January 1, 2004
By Lucille Davie
CURIOUS about the origins of your suburb? Well, a new series on the history of the city's suburbs, starting with Parkhurst, is being researched.
Author Tim Truluck has just produced "The Centenary Map of Parkhurst, 1903-2003", and has plans in the pipeline to move on to researching Melville and Northcliff, with other suburbs to follow, in a fold-out brochure.
The brochure describes in an easy-to-read, anecdotal style the history of the suburb, along with several maps and a graph showing how plot sales progressed from 1919.
Evolution of the suburb from a clutch of random homesteads in 1919, to density levels similar to today by 1955
The suburb, about six kilometres north-west of the city centre, came into being in 1904, a slice of the original farm Braamfontein, now an area of 162.3 hectares or about 300 soccer pitches. These days it's a trendy suburb, with many renovated homes on small plots snapped up by singles, childless couples and young yuppies. Its 4th Avenue bustles with pavement restaurants, and antiques and décor shops.
Truluck's description makes it sound very desirable as an alternative to the dusty bowl of the town centre of the early 20th century: "It was located on the slopes of one of Johannesburg's deceptively steep hulls and as it was farm land, its western, southern and northern boundaries follow the courses of two small spruits. It was an unvaried terrain of grassy veld, deep erosion ditches and green pastures near the water courses. There were a few market gardeners, some dairy farmers, brickworks and not much else."
When Parkhurst was divided into 2 147 stands, an ad was placed in The Transvaal Critic of October 1903. It was somewhat innovative for the conservative times:
This charming little tin-roofed house on a corner is the suburb's oldest residence
"It you wish to own a site for a home where your wife will be happy, where you can have pure water, God's sunshine in every room, a piazza to enjoy in the evening, the opportunity to bring up your children as children who have made this nation have been reared, you should not miss this chance . . . If you wish to pay rent always, stay away . . . Never again in the history of Johannesburg Real Estate will you be able to buy Stands for the Price and Terms we offer you. JUST THINK OF IT! Almost in the heart of town, only about four miles from Market Square, through the most beautiful and picturesque part of Johannesburg."
Stands sold for £100 each. A competition was held to decide on the name of the suburb, and over 11 000 entries from around the country were received. Names suggested were Santa Clause Grove, Johannesburg Continued and Residents Grassy Paradise.
It took three council judges a month to sort through the entries, and they eventually, mysteriously, named the new suburb after a well-known English jail on the Isle of Wight called Parkhurst, often called Britain's Alcatraz.
In the 1930s Parkhurst received its sewerage service, electricity, piped water, municipal gas, tarred roads, canalisation of the spruit running through the suburb, and bridges.
These are just some of the interesting facts that Truluck mentions in his brochure. Others include the ten oldest houses in the suburbs; its postwar developments; the "Parkhurst Affair", a housing tiff between the government and entrepreneur Isodore Schlesinger; ten things to do in Parkhurst; and common street trees in the suburb.
The brochure sells for R10, and is available at over 50 outlets in Parkhurst as well as at Exclusive Books in Hyde Park, which has had to re-order copies after selling out its first batch.
Truluck hopes to eventually produce a history of all Joburg's suburbs in one publication. Contact him on ttruluck@lantic.net or 011 442 5201 for your copy.
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