OLD FORTS
Fort Pearson, War Graves and the Ultimatum Tree
All from the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War and can be found on the South bank
of the Tugela River. Fort Pearson and the Ultimatum Tree are National
Monuments. The Fort was built in 1878 and named after Colonel Charles
Pearson, who led one of the columns that invaded Zululand in 1879.
There is no building, just trenches and tent sites. It was under the
Ultimatum Tree that delegates of King Cetshwayo, son of Mapande who
was brother of Shaka, were given an ultimatum by the British Government
to pay taxes and return stolen cattle by mid January 1879, or there
would be war. War raged until August of that year, when Cetshwayo was
captured There are war graves at the foot of the hill from that time.
These can be found by travelling north on the N2. There is a signboard
on the right about 5kms before the Tugela River directing you to the
sites.
Fort Tenedos
The remains of this fort can be found on the bank of the Tugeia River
and is from the same 1879 war. It was named after a royal navy ship
that not only supplied most of the men who built the fort, but also
provided the original Garrison. A few war graves can be seen on the
site, which can be found by travelling north on the N2 past Stanger.
The turn off is to the right just after the Tugela River.
FIRST SCHOOL IN STANGER
Our
first School, a multi-racial one called "Whites",
(later referred to as the Mission School), was formed in 1893 in a small
house, on the corner of Jackson and Hulett Streets, opposite the Methodist
Church, which was rented from the Seedat family of Stanger. The house
was built in 1880, and demolished in May 1984. It schooled children of
all races; closing as a school in 1923 with 200 pupils.
A young man by the
name of Mr. Anthony A Simon, a European, who had run a school for Indian
children at Isipingo on the Natal South Coast,
had been persuaded by a friend, (later to become his father-in-law) Mr.
Joel Peters, to come up to tiny Stanger Village to open a school, as
there was none here. He is the "grandfather'' open a school, of
Stanger's schooling system.
His son and daughters all took up the teaching profession and taught
in local schools, likewise some of his grandchildren. 1895, in two rooms
set aside as a school for White children of this area, the owner of the
large house, Mr. H R Dukes, became our second Headmaster. This is where
Stanger South Indian School now is, and was referred to as the Stanqer
European Government School, and remained thus until recently On 5 August
when the new High and Secondary European schools were built, in 1966
and 1976.
In 1920, the school built for the India opposite the old Stanger Country
Club was Indian children. Soon schools for Coloureds and Zulus were built,
and many more since, to cater for the growing number of children of this
area.
