Durban - This is Howard College like you’ve never seen it before ‒ in an aerial shot taken in 1932, a year after it opened, when it was the only structure on what is today the massive campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
The stunning pictures of the university today were taken by drone pilot Gareth Brand, who works at the university.
Brand works in the university’s IT department and his primary focus is surveillance and access control on campus. “So we bought a couple of drones to do overall capturing of footage for situations where we might lose footage from our surveillance cameras,” he said.
“But whenever I’m flying, I like to take photographs and I hoard them. I enjoy photography and enjoy the scenery, and in many ways I am still learning,” he said.
Asked about the change in the university over the last 90 years since the old picture was taken, Brand said: “Amazing, hey! It started off so simple. I remember the back story of a father paying tribute to his son who died in the war. It was quite a proud moment. And from humble beginnings, today we are one of the top 400 universities in the world.”
The old Natal University originally opened in Pietermaritzburg, not Durban, in 1906. It had 57 students, including eight women, and eight professors who lectured in classics, English, philosophy, law, modern languages, botany, geology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and zoology.
It opened as Natal University College and lectures were held at Maritzburg College, the City Hall and the Natal Museum before 1912 when it moved to its current site on 16ha of land donated by the Pietermaritzburg City Council.
In 1923 the university began offering lectures on commerce and engineering at the Natal Technical College in Durban and these were so well attended the university decided it needed its own premises in the city.
In 1926 prominent Durban businessman Thomas Davis and his wife Minnie Davis donated £140 000 towards a building for that purpose. It would be in honour of his son, Howard, who died in the Battle of the Somme in World War I at the age of 21. The Durban City Council donated 50 acres of land in the “Stella Bush” towards the project.
The architect of Howard College was William Hirst and in 1931 Howard College was opened by the Earl of Clarendon, the Governor General of the Union of South Africa.
The exterior of the college is designed in the Union style, however, inside it is a treasure trove of the Art Deco. Sculptural elements above the doors in the entrance foyer, the stairs and the decoration of King George V's picture show a strong Art Deco influence.
The old aerial picture of Howard College featured today was taken during the first air survey of Durban in early 1932, and shows the building located in splendid isolation, a far cry from the large modern university it is today.
In 1936, student numbers stood at 744, with 417 in Pietermaritzburg and 327 in Durban. By 1939 there were 858 students and, for the first time, student numbers in Durban exceeded those in Pietermaritzburg.
On March 15, 1949, the institution was made a fully-fledged university and named the University of Natal. Its first chancellor was Dennis Shepstone.
By 1953, with so many more students attending the Durban campus, the administrative functions were moved from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Many academic staff taught in both centres and it wasn't until 1973 that the single academic departments were split and fully independent departments of law, humanities, commerce, science, education and social science, were established.
In the new picture, the Memorial Tower Building, built as a monument to students who lost their lives during World War II, is on the right of Howard College. The strongly Art Deco-influenced building cost £235 000, was begun in 1948 and completed in 1972.
In 2004, the University of KwaZulu-Natal was formed by the merger of the University of Natal, the University of Durban-Westville and the Edgewood College of Education. From such humble beginnings, today the university has five campuses, more than 4 000 academic and support staff and over 46 000 students. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng is the current chancellor. ǀ Additional reporting from Allan Jackson in Facts About Durban.
The Independent on Saturday