Page 76 - KBHA Bulletin 11

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had it. And in order to protect their businesses and avoid removal to Robben Island,
families kept quiet about it.

Canon James Baker took up his duties as Rector of Holy Trinity Church in November

1877. He had previously been Chaplain on Robben Island. When the Colonial Leprosy

Commission of Inquiry held its hearings, Baker was called as an expert witness,
especially to testify on the abnormally high incidence of this horrible disease in Kalk

Bay. It worried him particularly that so many children were infected, and the following
is taken from his evidence:

“There was the case of a leper woman who lived in the bush at Kalk Bay near the
fishery, through whom leprosy was transmitted to a certain family in consequence of
their children playing near her hut. It must have been communicated through the soil. It
is remarkable in how many of the leprosy cases the disease commences in the soles of
the feet. It is quite possible that the germs of the disease were contained in the excreta
deposited in the soil of the place where she lived. A leper man at Kalk Bay told me his
boy aged 9 used to get into his bed when he got out of it in the morning and caught the
disease and died; his wife also caught it and died; that man’s sister two years ago died
of it, and a third member of the family is thought to have the disease. This man believed
he had caught leprosy through drinking cold water when he was hot. (...). The Malay
mason Fakeer’s wife had it, but she died of food poisoning.”

If the place were such a healthy paradise, why should the Misses Humphreys have taken

the extraordinary step of planning a hospital for the place? Of course one may say that
the healthiness of the place made it an ideal spot for recuperation! The Kalk Bay

hospital plan was, however, abandoned and Alice Pocklington, Harriet and Charlotte
Humphreys, and their nephew Master J. Dalebrook left for England in October 1877.

With the railway bringing visitors en masse to this wonderfully “healthy” spot, some
action was required to provide much-needed public utilities. The area had no proper

sewerage system. Some houses had drain pipes leading directly into the sea, but this
was really only intended for “slops” (what we now call “grey water”). Refuse was

tipped into the sea with the hope that the ocean current would carry it away - which it