North End
1857 - 1896

East London was founded in April 1847 to provide a port for the new crown colony of British Kaffraria that was being created. The original village was situated on the western bank of the Buffalo River.

East London's early growth, however, was very slow. A full ten years would pass before any major development took place and, when it did, expansion would be on the other side of the river, on the eastern bank.

In February 1857 Sir George Grey, who was Governor of the Cape Colony, brought nearly 3000 German soldiers into British Kaffraria in an attempt at preventing another frontier war.

Many of these soldiers were settled at East London, forming two new villages that would be called Panmure (now the city centre) and Cambridge.

Each soldier was provided with a building lot in either Panmure or Cambridge, but was also given an acre plot nearby, as well as a ten acres of agricultural land in what is today Nahoon, Stirling and Vincent.

The one acre lots began to be named according to their geographic positions. In this way, the lots "to the north end of the town" became known simply as "North End".

In 1873 the villages of East London and Panmure combined to form a municipality. There were two wards: Ward 1 (West Bank) and Ward 2 (East Bank). North End was part of Ward 2.

In 1881, Ward 2 was divided. East Bank now referred only to the area south of Union Street. The area north of that street became Ward 3 which was called "Panmure".

North End naturally was now part of Ward 3. In 1896, however, another subdivision took place. This time, North End alone made up Ward 3. Southernwood and the Quigney together comprised Ward 4.

Dr Keith Tankard