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Date: 1937 Type: University Status: Extant   Click to view map Coordinates: 32°47'08.38" S 26°50'44.01" E

See more photographs The Livingstone Hall was constructed in 1936 and commemorates the well-known missionary explorer Dr. David Livingstone. It is not unlikely that the building footprint had to follow a predetermined master-plan and that the architectural style had to conform to the existing buildings – but this has not been confirmed. The starting point for the design of the building was clearly the reference to the adjacent Stewart Hall, built seventeen years earlier. Livingstone Hall was a symmetrically planned, linear double-storey building in a neo-classical style, with its length oriented on a diagonal axis from southwest to northeast. A transverse wing terminated each end of the linear block and a large hall was attached centrally to northwest side. The plastered external walls of the building were set on a low projecting dressed sandstone plinth. The windows appear to have been changed into standard steel horizontally pivoted ‘school pattern’ windows, but respecting the original dimensions of the plastered window reveals, cills and lintels. The lower windows were each capped with a simple plastered frame and cap moulding; a continuous moulding at lintel height united the first floor windows. The building has a double-pitched clay tiled roof. Two substantial tile-capped chimneys accentuate the symmetry. Entrance into the building was through the southeast side, into a narrow hallway, the entrance door framed with a simple sandstone surround and capped with a moulded projecting sandstone ledge. The words LIVINGSTONE HALL were inscribed in large V-cut roman letters in the painted plaster panel above the door. The walls of the entrance hall are paneled in a dark hardwood and the northeastern wall accommodates a series of commemorative stone plaques. A rectangular granite plaque - presumably the foundation stone - records the following details: TO THE STVDY OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE SENATOR THE RT. HON. F. S. MALAN DEDICATED THIS HALL 28 TH MARCH 1936 A second commemorative stone records the date of the opening ceremony - almost exactly one year later - and the name of the attending dignitary: TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE SERVICE OF HVMANITY THIS HALL WAS OPENED BY THE HON. J. H. HOFMEYR M.P. LL.D. MINISTER FOR EDVCATION 24 TH MARCH 1937 A third commemorative stone, presumably unveiled in 1960, records when the (then) University College of Fort Hare was subsumed by the Apartheid system and became a college for Xhosa students only: THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FORT HARE IN DEEP GRATITUDE TO ALL WHO BETWEEN 1905 AND 1959 FOUNDED, MAINTAINED AND ADMINISTERED THIS COLLEGE AT FORT HARE AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF ALL WHO BETWEEN 1916 AND 1959 TAUGHT AND STUDIED HERE IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA & RHODES UNIVERSITY LAUS DEO ('Laus Deo' is a Latin phrase, meaning 'Praise be to God'.) A fourth commemorative stone, unveiled in 1979, records the following detail: INTERNAL MODERNISATION AND REFURNISHMENT COMPLETED FEBRUARY 1979 J. M. DE WET, RECTOR. The Livingstone Hall now forms a portion of the northwestern edge of the large central open space on the UFH campus, now known as Freedom Square. 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.