Contact Artefacts
please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.

Port Elizabeth Museum, Snake Park and Aquarium
Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), Eastern Cape

Hendrik SIEMERINK: Architect

Date:1861 : 1919 : 1925
Type:Museum
Status:Unknown
Street:Bird Street

Not all the photographs are architectural but they are certainly interesting.

It was with relief that in 1919 the Museum was able to move to the luxurious mansion in Bird Street, bequeathed by Adam White Guthrie, who had been the town’s mayor from 1912-1915. This grand house had been built in 1861 for the merchant Henry Rutherford. The Snake Park opened in the spacious grounds - the first of its type worldwide. Demonstrations by snake handler, Johannes Molikoe, were immensely popular. He is reputed to have been bitten on average once a year for the 30 years he was on the staff, but survived them all, eventually dying of old age!

Alterations were done by Hendrik SIEMERINK in 1925.

In 1933 a newly constructed Seal Pool opened, but the smell and guttural bickering and barking at night intruded on the lifestyle of the elite residents of Bird Street. Following a court case, the pool closed and the seals were banished.

The museum complex moved to the new Port Elizabeth Museum Complex on the beachfront in 1958

See The Casual Observer.

(SAB Jul 1925:35; Bayworld History)

All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.


Books that reference Port Elizabeth Museum, Snake Park and Aquarium

Fransen, Hans. 1978. Guide to the Museums of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Galvin & Sales (Pty) Ltd, for the Southern African Museums Association. pg 78-81
Harradine, Margaret. 1994. Port Elizabeth : a social chronicle to the end of 1945. Port Elizabeth: E.H. Walton Packaging (Pty) Ltd. pg 146 (Ill.); 147