Souvenir Saturday: the mail steamers to Natal

Sister to the Armadale Castle, built on the Clyde, the Kenilworth Castle was built in Belfast. That yard had produced the Norman and her successors for the Union Company. In October 1900 the new Cape mail contract had come into force, the first to be performed by the Union Castle Line, It was the start of a great shipping era and thousands of our ancestors sailed to and from the Cape and Natal on these mail steamers. The arrival and departure of the mailship was a matter for public celebration then, with streamers being thrown between ship and dock and a festival air pervading the port.

In those days the mail steamers would leave Southampton on Saturday afternoons at 5 pm reaching Table Bay at dawn on Tuesday. After proceeding up the coast to Durban they were scheduled to leave Cape Town homeward bound on Wednesday afternoon at four o'clock. A new arrangement came into being in September 1913 when steamers would leave Cape Town for England at 1 pm on Saturday afternoons. The outbreak of war in 1914 upset all sailing schedules until the end of 1919 when Friday afternoon departures at both ends became the norm.

The earliest mail steamers hadn't proceeded farther than Cape Town. It was only in 1863 that the Union Line began sending its vessels as far as Algoa Bay. After 1876 East London was the terminal port then at last in August 1887 the ships were sent to Durban. Early in 1888 the Castle mail steamers which had before turned round at East London now made Durban their terminal port.

All was not plain sailing. A coastal journey was a nightmare especially for passengers going to Natal where the dreaded Bar made arrival or departure a matter of uncertainty and adventure.

'The method of crossing the Bar was by means of cargo lighters which were hauled along on runners on a stout hawser securely anchored outside the rollers. Passengers were battened down in the hold and most were seasick, Not the least exciting episode was transferring from steamer to lighter and when the rolling became pronounced it required all the agility of a trained acrobat to get from one to the other.'

The conquest of the Durban Bar is a story in itself. Victory was achieved in 1904 when the RMS Armadale Castle, Captain Robinson in command, despite battling a south-westerly gale, steamed proudly through the harbour entrance and was soon berthed alongside the wharf. From that time the crossing of the Bar held no terrors for passengers landing or embarking at Durban.

Crossing the Bar at Natal

The Bluff and entrance channel at Durban.
In the foreground the remains of Milne's North Pier.

‘What is this bar you keep talking about?’ asks a perplexed blog visitor.
Well, it’s not the Three Anchors pub down by the docks, me hearty.

If I’ve been less than clear in previous posts about Durban harbour, the Bar refers to the sandbank across the entrance channel to the port. Someone of more technical ability than myself describes this phenomenon (by no means limited to Durban, see below) as follows:

A harbour bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at a harbour entrance by the deposition of sediment or the action of waves on the sea floor or adjacent beaches. A bar can form a dangerous obstacle to shipping, preventing access to the harbour in unfavourable weather conditions or at some states of the tide.

The mouth of the Buffalo River, which forms the harbour of East London, also had a bar across the entrance. Retaining walls were constructed to narrow the channel and increase the tidal scour. A breakwater was run out in the form of an arm to prevent the sea checking the river's flow and driving the sand back upon the bar. Also, the use of dredgers enabled clearance of the river channel so that vessels of large draught would be able to enter.

Much the same procedure was followed at Durban, over many years, to try and solve the problem of the bar. For more on the history of this aspect of the port, read Allan Jackson’s article, the Battle of the Bar, at http://www.fad.co.za/Resources/dhew/bar.htm

From the family historian’s point of view, the difficulties posed by the bar had a direct impact on ancestors arriving by ship. At Port Natal, the settler ships of the Byrne era (late 1840s and 1850s), though of shallow draught in comparison with later giants of the steam age, usually had to anchor out in the roadstead several miles from shore. This in turn led to several shipwrecks – including that of the Minerva, during which all the immigrants’ possessions were lost. A more bleak start to life in the new Colony can scarcely be imagined. Such events inevitably affected the fortunes and futures of our ancestors.

Read more at http://molegenealogy.blogspot.com/search?q=minerva+wreck

Even in later years, shipping columns repeatedly show that at the end of a voyage passengers had to resign themselves to delays, waiting outside the port until wind and weather made it possible for them to be transferred (by basket) to a tug or other harbour craft to carry them to land. We may find that an ancestor arrived at Natal on 26 February – but that he actually set foot on shore on 1 March: which do we choose as his date of arrival?

At Durban, by 1904 as a result of continued dredging operations 33 million tons of sand had been shifted. On 26 June 1904 the Armadale Castle was the first mailship to cross the Bar and enter the harbour. She was the flagship of the Union Castle Line (Union Line and Castle Line having amalgamated in 1900) weighing in at nearly 13 000 tons and with a draught of 7, 6 metres.

This historic crossing marked the end of the basket-landing era. Passengers would be able to disembark by gangplank directly from ship to shore.

And now, a moment of self-indulgence: Tennyson’s poem ‘Crossing the Bar’, extracts of which appear on numerous mariners’ headstones:

Sunset and evening star,

  And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

  When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

    Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

    When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

    The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

    When I have crost the bar.

20th century landings at Natal

Sail and steam co-existed at Durban for many years. From the early 1880s progress gradually began to be made in deepening the harbour channel by dredging. This and other schemes for improvement, including the controversial breakwaters designed by several harbour engineers, continued through the following decade, though the bay remained inaccessible to vessels of a deep draft.

By 1904 as a result of continued dredging operations 33 million tons of sand had been shifted.

On 26 June 1904 the Armadale Castle was the first mail ship to cross the Bar and enter the harbour. She was the flagship of the Union Castle Line (Union Line and Castle Line having amalgamated in 1900) weighing in at nearly 13 000 tons and with a draft of 7,6 metres.

This historic crossing marked the end of the basket-landing era. Passengers would be able to disembark by gangplank directly from ship to shore. The arrival and departure of the mailships became glamorous and exciting events drawing crowds of sightseers: bands played, and coloured streamers were thrown by travellers on deck or by their friends who had come to ‘see them off’.

Between 1947 and 1848, in the optimistic years following World War II, the Union-Castle Company Immigrant Service brought 28 000 British immigrants to South Africa.

For family historians, the best way of tracking an ancestor who departed by ship from British ports between 1890 and the 1960s is via the passenger search facility provided by ancestorsonboard, powered by www.findmypast.com/  This information stems from original Board of Trade passenger records; regrettably records prior to 1890 were destroyed.

Direct link to the search form: www.findmypast.co.uk/passengerListPersonSearchStart.action?redef=0

The Windsor Castle would be the last mailship to make the regular call at Durban, in July 1977. When she departed, so did much of the romantic aspect of the port.

Note the original lighthouse close to the end of the Bluff: opened with much ceremony on 23 January 1867, its beacon went out for the last time on 15 October 1940 and the structure was demolished by the military in June 1941.

The Point, Durban, from the Bluff during the 1890s: note the mixture of sail and steam.