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Click to view large map Coordinates: | (Pryce-Lewis list 14 112). The focus of the St James aquarium was on living marine material. Downstairs it consisted of a large room with display tanks open to the public, and a research laboratory. Water was pumped from the sea through a heavy metal pipe held down by pitons embedded in the rocks. Upstairs was the living accommodation for the resident marine biologist, Dr John Dow Gilchrist. He had taken up residence immediately after the aquarium was built in 1902. Dr Gilchrist arrived from Scotland in 1896, having been appointed to the staff of the Cape Colony Dept of Agriculture to investigate the fisheries potential of the Cape of Good Hope's waters. His surveys later extended to Natal. He became the Head of the Zoology Department of the South African College in 1906. He was also for a few years the Curator of Marine Collections at the South African Museum, an honorary post. By 1907 the aquarium had been transferred from the Dept of Agriculture to the SA Museum. Gilchrist continued to live there, later with his wife and two children, until his death from TB in 1926. A temporary custodian was appointed, but eventually the aquarium was little used and fell into disrepair. It was closed in 1936 and replaced by the Marine Research Aquarium in Sea Point. It was demolished in the early 1950s. Extracted from an article on Dr Gilchrist and the St James Aquarium by Prof AC Brown. See the Kalk Bay Historical Association Bulletin No 2, March 1998 pp 19-37. |
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