Bisset, WM

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Lack of glamour may accountforthe neglect of itshistory between 1806 and the present. The Britishgarrison is generally remembered for its threeattempts to demol ish the Castle as well as for theadditions they made to the building. The Britishplan of 1913 for example shows the buildingsbeneath the Castle walls. These include drawingoffices, a carpenter's shop, stores and a machinegun shed between Buren and Katzenellenbogenand gun sheds, an arti lIery store and an ArmyService Corps coal store between Katzenellen-bogen and Nassau. A miniature cartridge rangeand a fives court were situated between theOranje and Nassau bastions and there were twotemporary huts in the inner courtyard. Afascinating but somewhat unflattering descrip-When one considers the neglect of the Castle byhistorians one should bear in mind that from1811, when the civilian government offices weremoved to the Old Supreme Court Building, to1952, the year of the Van Riebeeck Festival, theCastle was nothing more nor less than a militaryheadquarters. It is probably for this reason thatthe Prince CJfWales visited Groot Constantiawhen he was in Cape Town in 1925 and not theCastle. The Cape Times photographs files on theRoyal Visit of 1947 likewise contain nophotographs of it although ami Iitary visitor, thethen Chief of the Imperial General Staff, FieldMarshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein gave alecture there in 1948. However, this argumentmay be an oversimplification because H. M. KingGeorge II of Greece visited the Castle duringWorld War.3To mark the tercentenary of the completion of theCastle a pictorial history has been planned andthanks to the enthusiastic response of theDocumentation Service, SADF, the Cape Times,Cape Field Artillery, Cape Town Naval Cadets,Miss L. Bean, Commander W. J. Copenhagen,aBE, and Mrs C. J. Molteno, it is hoped thatanother important gap in the Castle's history willbe filled.A NEW LOOK AT THE CASTLE OFGOOD HOPE ,AND ITS SYMBOLICIMPORTANCELt w. M. Bisset, SANcentury and in the early years of the present one.It is particularly interesting to see photographs ofthe trees and tennis court in the outer courtyard,the rescue rocket wagon and the sal uti ng battery.Mr E. Rosenthal's 300 Years of the Castle at CapeTown is important because it contains many ofthe fascinating Ell iott Collection photographs ofthe Castle which were published by kindpermission of the Cape Archives. Theseexcellent records remind us vividly what Iife waslike when the building was occupied by theBritish garrison in the latter years of the lastMiss A. C. Ras has written the early history of theCastle and its predecessors in Die Kasteel envroee vestingswerke aan die Kaap 1652-1715.Contributions by Col J. Ploeger have also shedimportant new light on the subject. It now seemshighly likely for example that the Castle wasdesigned by a Dutch Military architect and not byLouis XIV's famous military engineer Sebastiande Vauban, for it has been argued ~at in 1665when the Castle was planned Vauban had not yetmade his name as a military engineer.2 Dr P. W.Laidler's A Tavern of the Ocean which was firstpublished in 1926 also contains much valuableinformation.In April 1979 the Castle celebrated the 300thanniversary of its completion. It is fitting at thistime to examine both its neglect by historians aswell as the importance which it has acquired as acultural symbol of South Africa. Although theCastle is mentioned in countless books andarticles and has been a military nerve centre intimes of peace, war and civil unrest, unfortunate-ly Iittle scholarly work on the subject1has beenpubl ished and a book devoted to the entirehistory of the Castle has yet to be written. It isimportant to note here that whereas so many ofour fortifications have had a limited militarylifespan, the Castle is still very much in usetoday, being the Headquarters of WesternProvince Command.The Castle of Good Hope has been described asunquestionably the 'oldest and historically themost interesting building in the country'.1 Yet it isoften forgotten that its development as ashowplace reminding countless visitors of SouthAfrica's early architectural achievements andEuropean roots, is a recent phenomenon whichreceived its most significant boost at the VanRiebeeck Festival in 1952.1Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zation of it during the 1860's is to be found in Life atthe Cape a Hundred Years Ago, by a Lady4 Itshould not be forgotten either that the last BritishGeneral Officer Commanding in South Africa,Maj Genl C. W. Thompson, CB, DSO (1913-1916)did much valuable conservation and restorationwork.5It is interesting to compare these remarks withthose on the 1913 Skeleton Record Plan of theCastle Sheet 1 which states that it 'is built ofirregular rubble stone work, bricks and Dutchclinkers laid in shell lime, and clay mortarrammed with gravel. It is still in a good state ofpreservation. 'View on the courtyard of the Castle from the cat balcony.The fact that the Castle's guns have never fired ashot in anger may be another reason why it hasnot attracted much academic attention. The twomain military weaknesses of the Castle werementioned by Lt Genl R. H. Wynyard in a letterdated 22 January 1862 to the Governor of CapeColony (Sir Philip Wodehouse). Although GenlWynyard considered that the Amsterdam Batteryand the Castle were the only fortifications whichmight 'be called works of defence' he wrote thatboth were 'quite inadequate to resist the powerfulguns that may at any time be brought againstthem. The ramparts and parapets are command-ed on the landside and the buildings are fastfall ing into decay from the effects of time' and thepoor material from which they were constructed62For many years prior to 1820 a gun was fired fromthe Castle to mark sunrise and sunset. By 1807the practice of firing a noon gun from the ImhoffBattery had been adopted, but was later firedfrom the Castle before being moved to LionBattery on Signal Hi II on 4 August 1902?Although it is not known exactly when the firing ofanything other than saluting guns was disallow-ee at the Castle, by 17 Apri I 1884 Lt Col BertieHobart (Commanding Royal Artillery, SouthAfrica) considered it 'dangerous and reprehen-sible' to do so 'among inhabited buildings'. Hewrote a letter strongly condemning the action ofLt Bell who had used 'too large a bursting charge,though the firing charge was little more than aScientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zaquarter of the lowest service cartridge.sNontheless, in 1889 the Castle and Imhoff Batterywere sti II armed with 44 guns.9Saluting guns continued to be fired until fairlyrecently and a contemporary newspaper reportrecords that the saluting battery on Katzenellen-bogen bastion fired a Royal Salute in honour ofthe birthday of H. M. King Edward VIII at noon on23 June 1936.10Gun salutes are now fired fromLion Battery on Signal Hill.Those who consider the history of the Castle to beuninteresting have obviously forgotten its vitalrole as a military headquarter since 1674, and asthe seat of government until 1811. Although fewphotographs taken of the Castle during the twoworld wars have been traced, one taken in 1916reveals that Capt L. Beyers (later Lt Gen andChief of the General Staff from 1949-50) and thedistinguished South African Historian Capt E. A.Walker of the Cape Garrison Artillery, bothserved there. Two other South African historianshave commanded famous regiments based atthe Castle. Lt-Col Dr C. Graham-Botha, VD,commanded the Duke of Edinburgh's Own Riflesfrom 1935-1937 and Cmdt (now Col) N. D. Orpen,JCD, commanded the Cape Field Artillery from1953-1955. It is also fortunate that those whoselected subjects for our World War II war artiststo record did not neglect the Castle. Fourdrawings by Gordon Taylor depicting differentviews are described in the Complete Catalogueof SA War Art 1939-45, but perhaps even morevaluable are the two watercolour paintings byMiss Madge Bean, now in the Military Museum,which recorded the colour scheme of thebuilding in 1921. Silhouettes painted on theinterior walls of the Castle remind us that it wasalso the headquarters of the coast gunners whomanned the once vital Simon's Bay and TableBay Defences. In addition to their normal dutiesas coast gunners these men were responsible forrescuing the passengers and crews of shipswrecked off the Cape, and the Table Bay rescuerocket wagon was kept in a gun shed beneath thewalls of the Katzenellenbogen and Oranjebastions for this purpose.Whilst the conducted tours of the Castle includevisits to the 'black hole' in which Adam Tas wasimprisoned and the cells on Katzenellenbogenwhere the Zulu King Cetshwayo was imprisonedfor a short while before being removed to OudeMolen at Mowbray in 1879, few people are awarethat the British Detention Rooms in the Castle arestill in 'n good state of preservation. The grilles3covering the windows of the cells can be seenabove the steps leading to the entrance of theMaritime Museum. It should also be rememberedthat Chief Sekhukhune was imprisoned here in1879.11The savage British Army practice of flogging onthe triangle was not abolished in time of peaceuntil 1868 and in 1880 in time of war, so it is amistake to think that the sufferings of prisoners ormembers of the garrison ceased at a far earlierdate.The importance of the Castle in South Africa'snaval history is unfortunately seldom remember-ed. It was here, from mid-October 1939 untilmid-January 1940, that Rear-Admiral G. W.Hall ifax, CMG, took the steps which ensured thatSouth Africa's second attempt to establ ish a navydid not fail.12 And it was in the nearby formerRoyal Engineers Yard beneath the Oranje andLeerdam bastions that the Royal VolunteerReserve (SA) Base and Wardroom stood andwhere so many of our volunteer sailors, membersof the Cape Town Naval Corps and Sea Scoutsunderwent training until wartime expansionnecessitated their moving to a new base, HMSASUnitie, in Table Bay Docks in 1942.A report in the Cape Times of 29 December 1923records that Brig Gen W. E. C. Tanner, CB, CMG,DSO had kindly offered the Cape Town NavalCadet Corps accommodation at the Castle.13Because of these naval associations, it wasfitting, therefore, that the Castle would have beenchasen to house South Africa's first purelymaritime museum, opened by Admiral H. H.Bierman, SSA, SD, OBE on 18 May 1971, and thatthe recently adopted South African Navy emblemshould incorporate its outline. One of the mostappropriate exhibits in the Maritime Museum is asplended builder's model of the 27000 ton RMSCape Town Castle which is displayed near twoimportant relics from this ship: the ship's bell andan oil painting of the Castle in 1938 by ProfessorEdward Roworth. Also exhibited is the WilliamFehr Collection, one of the finest of maritime art irlSouth Africa.Although the writer has not been able to trace anydirect South African Air Force links with theCastle other than a South African Aviation Corpsgroup photograph taken in front of the 'NieuweKat' or Kat Balcony, it should be rememberedthat four distinguished airmen have served asOfficer Commanding Cape Command (as theScientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zapost was then known): Brig (later Maj-Gen, CBE)K. R. van der Spuy, MC (1 February - 2 October1937), Brig (later Maj-Gen, CB) C. J. Venter, DFC(13 July 1939 - 4 November 1940), Brig (laterMaj-Gen) ri. G. Willmott, CBE (16 October 1946-18 September 1947) and Brig J. Daniel, CBE (27January 1948 - 13 December 1950).Although the Castle was proclaimed a nationalmonument in 1936, it was not until the VanRiebeeck Festival in 1952 that it began toassume its present importance. Two eventscontributed greatly to this development. TheCastle was chosen as the 'centrepiece of theFestival's historic art exhibitions,14 and thesewere displayed in the old State Rooms, theballroom, converted barracks and rooms in theouter courtyard, and opened by His Excellencythe Governor-General (Dr the Honourable E. G.Jansen) on 20 February 1952. The fabulouscollections of Africana paintings, drawings,china, glass, pottery, Cape Furniture and silverand their eminently suitable temporary homemade a deep impression on the public, so it washardly surprising that attempts were made topersuade Mr (later Dr) William Fehr to continue tolend his collection to the Nation when theexhibition ended. This collection was purchasedfrom Dr Fehr in 1964.Two later events hastened what one might almostcall the renaissance of the Castle. Son et Lumiere- the unforgettable presentation in sound andlight of its hisotry between 1666 and 1890,produced by Margot Bryant in the middle 1960'sand presented by the Department of Education,Arts and Science with the aid of the FrenchAssociation for the Preservation of HistoricalMonuments, which did much to heighten publicawareness of the Castle's beauty and historicimportance.Secondly, in 1966 a former dormitory on the firstfloor between Katzenellenbogen and Nassauwas converted into the Military Museum by ateam led by Major (now Brig) L. S. Kruger, SMand opened by the Cmdt-Gen, SADF, Gen R. C.Hiemstra, SSA, SM on 25 November of that year.A signal honour was also bestowed on 'the firstmajor fortress in South Afri ca' on 6 Apri I 1952when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth lion therecommendation of her Prime Minister, Dr theHonourable D. F. Malan instituted the Castle ofGood Hope Decoration (CGH) as South Africa'shighest award for valour in place of the VictoriaCross, and the Van Riebeeck Decoration andMedal for 'distinguished service against anenemy in the field'. All three awards incorporatedthe Castle's outline.Scottish dancers taking part in the military tattoo whichwas part of the tercentennial festival which the Castlecelebrated.4Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zaFurthermore, in 1957 the Castle was chosen toreplace the crown as a South African DefenceForce rank badge and it has since been widelyused in other heraldic symbols. The emblems ofthe South African Defence Force, Army, Air Forceand Navy all incorporate this pentagonal design.The symbol ic importance of the Castle issomething which is perhaps seldom realisedeven though the pentagon is so well known.Despite the inadequacy of the building as afortress, it should never be forgotten that the taskof erecting it so far from Europe between 1665and 1679 was a very considerable logisticachievement. The fact that the fortress is basedon a European design and was built with acombination of imported and local materials isan encouraging reminder that South Africa is nostranger to mil itary self-sufficiency.While some of the distinguished soldiers, airmenand sailors who have served at the Castle havebeen mentioned above, there are three ill ustriousfigures who have been associated with it in otherways. The present Chief of the South AfricanDefence Force, Gen M. A. de M. Malan, SSA, SD,SM was Officer Commanding Western ProvinceCommand from 4 January 1972 until 2 January1973 and Maj-Gen W. H. Poole, CB, CBE, DSOwas Commander Cape Fortress from 1 July until6 August 1942. Both officers then held the rank ofbrigadier. (Other designations have been OfficerCommanding Number 1 Military District from1914 to about 1932, Officer Commanding CapeCommand, Commander Cape Fortress duringWorld War II and from about 1961 OfficerCommanding Western Province Command.)Drill performance by members of Coloured Corps at thetattoo.5Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.zaAlthough the writer has been unable to trace aphotograph of General Smuts at the Castle, itshould not be forgotten that he was in favour bothof the establ ishment there of a museum and of theCastle's conversion into a South Africanequivalent of the Tower of London or EdinburghCastle. Nor should the highly important restora-tion work which was undertaken by the UnionGovernment after it had assumed responsibilityfor the Castle and other fortifications on 1December 1921 be forgotten. The history of thishas been written by Colonel Dr J. Ploeger.'5But perhaps the most important thing about theCastle today is that it occupies an increasinglyimportant place in all our hearts. For many yearsit has been the central point from which youngmen have left Cape Town for military service inwar and peace, and until recently it housed theSouth African Defence Force Recruiting Centre.When the trained men of our Citizen Force Unitsand Commandos return home it is here that thejoyful reunion with parents, wives, sweetheartsand children takes place.A!though there is no longer a church or chapel,rei igious services have been held at the Castlesince it was built and drumhead church servicesand church parades continue to be held. Dr J.D.Vorster has often officiated at Western ProvinceCommand Church Parades.The Castle occupies an important place in ourpostal history and has its own distinctive datestamp. In 1914 there was a 16 bed non-dietedhospital in the Castle, which, soon after theoutbreak of the First World War, was taken overfrom the Royal Army Med ical Corps by the SAMedical Corps.'6The Castle's link with Sea Scouts have beenmentioned above. On 28 July 1916, South AfricanBoy Scouts who had done war work on the homefront were invited to a tea party on the lawn at theCastle by the General Officer Commanding,6South African Military Command, Maj Gen C. W.Thompson, CB, DSO and presented with cardsthanking them for their valuable help.It is easy to discover gaps in our military historybut far more difficult to fill them. Nonetheless,there will be a great many people at home andabroad wh6will welcome a scholarly work on thehistory of the Castle and it is hoped that they willnot have too many years to wait.FOOT. NOTES1. J. J. Oberholster: The Historical Moments of South Africa. (TheRembrandt van Rijn Foundation for Culture. 1972), p 5.2. Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa. Vol3 (J. Ploeger: TheCastle). pp 122-125; Militaria 2/2 1970 (J. Ploeger: 'Die KasteelDe Goede Hoop') (1921-1923) Die verhaal van 'n reddings-daad, pp 27-46 and Military Architecture in the Netherlands andher former colonies (1500-1800) pp. 61-713 The Nongqai, Vol 36, June 1944 (C Graham-Botha. VD: TheCastle of Good Hope), p 6454. A Lady: Life at the Cape a Hundred Years Ago, (1962) pp112-1145 Militaria 2/2 1970 (J Ploeger: lac cit) p 446. Cape Archives GH 28/78: Letter from Lieutenant General R. H.Wynyard to Sir P. Wodehouse. 22 January 1862.7. Lion Battery Fort Record Book8. Letter from Commanding Royal Artillery South Africa to DeputyAdjudant General Cape Town, 17 April 18949. E. P. Mathers, South Africa and how to Reach it by the CastleLine, 1889, p 3810 The Cape Argus, 23 June 1936. pp 12-1311 C. F. Goodfellow: Great Britain and the South AfricanConfederation (1870-1881) (Oxford. 1966). p 178.12. L. C. F. Turner. H. R. Gordon -Cumming and J. E. Betzler: Warin the Southern Oceans 1939-45 (Oxford. 1961). p 19.13. The Cape Times, 29 December 1923 (A P Moore-Anderson:Sailors in the Making).14. Van Riebeeck Festival Official Festival Programme 1952, pp23-24.15 Militaria, 2/2 1970 (J. Ploeger loc cit), p 44.16 Commando, April 1961 (0 a Stratford: The South AfricanMedical Corps in the South West Africa Campaign) p 14.Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 9, Nr 3, 1979. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za

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A new look at the castle of good hope and its symbolic importance

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A new look at the castle of good hope and its symbolic importance

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