The gracious Coronation Fountain in the centre of the Lake

Hermann Eckstein with his wife

Hermann Eckstein, 'corner stone' of the city By Lucille Davie Hermann Eckstein spent just five years in early Johannesburg before dying a young man - yet in that time became one of the city's most powerful men. Hermann Ludwig Eckstein was born in Hohenheim near Stuttgart on 3 August 1847, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. In 1882 he was appointed manager of the Phoenix Diamond Mining Company in Kimberley. Here he met Randlords Julius Wernher and Alfred Beit, and later accompanied them to the gold fields of Barberton, as a partner in their firm, Jules Porges & Co (later Wernher, Beit & Co). In the meantime gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886, and Beit bought extensive mining rights in Johannesburg. Eckstein moved to Johannesburg to take charge of Beit's company. Within two years four mining finance houses were formed, one of them Eckstein's, called H Eckstein, which "not only showed results, but became a mining and financial oracle of Johannesburg", according to Maryna Fraser, archivist at Barlowworld, previously Rand Mines, writing in Afrikaner Notes & News. "Hermann Eckstein became the most prominent man on the Witwatersrand, respected not only for his unquestionable ability and integrity as a businessman, but also for his kindness and generosity," writes Fraser. He began to be known as the industry's "corner stone" and the name of his offices, Eckstein's Building, was called the "Corner House" (later called Rand Mines), according to the South African Dictionary of National Biography. "Eckstein's skill in financial transactions and his unimpeachable integrity made him a respected man in a community where dishonesty was rife. He became a leading figure in the Johannesburg mining industry." The Dictionary goes on to say that by 1888 "he controlled all the mining activities in the central area of the Witwatersrand, and dominated the eleven most important syndicates". He was involved in the move to deep level mining, when surface mining dried up. He diversified his mining interests, going into banking and cement making. He was a founding member of the Chamber of Mines, and its first president from 1889 to 1892. He was a founding member of the Rand Club, a prestige club created for the Randlords, and first president of the Wanderers' Club. In 1892 he was offered a partnership in Wernher, Beit & Co, in their London office. He left Johannesburg with his wife (she was pregnant with their fourth child) and three children, but he didn't live long enough to see his newborn. His health had deteriorated, and on 16 January 1893 he died of "apoplexy of the heart", probably a heart attack. Ten years after his death his former partners offered the city the Sachsenwald forest, to be called the Hermann Eckstein Park, in his memory. This Deed of Gift said: "Whereas the later Hermann Eckstein was in his lifetime a resident in the town of Johannesburg and always took a deep interest in its advancement and prosperity, and an active part in many schemes and undertakings for its improvement and whereas it has appeared to us that the dedication of a suitable area of land to the use of the public of Johannesburg, as a public park, would have met with the cordial approval of our late friend and will be acceptable to fellow townsmen . . ." The Deed was signed by Julius Wernher, Alfred Beit, Lionel Phillips, Ludwig Breitmeyer, Friedrich Eckstein (his brother), Charles Rube and Ludwig Wagner. RELATED ARTICLES: Zoo Lake water cleaned up A new purification system cleans animal droppings out of both the Zoo and Zoo Lake water Read more Mud balls rescue Zoo Lake School children fling mud balls into Zoo Lake as part of an eco-friendly rescue mission. Read more Johannesburg Zoo Your guide to one of the city's top family attractions Read more Denis Beckett on Zoo Lake The well-known TV personality on his favourite corner of Johannesburg Read more Zoo night drives The zoo comes alive at night - book for a night drive Read more Animal enrichment A special 'enrichment' programme designed to make captivity a little happier for animals Read more

The island at Zoo Lake in winter

Zoo Lake: the park that defied apartheid November 4, 2002 By Lucille Davie IN 1904 the founders of Johannesburg did something quite extraordinary in a country where, even before apartheid, blacks and whites were living separate lives: they proclaimed that Zoo Lake and the Johannesburg Zoo open to all races. A condition of the gift of the Zoo and Zoo Lake to the city was that the areas remain open to people of all races. And that's just what happened over the next nine decades - in a city where amenities were increasingly segregated, Zoo Lake and the Zoo remained open to all. Tasneem Carrim, acting head of communications for the City of Johannesburg, recalls that Zoo Lake became one of the most popular amenities for the Indian community: "When I was growing up, we used to drive all the way to Zoo Lake from Pretoria on festive days, bringing our picnic along, because there was just nowhere else to go. People came from as far away as Rustenburg [some 180 kilometres]." Attempts were made to segregate Zoo Lake, but these were rebuffed. For example, in 1958, penny whistle player and kwela (Zulu for "get up") exponent, Spokes Mashiyane, played at the Lake. A history of Zoo Lake compiled by Lucy Taylor, co-ordinator of the Zoo Lake Users' Committee, notes: "There was an outcry in the press when young white women joined the happy throng and were seen gyrating to the music played by a black man." The council was pressured to proclaim the park for whites only in terms of the Separate Amenities Act. Taylor says the council, "having cited the terms of the Deed of Gift which did not distinguish between the people of Johannesburg, said this would be considered only if the government would, in turn, finance an amenity of the same size and nature in a black area". The issue was quietly dropped. How did it happen that a single park in Johannesburg defied the customary segregation? Many of the early Johannesburgers were from western Europe, where, towards the end of the 19th Century, people were debating the issue of public open space in cities. The consensus was that "major public parks should not have restrictions imposed", says Flo Bird, historian and chairman of the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust. Bird suggests that as a result of the French Revolution in the 18th Century, access to royal parks was written into the French Constitution. "Even in Russia where the Czars were perhaps the most repressive of all monarchies, royal parks were accessible to the lowliest Russians." German cities have the Stadtwald or city forest, land that is sacrosanct and available to all. It went further than this: "The German tradition is most interesting, because originally the citizens had a right to gather wood for fuel in the forest, so it was central to their well-being," adds Bird. In 1904 a private forest called the Sachenwald, was given as a "Deed of Gift" to "the inhabitants of Johannesburg . . . to be used for the purpose of a public park" and to be called the Hermann Eckstein Park. The Sachenwald was owned by one of the largest mining companies of the early 20th century, Corner House, begun by Alfred Beit, who had made his fortune with diamonds at Kimberley. Beit moved to Johannesburg after the discovery of the main gold reef in 1886. forming a company with Otto Wernher and Jules Porges, known as Wernher, Beit & Porges. This company later became known as the Corner House, and is today Billiton, one of the biggest mining houses in the world. Hermann Eckstein joined the company, and became the fourth partner. He was an astute businessman, and rose rapidly to become an influential figure in Johannesburg's public life, much like by his colleagues. But he died relatively young, aged 46, when Johannesburg was just seven years old. It was in his honour that his Corner House partners named the forest when they handed it over to the people of Johannesburg. (See our brief biography of Hermann Eckstein) Wernher, Beit and Eckstein were Germans, and they knew about the tradition of public land in cities. Their fellow Randlords, men like JB Taylor, Sir Lionel Phillips, John Dale Lace and Samuel Marks, were born in England, and were also aware of the debate around open public space. To these men it followed then that the Hermann Eckstein Park should allow all races, a decision that the city continued to honour long after their deaths. The irony is that to most of the public, the name of Hermann Eckstein, once one of the city's most prominent men, is largely forgotten - and the park is simply called "Zoo Lake". Trees for Jo'burg Johannesburg is a natural grassland, characterised by rocky outcrops and scattered shrubs, but no trees. In 1886, when gold was discovered, the new town needed wood for building, firewood, and most importantly, for mine props for the rapidly expanding gold-rush town. A planting scheme was put in place. According to Ellen Palestrant in Johannesburg One Hundred, millions of trees were planted: "By 1893 it was estimated that some 25 to 30 million trees had been planted on the Rand and the biggest afforestation scheme was that of Eckstein and Co." Some three million trees were planted in the present-day Zoo Lake and the Johannesburg Zoo, in what Eckstein called Sachsenwald (later Anglicised to Saxonwold and now a suburb of Johannesburg), an area of 1 300 acres. The forest became a favourite picnic and riding area for the wealthy Randlords and their families. Remnants of the forest can still be seen in the Zoo and in the parkland around Zoo Lake. The suburb is still called Forest Town. The broader area includes the SA Museum of Military History and the War Memorial, above the Zoo; the Zoo Lake Swimming Pool, the Zoo Lake Bowling Club; the Zoo Lake Sports Club with tennis courts, hockey, cricket and soccer fields, and an archery field; the Leaves Restaurant and a tea garden; and the Johannesburg City Parks nursery facility and training centre. The area that is now the Lake used to be a marshland. This water came from the Parktown spruit which rises in Valley Road on the Westcliff ridge, and which makes its way through the Zoo, then under Jan Smuts Avenue, to Zoo Lake. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, adventurer, politician and author of Jock of the Bushveld, who was acting head of Rand Mines for a time, housed wild animals he brought back from his hunting trips, in the forest. He brought back a lion that had lost a foot, and kept a baby hippo that lived in the Parktown spruit. Except for the hippo, all the animals were in cages. This eccentric menagerie became one of the "sights" of Johannesburg for the amusement-starved populace, and eventually made up the first stock of the Zoo. A lake is built In 1906 the City Council decided to build a lake in the marshland. Taylor says: "The Lake, which immediately became a major attraction for the people of Johannesburg, was completed in August 1908." Boating on the Lake started in 1911, and "despite numerous drownings", it continues to be a popular weekend activity on the Lake. In 1937, to commemorate the coronation of King George VI, a fountain, called the Coronation Fountain, was built in the middle of the Lake. The spray, lit by red and green lights at night, could be varied in intensity, making the fountain a "landmark in the park". The city was 70 years old in 1956. As part of the city's celebration Margot Fonteyn danced Swan Lake with the Lake as a backdrop. Shortly thereafter, Siegfried Mynhardt played Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, at the Lake. The Lake continues to be a popular spot for Johannesburgers - around 20 000 people use Zoo Lake each week, either for recreational purposes like family outings, birthday parties, picnics, or for outdoor activities like jogging, walking, or boating. Special events like the Jazz on the Lake take place at Zoo Lake too. The fountain continues to spray water high into the air, although the Zoo Lake Users' Committee is in the process of raising money (some R60 000 is still needed) to restore the fountain to its original glory of multi-level water jets, co-ordinated with the green and red lights. The original device that operated this process has been lost, or possibly dumped in the Lake when the pumps were replaced eight years ago. Further restoration includes replacing and waterproofing the 16 light fittings; cleaning off many layers of paint from the base and deciding what colour it should be; and re-waterproofing the pond in the roof of the fountain and building it up to compensate for the slight tilt that the fountain now has. The Committee has other plans for Zoo Lake and the park: an information brochure and a map of the park; an anti-litter programme including placing 20 litter bins in the park; an information centre at the Lake, the construction of a bandstand for concerts; the sale of trees to the public; and an increased security presence. One of the smaller projects is already up and running - the reading of children's stories under the Indaba Tree, a Japanese maple with beautiful spreading branches, just above the boat house. It's an effort to encourage reading among children. Once a month children are encouraged to come and listen to stories under the tree, while their parents bring their own books, and read under the tree too. In August an eco-friendly project to clean the water and restore the ecosystem of Zoo Lake, was undertaken. Bacteria-filled clay balls were thrown into the upper feeder dam. The bacteria acts as a decomposing agent to organic matter in the water, which picks up storm water pollution from the surrounding suburbs and has a high ecoli count at times. The project is already reaping results: the water is clear, and Taylor reports that the bottom of the dam can now be seen. Zoo Lake feeder dam, which is now clear of ecoli On Arbor Day last year the Zoo Lake Users' Committee planted 60 indigenous trees - including wild olives and yellowwoods - in the park. Among the planters were Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs and human rights advocate George Bizos, who continue to take pride in their trees. Artist Fikile Maseko is well known to Zoo Lake users - he positions himself at the Lake and paints it from different angles. Some residents have been coming to the lake for decades, from as far away as Lenasia, 45 kilometres south of the city. Zoo Lake is particularly popular with the Muslim community, who flock to it each December to celebrate Eid. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400