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The Rise and Decline of Port Elizabeth, 1850-1900

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Alan Mabin (1986). The Rise and Decline of Port Elizabeth, 1850-1900. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 19(2). Boston University African Studies Center.
Type journal article
Scope Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method archival narrative
Period studied 1850–1900
Regions Cape Colony, Port Elizabeth / Algoa Bay, Cape Town, Eastern Province, Kimberley / Griqualand West, Transvaal trade routes
Themes origins segregation, business and state, macro fiscal finance debt, mining migrant labour, labour markets wages, unions strikes, demography urbanisation
Citation key mabin1986

Argument

Port Elizabeth was the leading commercial and financial centre of the Cape from the 1850s to the 1880s, but it lost that position. Mabin explains the rise by its proximity to the expanding wool-producing hinterland, the inflow of imperial bank capital, and its superior access to the interior and the diamond fields. He explains the decline through the politics of the colonial state: government harbour and railway investment favoured Cape Town and East London, and Cape Town merchants had closer access to parliament and officials. Inadequate, strike-prone port labour, the post-1881 recession and the later Transvaal carrying-trade competition compounded the decline. The paper treats the merchant elites of the two cities as rivals whose accumulation was shaped by state decisions and by the labour processes in the ports.

Evidence and method

Cape Blue Books and Statistical Registers; Cape parliamentary papers (Votes & Proceedings, annexures, select committees, Hansard); Standard Bank archives (inspection reports, general manager correspondence); chamber of commerce reports (Port Elizabeth and Cape Town); contemporary newspapers; theses (Purkis, Rush, Turrell, Wilburn, Mabin's own PhD); bank and business histories.

Place in the debates

Findings

  • Port Elizabeth was the key centre of the Cape economy c.1850s-1880s despite being overlooked by scholars. (p. 2)

    Yet from the 1850s to the 1880s, Port Elizabeth - the "Liverpool of the Cape" - was in many respects the key center of the Cape economy.

  • The port overtook Cape Town in trade volume in the 1850s, driven by wool expansion in the Eastern Province. (p. 6)

    In 1854 imports through Port Elizabeth exceeded those through Cape Town for the first time. By the end of the 1850s exports through Port Elizabeth exceeded those through Cape Town as well.

  • Port-worker strikes shaped merchants' demand for state-financed harbour works, because harbour capital would substitute for dependence on labour. (p. 10)

    Proper harbor works would reduce the merchants' dependence on boating companies and undisciplined workers.

  • Port Elizabeth was shortchanged in harbour investment: £1 million went to Cape Town and over £500,000 to East London, against under £300,000 for Port Elizabeth jetties in 1873-83. (p. 16)

    While almost £1 million, raised by government, were spent at Cape Town and over £500,000 at East London

  • Railway proposals of the 1870s reflected port rivalry over wool and interior trade rather than diamonds. (p. 14)

    Purkis has convincingly demonstrated that the railway proposals of 1873 and 1874 were not predicated on the diamond fields trade, but on other factors.

  • Port Elizabeth merchants lost the 1880 railway vote partly through their own failures of strategy and lobbying. (p. 18)

    Had the Port Elizabeth merchants formulated more concise proposals and conducted effective lobbying for them, they might well have reversed the results of voting in the 1880 session.

  • The last frontier war pushed dispossessed Xhosa-speakers into the Cape wage-labour market, easing merchants' labour problems. (p. 19)

    the colonial victory meant the dispossession of large numbers of Xhosa-speakers, thereby delivering them onto the Cape wage-labor market.

  • The 1880s slump (diamond collapse, poor wool, ostrich feathers, lost hinterlands) sharply cut Port Elizabeth's trade. (p. 25)

    After a poor year in 1884, exports through Algoa Bay fell 27 percent and imports 14 percent in 1885.

  • The Standard Bank, the Cape's largest, relocated its South African headquarters from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town, with pressure from government. (p. 25)

    The Standard Bank, with some pressure from the Cape government, decided on the move to Cape Town by December 1884.

  • Continued government neglect of the Port Elizabeth harbour in the 1890s hampered its bid for the Witwatersrand carrying trade. (p. 28)

    Between 1890 and 1895 the government raised only £153,000 for harbor works in Port Elizabeth, compared with nearly five times as much in the Cape Town case.

  • Port Elizabeth's relative demographic standing fell sharply by the 1890s. (p. 29)

    By the end of the 1890s, Port Elizabeth's population had fallen to less than a quarter of Cape Town's.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source Kind Period How used
Cape Blue Book (Cape BB), various years 1859-1887, including Reports of Civil Commissioners official statistical series 1850s-1887 Supplies colonial import/export, wool and commodity export figures (Fig. 1, Tables 1-3) and district civil commissioners' comments on trade destinations and roads.
Cape Statistical Register (Cape SR) official statistical series 1835-1899 Used with the Blue Book and PECC reports to build port shares of imports and exports (Fig. 3).
Port Elizabeth Chamber of Commerce (PECC) Annual Reports and appendices (1870-1896) employer association records 1870-1896 Documents merchants' views on railways, harbour dues, rates and trade statistics, including 1885 and 1886 trade falls.
Cape Town Chamber of Commerce (CTCC) Annual Reports (1882-1899) employer association records 1882-1899 Shows Cape Town merchants' lobbying on railway rates and routes and their access to officials.
Standard Bank Archives (SBA): Inspection Reports, local board minutes, General Manager–London Office (GM-LO) correspondence, Branch Index company records or reports 1860s-1890s Evidence on bank branching, indebtedness of merchants and farmers, recession conditions, deposits and the move of headquarters to Cape Town.
Cape Parliament Votes and Proceedings, Annexures (Cape V & P, Ann), incl. Select Committees on Railways (A.13-'68), Algoa Bay harbour reports (G.25-'79), General Manager of Railways reports (G.64-'81, G.24-'87, G.31-'88, G.39-'91, G.15-'94) and Statement of Loans (G.43-1900) commission or official report 1868-1900 Establishes railway route debates, harbour expenditures, loans and railway management reports.
Select Committee on Harbour Boards (A.3-1900) and Algoa Bay Harbour Board correspondence (G.49-'75) commission or official report 1875-1900 Sources for handling charges and harbour finance at Port Elizabeth versus other ports.
Cape Parliament House of Assembly divisions and Hansard (1880, 1887, 1894) parliamentary debates 1880-1894 Shows voting on railway proposals in 1880 and political obstacles to routes and harbour rhetoric.
Newspapers: Eastern Province Herald, Argus, Graaff-Reinet Herald, Colesberg Advertiser, Port Elizabeth Telegraph, Port Elizabeth Advertiser, Grahamstown Journal, Mercantile Advertiser, Cape Times, etc. newspapers periodicals 1856-1894 Used for strikes, merchants' positions on railway schemes, advertising shares and reactions to decisions.
Cape Almanac (1857, 1861) and General Directory and Guide Book to the Cape of Good Hope (1869, 1872) secondary literature compilation 1857-1872 Counts of local banks and road conditions, and branch openings and closures.
Turrell, 'Capital, Class and Monopoly' (Ph.D. thesis, London, 1982), Appendix II.4 secondary literature compilation 1869-1887 Source of diamond export series in Tables 1-3.
Mitchell and Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics secondary literature compilation 1870s Establishes the fall in British interest rates for foreign loans.
Bank and company histories: Amphlett (Standard Bank, Cape Crisis of 1881), Henry (First Hundred Years of the Standard Bank), Barker (London and South African Bank), Arndt (Banking and Currency Development) secondary literature compilation 1837-1914 Facts on founding, branching and paid-up capital of imperial banks and on the 1881 crisis.
Unpublished theses used for archival data: Purkis (railways 1870-85), Rush (ports), Wilburn (railway competition), Mabin's own Ph.D. secondary literature compilation 1795-1897 Supply railway politics narrative, harbour expenditure figures and route proposals.
Other contemporary publications: South African Bradshaw, Emigrants Guide to South Africa, South African Trade Journal, Cape of Good Hope Weekly Commercial Record newspapers periodicals 1890-1897 Supports claims on rail transport times, Cape Town's ascendancy and Port Elizabeth stagnation.

New data

The author compiled time series (Fig. 1, Fig. 3, Tables 1-3) of Cape colonial imports/exports and port shares from Blue Books, Statistical Registers and PECC reports, plus a map of bank locations in 1860; no dataset is released.

Inference

Quantification: Descriptive tables.

Narrative political-economic case study of a single port and its merchant elite, built from archival bank inspection reports, chamber of commerce records, parliamentary papers and newspapers, with comparison across ports (Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, East London) over time, supported by trade value series and tables.

Key claims

Claim Basis Strength
Port Elizabeth overtook Cape Town in imports in 1854 and exports by the late 1850s, becoming the commercial and financial centre of the colony. (p. 279) Cape BB, Cape SR and PECC reports compiled into port-share Figure 3. Systematic data
The colonial state favoured Cape Town and East London in harbour spending, leaving Port Elizabeth with small outlays and costly, unenclosed harbour works. (p. 289) Statement of loans (G.43-1900), Rush thesis, harbour board papers and PECC reports, giving expenditure figures. Partial data
Railway politics and construction, especially the Beaufort West line and the 1881 Act, eroded Port Elizabeth's hinterland and Kimberley trade in favour of Cape Town and East London. (p. 292) Select Committee evidence, parliamentary divisions, chamber of commerce reports, Purkis thesis, newspapers and SBA inspection reports. Partial data
The 1880s recession, with the collapse of the diamond share boom and falling wool and ostrich feather prices, sharply cut Port Elizabeth's trade, and Cape Town again led imports in 1885-86. (p. 298) Export tables (Table 3), PECC reports, Cape BB and SR, and SBA inspection reports and correspondence. Systematic data
The Standard Bank's relocation of its headquarters to Cape Town (1884-86) marked the loss of Port Elizabeth's financial centrality. (p. 298) SBA correspondence between London and general managers, Conradie typescript, Amphlett's history. Partial data
Strikes by port workers and the scarcity of wage labour constrained merchants and fuelled their demands for harbour investment, and Xhosa dispossession later eased this. (p. 289) Newspaper reports of strikes in 1856, 1872, 1876-77 with wage rates, Purkis thesis and Mabin's own article. Illustrative or anecdotal
Diamonds passed wool in export value in 1878, making Kimberley the key market and shifting merchant interests. (p. 290) Cape BB 1875-1880 and Turrell's appendix compiled in Table 2. Systematic data
Port Elizabeth's population fell from above one-third to under a quarter of Cape Town's by the late 1890s, a decline that persisted. (p. 302) Cited only to Standard Bank inspection reports, chamber reports and the author's thesis appendix; no figures are presented. Asserted

The author's caveats

The author notes limits in reading the evidence, for example that the boom's regional buoyancy was only relative, and that the link between inflationary imperial-bank capital and wool prices is only "probable"; some sources are qualified as suggestive (e.g., newspaper advertising space "show" a trend, and "one suspects" Le Cordeur overestimates Cape Town). He does not discuss the reliability of trade statistics.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument leans on trade value series and merchant and bank correspondence but offers no systematic data on merchant firms' profits, credit flows, freight volumes by route or population counts, so claims about trade diversion and relative decline are inferred from aggregates and lobbying records. Population censuses (Cape 1865, 1875, 1891) and railway traffic returns by station and route existed and would test diversion and the population claim directly. Harbour board accounts and merchant firm records would also allow comparison of costs between ports.

Replicability: Data described but not public.