Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Cape Town’s first bishop left his mark
PUZZLES: All your favourite games and crosswords Page 18 Next month marks 170 years since Robert Gray, the first bishop and pioneer of Anglican churches and schools in Cape Town, came to the city, writes Like your piranha well done… or still biting? Pag
ON SUNDAY 20 February 1848, passengers on the paddlesteamer Persia saw Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion’s Head gradually come into view. There was no “tablecloth” – which the passengers had been looking forward to seeing – but Lion’s Head had a wispy mantle of cloud around it.
Robert Gray, his wife, Sophy, and their four children feasted their eyes on the spectacle. “Cape Town at last!” said Gray exultantly, stretching long arms around his family and pulling them closer. “Thank God we’re safely here!”
Their voyage from Portsmouth, England, had taken an arduous eight weeks, in a small ship with a paddle-wheel on either side, as well as sails – in case the engine failed – and an open deck.
For the 38-year-old Gray and his family, that day marked the beginning of a strange new life. Gray had been consecrated as Bishop of Cape Town in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey the previous year. But his youth and early manhood had been plagued by serious health problems. While a schoolboy at Eton he had been trodden underfoot by a crowd of boys coming out of a classroom, and as a result he had to spend some time in a wheelchair. At the age of 17 he showed signs of tuberculosis, but threw these off by that familiar cureall – a trip round Europe. He spent four years at Oxford, and was ordained in
1833, becoming vicar of Whitworth in the county of Durham. In 1845 he became vicar of Stockton-on-Tees, also in Durham, and honorary Canon in the Cathedral Church. Eighteen months later he was offered the Diocese of Cape Town. He had done much for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and it was said that “the missionary spirit was strong within him”. Gray went to the Cape despite much opposition from his family. He himself did not realise the magnitude of the problems he was to meet there, but he faced these with courage and foresight.
As a result of Gray’s arrival in Cape Town exactly 170 years ago, St George’s Church, at the top of the Heerengracht, automatically became a cathedral, and Cape Town became officially entitled to call itself a city. In practice, though, it took many years before the people of the town got used to its new designation. A century and a half previously the town had been nothing but a primitive settlement. This was no longer the case, but its inhabitants still lived a small town life. There were only 3 500 buildings and the population was no more than 30 000.
The citizens lived in stone houses whose flat roofs were waterproofed with tarred felt, though a few used creosoted timber from the Baltic. The stoeps were built high above the road surface to escape the mud and floods of winter and the choking dust of summer. Only 500 houses in the town actually had water laid on. The rest of the population fetched free water from the fountains. The roads were lined with canals or sluits, and some areas still had open drains and stinking sewers. Progress was being made with covering these, but there were as yet no pavements, no postal deliveries, and no telephones. Gas lighting had been introduced in only a few of the main streets.
The town was in the shape of a rough triangle whose base extended along the edge of Table Bay from the Castle to the Heerengracht and from there to the end of Chiappini Street, and whose apex was formed by Orange and Mill Streets, near the top of the Avenue. The open country began at these boundaries, with only a few farm cottages dotted about in the veld towards the east.
Close to the sea as they were and being so dependent for essential supplies on the arrival of ships from Europe, the townsfolk had a natural interest in all things maritime. But in 1848 Cape Town could hardly call itself a port. Table Bay was dangerous to shipping: its shores were littered with the wrecks of craft which had been blown on to the rocks by the northwesterly gales. The town had no harbour – only three rather exposed jetties at which small boats could off-load passengers and goods from ships anchored in the bay.
One of the first things Gray did on his arrival was to make plans for a new cathedral. Neither Gray nor the young clergy who had accompanied him from England were very impressed by the Grecian and therefore “pagan” architecture of the old St George’s Church, now Cathedral. They longed for something in the heavenward-reaching Gothic style to which they were more accustomed.
Two months after arriving in Cape Town Gray wrote the following to a colleague in England: “…We must have a new church in Cape Town and I should like to throw overboard the present cathedral, but I must not wound people’s feelings…”
Robert Gray also had a deep interest in education. He inspected St George’s Church School, which had existed since 1844, in its New Street (later, Victoria Street) premises. He saw that the “city” lacked what could be called a traditional “grammar school”, and he immediately set about improving the existing school and founding one. He spoke to Governor Sir Harry Smith on the need for a proper school building, and about his ideas for the school. Like Robert Gray, Harry Smith was a “new boy” – he had been in office only three months – and he was another livewire who responded sympathetically to people with enthusiasm and vision. The result was that on March 29, 1848, only five weeks, incredibly, after the bishop had landed in Cape Town, he learnt that a new school building on the site between the Cathedral and the Public Walk (now Government Avenue) had been officially approved. The historic freehold Grant of Land is dated April 11, 1848. It was made “to the Bishop of Cape Town ...and his successors in the said See ...upon the conditions ...that the said piece of land shall forever hereafter be used for the purposes of a school or schools ... and further that all buildings to be erected upon the said one shall be of a neat and substantial character ...”
Four months later, Bishop Gray preached a sermon about St George’s School using as his text Matthew 18 v14: “It is not the will of your Father which is in Heaven that one of these little ones shall perish.” The “little ones” were certainly important to Robert Gray. Ahead of his time, he believed that the pupils – and the staff – were the school, and this philosophy has endured at St George’s Grammar School, the oldest independent school in Southern Africa. For many years, until the late 1940s at least, the official name of the St George’s Grammar School was “St George’s Cathedral Grammar School”.
Other famous schools founded by Gray included the Diocesan College (Bishops) in 1849 and St Cyprian’s School for Girls in 1871.
It is not easy to imagine schoolboys of those days wandering down the newly renamed Adderley Street after school hours. They would have found that only a few shops had display windows to press their noses against. There were not more than half a dozen advertising signs. Horse buses had a stand in the main street, and hansom cabs were introduced in 1849.
Senior pupils might have bought a newspaper to read. In 1848 they could have read a fascinating report of a sea serpent sighted from the Royal Navy ship HMS Daedalus while bound for St Helena. In the papers of the day – the Cape Monitor, the Cape Punchinello, and the bi-weekly Cape Argus – happenings taking place up-country and overseas were usually reported in depth.
Although Cape schools during the
1850s had no “current events” as part of their official curriculum, the older pupils probably discussed with their teachers the new system of representative government which replaced the old Legislative Council on July 1, 1853. The story goes that at 10 am exactly a year later, the pupils of St George’s were taken a few hundred yards up the Avenue to witness the gates of Government House being thrown open, and the new members of the first Cape Parliament ceremonially processing in, while the guns of the Castle thundered their salute. Certainly they would have been conscious that they lived in stirring times.
Meanwhile, Gray started travelling round his enormous diocese which, including the Orange Free State and Natal, measured 1 000km from west to east. No railway existed in the Cape Colony at the time – that arrived only 14 years later, two years after Durban’s first railway. Roads were nothing more than tracks. But during his first episcopal journey Gray covered 4 830km on horseback with an ox-wagon to transport his belongings. During this trip he managed energetically to confirm 900 young people and even to ordain a couple of priests. However, he discovered that at least 50 priests were needed in various parts of the diocese. As if this wasn’t enough, Tristan da Cunha and St Helena were part of his Diocese and so he had to undertake voyages to these islands.
Gray’s wife Sophy was a wonderful partner and helpmeet to him at all times. She nursed him whenever he was ill, which was often. At the time, his chronic complaint was called “rheumatism in the head”. (It was probably what we would call today migrainous neuralgia.)
No sooner had the couple arrived in the beautiful farm Boschheuwel, later called Bishopscourt, than Sophy had to organise the first Anglican Synod, which meant that nine clergy plus their “attendants” had to be fed and housed in her home.
An excellent horsewoman, Sophy often accompanied Gray on his journeys round the Diocese, or if not, she organised them. Back home she acted as his clerk, keeping all the Diocesan accounts, and copying out all important letters in her elegant hand. Not content with these labours, Sophy opened a school at Bishopscourt for her children and any others who needed education.
Sophy was an accomplished architect who designed at least 40 Anglican churches in the colony, many of which still stand today in their original stone. When the Grays arrived in South Africa only 10 Anglican churches existed. When Robert died 25 years later, there were more than 60.
In 1887 the Synod appointed a committee to collect funds for a new cathedral. On August 22, 1901 the foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid by the Duke of Cornwall and York (later to become King George V) but owing to the Anglo-Boer War which had been raging in the north, it took three years before any further progress was made with the project. In 1904 a beginning was made with the foundations of the “choir”, and the first completed section was what became known as the “crypt”.
In 1906 a contemporary journal published a description, written in the language and philosophy of the times, of the new building as it was envisaged: “… May it not be presumptuous to hope that the necessary removal of this shabby old relic to make way for a nobler and more worthy Temple to the Almighty will serve to typify not only a quickening of our faith and zeal for our glorious religion, but also an enlightened policy of love and forbearance towards our dark skinned fellow creatures, to educate them and guide them into the paths of righteousness. The new Cathedral will be built of stone – the many-hued stone of which large fragments strew the base of Table Mountain’s massive wall …”
Gray designed the arms of the Diocese. Not being an expert in the field of heraldry, he could be excused for committing an error in his early design. The “error” was the small central shield, which was the crest of Baroness Burdetts-Coutts, who had donated funds for the founding of the Cape Town Diocese. In proper heraldic practice you may not have a complete coat of arms placed inside another coat of arms, only a quarter (or part) of it. So the small shield was later removed and part of it, a stag’s head, was substituted.
The coat of arms of St George’s Grammar School was nearly identical to the original arms of the Diocese. Despite the error, it was retained, and “Old Georgians” round the world had fervently hoped that it would be retained for ever, heraldic error and all…. However, this was not to be. Cecil Tugman, Headmaster from 1935 to 1943, designed a simplified badge with the St George’s cross and the sides of the badge outlined in gold to suggest a curved shield as carried by the knights of old. The elaborate coat of arms was used as a prefect’s badge until at least 1951, after which it became, solely, the proud badge of the Old Georgians’ Union. The present badge of St George’s is the 1940s design, but with the golden cross boldly filled in on a black background, as in the original “colours” badge.
Incidentally, the coat of arms of Diocesan College (Bishops) which at first glance resembles that of St George’s, was amended along with that of the Diocese, and so now contains the “correct” stag’s head (part of the original Burdetts-Coutts crest), and it has the Bishops motto Pro fide et patria beneath. The St George’s badge did not carry that school’s motto, Virtute et Valore. Presumably Tugman reasoned, like the designers of the British postage stamps, that if you did not know what the badge represented, then you ought to.
The meaning of the parts of the Diocesan coat of arms is as follows: the cross refers to the Christian cross of St George. But the cross and the lions together also refer to the arms of Durham Cathedral where Gray was a canon before his consecration as bishop. The three crowns come from the diocese of Bristol where Gray’s father was bishop. The anchor reminds us of the Cape of
Good Hope and also of Cape Town, whose arms include it. The bishop’s mitre is self- explanatory.
During the author’s research into the history of St George’s Grammar School, it became necessary to identify where the old church had stood in relation to its successor, because some of the school buildings shared the same space at different times. It was found that the two cathedrals overlapped Bishop Gray, who did not live to see completed a new Cathedral of St George the Martyr, which he had so much hoped for. Tragically,
Sophy contracted cancer in 1870 and died the following year. Never the same man after that, Gray continued his work. However, on August 9, 1872 he was thrown from his horse. Shaken, he insisted on completing his journey and his business for that day. His last public duty was, typically, to take a service for 170 confirmees on August 13, 1872. He died on September 1 of that year.
Robert and Sophy Gray are buried in the churchyard of St Saviour’s Church, Claremont, one of the gracious Gothic churches originally built to Sophy’s plans. Their tombstones are surrounded by glorious red-flowering trees, with a lovely view to the south-west of the mountain slopes above Bishopscourt, which had been their home for 25 happy years.
The graves were re-dedicated on November 3, 1985. Prominent in the procession to the site were headmasters of the three schools founded by Gray: Paul Cannon (St George’s Grammar School), John Peake (Diocesan College), and Peter Cartwright (St Cyprian’s School).
The late Bishop SW Lavis, Coadjutor Bishop of Cape Town from 1931, whom the author got to know well in later years, said: “Robert Gray was a dreamer of dreams, but a dreamer who had dedicated body, mind, heart, and will to God in order that his dreams might come true.”
There are several memorials to Robert and Sophy Gray in St George’s Cathedral.
The Gray Memorial Column was shipped from Britain and erected on the pavement in front of the cathedral in 1876.
When Wale Street was widened in 1965, the memorial was moved to the car park near the entrance of the Cathedral Hall in Queen Victoria Street, where it stood for 28 years. It was moved to its commanding position at the top of St George’s Mall.
In the long list of those who donated towards the cost of the Gray Memorial appears the name of George Ogilvie, Headmaster of St George’s Grammar School from 1858 to 1860, and Headmaster of Diocesan College from 1861 to 1886. It was Ogilvie who had conducted Gray’s moving funeral at St Saviour’s Church, Claremont, a fitting place for the public to pay their last respects to a couple whose dedicated service to church and school over so many years is only today being fully appreciated.