Municipal Engineers in South Africa before 1910

The first town engineers in the area of current South Africa were appointed in the 1850s in Cape Town, Grahamstown and Pietermaritzburg. This book examines these first town engineers and their successors until the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The focus of the study is on the engineers themselves; who were they; what their background was; where they came from and where they went. It is not so much about what they did but what their relationship with town councils and other municipal decision makers was. The study looks also at the appointment process and the reasons why municipalities decided to appoint town engineer at the first place. The study constructs first the chronological sequence of events and then looks at the various aspects systematically. From these analyses is built a picture of a municipal official with a precarious position at the mercy of money-minded town councillors. In many cases town engineers were made scapegoats of unpopular decisions made by councillors. Only in a few cases could a town engineer survive these confrontations. Although the book deals with engineers, reading this book does not require any special knowledge of engineering. It is aimed to those who are interested in the working of the municipal government and the roles of individual officials in it