November 15, 2007
By Lucille Davie
THE people of Roodepoort got their way last night; amid quiet enthusiasm the Roodepoort Museum re-opened this week.
Closed in April last year because of budgetary constraints, the community fought against the closure, taking the issue to Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, and eventually winning. On Wednesday, 14 November, about 50 people gathered in a marquee alongside the museum to celebrate its re-launch.
The mayoral committee member for community development, Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, said, "I commend the community of Roodepoort for your tireless efforts in re-opening the museum."
She said that Masondo had insisted that the department of arts, culture and heritage services listen to the Roodepoort community's concerns. The head of the department, Steven Sack, drove the negotiations. "Because of listening to one another, we are re-opening this museum. The message is that the government listens," Mayathula-Khoza said.
Nation-building
It was possible to use heritage as a tool for nation-building, moral renewal and as a contribution to economic development and job creation. "We will ensure access to those who want to learn more. Never, ever again will the museum be closed."
A Victorian living room
Sack emphasised the point. "A social imperative won against an economic imperative. It can't always be about rands and cents, it must be about people."
Several cost-cutting measures were put in place – a staff complement of eight permanent and seven part-time members has been cut to one full-time member; and the museum guides will be paid for by the private sector.
The museum, with its accompanying reference library, is popular with the Roodepoort community. In the 1960s the West Rand Historical Society started collecting and preserving local items and books of heritage value. In 1963 it donated this collection to the city council of Roodepoort.
With council funds and donations, the Roodepoort Museum was opened in a house in Dieperick Street in April 1972. The collection continued to grow and had soon outgrown the house. In March 1982 it moved into space in the newly built Civic Centre in Christiaan de Wet Road, Florida Park. The centre also houses the Pro Musica Theatre.
10 000 items
A substantial proportion of the museum's 10 000 items consists of porcelain, from Royal Dux and Royal Dorchester to Chinese, Japanese and Dutch items. South African ceramics have also been collected over the years.
"It's a collection you won't see elsewhere," says Carolina Geldenhuys, the former curator of the museum and now the senior curator of exhibitions at Museum Africa.
There are other special items – art deco figurines, a Jackson Hlungwane sculpture, a 1699 Dutch family bible, and Irma Stern, Walter Battiss and Maggie Laubscher paintings.
There are 1 500 items on display at the museum, while the rest of its collection has been moved to Museum Africa, as part of the cost-saving measures.
The museum displays a complete early Voortrekker house - a kitchen, a voorkamer, and a bedroom, all jammed with period furniture and the necessities of 19th century life. This gives way to an authentic late Victorian parlour and bedroom, allowing the visitor to step back 100 years.
Other rooms include a 1920s lounge, complete with stand-up long-playing record player with 6-7 millimetre records, and Shirley Temple doll; and a 1930s lounge filled with art deco furniture and ornaments.
Friends of the museum
When it was decided to close the museum last year, the Friends of Roodepoort Museum was formed. The group made it very clear that it intended to fight for "the memory of the region's culture, achievements and values".
Councillor Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, Friends of the Roodepoort Museum chair Brian Watkins and Steven Sack cut the ribbon at the re-launch of the museum
The storerooms and basements were cleared, and the collection moved to Museum Africa in Newtown, where it will be preserved by staff at that museum. "It is a dynamic partnership," said Sack, "it has enabled us to ensure that the primary focus of staff at Roodepoort will be public education."
The friends will pay the part-time salaries of guides at the museum, a function considered necessary to appreciate the museum's collection, particularly for school groups.
The town of Roodepoort dates from before Johannesburg, when in 1884 Fred and Harry Struben discovered the first payable gold in the area at what they called the Confidence Reef, a large rocky outcrop in the centre of the town. The reef ran dry a year later but by 1886 the main reef in Joburg was discovered.
These days Roodepoort is a sprawling residential area, in parts dominated by light industry and small businesses. It gets its name from the red soil in the area - Roodepoort means "red valley" in Afrikaans. Before 1884 the area was settled by Boer farmers scattered across nine farms.
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