News Archive

HERMANUS HISTORY SOCIETY: Site visit on 22 August 2022 A year ago Dr Pieter Boon gave the society a very interesting talk via Zoom on the history 0f the Leprosy Institute in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley outside Hermanus. During question time at the end of his talk he was asked if […]

Hi Everyone, We hope that you are all well. We are sorry that we are unable to meet and we have thought about zoom meetings. However, we feel there are already many organisations doing this. Certainly, U3A includes some history presentations too: Robin Lee has done Tretchikoff in Hermanus, and […]

Following on last week’s article which presented a picture of how the Group Areas Act led to the segregation of residential areas and amenities in Hermanus during the apartheid era, DR ROBIN LEE of the Hermanus History Society shares his latest research into the high-profile issue of ‘beach apartheid’ during […]

Like all South African human settlements, Hermanus has been shaped in many ways by apartheid. Through his research into how the Group Areas Act led to the segregation of residential areas and amenities, DR ROBIN LEE presents a picture of what was happening in Hermanus during the 1950s and 1960s. […]

As we saw in the previous article, Hermanus society and the founding of NGOs, our town has an abundance of voluntary organisations that work towards the benefit of the community and the environment. Focusing on the conservation of our floral kingdom, the Hermanus Botanical Society took root only after several […]

In this comprehensive new series on the history of Hermanus, DR ROBIN LEE turns his attention to the proliferation of non-government organisations over the past 100 years. Focusing on the issue of conservation of fynbos and other indigenous vegetation, he takes a look at the rather complicated history of early […]

Writer Dr Robin Lee A review of holiday homes in Hermanus covers two categories of accommodation. The  rst category refers to fairly simple, relatively inexpensive holiday homes built in the early days of the development of Voëlklip. The second category is the larger houses that were built by wealthy […]

In Part 5 of this series of articles on the early development of business in Hermanus, DR ROBIN LEE of the Hermanus History Society turns his attention to the large number of references to formal and informal gathering places for residents and visitors that his research has brought to light. […]

By the 1950s, business and domestic life in Hermanus co-existed side-by-side. Many of the town’s early settler families lived in traditional fishermen’s cottages on large erven that were used for keeping livestock and growing food, also for commercial purposes and to house employees. In Part 4 of this series of […]

In Part 2 of his comprehensive history on the early development of business in Hermanus, DR ROBIN LEE of the Hermanus History Society examined the important factors that allowed businesses to gain momentum in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This week, Part 3 focuses on the period 1915 – […]

In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the earliest moves towards developing businesses in Hermanus, and how they gained momentum in the late 1800s when original settler families, who had arrived as fishermen, entered the property market and bought sites. From the information available for the period 1895 […]

In addition to three books about our fascinating region – Annalize Mouton’s A Bend in the Road, on Tesselaarsdal, Robin Lee’s For Keeps, a collection of articles on the history of Hermanus, and a new illustrated souvenir of Hermanus, Just Hermanus, the culture of books, reading and writing seems to […]

In this article, which forms part of a comprehensive series on the chronological history of Hermanus, Dr ROBIN LEE of the Hermanus History Society focuses on the history and development of the town’s business sector. On 8 March 1978, the local newspaper (then known as The Times of Hermanus) published […]

Generally, the owners and managers of Hermanus hotels kept quiet, orderly establishments. Their guests were mainly middle- to upper-middle-class individuals and families, not given to riotous nights. But sometimes events beyond their control occurred and resulted in a story that would go round the village. Then, it might be passed […]

Hermanus New Harbour, part 2 We can see the second reason that the New Harbour never became the commercial success it could have been. It became the object of arbitrary decisions by the responsible government department that found itself suddenly responsible for “small harbours”. During its first 50 years of […]

Writer: Dr Robin Lee In 1896, two events occurred in Hermanus that began the long life of the town as a tourist destination – as it still is today. The first event was the building of a Sanatorium in Marine Drive. Dr Hoffmann and his wife launched this initiative to […]

In last week’s article (Visbaai – The history of Hermanus as a fishing village) we followed the rise and fall of the fishing economy around Visbaai, resulting in a fishing culture that still lives on. But, Hermanus became equally famous for another kind of fishing, which also had economic consequences, […]

The history of Hermanus as a fishing village 1855-1960 Writer: Dr Robin Lee F or the first 100 years of its life, Hermanus was a fishing village. True, fishing became industrialised, and the village became a town. But, in the popular mind, fishing was the ethos of the settlement, and […]

The Village Explorer Writer: Dr Robin Lee The Overstrand coastline is full of caves. This is because the entire coast and even mountains now kilometres inland were under the sea for millions of years. The Table Mountain Sandstone deposits, which predominate in this area, had many weak spots, and scouring […]

Hermanus Times Writer: Dr Robin Lee To the families who stepped ashore at Hermanuspietersfontein in 1855 it must have seemed Walker Bay (as we know it) would produce never-ending catches of fish. They did not bother to think of a specific name for the cove where they landed. It was […]

Members of the Hermanus History Society have been working with others to produce a really top class introduction to Hermanus, aimed at tourists, and people visiting family or friends. It contains the best photographs of aspects of the town that I have ever seen. I am sending a scan of […]

Vladimir Tretchikoff (1913–2006) remains a very well-known artist of the 20th century, not accorded much value by academics and critics, but extremely popular. He is most famous for the painting Chinese Girl, which has the record of being the original painting of which the highest number of prints have been […]

Writer Dr Robin Lee One of the obvious features of Hermanus history is the large number of famous and well-known people who visited the town during the 20th century. Some came only once, for instance the internationally known English woman pilot, Amy Johnson, who rested for a few days at […]

An application for the total demolition of the old Esplanade Hotel, Marine Drive, Hermanus, has been approved by Heritage Western Cape. Overstrand Heritage and Aesthetics Committee did not support the application and is appealing this decision. We are asking that residents of Hermanus show their support for our appeal by […]

With the CBD revitalisation set to start in High Street next year, Robin Lee and Angela Heslop for the Hermanus History Society weigh in on how this vital project should be dealt with. The 1989 American film Field of Dreams concerns a man obsessed with building a baseball diamond (field) […]

National Library of South Africa The Society will turn 100 in August 2018 and since its inception in 1918, has published one volume of meticulously edited original South African historical documents a year. The Society was established at that time because its founders sought to provide a sense of the […]

Eight members of the Philip clan were among those who attended the informative talk by Prof John de Gruchy entitled Dr John Philip: A prophet before his time, hosted by the Hermanus History Society on 6 August. These descendants of Dr Philip include (from left) Ross Philip with his wife […]

Realising that a very vital heritage site had been lost to Greytonians, Felicity Jervis set about researching and digging to discover where the village’s Old Kraal had been. Since the earliest history of the Weltevredend valley in which Greyton was founded, the plains were inhabited by the Hassequas khoi tribe […]

I have posted a lot of information about Sir William Hoy and just want to tell you about an event that happened last Thursday, 22 March 2018.  Hoy’s grave was an attraction from the start, as can be seen in the image of massed flowers on his grave not long […]

On Sunday 17 September a commemoration was held for Major William Henry Hewitt VC at Sievers Punt in Hermanus. Major Hewitt received his Victoria Cross for valour he displayed on 20 September 1917 during the Battle of Delville Wood. He was serving in the 2nd South African Light Infantry at […]

Members of the society attended a glittering event at Lord Charles hotel in late March for the award ceremony,there were about 350 people present. Speeches were made by the minister of cultural affairs Ms Anroux Marais and head of department Mr Brent Walters, accompanied by a  dinner and entertainment. Presentation of […]

The opening of the New Harbour was one of the factors that led to the ‘perlemoen boom’ that lasted about 20 years. Between 1950 and 1970, Hermanus saw a development that brought a variety of different people into the town and kept the New Harbour busy for the duration. But […]

The New Harbour is a relatively under-researched aspect of Hermanus history. There are only three substantial references to it in the entire stock of published material about Hermanus, and only one of these has any detail. This is to be found in Jose Burman’s book “Hermanus: A Guide to the […]

Scope of Report The Chairperson’s Report reflects the period from 1 January to 31 December 2015. This brings the Society into line with the Constitution which prescribes an operating year as a calendar year, with an AGM before 31 March the following year. Aims and area of focus Greater Hermanus […]

Friends, family members and colleagues of the late SJ du Toit gathered at The Book Cottage on her birthday, 15 March, for an evening of remembrance. In her tribute to this well-loved author and member of the local community, Angela Heslop praised SJ du Toit’s enormous contribution to the preservation […]

The 1940s was a decisive decade for Hermanus in the field of local government. Until 1940, the Hermanus Municipality had jurisdiction only over the area from Swartdam Road to Lord Robert’s Road. In 1940/1 this area more than doubled as the previously independent villages of Eastcliff and Mossel River were […]

On 3 December an enthusiastic audience of 160 people attended the launch in the Municipal Auditorium of a new book on Hermanus history. The event was held under the auspices of the Hermanus Tourism Bureau as the book recounts the history of the Marine Hotel between 1915 and 1947. The […]

The daughter of Bernard Lemonsky – after whom Lemm’s Corner is named, visited Hermanus over the Easter weekend for the first time in 15 years. She lives in Scotland. This visit is fortuitous, seeing the attention focused on the revamp of Lemm’s, and could not have happened at a better […]

So how did it come about that Ruth Lemonsky decided to come and visit Hermanus, after a gap of 15 years, and walk down memory lane on the spot where her childhood home used to be on Lemm’s Corner? Beth Hunt’s book on Hermanus was the catalyst. Via the online […]

The launch of the new water feature and stone herb garden at Lemm’s Corner on Friday 27 February, signified the completion of the first phase of the planned revamp. Edmund Bucchianeri, chairperson of the Old Harbour Museum’s Board of Trustees, said the Old Harbour Museum (OHM) paid for most of […]

The Hermanus History Society (HHS) hosted a successful fundraising event on 6 August when Dr Robin Lee presented the history of the Marine Hotel to 125 people. Proceeds from the event will be used in support of two HHS projects, firstly the 52-year history of Zwelihle through interviews conducted with […]