Port Office, the Point, Durban

Port Office, the Point Beach, Durban ca 1870


It doesn't look a hive of activity but the Port Office was central to all Harbour activities, reports being kept of all vessels entering or departing, or using the slipway; masters of ships came to see the Port Captain here, etc. (Captain William Bell died in 1869.)

Natal Almanac 1897

https://archive.org/stream/natalalmanacdire00pietuoft#page/552/mode/2up/search/Port+Office

Umhlanga Lighthouse 18 June 2016

Photo by Euan Dixon-Smith


Umhlanga (Place of Reeds) boasts a beautiful stretch of beach,
 luxury hotels and a lighthouse painted in red and white is its main landmark.
Fully automated now, this concrete tower has a light range of 24 sea miles.

It has never had a lightkeeper residing within the tower or in keeper's quarters;
a warden lives nearby at the Oyster Box Hotel.

Waratah Revisited: why did lighthouse keepers at Cape Hermes not see the Waratah?

waratahrevisited.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/why-did-lighthouse-keepers-at-cape.html


The latest in Andrew Van Rensburg's brilliant series of posts on the convoluted mystery of SS Waratah's disappearance in July 1909.

Cape Hermes Lighthouse

If only our ancestors could have taken a selfie ...

Souvenir Saturday: Anglo Boer Campaign Medal with Bar 'Defence of Ladysmith'

Natal Mounted Rifles Officers Siege of Ladysmith

Acknowledgements:
Brian Kaighin

Military pasengers to South Africa

A frequent query I receive concerns the arrival of military ancestors in South Africa. Unfortunately, passenger lists are not usually a helpful source in this instance.

Military men who might be aboard a ship going to join their regiment were seldom named; if they were, they were usually officers.  The rank and file were mentioned as a group, but are nameless. You could lose a lot of ancestors that way ...

The newspaper passenger list of July 1863 (for a coastal voyage) on this page shows that, in third class, there were 2 non-commissioned officers and six soldiers – no names, no regiment. No pack drill, as they say.

During times of war, when large numbers of troops were being carried across the ocean, there was undoubtedly no time to note down individual names in a regiment on board ship, and newspaper shipping columns didn't have the space to list them all anyway.

Natal Border Mounted Rifles: officers who served in siege of Ladysmith

Border Mounted Rifles: officers who served in the Siege of Ladysmith, Anglo-Boer War:
Lieut James Gold, Lieut Trennor, Lieut Quarter Master W Dixon Smith, Lieut H B Andreasen, Lieut R G Archibald, Lieut W M Power (Veterinary officer), Lieut Thring, Capt Richard Vause, Maj Rethman (OC), Adj Maj Sangmeister, Capt W Arnott, Lieut Jack Royston, Capt Platt (medical officer)

      William Dixon Smith (1857-1900)

       Lieut Quarter Master BMR

For more on the origins of William Dixon Smith and his family

www.bordersancestry.co.uk/blog/smiths-of-northumberland

William Dixon Smith died
 at Intombispruit Hospital Camp Ladysmith.

Border Mounted Rifles: Rough But Ready
The famous Boot and Spur insignia.

Natal Carbineers officers who served through the Siege of Ladysmith

Souvenir Saturday: West Street Durban at the turn of the century

Central West St, Durban, ca 1893 -1902;
double-decker horse-drawn trams (note the tracks) and rickshas - no motorised vehicles. Rickshas came into use in Durban in 1893, electric trams in 1902. On the left the clock tower of the Town Hall built in 1885, now the Post Office, can be seen. The new City Hall was built in 1910.