Talk:Durban Harbour's Edward Innes

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Harbours Department of the Government of Natal

Some clarification on the Harbour Board of Natal and its successors, from John Middleton.

From: John Nicholas Middleton
To: Andre H Kritzinger
Cc: Aidan Mccarthy ; Bruno Martin ; Leith and Lynette Paxton ; The Lake's
Sent: 08 October 2013 03:26 PM
Subject: Natal Harbour Board

Andre

Since I am in the middle of drafting the Natal chapter of my own "Industrial Locomotives of South Africa", blowing away some of the fog covering Durban Harbour has been very beneficial.

You have got me digging around in my notes and doing more web research (its amazing how much Natal Government material is now on line), some of this casts more light on how the harbour operated its rail lines.

Its quite clear that the Natal Harbour Board was an extremely powerful entity (one reference described it as a "Government within a Government". From its original constitution (Law 13 of 1877) it clearly controlled matters within its boundaries, so the acquisition of JOHN MILNE in 1879 was quite logical. It was reconstituted from 1 May 1881 (Law 29 of 1880) but was still called the Natal Harbour Board. With the establishment of what was described as "stable" government, it was abolished on 27 June 1894 after which it became part of the Harbours Department of the Government of Natal (there were other harbours such as Port Shepstone which also fell under this department). I have found references to a Natal Minister for Railways and Harbours so clearly there would have been closer links between the NGR and the Harbour after 1894 as both were now Government departments.

However, there is clear evidence that the loco fleets were kept separate as I found a Natal Departmental Report for 1898 in which it was noted that JOHN MILNE had been overhauled by the NGR and that NGR had hired a locomotive to the harbour from August-November 1898.

Again in 1900 the Natal Departmental Report for the NGR lists under engines repaired "Harbour Board - 1 engine repaired", so it was still being referred to as the "Harbour Board", six years after the Board had been abolished.

What I am still trying to nail down is whether NGR formally took over the harbour engines at some point before the formation of SAR&H when the survivors - EDWARD INNES plus DICK KING and ANDY were taken over by SAR. I still wonder what happened to CONGELLA and JOHN MILNE (which had received a new Hunslet Boiler in 1903) as logic says neither would have been worn out by then. I also would like to verify whether NGR 46 (which became SAR 046) was old NGR 15 (which would have had to have been renumbered in 1909) or possibly the harbour's SIR ALBERT - if the latter, then it would be evidence that NGR took over the harbour locos but then why was that allocated an NGR number and not the others.

My searches turned up a few other little gems, the 1900 Report is full of reports of war damage but includes "2 ZASM engines repaired", I wonder what these were and whether NGR returned them to ZASM after the war, also in the same report " 1 contractors engine repaired" - I wonder what that might have been ?

The final gem (which Leith / Robin perhaps you have already seen) is a grainy shot of the West Lennoxton Colliery loco which has long eluded me - said in the text to be 25 HP, may well be able to identify the builder at least from this. This from the 1906 published "20th Century Impressions of Natal".

Regards

John

Posted here for future reference. André Kritzinger (talk) 14:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]