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What's in a name? Komani or Queenstown?

I was recently extending my display on Clive Peter and the 2d War Effort Bantam by attempting to exclusively use commercial postal history addressed to Burmeister and Co. in East London in an A-Z of town names. This was only partially successful. During the process I came across a cover from Queenstown, (see 4. below), named after Queen Victoria, and also a reference on Wikipedia to the town being renamed Komani. This struck a chord with me about something I had seen elsewhere. This post is the result.

Queenstown in the middle of the Eastern Cape province was founded under the direction of Sir George Cathcart in 1853 as a defensive stronghold for the frontier area. The designers of Queenstown took a leaf from Napoleon who had the boulevards of Paris widened so that his cannon could more easily mow down and pacify any unruly mob of citizens. Queenstown's design layout reflects the reality of an Eastern Cape frontier town built in someone else's land, a backyard stolen from and subject to attack by the local people, the Xhosa, through 9 Frontier Wars.

Lest you should pooh-pooh the precarious state of settlement on the 'border' in the 1850s, Queenstown on the Komani River was built around (!) an unusual hexagon design that allowed cannon or rifle fire to be directed down six broad thoroughfares. These radiated out from the centre of the hexagon, the final redoubt in the event of a Xhosa attack. This remarkable defensive design, probably unique in South African town planning, gave Queenstown the moniker of 'Queen of the Border'. (See next post). The town was never attacked and over the years it prospered.

Post-Apartheid, Queenstown has been renamed 'Komani', presumably after the river. (Why did the White settlers continued to use a Xhosa name for the river ? Answer: They were grabbing Xhosa land.)  Despite this there was some resentment to the new name from the town's senior White residents. Pretoria, once the capital of the fiercely independent ZAR and the Union and Republic of White South Africa, is also undergoing a similar name change. I am not 100% on board with this but if it is the wish of the people I will not stand in their way. It is the New South Africa, remember? The Old South Africa lost, remember! The old name of 'Queenstown' reeks of British imperialism's war against the Xhosa. During the Anti-Apartheid 'Struggle', many Black South Africans deliberately used different names for 'White South African' towns as an act of resistance, keeping their history alive by using ancient place names, like Kumani and Tshwane (Pretoria). And as for Cape Town as the 'Mother City', well... that is just more make-believe from the old White South African myth.

During WW2, as part of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, Queenstown had a major nearby RAF training base. I was fortunate enough to buy two photo albums that showed an RAF dentist's service in Queenstown. (The cover from the Hexagon Hotel and telegram are  not a part of that lot.) Of most interest is the menu for the Prospect of Whitby pub gathering in London for the men who served in the RAF in Queenstown once they got back home. (See bottom, below.) This was my remembered reference to 'Komani'. This may just be a reference to the river. (Potage is French for 'thick soup'.) Still, I find it interesting that 70 years before Queenstown  was changed to Komani these RAF men were using Komani as a reminder of Queenstown. Were they influenced by the many Black people working on the base.

Attached are the followingt from top down:

1]. Roy Baker, the dentist in front of the Anson. (He called  it his "taxi" as it flew him around SA visiting RAF bases.)
2]. A view of Queenstown's hexagon taken on an aerial photographic / reconnaisance training flight during WW2.
3]. The Hexagon, Queenstown.
Cover from the Hexagon Hotel showing AFS Queenstown RAF cachet.
Postcard showing the town centre and flower gardens that were originally emplacements for cannon.
4]. Wartime economy re-used telegram cover from Queenstown to East London with two different postmarks.
5]. 1945. First Reunion Prospect of Whitby, London. 'Potage a la Komani'.

Uploaded files:
  • Roy-Bake-Anson.jpg
  • Queenstown-from-Air-WW2.jpg
  • Hexagon-Hotel-and-Cover.jpg
  • SAPC-Queenstown-Telegram.jpg
  • Roy-Baker-Reunion-PoW.jpg

And here area few more images from different times.

The first is a postcard showing Cathcart Road, Queenstown, dated ABERDEEN 'DE 19 04'. Of interest is the art nouveaun style piano shop, Hepworths Outfitters and the ubiquitous Black people who give the lie to Queenstown being anything other than a colonial town built in the land of the Xhosa. I assume the road is one of the 'boulevards' emanating out of the town's central hexagon? I cannot place it on the aerial view above.

The piano shop is a testament to the importance of the piano as a popular musical instrument during our early colonial history which introduced commercial clothing to a land where most people had previously only worn animal skins.  This postcard is remarkable for showing an early Hepworth's store in the Eastern Cape, (far right). Growing up in Pinelands, South Africa's first garden city, I was made to buy many of my clothes from Hepworths in Howard Centre. I am unsure of the origins of Hepworths in South Africa and wonder if it had any association with Joseph Hepworth & Son, a clothing manufacturer that became the UK's largest national chain of men's clothing shops between 1884 and 1985 and which continues to exist today as the chain known as Next.

Also, as with almost every turn-of-the-19th century postcard that includes a street scene, you cannot escape from the presence of Black people in a land yet to be presumptiously called 'White South Africa'. This postcard shows a Black man with his heavy goods transporter, his wife, uncomfortably walking down the main drag. I am wondering if her descendants drive Mercs today!

The second image is post-WW2 but proudly 'Queen of the Border'.

Uploaded files:
  • Queenstown-PC-Cathcart-Road.jpg
  • SAPC-Quenstown-Council.jpg

Thie advertisement below is taken from the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company Limited's 'The Year Book and Guide to Southern Africa' (Robert Hale Limited, London. 1956). This publication is full of similar ads placed by Town Council's around the Union of South Africa in the hope that wealthy European visitors would invest in their town's industrial future, thereby improving the lives and wealth of the town's White South African residents. These ads concentrate on the benefits they offer to overseas investors, like education, rail links and the availability of water, electricity and labour. The towns that succeeded in bringing European and British capital to start factories and industries essentially became the nail's in Apartheid's coffin. All the new factories and industries did was create a bigger and bigger demand for more and more Black labour within 'White South Africa'. This was how Apartheid became unsustainable.

Uploaded files:
  • Queenstown-Union-Castle-Ad-1956.jpg

This postcard has two Queenstown postmarks and another from Nqamakwe. It was received in Queenstown 'JY 16 08' and forwarded with a 1d adhesive to Nqamakwe on 'JY 27 08' where it was received on 'JY 29 08'.

The postcard has been sent from the UK to Queenstown addressed to Mrs Wm Dower, The Manse. I did a brief spot of research on this and it appears to be the Presbyterian Manse. The postcard has been forwarded to Nqamakwe with a note written in red between and over the original message. As a result, it is not your standard postal item forwarded at no extra cost but rather a new item of mail, hence the need for the additional 1d Cape adhesive stamp. The forwarder has initialled his note 'WJD'. My research suggests this is the Rev.William John Dower writing to his wife.

The only details I can find on him are that "Capt (Rev) William John Dower was appointed as chaplain on 17 April 1918. He embarked at Durban for East Africa on 20 April and was attached to the SA General Hospital at Dodoma on 29 April 1918. At the end of the war he left German East Africa as his post had become redundant. The Rev Dower was released from service on 2 February 1919."

Uploaded files:
  • Queenstown-Postcardn-1908.jpg