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Economic development of the capital city, 1838-1910
Added: 31 Aug 2010
The establishment of Pietermaritzburg as the spiritual and political capital of the Republic of Natalia ensured that it would also become a focal point for social and commercial exchange. Yet the city's emergence as a significant economic centre proved to be a gradual process.
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The economic depression of the 1860s
Added: 31 Aug 2010
The early 1860s were years of expansion and development for Pietermaritzburg. Most of its citizens were involved in trade and commerce rather than production and it was for this reason that the area was hard hit by the depression.
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The Great Depression and white unemployment
Added: 31 Aug 2010
Not until September 1930 did Pietermaritzburg begin to feel the effects of the Great Depression, which had followed on the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. Yet in responding to the escalating rate of unemployment among all sectors of the City's population, there was a lack of official concern for the plight of any besides the whites, at whom all attempts to alleviate the condition of the jobless were aimed.
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The Pietermaritzburg market and the transformation of the Natal Midlands in the colonial period
Added: 31 Aug 2010
Although the development of Pietermaritzburg was linked to its status as the political capital of the colony of Natal, its growth was also encouraged by its position as the economic hub of the Midlands district.
This article also contains a box entitled 'Unemployment in Pietermaritzburg, 1986' by Norman Bromberger.
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The coming of the railway to Pietermaritzburg
Added: 31 Aug 2010
During the 1860s trial surveys were carried out on several routes for a railway to run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, and for an extension in the direction of Ladysmith and the northern Natal coalfields. It was not before 1873, however, that a detailed survey was undertaken, which delineated much of the route the main railway line ultimately followed.
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From rickshaws to minibus taxis
Added: 27 Aug 2010
In a city of 'magnificent distances' as J. Forsyth Ingram described it, transport has always been important; no more so than in the contemporary metropolis, where the poor especially have long distances to travel daily to and from work. In 1982 rickshaws were introduced and soon became a ubiquitous feature of the capital's streets.
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Pietermaritzburg and the railway
Added: 27 Aug 2010
There is no better way to approach Pietermaritzburg than on a train from the interior.
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Industrialization 1838-1987
Added: 27 Aug 2010
The Boers, who had left the Cape Colony and founded Pietermaritzburg as their capital in 1838, developed the locality largely as an agricultural village. The earliest recorded industrial activity in the area was the milling of grain, grown both on the townlands and the surrounding farms.
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African reaction to the beer halls
Added: 27 Aug 2010
In 1960, fifty-one years after beer halls were established in Pietermaritzburg in 1909, black women armed with sticks marched into them and forced the male customers to leave. The women then picketed the beer halls so effectively that for days the men were too scared to return. Beer halls have been both resented and frequented by urban Africans. They perceive them as instruments of their poverty and symbols of government oppression, yet recognise that they meet certain social and recreational needs.
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Educational capital of white Natal
Added: 27 Aug 2010
To speak of white education in the Pietermaritzburg of 1988 is an anachronism of no mean proportions. It is nevertheless true that in the first 150 years of its formal existence, Pietermaritzburg's paramountcy in white education in Natal is an historic reality.
This article also includes an insert on teacher education in Pietermaritzburg written by Jack Frost.
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General
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