2009/10/29
LOCAL historian, Dr Keith Tankard has taken his incredibly vast knowledge of history of the East London area into the digital arena, with a website dedicated to the “lore of East London”.
Called the New Labyrinth, the website is based on an older version created by Keith at Rhodes University in 1994. The site won The American Scout Award for being a praiseworthy educational site, but Keith believed that after 15 years it was time for an upgrade.
“Since those early years, internet programming has evolved rapidly and one can now do much, much more. Although the Labyrinth has had the occasional upgrade, it has never been subjected to a total overhaul. After 15 years, however, it has come to need it,” said Keith, who officially launched the website on Wednesday last week (October 14).
He explained that the New Labyrinth is a project of Knowledge4Africa.com, a non-profit organisation aimed at providing free study material for South Africa’s high school pupils and their teachers. Keith wanted the Labyrinth to be distinct from Knowledge4Africa, and so gave it its own “feel” and website - www.eastlondon-labyrinth.com
On the site one can access a massive data bank of information, from the history of the area to family histories, landmarks, shipwrecks, wars, Xhosa history and interesting pictures. A big aspect of this data base is the full history of the Eastern Cape’s German Settlers being made accessible on the Internet for the very first time.
“An extremely important addition is the German Military Settler database. Some 2 360 legionnaires from the British German Legion were settled in this region in 1857 at the conclusion of the Crimean War but up till now very little has been known of them,” said Keith. “Not any more. Not only is their story being told on the New Labyrinth but a researcher from Johannesburg, Nolene Lossau, has provided the Labyrinth with her entire database of each legionnaire. ”
He added that at the click of a mouse, one can now find out who each legionnaire was, where he came from, his rank in the legion, where he was settled and aboard what ship he came to the Eastern Cape.
“Each and every document from the old Labyrinth has also been thoroughly overhauled,” added Keith. - By Sven Herselman
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