May 2, 2006
By Lucille Davie
IT was an operation any army chief would be proud of - it took many hours of planning and, once it swung into action, it went as smoothly as the men landing on the moon.
The operation was the removal of the Zeederberg coach, the only original mail coach in the country, from the old Africana Museum hall in the CBD to Museum Africa in Newtown.
It is just one of many exhibits at the museum, detailing the fascinating history of South Africa. And it arrived in Newtown after a long, circuitous route worthy of a country mail coach.
The Africana Museum, on the top floor of the central library on Beyers Naude Square, was closed in 1994 to take up new premises at the back of the Market Theatre in the old Edwardian market building. Everything was packed up and there was never any doubt that the large coach - about two metres high and four metres across - was to make its way there too.
But how to get it there? The usual tendering process was followed, says Sandra de Wet, the manager of information services for the City's arts, culture and heritage services unit, who remembers sitting on the roof opposite the museum in President Street, watching the delicate removal.
Elliott International was chosen as the removal company. After much head-scratching, it was decided to open the roof of the museum, and after the wheels of the coach had been removed, to lift its body through the roof and on to a truck, by means of a crane. It wasn't a difficult task, says Brad Barker of Elliott, which specialises in unusual jobs. "It was right up our street."
The coach was then transported to Museum Africa on the truck and brought in through an entrance on the western side of the building. "It was pushed in with a steam-driven forklift," says De Wet, and then lifted to its final resting place on the balcony opposite the entrance to the museum.
The operation took the whole day - 14 February 1995.
But this was not the first time the coach had had its wheels removed in preparation for a move.
In 1924 the Zeederberg coach was sent to England to be exhibited at the South African pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley. But it stayed in the United Kingdom after the exhibition, probably because of the cost of transporting it back to the colony, and ended up as an exhibit in the Hull Museum in Kingston-upon-Hull.
In 1939, on the eve of World War One, the idea was mooted that it should be returned to South Africa but it was only in 1947 that the high commissioner in London approached the town clerk of Kingston-upon-Hull to have the Zeederberg returned. The request originated from the National Monuments Commission.
1960s chief librarian of the central library, Anna Smith, with visitor, standing in front of the coach
(pic: copyright Museum Africa PH2005/16010)
It was transported back to South Africa on a Union Castle liner, at Union Castle's cost, when the commission "made noises about such a rare piece of Africana being kept outside of South Africa", says De Wet. But it nearly didn't make it up to Joburg.
"The commission presented it to the then Africana Museum [in Joburg], although some attempt was made to keep it in Cape Town." It finally arrived at the museum in the late 1950s.
That was a major operation - albeit involving more muscle power than machinery - to take it up several flights of stairs to the top level of the Africana Museum. The wheels were removed and it took 15 workers eight hours to manoeuvre it to its position on the top floor.
Well-travelled coach
The Zeederberg is a well-travelled piece of equipment. It was ordered by CH Zeederberg and Company in 1895 and built by Abbot Downing Company in Concord, New Hampshire, in the United States.
"It is thought to have been used on the Salisbury (Harare) to Pietersburg mail route and later on the Mafeking-Bulawayo and Pretoria-Leydsdorp routes," De Wet says.
According to the Coach House website, Polokwane (previously Pietersburg) was the starting point of many coach routes. The Coach House is built on the foundations of the old Strachan Hotel, a staging post on the coach route. "Parts of this old coach road are still in existence, with many stretches of the present road on New Agatha following the old route."
Some 59 coaches were imported into the country, says Peter Hall, the curator of the James Hall Museum of Transport in Pioneer Park. "By 1893 there were 16 operating companies running routes totalling 2 830 kilometres."
These operators included Cobbs, Forsman, Gibson Brothers, Hallis, Heys and Zeederberg. "The coaches were used extensively during the South African War to transport troops and officers quickly to the front lines, as well as to deliver mail to the various commands."
The 1895 Zeederberg Coach, with seats on top of the cabin and luggage space at the back
The coach would seat 12 passengers inside and two on top, together with the driver, co-driver and luggage. It was usually pulled by 16 mules at a speed of 20 kilometres an hour. It was only once the threat of tsetse fly was overcome that up to 12 horses were used to pull the coaches.
Hall says that at one point, a team of zebras was used in the Kimberley area, but the idea was soon discarded as the animals were not suited to the task. Trips by coach could be hazardous - drivers had to negotiate mountain passes, swollen rivers, muddy tracks and attacks by wild animals and highwaymen.
A coach being pulled by eight horses
(pic: copyright Museum Africa PH2005/16018)
In 1951 seven replica coaches were built for the 300th anniversary of Jan van Riebeeck's landing in the Cape, to be celebrated the following year. One of these replicas is housed in the transport museum. Hall believes others exist in the Kimberley and Pretoria museums, and possibly in the Pilgrim's Rest area in Mpumalanga.
The coach at Museum Africa is looking a little worn, with its leather seating and leather inner coverings wrinkled and crumbling, but how many modern vehicles will still be around a century from now?
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