Page 97 - Bulletin 23- 2020

93

This lengthy quote demonstrates that the African Methodist Episcopal Church was well
established at this point in Kalk Bay’s history. The Rev. Adriaanse is listed as a Minister of the

AME in directories of the time.

In all of the histories of Kalk Bay and indeed Cape Town covering this period I have yet to see
mention of the AME.

In October 1901 Dirk (James) Poggenpoel, John (Samson) Adams and two others, acting as

Trustees of the AME, signed a mortgage in favour of Mary Susan Hazell for an amount of £100

– the purchase price of the plot at what was later to become 7 Ladan Road.

That same month plans for this beautiful small church were passed – drawn by the architect

George Ravens Austin. (Fig. 3.31). The fact that the church was never built and the reason AME
seems to have disappeared from the history of Kalk Bay is a matter for conjecture, but there are

other historical and social issues worth examining.

At the time there were five religious ‘pillars’ in Kalk Bay society – the Anglicans, the Catholics,

the Dutch Reformed Church, Islam, and the Methodists. For communities at this time religion
was a far more fundamental part of life than it sometimes is today. One didn’t ‘swop’ faiths

without some very powerful reason.

Looking at two of the signatories to the mortgage, we find Dirk Poggenpoel whose family had

been among the founding members of the Anglican Church in Kalk Bay. Another of the eight

signatories was John Samson Adams, whose family had been DRC since their arrival in Kalk
Bay many years before. (Fig. 3.32).

Why would these two, and about 100 others, have become members of the AME – the only

Christian church founded on the principle of race? What had happened to disturb the traditional
view of Kalk Bay as a place of religious harmony and tolerance?