ALBANY MUSEUM COMPLEX
 
Established 1855. The Albany Museum Complex comprises five museums and is the second oldest museum in the country. The Museum Complex has an Education Department which provides resources and educational programmes in cultural studies, history and the natural sciences. A Mobile Museum service offers portable exhibits, resource packs and objects for curriculum-based studies. An education programme is printed yearly and is available on request. Identification services, public lectures, film shows, open days, walking tours and special events are offered throughout the year. The original Albany Museum was established in 1855 by the Graham's Town medical-Chirurgical Society (later the Literary, Scientific and medical Society). The Museum has grown into a complex of separate museums which document the full spectrum of the social and natural environment, with particular reference to the Eastern Cape. The components of the Complex are : the Natural Science Museum, the History Museum, the Observatory Museum, the Provost Prison and Fort Selwyn.

www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/am
 
CORY LIBRARY FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH
 
The Cory Library at Rhodes University collects material of all kinds to support research into the history of Southern African and related fields in the social sciences. The aim has been to build up a strong subject collection where format and medium are secondary to the subject needs of the researcher in Southern African history and a wide range of cognate fields. Collections include manuscripts and other documents, Cape and other Government publications, rare and modern books, periodicals and newspapers, maps, pictorial materials, microforms, video and audio recordings, and digital records.
The Library's holdings are particularly strong in the fields of Southern African history and politics including Xhosa history and literature, mission and church history, the history of education and mining, commercial and agricultural history. Since the initial deposit of Sir George Cory's collections there has been a particular focus on the history of the Eastern cape and on Grahamstown itself - both crucial areas of White/Xhosa interaction - but Eastern Cape local history is only one of the strengths of the collections of the Cory Library.

Hours:
Monday - Friday 08h30-17h00
Cory Library Website: http://www.ru.ac.za/cory/library
Cory Librarian: Shirley Kabwaot, S.Kabwato@ru.ac.za

EASTERN STAR GALLERY
 
Established 1985. (A satellite of the National English Literary Museum).
4 Anglo African Street, Grahamstown.
Tel : (046) 622 7042

The Eastern Star gallery takes its name from a newspaper established in Grahamstown in 1871 which was the forerunner of the Argus Company's famous present-day daily, The Star of Johannesburg. Initially it was believed that the Eastern Star had been produced in the building which is now the museum, but subsequent research has shown that it dates back to the 1860's and has no direct connection with the Eastern Star. The restored 120 year-old Wharfdale printing press is a sister model to the one on which the Eastern Star was produced between 1871 and 1887. The Museum features printing machinery and other historical items related to printing, including John Fairbairn's editorial desk.

Special services offered :
Assistance to local schools and tour groups, by prior arrangement. The Museum has an exhibition showing the restoration of the building and Wharfdale press. Demonstrations are given of the press in operation.

Hours :
By appointment.

Entrance charge :
Free

Items for sale :
Books, postcards, souvenirs.

Parking :
Metered parking in High Street; limited parking in Anglo African Street.
 
HISTORY MUSEUM
 
Established 1965. (A component of the Albany Museum Complex, formerly the 1820 Settlers' Memorial Museum).
Somerset Street, Grahamstown.
Tel : (046) 622 2312

The History Museum  formerly focused on the contribution of the 1820 British Settlers and their descendants to the history of Southern Africa, but it now encompasses all the peoples who live - or have lived - in the Eastern Cape. Its collections cover agricultural equipment, domestic furniture, costume and textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, toys and dolls, militaria, medals, coins, documents and genealogical information relating to the British Settlers. The ethnographic collection focuses on Southern Nguni Peoples and features the traditional dress of the amaXhosa. There is a small art collection of paintings by F T I'ons and T Baines and a classical archaeological collection which emphasises Ancient Egypt and shows a well-preserved mummy.

Special Services offered :
The Museum offers research facilities and information services; the staff Genealogist undertakes professional research in the local archives, for which a moderate fee is payable.

Hours :Tuesday-Friday 09h30-13h00, 14h00-17h00
Saturday 09h00-13h00
Closed Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Workers' Day.

www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/am/exhib.htm
 
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC
 
Established 1954.
Prince Alfred street, Grahamstown. (follow ILAM signs from gate opposite Rhodes University Theatre)
Tel : (046) 603 8557
Website : http://ilam.ru.ac.za

The International Library of African Music (ILAM), situated on the Rhodes University campus, is a research, publishing and teaching centre for African traditional music. Although not strictly a museum, it has a collection of more than two hundred traditional African musical instruments, many in playing order. These are regularly used for teaching. ILAM also has a variety or recordings of traditional African music, books and catalogues.

Special services offered :
Regular university courses are offered in African Music. Tuition also offered to other individuals or groups, by prior arrangement.

Hours :
By appointment only. Monday-Friday 08h30-12h45, 14h00-17h00.
Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Entrance fee :
By donation.

Parking :
Limited parking on site, but ample nearby. No facility for buses.
 
NATIONAL ENGLISH LITERARY MUSEUM
 
Established 1974.
87 Beaufort Street, Grahamstown.
Tel : (046) 622 7042
Website : www.rhodes.ac.za/nelm
NELM News:  www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/nelm

The Museum's mission is to promote the reading and appreciation of all forms of creative South African literature written in English. For this purpose it collects and conserves material evidence of this literature, publicises and popularises it, and makes it accessible to all sections of the reading public, locally and abroad. Outstanding items include the Thomas Pringle Papers, the personal archive of Sir Percy FitzPatrick, manuscripts of Roy Campbell, papers of Athol Fugard and literary material by Hohannes Meintjes.

Special services offered :
Tours arranged for small groups, by prior appointment only. A small display gallery presents temporary exhibitions focusing on a particular writer, literary period or theme.

Hours :
Monday-Friday 09h00-12h30, 14h30-16h30
Closed Saturday & Sunday

Entrance fee :
Free, donations welcome.

Parking :
Street parking in Beaufort Street.
 
NATURAL SCIENCE MUSEUM
 
Established 1855. (A component of the Albany Museum Complex).
Somerset Street, Grahamstown.
Tel : (046) 622 2312
The Natural Science Museum is the oldest component of the Albany Museum Complex with a theme covering natural science and the natural history of the Eastern Cape. Earth sciences, archaeology, insects, birds, mammals, and plants are included. Notable items in the collection include a portion of the Gibeon meteorite, a working Foucault pendulum and a reconstruction of the first dinosaur discovered in South Africa, stegosaur paranthodon africanus. Research conducted at the Museum embraces the earlylife histories of freshwater fishes, water quality and management, wasp behaviour, late Stone-age and early iron-age peoples and their life-styles. The Range and Forage Institute operates in the Museum.

Hours :Tuesday - Friday 09h30-13h00,14h00-17h00
Saturday 09h00-13h00

Closed Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday and Workers' Day.

www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/am/exhib.htm
 
OBSERVATORY MUSEUM
 
Established 1982. (A component of the Albany Museum Complex).
10 Bathurst Street, Grahamstown.
Tel : (046) 622 2312

This building was originally a 19th Century jeweller's shop and family home. Its connection with the identification of the Eureka, South Africa's first authenticated diamond, in 1867, prompted De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited to purchase the building and restore it in 1981-1982, to commemorate the beginnings of the country's diamond industry. It was opened on 2 February 1982 by Mr H F Oppenheimer of De Beers, and was formally presented to the Museum Trustees to become part of the Albany Museum's Cultural History division. The original owner-designer of the Observatory, Henry Carter Galpin, was a watchmaker and jeweller who lived in Grahamstown from 1850 until his death in 1886. His special interests - optics, astronomy and the measuring of time - are impressively reflected in this gracious multi-storeyed building. In the topmost tower is the only Victorian Camera Obscura in the Southern Hemisphere. Through the system of lenses and mirror in the revolving turret in its roof, this ingenious device projects an enchanting full colour live panorama of the town and its activities onto a flat viewing surface in a darkened room. Beneath it, Galpin built a Meridian Room where he could ascertain the precise time of local noon - 14 minutes behind South African standard time. The nearby Telescope Room contains his 8-inch reflector telescope which was initially installed in the rooftop observatory, from which the house got its name. On the Victorian Floor, five rooms of fine furnishings recapture the atmosphere of an upper middle class home of the time. Display panels detail the award-winning restoration project which returned the building to Galpin's original plan. The Diamond Story display tells the story of the identification of South Africa's first authenticate diamond and a full-size replica of the Eureka diamond is its sparkling focal point. In the basement a Victorian kitchen and dining room have been restored and a herb garden adds interest out-of-doors.

Hours :
Monday-Friday 09h30-13h00, 14h00-17h00
Saturday 09h00-13h00
Closed Sundays, Good Friday, Workers' Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day.

www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/am/exhib.htm
 
SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR AQUATIC BIODIVERSITY
 
(formerly the J L B SMITH INSTITUTE OF ICHTHYOLOGY)
Established 1946.
Somerset Street, Grahamstown.
Postal address : Private Bag 1015, Grahamstown, 6140
Tel : (046) 603 5800
Fax : (046) 622 2403
Email: Margot Collett at saiab@ru.ac.za
Website : www.saiab.ru.ac.za

The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity is the leading centre for the study of fishes in southern Africa. It began as a research department of Rhodes University and was declared a Cultural Institution in 1980. It has three main functions : research, curation and education. An educational display at the Institute is open to the public free of charge and there is a marine aquarium in the foyer. The Institute houses the National  Fish Collection, which is the 2nd largest fish collection in the southern hemisphere. Noteworthy specimens include four adult coelacanths, four coelacanth pups, a rare specimen of a six gilled stingray and the only known specimen of an albino great white shark.    A wonderful hands-on tour of the collection is available to the public, free of charge.  Open office hours, Monday to Friday.

Special services offered :
Please book for:
School groups and informal seminars - Call 046 603 5814
Public tours for large groups - Call 046 603 5818
Casual visitors welcome, small group tours may be requested at reception.

Special lectures, displays, workshops, talks and tours are offered annually during the SASOL SciFest.

Hours :
Monday-Friday 08h00-13h00, 14h00-17h00
Closed Saturday & Sunday

Entrance fee :
Free, donations welcomed.

Parking :
Ample street parking alongside.
 
THE PROVOST PRISON
 
Established 1983. (A satellite of the Albany Museum Complex).
Lucas Avenue, Grahamstown
Tel : (046) 622 2312
In 1835, after the Sixth Frontier War, the Governor of the Cape, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, ordered the building of a fortified barracks and military prison on the Drostdy grounds. The Provost Prison, a Bentham design called a 'panopticon', was completed in 1838. The first and only prisoners it ever housed were mutineers from Frazer's Camp. Use of the Provost declined with the removal of the military headquarters to King William's Town in the mid-1870's, but it was again in use during the Anglo-Boer War.a In 1904 it was transferred to the newly established Rhodes University. Mr F L Sturrock carried out a major restoration in 1982 when the building was handed over to the Trustees of the Albany Museum. The outstanding feature of the building is its architecture.

www.ru.ac.za/affiliates/am/exhib.htm

THE CATHEDRAL OF ST MICHAELS AND ST GEORGE

The Anglican Cathedral Church where the Bishop of Grahamstown keeps his throne or cathedra is built in Early English Gothic, the 13th Century architectural style revived during Queen Victoria's reign. The building was started in 1824 and finally completed 128 years later in 1952.

The earliest real development towards a church came from a connection of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel with the British Secretary of State for War and the then Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset. The balance of the final cost of the original 1824 Church of 4 404 15 pounds was provided by the colonial treasury and since then a special pew, marked with the Royal Coat of Arms, has been reserved for the British Sovereign or his representative. The name 'Cathedral of St. Michael and St. George' marks the healing of the breach in the Grahamstown diocese begun when the dean excluded the Bishop from St. George's Church and the congregation split between St. George's Church and St. Michael's Pro-Cathedral, where the 4th Bishop Allan Becher Webb, set up his throne. The breach was healed in 1885 after the death of the Dean when St. Michael's congregation moved, with Bishop Webb, back to St. George's.

The first St. George's opened in 1830, a single roomed church considered large for a small frontier town. As a result of the vigorous building movement, known as the Gothic revival, the Georgian country parish church of 1830 was transformed by George Gilbert Scott into the main body of the present building including the 150ft belltower and spire by 1879. After Sir Gilbert's death, his son, John Oldrid Scott, designed the chancel and the nave and the final additional structure, the Lady Chapel, was completed in 1952. The lectern, the pulpit, the rood screen and the organ are of particular interest, as are the many memorial tablets which tell of the history of Grahamstown as a frontier post. The belfry houses the heaviest and first full ring of 8 bells on the African continent. They were cast in London in 1878 and include the metal from the three bells that hung in the original tower.

THE COMMEMORATION METHODIST CHURCH

The Makana area was the plce where the Methodist Missionary endevour in Southern Africa had its foundations. Amongst the British Settlers wwas a young Methodist priest and his wife, the Rev William and Ann Shaw. In 1822 they erected the first place of worship in Grahamstown, the Wesley Chapel, the remains of whicg can still be seen in Chapel Street. A second much larger, chapel was erected in 1832 and was known as the "Shaw Hall". The Shaw Hall still stands in High Street and was later the site of the opening of Parliament. On the 5th of August 1855 there was a proposal for a new Wesleyan Chapel in High Street opposite Shaw Hall. Designed to the plans of the Rev Thornley Smith, the building was completed in 1850, the foundation stone having been laid by Mrs Ann Shaw on the 10th of April 1845. The Church built along the Gothic Revival lines then in vogue, has seating for 1200 people. The Commemoration Church boasts magnificent woodwork, with a very splendid pulpit made  from three doors that had been removed from the rear of the building during alterations and enlargements. The organ with over 219 pipes was installed in 1875. The mezzanine was where boys from Kingswood College  attended services untill the Chapel at that school was built in the 1950s. The attention of those boys during the sermons is evidenced by the  carvings in the pews. It would appear that the church had a long history of the behaviour of young men, and a "special Constable" was appointed to police them in April 1872. The Church has  many magnificent stained glass window, and ornate plaques honourinfg the lives of William and Ann Shaw amongst others.

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