While the older countries in Europe had intimate contact with one another and developed more or less simultaneously, postal services in isolated Southern Africa naturally evolved quite differently.

The first letter ‘posted’ in South Africa was deposited in a shoe hung on a milkwood tree at Mossel Bay in 1501 by a Portuguese ship’s captain, Pero d’Ataide, in the expectation that someone in a passing ship would find it, take it with him and deliver it. The letter described a disaster that had befallen the Portuguese fleet on the voyage to India. This tree, still standing, which can be considered the first ‘post office’ in Southern Africa, was declared a historical monument on 30 Sept. 1938, and a bronze plaque with the following legend was affixed: “This ‘post office tree’ stands near the foun­tains where the Portuguese navigators regularly drew water at Aguada de Säo Bras (now Mossel Bay) from 1488 onwards. In May 1501 Pero d ‘ Ataide, captain of a homeward bound ship of Pero Cabral’s fleet, left a message here which was found on 7th July 1501 by the outward bound ships of Joao da Nova. According to tradition the message was placed in an old shoe and tied to a tree.’

A century later another extraordinary method of ‘posting’ letters originated at Table Bay. Dutch and English navigators usually touched at the bay to take in fresh water and meat, and it was their custom to place letters for one another under stones at certain places on the beach. Sometimes even stones with the names of the ships and officers, dates, etc. chiselled on them, were brought along for that purpose. Often special provision was made for keeping the letters safe and dry, by covering them with lead and canvas or coarse linen. Nevertheless, the south-easter sometimes blew away some of the letters, and it even happened that inquisitive Hottentots removed part of the post.A few of these postal stones have been preserved and may be seen in the South African Museum in Cape Town. The stones were found at the place where in the 17th century the stream now hidden beneath Adderley Street ran from Table Mountain into the sea, i.e. where the old Cape Town railway station stood. With the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck the custom of leaving letters under stones died out, because there was now always someone at the Castle of Good Hope to attend to the post of incoming and departing ships.In the absence of an organised postal service, measures were taken on East Indiamen to deliver Van Riebeeck’s reports to the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam, but private correspondence had to be entrusted to ships’ officers or passengers.

Complaints about such a haphazard arrangement were made from time to time, but not until March 1792 was an improvement made when a small post office was opened in the Castle. The first postmaster was the junior merchant Adriaan Vincent Bergh, with Aegidius Benedictus Ziervogel as postman.Only posts between the Netherlands, the Cape and the East Indies were handled, for the scattered farmers in the interior could not be served yet. The postage between the Cape and overseas was 6 stivers for a letter of one sheet.With the establishment of the drostdys (magistracies) in the interior toward the end of the 18th century it became necessary for the government in the Castle to have official documents, and after 1801 the official gazette, delivered to the local authorities. In imitation of the European system, messenger services were then introduced. Hottentot runners acted as conveyers from point to point. This service was only for Government use; private letter-writers had to rely on the goodwill of visitors, servants or pedlars. Early in 1863, however, under the regime of the Batavian Republic, and under strong pressure from colonists and officials, private persons were allowed to send letters by the government post; but this service was intermittent. The postal tariff was based on the distance traversed and the number of sheets of paper.

For one sheet the rate between Cape Town and Somerset West was one schelling. (Later, under British rule, the schelling was valued at 2¼d.) Between Cape Town and Swellendam it was 2 schellings; between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth 4 schellings. Twenty years later the tariff was as follows:-

Cape Town to Somerset West 3d.to Swellendam 7d.

to Port Elizabeth 11d.

In Jan. 1805, under the Batavian regime, the first regular postal service, i.e. for private as well as official matter, was established between Cape Town and the drostdys of Swellendam and Tulbagh, and there was a similar but less regular connection with the more distant districts. Farmers living along the main roads helped to make it possible by transporting, under contract, the postbags by horse over fixed distances. This arrangement did not work very well, for only the following year Sir David Baird, as acting governor, issued a proclamation to the effect that thenceforth the post should be carried by Hottentots, who were to relieve one another at various places along the road. Under Lord Charles Somerset, between 1814 and 1826, the first full-time postmasters were appointed in the place of the landdrost’s clerks, jailers, teachers, etc., who in the beginning did the work.

In Oct. 1816, for instance, such officials were appointed at Paarl, Tulbagh, Caledon, George and Graaff-Reinet. In the head-office in Cape Town and at Stellenbosch and Simonstown permanent postmasters had already officiated for some time; but suitable men were hard to get, principally because the salary was low, and secondly because the regulations were too complicated.

Meticulous statements of cash receipts from outgoing and incoming postal articles had to be sent regularly to head-office – an impossible task, on account of changes that had often to be made in the charges for letters on which postage could not be paid or which had to be redirected. Yet steady progress was made. New post offices were established and new routes introduced, so that in 1838 there already were 22 post offices with full-time postmasters.

An important milestone was reached on 1 Sept. 1853 when the adhesive stamp was used for the first time in the Cape Colony. This meant, as in other parts of the world, that the whole character of the post office – till then a cumbrous, inconvenient and expensive system (with reckoning according to distance) – was at once fundamentally changed. This reformation caused an enormous increase in postal traffic. Bigger and stronger transport vehicles had to be acquired, which could provide at the same time for the carriage of passengers.

Another cause of great activity in the post was the discovery of diamonds along the Orange River in 1867: Kimberley at once became the magnet for businessmen and adventures. Within a few years there was already a population of 30 000 on the diamond-fields.

It was a great challenge to provide these people with regular and efficient postal and passenger transport; but coaching companies such as the pic­turesque Red Star line, with its well-appointed coaches and fine horses and mules, provided an excellent service from Wellington (then the terminus of the railway) via Beaufort West to Kimberley and later to Johannesburg.

At one time this company had about 2 000 horses and mules in service. Other pioneers who supplied an equally efficient service were Cobb & Co. (from the Eastern Province through the Orange Free State), Walsh, Button & Marshall of Natal, and George Heys and the Zeeder­berg brothers in the Transvaal.

Postmasters-general of the Cape Colony were:

A. V. Bergh 1792-98

J. Holland 1798-1806

W. Caldwell 1806-07

M. M. Gall 1807-15

R. Crozier 1815-52

J. A. le Smear 1852-67

C. Piers 1867-73

G. W. Aitchison 1873-92

S. R. French 1892-1908

W. T. Hoal 1908-10

Natal

In Natal, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal the postal service developed more or less in the same way as in the Cape Colony. Colonists in Durban and its environs at first had to make use of departing ships in order now and then to send a letter to England, with the harbour-master as intermediary.

Then followed a weekly letter service, in­troduced in 1843 between Pietermaritzburg and Durban by the military, mainly for Government use. The Natal Witness from March 1846 undertook to transport letters weekly for the public between the two places at 6d. per letter of one sheet, and continued this until 1850, when the Government introduced its own postal service. In order to enable the Lieutenant-Governor in Pietermaritzburg to remain in touch by land with the Governor in Cape Town, and also to transport the public posts, a service from Pietermaritzburg was established early in 1846 to connect with the border post at Grahamstown.Bantu were used as runners to carry the post. The route was as follows:

Pietermaritzburg – Indaleni-Palmer­ston – Buntingville – Morley – Butterworth – Drift (Great Kei) – Fort Warden – Fort Wellington – King William’s Town – Grahamstown.

This route was continually dislocated through disorders, so much so that in Nov. 1846 the post had to be sent via Colesberg. No wonder that in official circles it was said that Natal and Cape Town were more distant from each other than were England and South Africa, for it sometimes took a month for the post to arrive by the Transkei route.In Natal post offices were opened on 1 Feb. 1850 in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, at the military post on the Bushman River (now Estcourt) and in the magistrate’s office of Klip River (now Ladysmith). As the population increased, post offices were opened in other parts of the colony. With regard to the connection between Natal and the Orange Free State, negotiations were begun in June 1847 to introduce a postal route into the Free State (then the Orange River Sovereignty).

This was the Osterberg route:

Pietermaritzburg – Imperani – Thaba Nchu – Bloem­fontein – Colesberg.

It was not long in use, on account of disorders in the Free State. Late in 1849 a new route was arranged:

Pietermaritzburg – Mooi River – Bushmans River (Estcourt) – Platberg (Harrismith) – Liebenbergsvlei – Winburg – Bloem­fontein – Colesberg.

A mounted orderly went as far as the Bushman River, and Bantu runners from there to the Platberg.

From April 1850 Whites were used as mounted messengers as far as Harrismith. In Feb. 1851 they were replaced by Bantu on foot from Pietermaritzburg to the Bushmans River.Until 1866 post for the Transvaal was sent through the Orange Free State. Then an agreement was reached between the Transvaal and Natal governments, so that a route between Newcastle and Wakkerstroom (at that time Martins Wesselstroom) was opened in Oct. 1866.

Postmasters-general of Natal were:

F. Spring 1850-53

W. M.Collins 1853-65

F. Becker 1865-71

J. Ayliff 1872-76 (Colonial Treasurer and Postmaster-General)

R. I. Finnemore 1876-78

A. H. W. Moodie 1878-81

J. P. Symons (acting) 1881-82

J. Chadwick 1883-98

J. W. Coleman (acting) 1898

W. G. Hamilton 1899-1900 J.

Frank Brown 1900-02

A. J. Norris (acting) 1902

C. M. Hibberd 1903-10

Transvaal

As in the Cape Colony and Natal, so in the Transvaal Republic the first letter service was only for Government use. Yet private letters were sometimes allowed, but merely as a favour, without payment. Gradually the need for a general service arose and it was introduced in 1850. The first route was from Ohrigstad (where the Volksraad then sat) via Lydenburg, Renosterspruit (40 km north-west from present-day Middelburg) and Suikerbosrand (later Heidelberg) to Potchefstroom. In 1852 Rustenburg was included, and Pretoria in 1855.

Early in 1856 most inhabited parts of the Transvaal had postal connections, with landdrosts and field-cornets as postmasters. Originally the trustworthiness and regularity o f the service left much to be desired. Friedrich Jeppe, one of the first postal heads of the Republic, gives the following account:”The post of the farmers was transported by Natives in open saddle-bags. Because no Native had the right to contradict a farmer, it often happened that some of the farmers calmly took out all the letters, read them and cut out the important parts, after which the letters were closed and sent on.

The discoveries of gold in Lydenburg (1870) and Barberton (1882), where thousands congregated, made stringent demands on the post, but the situation there was soon over-shadowed by the discovery of the gold reef along the Witwatersrand in 1886. Suddenly there was a rush of diggers and fortune-seekers from all regions of South Africa and beyond. The first small post office on the Rand was established at Ferreira’s Camp (the beginning of Johannesburg) under a barkeeper, A. B. Edgson. A departmental postmaster, C. A. Dormehl, was put to work in a separate sheet-iron building on 1 Oct. 1886. He must have been the busiest postmaster in the country; he had, for example, to handle the post of 18 coaches a week between Johannesburg and Kimberley.

In 1891 a convention was concluded with Mozambique by which a regular postal service was established between Barberton and Lourengo Marques.

Postmasters-general of the Transvaal were:

H. Jeppe 1860-67

F. Jeppe 1867-74

J. A. de Vogel 1875- 80

A. W. de la Hunt 1880-81

J. A. de Vogel 1881- 85

I. N. van Alphen 1885-1902

W. G. Hamilton 1902-03

J. Frank Brown 1903-10

Telegraph Needle

Orange Free State

As in the other states, postal work in the Free State was originally managed by landdrost’s clerks. From 1848, when the territory became the Orange River Sovereignty, it was considered to be a dependency of the Cape Colony. In 1849 A. O’Reilly was listed as postmaster of Smithfield and the only postmaster in the territory. He fell under the Postmaster-general of the Cape Colony, R. Crozier, and remained until 1854, when the territory became the Republic of the Orange Free State. In 1850 William Collins was appointed postmaster in Bloem­fontein. In this connection his son W. M. Collins wrote: “The writer’s father, who had been an assistant classical professor in the South African College, Cape Town, some years before, secured the appointment of Government school teacher for Bloemfontein at the handsome salary of £90 per annum, also the postmastership of Bloemfontein, at £12 per annum, which latter was soon after raised to £25, with a monthly allowance of £1 for a room which was to serve as a temporary Post Office.” (Free Statia, 1909.) In 1855 there were still only five post offices, viz Bloemfontein, Winburg, Harrismith, Smithfield and Fauresmith; and twenty years later only 26.

The arrival of the post-cart or coach was a special occasion everywhere. In Bloemfontein it was signalised by the hoisting of flags to show where the coach had come from. A flag with the sign of a diamond on it indicated Kimberley. After the sorting, a red flag was hoisted below the other one. Delivery of the post took place through a window. Postboxes for private hirers were later erected by postmasters from their own funds, and they collected the rentals for their own use. Pillar-boxes were unknown until 1893. At most places there were for many years no commercial banks and the landdrost often had to lend money to a postmaster in order to cash a money order.

Heads of posts in the Orange Free State and Orange River Colony were:

A. B. Roberts (State Attorney, Auditor-General and Postmaster-General) 1856-60

J. Heijermans (postmaster of Bloemfontein, Post­master-General and Auditor-General) 1860-68

H. Sybouts (P. M. G. and Auditor-General) 1868-71

W. H. Canisius (P.M.G.) 1871-81

B. van der Karst (P.M.G.) 1881-85

A. C. Howard (P.M.G.) 1885-91

G. F. P. Hurford (P.M.G.) 1891-94

D. G. A. Falck (P.M.G.) 1895-1910

Transportation of Posts – Carts and coaches

The runner was in most countries the first carrier of posts; so also in South Africa. But as the settlements grew and the mail became heavier, the runner was replaced by a mounted man. Natives who ran with a postbag sometimes dropped it into the water at a ford, and then the whole mail could disappear in the river. This happened in the Transvaal up to the eighties. In his turn the rider had to make way for a more efficacious means of transportation, the mail-cart (about 1855), on which there were also places for three passengers. The first mail-cart used on impor­tant routes was strong and heavily built. Lighter types were used on better roads and where night work was not needed. For many years the hooded cart, pulled by two to six horses or mules, was also used by postal contractors.

With the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867 and of gold in the Transvaal in 1886 the mail-coach made its appearance on the main routes. The coach was a luxury vehicle in those days. Some coaches were built on the model of those in England and America and were very efficient. The coachman sat in front on his box, and right at the back there was a scat for the guard. Beneath his feet there was storage space for the mailbags, and in the middle of the coach was a closed compartment, suitably ar­ranged for passengers. Various draught animals were used – horses or mules and sometimes oxen, in rare cases even zebras. On some roads the coaches did 11miles (17km) an hour. Some hindrances were insuperable: washaways, rivers in spate, and also drought, which brought a serious shortage of grazing for the draught animals.

The mail-coach was a symbol of civilisation for South Africa, and its importance was commemorated when, at the suggestion of the Prime Minister (Dr. D. F. Malan), on 4 Jan. 1952 such a coach, the first of seven, departed from Ohrigstad on its way to Cape Town for the Van Riebeeck Festival. Another six coaches left from other parts of the country, all to converge on Cape Town on 31 March 1952.

Ocean mail

In 1815 fast sailing vessels were used to transport mail and passengers once a month between England, Mauritius and India. The voyage to the Cape took 114 days. Ten years later the first steam-ship, the Enterprise, was put into service, covering the distance in 58 days. The first mail contract between the Cape government and a shipping line in England, the Union Line, was concluded in 1857. The contract time between Cape Town and Southamp­ton was 42 days, which in 1868 was decreased to 38 days. In 1872 a second company, the Castle Line, appeared on the scene, and four years later the mail contract was divided equally between the two lines. In 1900 they amalgamated under the name Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company, which to this day is the contractor for ocean mail transport between England and South Africa. The duration of the voyage was in 1964 decreased from 14 to 11½ days. For this mail service the State pays R800 000 per annum. On an average 20 railway carriages are filled with mail for the interior on the arrival of the mail-boat on Wednesdays.

Air mail

Many experiments were made in South Africa in carrying mail by aeroplane, but only in 1925 was an experimental service lasting three months introduced between Cape Town and Durban. The main purpose was to accelerate the delivery and dispatch of oversea mail within the country. Owing to lack of support the service, which was undertaken by the South African Air Force together with the Post Office, was discontinued. No further developments took place until Aug. 1929, when Union Airways Ltd, introduced a service between Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban, with a branch service from Port Elizabeth to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. Apparently this undertaking paid, for in Jan. 1933 this company instituted an additional through service between Durban and the Rand Airport at Germiston. On 1 Feb. 1934 Union Airways Ltd. was taken under the control of the Railway Administration. From then the system of air services, and also of the air mail service, was gradually expanded until it ceased owing to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The air mail was resumed in 1946, and now the transport service of the State has a fast daily air mail between all the more important cities.

As for the oversea air mail, the most important development was the institution of a fast service between London and Cape Town by Imperial Airways on 20 Jan. 1932. At first the planes took 11 days to complete the trip, but this was reduced until in 1972 a letter could be transported from South Africa to London in 16 hours or less. In 1945 the service of Imperial Airways was replaced by the Springbok service of the Government.

Postage Stamps

As said before, postage stamps were issued for the first time in South Africa in 1853. These old Cape stamps were triangular in shape, in two values, 1d. and 4d. This was the first stamp of this shape in the world, but since then other countries have also issued triangular stamps. Natal’s first stamps came in 1857 in five values: 1d., 3d., 6d., 9d., and 1s. – none triangular! Similarly in the Orange Free State the first postage stamps were issued in 1869, with values of 1d., 6d. and 1s. It was not until 1 May 1870 that post offices in the Transvaal Republic were provided with postage stamps, of two values: 1d. and 6d.

At the time of unification in 1910 no Union postage stamps were immediately available, and the use of any of the stamps of the four former colonies anywhere was approved, until new stamps could be printed. But to commemorate the opening of the first Union Parliament a 2 ½d. stamp was issued on 4 Nov. 1910. The first Union stamps appeared in Sept. 1913, in the following values: ½ d., 1d., 1½d., 2½d., 3d., 4d., 6d., 1s., 1s. 3d., 2s. 6d., 5s., 10s., and £1. Afterwards special series appeared from time to time.

Progress after Union

Owing to the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) the progress and modernisation of posts and telegraphs were seriously hampered in the various territories of South Africa; but in 1910 the first Union government began to consolidate and improve the services of the four provinces. In almost every sphere considerable progress was made. For the posts, with a view to quick delivery, the fastest public conveyances were used, so that nowadays all postal matter is transported by means of an integrated network of railway, road, sea and air services. Total costs of transport amounted to R10 875 544 in the fiscal year 1971/2.

Adaptations are continuously being made with great success in order to handle the ever-growing mass of mail, but notwithstanding the simplification and modernisation of sorting processes it even now requires an enormous amount of manual labour to sort and dispatch the approximately 5 million postal articles mailed daily in the Republic. Mechanical and electronic sorting of mail is in the process of implementation in the major centres.

The existence of about 3 000 post offices and postal agencies in the Republic in 1971 – as against 2 457 in 1912 – brings postal facilities within reasonable reach of all. The first experiment with a mobile post office was made in 1937, with a view to serving suburbs where the erection of a post office would not be justified. In 1971 nineteen of these units were in use.

Important postal facilities supplied since Union are the following:

1. the ‘cash on delivery’ service for par­cels (since 1925)

2. phonograms, which are telephoned to a telegraph office to be telegraphed (1930)

3. urgent telegrams, which have priority in dispatch and delivery (1933)

business reply service (1934)

4. circulars to householders (1935)

5. insurance of parcels (1940)

6. air parcels service (1959)

7. increase of the maximum weight for parcels in inland service from 11 to 22lb (5 to 10kg) in 1962

In all cities and most towns mail is delivered at the dwelling of the addressee. It is also delivered into 215 291 private post boxes and 15 406 private post bags (in 1971). The Post Office had approximately 58 000 employees in 1970, and the turn-over of the department amounted to about R739 million annually.

Postal tunnels

When the general post office was built in Jeppe Street, Johannesburg, in 1935, it was connected by a subterranean conveyor-belt, working in both directions, with the railway platforms on the new station, in order to effect the carriage of mail in a tunnel instead of in trucks through the busy city traffic. This belt has a carrying capacity of 600 mail bags per hour, and about 2 000 bags daily pass over it. The second postal tunnel in the country is in Cape Town, where a similar conveyor-belt system connected the general post office directly with the new railway station in 1967.

Telecommunications (1860-1910) – Telegraph System

The first telegraph fine in Southern Africa was put into service between Cape Town and Simonstown in April 1860. The line was built by the Cape of Good Hope Telegraph Company. This company linked up East London and King William’s Town the following year, and Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown a year later. The entire route between Cape Town and Grahamstown was completed in 1863. In 1873 these private lines were purchased by the State for £40 750. There were then 19 telegraph offices in operation. Because of the rapid development of the diamond-fields the telegraph line was extended from Cape Town to Kimberley in 1876 via Colesberg, Philippolis, Fauresmith, Koffiefontein and Jacobsdal. The first telegraph line in Natal was completed on 4 July 1864 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The outbreak of the Zulu War in 1878 contributed largely to the building of telegraph lines in Natal being expedited. A link-up with the Cape Colony was effected about the same time when the line was extended from Komga to Pietermaritzburg via Umtata.

Although the first telegraph line from Colesberg to Kimberley traversed the territory of the Orange Free State, the Cape administration built the line and had to provide the telegraphists. In 1891 this line to the diamond-fields was purchased by the Free State government at a cost of £15 533. A telegraph connection between Cape Town and Bloemfontein via Fauresmith was established on 5 April 1879, the Free State government bearing the cost of erecting the line over its territory.

On 19 Sept. 1879 the first telegraph line in the Transvaal reached Pretoria from Pietermaritzburg via Utrecht, Standerton and Heidelberg. Six years later the first internal line was built from Pretoria to Barberton, at that time the main town on the goldfields, and Potchefstroom was also connected. A telegraph office was established in Johannesburg in 1887, with a connection to Kimberley via Potchefstroom. In 1893 Pretoria was linked by telegraph to Lourenço Marques.

Telephone system

Before the introduction of a public telephone system a few firms and private persons in the Cape had private telephone lines to one another, i.e. without an exchange by means of which they could be connected to one another at will. By the end of 1880 there were 14 such telephones connected to private lines. The first place where a Post Office exchange was established was Port Elizabeth which opened with 20 subscribers in 1882; and two years later one was installed in Cape Town, opening with 50 subscribers. Thereafter exchanges were installed in East London (1887), Grahamstown (1895), and Kimberley, Queenstown and King Williams Town in 1897.

The first exchange in the Transvaal was opened in Pretoria in 1890. The apparatus was originally intended for Johannesburg, but at that tune there was not a sufficient number of applicants in the Golden City. Only four years later an exchange had to be provided there. It was located in the well-known Telephone Tower, a hexagonal building of three storeys situated in the heart of the city in Plein Square at the end of Joubert Street. Subscribers from Randfontein to Springs were served from this tower until 1907, when a new exchange was erected in Von Brandis Square. The trunk route between Johannesburg and Pretoria was taken into service in 1902. Expansion of the telegraph and telephone lines was suspended during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). It was only In 1907 that considerable expansion took place in the Transvaal telephone services, northwards to Pietersburg, in the west to Klerksdorp via Potchefstroom and to Zeerust via Rustenburg.

Although a telephone service was designed for Bloemfontein in 1894, only one private telephone could be installed in 1896, that between the Volks Hospital and the residence of Dr. B. O. Kellner. Mainly because of the outbreak of the war in 1899, nothing further was done until 1905, when the installation of a telephone exchange was commenced in Bloemfontein. The exchange was opened on 1 Feb. 1906, serving 150 subscribers. At this time country post offices within limited distances were con­nected telephonically to Bloemfontein by means of telegraph lines. Shortly before Union (1910) exchanges were opened at Kroonstad, Harrismith, Winburg and Brandfort.

The telephone was introduced in Durban about 1884 by George Ireland, who installed primitive instruments in a few offices in the city. In 1886 TN Price undertook to introduce a telephone system, and an exchange was installed with 12 subscribers. Three years later the Natal Telephone Company was formed, and on 1 Jan. 1902 it was taken over by the Durban city council. The telephone network in Durban remained a municipal undertaking until 1969, when it was taken over by the Post Office. As far as the rest of Natal is concerned, an instrument called the Phonopore was introduced in 1895. With this instrument it was possible to transmit a voice over a working telegraph wire.

The following year this system was used between a number of places, but only at fixed times when telegrams were not being transmitted. Originally there were two telephone exchanges in Pietermaritzburg, one of which belonged to a private company and the other to the postal authorities. In 1897 the two exchanges were amalgamated under State control. The trunk line between Durban and Pietermaritzburg was completed in 1897. In 1901 Estcourt was already linked to most of the coal-mines in Northern Natal. From 1905 rapid development of the telephone services took place, and in 1907 calls could be made between Natal and the Transvaal. After all the larger centres in the country had been linked by telephone, the smaller and remote places were gra­dually incorporated in the network, but in general the telephone service was limited to local calls and trunk traffic between larger exchanges within a distance of some 300 kilometres. The telegraph lines were chiefly used for the telephone, but it was evident that an efficient telephone service could only be pro­vided on trunk lines that were specially equipped.

Telecommunications (1910-1972) -Telephone Service

The greatest development took place in the field of telephone services. From a mere 13 650 telephones and 112 exchanges in 1910, the total grew to 1 659 387 telephones and 1939 exchanges in 1972. During the same period party-line services increased to 116 853. Before Union there were no trunk lines of any importance over long distances and in 1927 there were altogether only 198 trunk lines, as against a total of 25 504 in 1972, linking about 3 500 places.

Automatic switching

The first automatic telephone exchanges were installed at Camps Bay (Cape Town) and Waterkloof (Pretoria) in 1922. Subsequently automatic exchanges were opened at Overport (Durban) in 1923; Cambridge (East London, semi-automatic) in 1923; Rosebank and Parkview(Johannesburg) in 1924 and Port Elizabeth and Pietermaritzburg in 1925.In 1931 three new automatic exchanges were opened in the Eastern Province, at East London, Cape Road and Walmer. In 1932 six exchanges were opened on the Reef and in Jan. 1934 four exchanges in Cape Town. The automation programme continued to progress so that by March 1938, 40 automatic exchanges existed throughout the country. Because of the high costs involved it was only possible to extend the system to country districts at a much later stage. Although the first country automatic exchange was installed at KingWilliam’s Town in 1938, it was not until 196o with the installation of the Klerksdorp and Paarl exchanges, that the programme was taken up in earnest.In March 1971 there were 199 automatic telephone exchanges, serving approximately 80% of the telephone subscribers in the Republic. Regarding the automation of the trunk system the position has been reached where automatic dialling between all automatic areas, including automatic party lines throughout the country, is now possible.Displays of posting boxes, date stamps, photographs, furniture and fittings portray the history of posts as far back as 1501. In the absence of actual items, models are constructed. It is intended, too, to use modern equipment and working models to show the complexity and extent of modern communications in South Africa.

Source: Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa – Volume 9

Tags: A. B. Edgson, A. B. Roberts, A. C. Howard, A. H. W. Moodie, A. J. Norris, A. O'Reilly, A. V. Bergh, A. W. de la Hunt, Adriaan Vincent Bergh, Aegidius Benedictus Ziervogel, Aguada de Säo Bras, B. van der Karst, C. A. Dormehl, C. M. Hibberd, C. Piers, D. G. A. Falck, Dr. B. O. Kellner, Dr. D. F. Malan, Edward Wilson, F. Becker, F. Jeppe, F. Spring, Frank Brown, G. F. P. Hurford, G. W. Aitchison, George Heys, George Ireland, H. Jeppe, H. Sybouts, I. N. van Alphen, J. A. de Vogel, J. A. le Smear, J. Ayliff, J. Chadwick, J. Frank Brown, J. Heijermans, J. Holland, J. P. Symons, J. W. Coleman, Joao da Nova, Lord Charles Somerset, M. M. Gall, Pero Cabral, Pero d'Ataide, Post office stone, R. Crozier, R. I. Finnemore, Red Star line, S. R. French, Sir David Baird, W T. Hoal, W. Caldwell, W. G. Hamilton, W. H. Canisius, William Collins, Zeederberg brothers