1937 was the summation of many papers and books directed to a similar view. As such it was warmly welcomed by Smuts, who claimed in the preface that it provided the sort of corroboration that his theory needed. These heady heights to a botanist's career were probably far from the mind of the quiet scholar from the Orkneys who, in George Gale's portrait, was seen in the early twenties, 'riding his bicycle down Longmarket Street from Thanet House almost every afternoon, on his way to the Natal Society Library, his coat open, his pipe in his mouth, and his hat well back on his head.' Yet it was this young professor of the Natal University College who had swept away such expectations of 'Botany' as were entertained for instance by one freshman of 1917 - 'a kind of misgiving that botany might prove to be a somewhat effeminate pursuit: the collecting and labelling of flowers'. Bews instilled in his students an exciting sense of occasion as he taught them that they were audience here in Natal to some of the most complex and climactic stages of world ecology, especially as 'geographically, southern Africa was a cul-de-sac of the great tropical reservoirs of plant life.' (The charge of 'effeminacy' listed above reminds one of the nice point that the first chair in botany in South Africa was held by a woman, Or Bertha Stoneman, at that amazing feminine institution, the Huguenot College at Wellington. ) Bews's originality was to subsume Botany into the larger context of the 'ecological viewpoint', and he is generally credited with the introduction into our academic life of the embracing study of ecology, the perspective defined in his dictum that 'Environment, function and organism constitute the fundamental biological triad.' Or R. AlIen Dyer, who studied under Bews in the early 1920s, insists that the ecological perspective was no mere addendum to his lectures: it was the spirit that breathed through all his 18 John William Bews Professor J. W. Hews. (Photograph: Natal University College Magazine 1934) dynamic teaching. Dr Dyer speaks of his ability to inspire his students without in any way speaking above their heads, so much did he exude confidence that he was on top of his subject. The 'fundamental biological triad' might sound a little dry, but what it did was to make every veld excursion the occasion for those 'grand hypotheses, ranging over continents in space and epochs in time, which Bews now began to formulate from the facts revealing themselves from his analysis ...' Of course these facts were the result of a thoroughly scrupulous groundwork, but his students never felt they were mere classifiers, as can be guessed from some of Bews's papers: One of the most important things is to be always on the outlook for cases of plant suppression, that is, examples of one type of plant being killed out by another. For instance, as one walks along the margin of a forest one can often discover the dead remains of light-demanding shrubs just within the outside belt of trees . This means that the forest is progressive and is gaining ground at the expense of the surrounding grassland ... Everywhere, as I have expressed it elsewhere, a dead or dying plant should act as a 'flag signal' to the ecologist . Thus the excitement and dedication Bews instilled in his students, even when they had to penetrate the Orcadian brogue to learn such secrets (to the end they never knew whether the Professor's Indian assistant was 'Rajah' or 'Roger'!) Much walking must have gone into this expert acquaintance with Natal of the professor with a limp - Bews suffered from a hip complaint all his life. Depending how far he went from Pieiermaritzburg, the first stage of his exploration might be by train or by bicycle, but as often as not it was by one of 'the four clanging trams which lined up outside the City Hall at regular intervals and started off simultaneously in the four directions of the compass.' And as Dr Dyer reminds us, these excursions were doing nothing less than taking Academia into the veld: it was one of Bews's contributions (in terms of the prevailing academic climate) to make the 'field-trip' become an essential part of academic study. 19 John William Bews What his students had every reason to fear was that his presence in Natal was too good to last. The university that Bews came to in 1910 had, by 1920, not entirely won over the public or established its viability as an institution. Of course these were abnormal times, but at the end of the 1914-18 war, with the brand new buildings commandeered by the military for a convalescent home, student numbers were down to 39, and it was a matter for debate whether the province should continue to carry the College. Now let it immediately be said that in both the demeanour of his personality and the importance of what he had to say, Bews reached well beyond the university environment. Professor John Phillips recalls that My first, admittedly nervous, approach to Bews was at the time of the appearance of his Grasses and Grasslands of South Africa (Davis, Pietermaritzburg, 1918). I was then a young 'learner' forester in the Pirie Forests in the Eastern Cape, anxious to know more about the implied ecological interrelations touched upon by Bews. His reply was in his own hand . .. kindly, encouraging, and indicating that even I might be able to add to the still-too-restricted information available on this subject. He presented me with several reprints of his papers on the ecology of Natal. These stimulated me to observe and to think: they generated in my young mind the essentials of an ecological approach . Thus was a learner-forester put on the path to becoming one of South Africa's foremost professors of Botany. Giants of South African Botany - Bews and H.W.R. Marloth (1855-1931, perhaps the country's most outstanding botanist) taking time off in the Little Karoo during a conference at Oudtshoorn. Bews looks something like a veld Napoleon thinking out a campaign, but Prof. Olive Hilliard of the local University Botany Department points out that any Orkney man has the 'trawler captain' in his blood. (Photograph: Botany Department, University of Natal) 20 John William Bews But it would be on purely academic grounds that his students might fear for the length of Bews's stay in Natal. It was becoming clear that works such as Plant forms and their evolution in South Africa of 1925 were winning their author an international reputation, and it seemed inevitable that he would find an appointment of greater eminence elsewhere. Invitations were certainly forthcoming, and Bews experimented with such a move in 1927, when he became for twenty months Professor of Botany at the University of Durham in its Newcastle centre. Nevertheless the experiment served to convince him that Natal was where he wanted to be, and it was back here in 1929 that he published his most considerable and best-received work, The World's Grasses - their differentiation, distribution, economics and ecology. By now Bews was the de facto Principal of the University - a unanimous choice, though the post would only be formalised in 1930 - and was thus more and more taken up with affairs outside his academic interest. Students noted that one got from him now certainly some of the best, but also some of the worst lectures at the college, so little time did he have for lecture preparation. ('He never lectured' says Dr Dyer, remembering him in action in 1923, 'he discoursed'!) If he hadn't time now for such fluent teaching, posterity must certainly forgive him! - for the University of Natal owes quite as much to his administration in the key year 1928 as did botany to his writings. What was going to be the shape of tertiary education in Natal? In this year a government commission reported that the attempt to run University classes at the Technical College in Durban had not been a success, and recommended that Durban be the home for technical education only, and that all University education should be conducted in Pietermaritzburg. Now Bews was uniquely positioned to know that a single university running two campuses was a viable proposition. He had had first-hand experience of such foundations at St Andrews in Scotland and at Durham in England, both of which provided academic facilities at more than one centre. Small wonder that when a crucial meeting was called in response to the government commission, his influence proved decisive. This meeting, which virtually decided the fate of university education in Natal, was held, judiciously and symbolically, at that venerable half-way house, Inchanga, in September 1928. (Did the delegates travel there by train?! Did they meet at the Colorado Hotel?!) Opposing factions wanted on the one side to retain the entire University in Pietermaritzburg and on the other to defer to commercial and numerical seniority and transfer the whole institution to a new base in Durban. So it was perhaps Bews's greatest 'non-botanical' triumph (though he was wont to interpret such things ecologically) that he convinced the meeting of the viability of a two-centre university, and carried the vote at the end of the day. Incidentally, though Prof. Phillips remembers not a trace of dourness in the Scottish principal CHe was gifted with a delightful little smile, always the subject of affectionate remark') one Scottish talent seems to have been of tangible benefit to the principal's University. Says Prof. Phillips: It occurs to me that it might not be generally remembered that J.W. had a sound sense of business, and his business acumen in University matters was widely reported. Very occasionally he indicated an interest in investments and the 'state of the market'. At death his estate 21 John William Bews 'amounted' to far more than that of the average academic, and he willed an amount of it to the College. Lest that seem to touch too much of a materialist note, a tribute should also be recorded from Dr Reg. Lawrence, husband of the late Prof. Ella Pratt-Yule, who had arrived in the 1930s to occupy the position for which she became famous, as head of the Department of Psychology. Shc committed the crime of falling pregnant whilst engaged in full-time teaching, and Dr Lawrence remembers with a chuckle how the academic climate of the day found this little short of immoral. It was Bews (perhaps egged on by the fact that he was helping a fellow graduate of St Andrews) who cut away the red tape and quietly made sure that she got the special leave that, today, a woman academic can count upon as her hard-won right. Of such stuff, then, was the first Principal of the UniversIty of Natal, and such was the loss that the University suffered when Bews died in 1938 at the sadly early age of 53. (It seems that the hip trouble gradually took on a tubercular complication). It had only been a few years before that, presiding at the meeting in 1930 when the University College came of age, General Smuts had said: 'I feel honoured to have Professor Bews as chairman this evening. Like many of you, I have sat for years at his feet ...' REFERENCE GALE. George W., John William Bews, U.N.P., 1954. Notes and verbatim anecdotes from Prof. John Phillips, sometime Head of Department of Botany, University of Witwatersrand, Dr R. Alien Dyer. retired Head of the Botanical Institute. Pretoria, and Dr R.F. Lawrence, sometime Curator of the Natal and Albany Museums. WILLIAM BIZLEY 22 Natal Society Lecture, Monday, 5 March 1984 The Revd John David Jenkins (1828-76) Canon of the Cathedral of Natal The niceties of kinship, and genealogy in general, are traditionally fascinating to Welshmen, so we havc to begin by establishing our man's origins. His mother, Maria, was first married to Thomas Dyke, a chemist at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, but he died in 1823. She subsequently married William David Jenkins, who is described in the registers as 'druggist of Merthyr Tydfil village'. He is given elsewhere as a freeholder of Castellau Fach, in the parish of Llantrisant; the Jenkinses claimed descent from lestyn ap Gwrgant, prince of Glamorgan. Maria and William had three children, the eldest of whom was John David Jenkins, born on 30 January 1828. Unfortunately, his father died when he was seven years of age, leaving his mother to raise a young family - as was so often the case in Wales, gentle birth did not always mean great wealth. Whatever their circumstances, John went to Cowbridge Grammar School, and his native abilities took him to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1846 - when he was eighteen years old. As an undergraduate, he was sufficiently talented to come second for a new prize open to all members of the university - the Pusey and Ellerton Hebrew Scholarship. It brought him into the limelight, because the great Dr Pusey gave him 10 for buying books. Having taken his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1850, Jenkins was sufficiently well admired at Jesus to be elected to a full fellowship of the college in 1851. By the terms of its foundation, a King James 11 missionary fellow (for that was what he was) had 'to go to sea in any of His Majesty's fleets', or be 'called by the Bishop of London ... to go into any of His Majesty's plantations, there to take a cure of souls' upon himself. Jenkins was the last to hold such a fellowship, and one of the few to take its purpose seriously - although Natal was distinctly better than a plantation. He had to enter Holy Orders: in March 1851 he was ordained deacon, and a year later priest, by Samuel Wilberforce, the bishop of Oxford known as 'Soapy Sam' to his contemporaries. To serve his apprenticeship, so to speak, Jenkins at once began work in what nowadays we would call a tough parish in Oxford, although he would have lived in his Fellow's rooms at Jesus while doing so. He served as curate of St Paul's in that part of the city known as Jericho. It was portrayed as the working-class suburb of Beersheba by Thomas Hardy in Jude the Obscure. It 23 The Revd John David Jenkins Canon J.D. Jenkins as a young priest, painted by Holman Hunt. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford) began its life after the Clarendon Press was built in 1830, and went on growing through the Victorian period. The religious needs of its community were catered for remarkably quickly, for in 1836 appeared the first church to be newly built and consecrated in Oxford since the middle ages. St Paul's was just early enough to miss the full blast of Gothic revivalism: instead its appearance was unique locally as an example of Greek Renaissance style, with its Ionic facade surmounted by a modest cross on the pediment. lenkins laboured there under the Revd Alfred Hackman, who was precentor at the cathedral and chaplain of Christ Church. Hackman was vicar of St Paul's from 1844 until 1870, thus having had seven years' experience of the new parish before lenkins came as curate: he was described as 'a High and Dry Churchman of the old school, a Tractarian, but with no tendencies to Ritualism'. He was nevertheless one of the first to popularize with the poor and humble the truths that the Oxford Movement had first advanced among more cultivated minds. Hackman opened St Paul's for services on Sunday evenings, the second clergyman to do so in Oxford, and his influence on lenkins may have been profound. He and all the later St Paul's clergy are credited with promoting the well-being of the people of lericho, then regarded as 'the lowest and poorest quarter of the university city!' Day schools were built, the lads employed at the University Press given a short service of their own each Sunday morning, and plenty of sickvisiting was done during the cholera epidemics. Such was the practical side 24 The Revd John David Jenkins of Jenkins's churchmanship', going with the aesthetic, pre-Raphaelite side of his portrait by Holman Hunt wmch is fuTI orHigh Church symoollsm. By the late summer of 1852 Jenkins must have decided to abide by the full provision of his missionary fellowship, and go overseas. The Bishop of London directed him to serve in South Africa. He sailed on 15 October 1852, and on arrival at Cape Town the Bishop, Dr Robert Gray, sent him on to Natal to assist the Revd James Green at Pietermaritzburg. Leaving Cape Town on 20 January 1853, Jenklns reached Durban aboard the Sir Robert Peel, in the wake of so many other immigrants who had come ashore in the past few years. He must have reached Maritzburg just about on his twentyfifth birthday. John David Jenkins began his ministry at once with the garrison at Fort Napier. In a letter written on 23 April 1853, he told his half-brother, Dr Thomas Jones Dyke, at home in Merthyr Tydfil: 'I say prayers to the troops before morning service; there are about 600 here'. Incidentally, this quotation of a mere fourteen words is all we have on record of what must have been a treasury of letters by Jenkins from early Natal. We are forced to reconstruct his ministry from other sources, as and where we can track them down. The regiment with which he worked was that old friend of the infant colony, Her Majesty's 45th Regiment of Foot, later to become the Sherwood Foresters, with its territory in Nottinghamshire. The 45th (or two companies of it) built the original Fort Napier in August 1843. It was a party of the 45th, under Major Cooper, that proceeded to build a military post on the Bushman's River early in 1848, and it was the same Henry Cooper who commanded the regiment between 1854 and 1863. 'In other words, Cooper was the C.O. under whom Jenkins worked from the outset as military chaplain, and throughout his time with the garrison at Fort Napier. When another senior regimental officer arrived at Maritzburg in 1855, he had this to say in the first letter to his wife in England: 'The Chaplain here is a Mr Jenkins who came out as ignorant as possible of soldiers, and imagined them to be everything that was horrible; since working amongst them he thinks them as good as he feared they were bad, and is indefatigable in his work. He is one of the best and most simpleminded men I have met and is liked and respected alike by officers and men' . When Mrs Flora Devereux arrived soon afterwards to join her husband in Natal, she put herself at Jenkins's disposal as a teacher in his military school for both children and grown-ups. She enjoyed the experience, and in 1878 (after his death) said he was 'one of the most beautiful, efficient, unselfish and learned characters as a Chaplain I ever met with'. He made it his business to know every man, woman, and child in the 45th Regiment and the battery of Field Artillery, exercising a boundless good influence over all of them. Mrs Devereux and he worked with the soldiers' wives, persuading them to save money, to make and mend clothes for their children - 'instead of spending it in folly', she said, 'and, alas, in many cases drink'. Jenkins might help a half-drunken soldier get back into barracks unnoticed after lights out, but the next day 'by loving remonstrance' he would try to induce him to sign the pledge of total abstinence. After his first year of pastoral care at Fort Napier there was a 25 The Revd John David Jenkins Canon J.D. Jenkins with the officers of the 45th Regiment. (Photograph: Cape Archives C109/12) sharp improvement in the order, cleanliness, and general bearing of those in married quarters. He was an honorary member of the officers' mess (doubtless of the sergeants' mess, also), and Major Devereux noted that when he was present 'the most reckless of the officers would not use an expression that would have caused Mr Jenkins pain'. Flora Devereux put all these details in a letter to Dr Dyke, signing it 'from one who liked and valued dear, good Mr Jenkins'. Corroboration of this profile comes from an official District Order, dated 9 December 1858 at the adjutant's office, Durban. It is nicely phrased: 'The officiating Chaplain to the Garrison at Fort Napier, the Revd J.D. Jenkins, M.A., having obtained leave to return to England, the Commandant is desirous, before he embarks, to express his appreciation of his particular and kind attention to the sick and to the school-children, and his gratification at the valuable services he had performed for more than five years, with remarkable devotedness and indefatigable exertions, for the welfare of the troops, who, he feels certain, will be glad with him to wish the Revd J.D. Jenkins 'Farewell, and every happiness', and that they will long cherish his memory, and regret his absence'. Few of us, I am sure, could hope for a better testimonial to our work, whatever it may be. there are one or two stories about his experiences in Natal. His duties on occasion took him away from Fort Napier. He visited the various outposts, riding on horseback with a sergeant's guard, through what was described (in one obituary notice) as 'miles of wild and desert country, fording rivers and streams, and undergoing all the exigencies of such an uncivilized country'. On one of these jaunts he was asleep in a rondavel one stormy 26 The Revd John David Jenkins night when it was struck by lightning; he was barely rescued from the flames, almost losing his life. On another occasion, he was at home late one evening when an urgent message was brought to him. A soldier was dying at Durban, and had asked to speak with him. lenkins at once set off on foot, staff in hand. He trudged through the night along the faint path, crossing streams and hearing cries of wild animals. Continuing the next day, towards evening he spotted a camp-fire that turned out to be a party of soldiers from Durban, then still 12 miles distant. lenkins asked about their comrade, only to be told he had struggled out of his fever and was recovering. 'Overtaxed nature gave way', we are informed, 'and the faithful minister sank to the ground exhausted and fainting' - a classic Victorian scene of morality and sentiment. Not surprisingly, we are told he learnt Zulu 'for the better performance of his sacred ministrations among the natives', as well as speaking 'the form of Dutch used in Natal'. So much for the military part of Jenkins's career in this part of the world. What of his relations with John William Colenso? We can bring him into focus on the very day that Bishop Colenso first set foot in Pietermaritzburg. It was the afternoon of Tuesday, 7 February 1854, and Colenso describes how he arrived at the government schoolroom, then used by the Anglicans as their place of worship. Just outside 'stood the Reverend J.D. Jenkins with a number of school-children, and the missionaries of our Kafir Institution', all in an attitude of welcome. After greeting them he tidied himself in the vestry, but had to go to the altar in his riding-clothes as the mule-cart with his robes was still on the road from Durban. The service of welcome opened with the singing of the Old Hundredth; prayers were conducted by the Revd James Green, the parish rector, and lessons read by Mr lenkins, 'the military chaplain of the camp'. Colenso found it 'truly a most interesting service. The place was crowded with worshippers of all classes - civilians and military, churchmen, dissenters, and Roman Catholics'. Perhaps as a sign of ecclesiastical things to come, that evening was marked by a storm of thunder, lightning and rain. I find it strange that Guy in his new study of Colenso, completely overlooks Jenkins's presence in Pietermaritzburg. He does this twice over(1) As a matter of fact, Guy wrongly states that only two Anglican clergy, Green and Lloyd, were in Natal when Colenso first arrived. As we see, this is untrue; Canon lenkins was already very much on the scene. (2) In his discussion of Colenso's conflict with his clergy, Guy does not mention lenkins. I feel it would have been better for our understanding of these conflicts if Guy had said more about Jenkins and less about John Barker and John Crompton. However, I'm jumping the gun a little. Jenkins and Colenso had a clash of sorts at the very outset of their acquaintance. It came the first time the bishop attended matins in the 'very plain barn of a schoolroom', presumably on 8 February 1854. All the clergy met together in the porch, with much shaking of hands. Jenkins introduced Colenso to some kholwa, Christian Zulu, as the .Umfundisi Umkulu', the Chief Pastor. At this Colenso looked at him very sternly, stamped his foot upon the ground, and declared: 'Never let me hear you say that again. I am no greater an Umfundisi than you'. Poor lenkins blushed crimson and subsided. A few days later, on Saturday, 11 February 1854, Jenkins took the 27 The Revd John David Jenkins bishop to the camp at Fort Napier to visit a sick soldier at his request. He had been brought up a Wesleyan and was also visited by his denominational minister, Mr Pearse. The man was dying of dysentery, and thirsting for 'the living stream of God's word', and tears ran down his face as Colenso spoke to him. The next day Colenso again went to Fort Napier with Jenkins, who, he says, 'is acting, at present, as military chaplain to the troops in this place'. Is there a hint of peevishness, perhaps, when the bishop adds that by so doing he missed the inspection of 'Miss Barter's Kafir class', of which he had not been told, and, most regrettably, Mr Theophilus Shepstone's address to them? Jenkins's enthusiasm may have run away with him, for he is not mentioned again in Colenso's Ten Weeks in Natal. Initially it seemed that Jenkins held his rightful and promising place in the hierarchy of diocesan clergy. On the Feast of the Annunciation, 1857, when the cathedral of St Peter opened for divine service, Colenso installed Green as Dean, who then in turn installed the three foundation canons in the choir. It was a Chapter of high quality. Charles Mackenzie a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge was archdeacon; he did not stay long in Natal, becoming the first missionary bishop of the Anglican church in 1861. Unfortunately his activities in the Central African field ended in disaster and death: embroiling himself in tribal warfare, he behaved rather like the crusading, fighting bishops of medieval Europe. The second canon was the Revd H. Callaway, a doctor of medicine said to have left a London practice worth 1 500 a year to take up missionary work; later he became bishop of St John's in the Cape. Jenkins held the third canon's stall as chancellor of the cathedral. Green's biographer says of him that he was 'a deeply-read theologian and a most accurate scholar'. There again, perhaps, was a source of potential friction with Colenso's style of scholarship. Green and Jenkins had laboured together since 1853 and must have enjoyed a mutual affinity before Colenso appeared like a comet in their midst. 'I quite agree with your views about the Chapter', the bishop told Green in March 1857, 'and shall rejoice if Jenkins will accept the appointment' of canon. Protocol was one thing, avoidance of controversy quite a different matter in the doctrinal minefield of the mid-Victorian church. So we are brought close to what lan Darby calls an ugly tale of division. Less than a year later the storm broke over Colenso's views on the nature of the eucharist. As a follower of Zwingli he would not consecrate the elements of bread and wine. Colenso explained all this in a sermon he preached on the second Sunday in Lent, 2 March 1858. Dean Green and Canon Jenkins walked out of the cathedral, refusing to receive Holy Communion at Colenso's hands so as not to condone his views. Colenso took his eucharistic arguments a stage farther in his sermon on the following Sunday, after which Green summoned the Chapter. Jenkins, who kept its records, wrote the summons himself, specifying Green's objection to Colenso as 'putting forth of heresy, as it seems to me'. Shortly afterwards they jointly prepared the presentation of charges against Colenso to Bishop Gray, the metropolitan at Cape Town. They included another complaint by Jenkins that Colenso had unfairly removed Green as examining Chaplain for the diocesan clergy. A fresh area of dispute materialised in April 1858 when Green, Jenkins and others refused to take part in the Church Council convened by Colenso. 28 The Revd John David Jenkins One of Jenkins's objections reflects his democratic loyalties. He believed that any congregation in Natal should have the right to elect lay representatives on the council, if it wished to do so, including, naturally enough, his garrison congregation at Fort Napier. Colenso did not agree: always careful to preserve his temporal powers, he persuaded the council to vote against having an open diocesan synod, on 20 April 1858. It was alleged the council was dominated by 'militant Protestantism' hostile to certain clergy thought to be 'of evident Tractarian leaning'. No doubt Jenkins was one of them, and Colenso saw him as a member of what he termed the 'High Church School' in a letter to Theophilus Shepstone. Yet there is nothing to suggest excessive High Churchmanship in a sermon Jenkins preached at this very time. He took his text from the fourth chapter of Hebrews, where Christ is seen as 'a great High Priest', full of understanding of mankind's sinfulness, waiting for our confessions, and ready to forgive. There is nothing in what Jenkins says to suggest he had a Roman belief in the confessional: it is an excellent sermon, concentrating the essence of Christian belief. Colenso made the most of Jenkins's decision to return to England on sickleave, hoping perhaps finally to break the Green-Jenkins alignment. Between June and September 1857 they had taken over the cathedral school at 1, Church Street, Pietermaritzburg, when the Revd W.O. Newnham gave it up. After Jenkins left on a year's leave of absence, Green was asked to vacate the building in which the school was held. That was on 16 December 1858, just after Jenkins sailed from Durban on the Waldensian. The school committee, concerted by Colenso, took possession of the schoolhouse that Jenkins lived in. They removed his books and possessions without having given him notice of intent, something Green called 'an unusual act of discourtesy'. One wonders what happened to them. In addition, there were the inevitable financial repercussions of all this. Green had admitted to the school a certain number of free foundation scholars, whereas Colenso's original grammar school had made no such concessions to non-fee payers. One of these free scholars was young George McLeod; his mother ElIen wrote a letter on Boxing Day 1858 explaining that Jenkins had paid 200 to secure a 'fellowship' of 12 a year for George at the school. Not surprisingly, this scheme was being blocked, almost certainly by Colenso; all we have from Ellen McLeod is a tactful 'We do not know who may be in the right, but both Mr Green and Mr Jenkins are good men'. Another and more reliable source says Jenkins established a trust fund of 250 vested in the Dean and Chapter; the money came from his military chaplaincy, and was to be used to endow one or more Divinity Scholarships. The fund was to be administered jointly by the Bishop of Cape Town, the Bishop of Natal, and the Dean. Given the way things went over the next few years in the diocese. this board of trustees was fated never to meet. There was too much bitterness and litigation ever to hope that Gray, Colenso and Green would come together to administer what was. after all, a handsome fund given by Jenkins. The moneys were never disbursed; in January 1868, by order of the Supreme Court of Natal, the entire fund (presumably augmented by interest) was paid into Court. This was when the court ruled that all the Natal properties originally in the name of the Bishop of Cape Town passed to Colenso, as he triumphed over the Green party. 29 The Revd John David Jenkins Did Jenkins ever intend returning to Natal? Green's biographer, far from impartial, claims Colenso did his best to make him unwelcome. Jenkins had reported to the bishop of London when he came home in January 1859. A year later he received a letter from Colenso, saying he had overstayed his leave and withdrawing his appointment to the canonry of the cathedral church of Natal. Jenkins sent it with a medical certificate to the bishop of London, who said he could stay in England with a clear mind so far as his fellowship was concerned. Colenso declared the canonry vacant and filled it with the Revd C.S. Grubb. Jenkins continued to carry the dignity of his canonry to the end of his days, and remained friends with Dean Green, who later recalled their collaboration over presenting Colenso. They thought he 'was feeding the Church with poison and it would not be known but through us: so we spoke'. He told the president of the English Church Union that if he wanted local information on the Colenso disputes Jenkins 'would cheerfully furnish you with it'. By then he was safely ensconced once more within the walls of Jesus College, Oxford. We are fortunate to have a vignette of him immediately after his return from Natal in 1859. It comes from the diary of a distinguished historian, John Richard Green, who was an undergraduate at Jesus and a close friend. 'Yesterday afternoon I walked to Shotover with Jenkins who has just returned from St George's in the East (London), where he has been figuring in contest with the London mob. However he has come out unsinged and unsilenced and is chatty as ever on Despotism and the army. These hobbies are wearisome enough', continues Green, 'but one forgives much to a mind so amiable - I use the word in its strongest sense. He is always finding out some bright point in a character one is criticising (and justly) - he knows the poor soldiers and beggars as well as the swells, and laughs at looks and stares at his beard because unconscious himself of sarcasm - he has no notion of it in others'. (We know he sported a long Nineveh black beard at that time). On another occasion Green says: 'I was yesterday every hour with Jenkins, learning to laugh at him and like him more and more'. In 1859 Jenkins completed the exercises of his Bachelor of Divinity, the senior degree of the university. He also filled at different times the college offices of Dean and Junior Bursar. He travelled extensively abroad each year to Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Austria, acquiring a speaking facility in all those languages. By his professional training he had a literary knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic. True to his national birthright he was of course Welsh-speaking. Scholarship took up much of his time, especially the history of the early Christian church. He read for the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which he took in 1871. The fruit of his research also began to appear in print: 1869 saw the publication of his book entitled The Age of the Martyrs, or The first three centuries of the work of the Church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It was the first of a projected nine-volume history, and was translated into Welsh and published at Cardiff in 1890. By 1869 Jenkins wished to leave Oxford. He must have made a deliberate decision, because as a senior fellow of Jesus he could have had the pick of the rich English livings in the gift of the college. Instead he decided to become VIcar of Aberdare, in South Wales, in March 1870. It was in the patronage of his friend the third Marquess of Bute, who owned Cardiff 30 The Revd John David Jenkins docks and who often invited Jenkins to stay at Cardiff Castle. He was returning to the environment in which he had grown up, the turbulent new communities of industrial South Wales, splendidly pictured by the late Richard Llewellyn in How Green Was My Valley. Aberdare had a growing population of 37 000, many of whom lived scattered in outlying districts, away from the town, wherever townships had sprung up alongside the collieries and ironworks. There was an ancient church of St John Baptist, dating from the twelfth century. When Jenkins arrived it was in a semiruinous state, and characteristically he succeeded in raising 900 to restore it to its original design. This was achieved between 1871 and 1874. The rapid increase in population also led to the building of four new churches; the chief one was St Elvan's in the heart of the town, completed in 1852. It was proudly and unashamedly a piece of Victorian Gothic; by the time Jenkins appeared on the scene, alas, its fabric was in need of repair, and he bent his energies to raising 700 for that too. The basic needs of the working people of his parish were actively championed by Jenkins. He had a particular affinity with the new class of railway workers, dating back to his days at St Paul's, Oxford, the railway first coming in 1852 (having been kept at bay by the university for many years). When he returned to Jesus College he became much involved with the railway community at Jericho, supposedly scandalizing some of his colleagues by bringing whole families of railway workers to his college rooms for tea and buns. At Aberdare he took this much farther at a formal level. There were nearly 300 railwaymen in his charge, and he held services for them at 4.30 a.m. before they went to work on the early shift. Jenkins advised and helped the men when in dispute with their employers over conditions and wages. During the 'Great Strike' of 1872 he negotiated with the trade union leader Mundella, and was appointed arbitrator between masters and workmen. Little wonder that in June 1872 he was asked to be vice-president of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. He became president the following year, and so remained to the time of his death, chairing their annual conferences, often in the shadow of threatened strikeaction. Jenkins became known as the Railwaymen's Apostle. But he also supported the coalminers in their labour conflicts. He tried to make himself the go-between in the last miners' strike before 1876, telling the colliers' representatives 'how he had pleaded their case in the drawing-rooms of irate employers'. No one can deny the inner conviction of Christian charitableness that drove him to contend for the social well-being of the working class. To complete thIS sketch of his Aberdare years, Jenkins was a leading light at the birth of the Welsh tradition for choral singing. He was a friend of Griffith Rhys Jones, known as Caradog, a local blacksmith who founded and conducted the South Wales Choral Union. In 1872 Jenkins was the elected president of the mixed choir when they went to the Crystal Palace in London, to compete at the first National Music Meeting. Although most of the singers were non-conformists, they were happy to have an Anglican as their head, and Jenkins must have enjoyed instructing them in the Latin passages of their choral pieces. He organized their journey from Aberdare to London by the Great Western Railway: they could not have been in better hands. He kept an eye on the younger members, 'his genial face 31 The Revd John David Jenkins appearing at every carriage wi,ndow at almost every station. He seemed la be known by every official on the railway', who greeted him 'as one greets a venerated friend'. At the G.W.R. headquarters, Swindon, the railwaymen presented him with a golden penholder. Caradog's men and women sang their way to victory, winning the trophy. Afterwards there was a royal reception for them on the lawns of Marlborough House. Such excitement! The Prince of Wales spoke at length with Caradog, the Princess of Wales (Alexandra) talked intently with Jenkins, their young daughters intrigued with the black and red stripes of his Doctor of Divinity robes. Jenkins reported afterwards how the future King Edward VII was surprised 'to find people of such homely appearance possessing such artistic merit'. Caradog's 'Cor Mawr' successfully retained the trophy in 1873, and was not challenged again for many years. So to the premature end of this story of Jenkins's life. All the various commitments and allegiances of this remarkable man came together in public expression, of course, at his funeral. Wales at that time, and indeed down to my own boyhood, favoured the grand send-off. Any public figure with a strong personal following would have an emotional act of remembrance and tribute at the church or chapel, and again more vigorously at the graveside. The interment of John David Jenkins was memorable, even by Welsh standards. A sense of public concern pervades the reports that record his fatal illness, in newspapers like the Western Mail. His health crumbled away in the summer of 1876, he became old-looking and frail, his beard white, and he had to subsist on a totally liquid diet. By the evening of Wednesday, 8 November 1876, he was unconscious, surrounded by friends and family; a reporter who called at the vicarage said of the stricken man that 'his tenure of life is only a matter of a few hours'. He was still a few months short of his forty-ninth birthday. The funeral service began at St Elvan's church at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 15 November. In the words of the Western Mail reporter the day 'broke dark and gloomy over this stirring little metropolis' in the Welsh valleys. It is easy to imagine the scene as the thousands of mourners made their way from the church: the brief day slipping away to darkness, with rain falling steadily from a low sky resting upon the bare hills, blotting out the memorable skyline of the Brecon Beacons. Just over two years later, had he lived so long, lenkins would have shared the grief of the local community when so many of its sons died with the 24th Regiment at Isandlwana. His grave is marked by a red granite memorial cross, placed there by the workmen of the Great Western Railway and the Taff Vale Railway, 'in loying remembrance' . How should we remember the achievements of John David Jenkins? His versatility was fully realised in his own lifetime. Obituary notices pointed out his various activities as parish priest, scholar, social reformer, and philanthropist. He was recalled in one of the Oxford newspapers as someone who 'endeared himself to all with whom he was acquainted by his kind and genial disposition, and the poor have by his death lost a most generous and warmhearted friend'. It would be wrong to suggest that Jenkins was in any way unique, or that he was a faultless paragon: he may have been stubborn in his 32 The Revd John David Jenkins opposition to Colenso, and his evaluation of church history may have been uncritical. But two of his qualities are reiterated by several quite different sets of people who knew and worked with him. The first is 'amiable': this means friendly, kindly-disposed, lovable. The other is 'indefatigable': this means someone who cannot be tired out, unremitting. Together they convey an image of Jenkins's personality as that of a lovable man who could not spare himself in striving for his ideals and Christian belief. He must have had what nowadays we call 'charisma'. I wish we knew much more about those years of his life he spent in Natal, and I shall continue to search for that knowledge. In the meantime I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining me in this brief illumination of the career of Canon John David Jenkins. FRANK EMERY 33 The Great Flood of 1856 The gale-force winds and accompanying deluge which struck Natal in April 1856 causing catastrophic flooding in the Durban vicinity, have probably not been equalled in severity since the white man first colonised the territory in 1824. At the time of this great flood a journalist reported that 'one old man here says there was just such a rain when he was a small boy, but not since till now';' this informant was presumably a Zulu recalling a storm which took place around the first decade of the nineteenth century. A couple of unusual phenomena had been sighted in the skies prior to the start - on Sunday 13 April - of the 1856 storm. The first was the appearance two weeks earlier of that remarkable electrical manifestation the Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights. A newspaper correspondent, J.S. of Durban, wrote that on 30 March he had seen 'distinct and beautiful bars of luminous haze across the heavens" and that he had wi