Port Elizabeth owes its origin and development to the arrival of British settlers in 1820. Sir Rufane Donkin was the Acting Governor of the Cape at the time, and he changed the name of Algoa Bay to Port Elizabeth in memory of his deceased wife, Lady Elizabeth Donkin, who had died at Murat, in Upper Hindustan, on 21 August 1818, before his secondment in South Africa. Shortly after the arrival of British settlers in the Bay, Donkin had a pyramid of stone built on the hill above the harbour, and established a reserve of about 4 hectares around its base. It was declared a National Monument under old NMC legislation on 8 July 1938.

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