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Click to view large map Coordinates: | First the Natural History Museum then South African Museum now the Iziko South African Museum. THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM was founded in 1856, during the Governorship of Sir George Grey, chiefly owing to the exertions of Sir T. Maclear, Dr. Patte, Mr. C. A. Fairbridge, and the first curator, Mr. E. L. Layard. The present building recently erected, to which the collections were transferred in January, 1897, is situated at the top end of the Municipal Gardens in Cape Town. [Anon, c. 1899. Picturesque South Africa - An album of Photographic Views. Cape Town: Dennis Edwards & Co. p 49.] The museum building could well have faced onto Church Square in Pretoria; instead it faces down the Public Gardens, looking out across war memorials and rose beds. This building was in fact designed in 1893 by J E Vixseboxse, Government architect for the Orange Free State from 1890-93. His was the winning design in an open competition for a new museum, the exhibits having previously been housed at the South African Library, lower down Queen Victoria Street. C A Fairbridge, the lawyer, who lived at The Mimosas, Sea Point, was largely responsible for the erection of this much-needed building and his friend Edgar Layard was the curator. The cost per square foot was 7d and the perspective drawing shows the building in its original colouring of red brick, striped and embellished with ochre. What can still be seen of the interior, such as the main staircase, is magnificent with wrought iron work, but it is unfortunate that the recent additions unsympathetically overshadow the original building with its peculiarly Republican style. (Picton-Seymour, 1989: 15-16; Pryce Lewis list) On 6 April 1897, after three years of work, the new dedicated museum building was opened atop the Company Gardens by Prime Minister Sir Gordon Sprigg. Designed in late Victorian style by JE Vixseboxse and DE Wentink, it featured an annex and herbarium. In 1923 a shed was added to house large whale skeletons, which became a major attraction. Visitor numbers grew from 56 000 in 1897 to over half a million by the 1950s. Today the museum is world-renowned, continuously expanding its vast collections of fossils, artifacts, audio-visual displays, and a planetarium, attracting millions of visitors. (Extracted from an article by Dr Gustav Hendrich, WC Archives and Records Service, in the Cape Librarian, Sept/Oct 2025, p1) References:
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