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When the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship was in the PE Harbour a few weeks ago I took a drive to the St Peters Church ruins in South End as it has a great view of the harbour.  It’s been a year or two since I’ve last been there so I took a walk around the ruins and snapped a few pictures.  I found this old picture of St Peters with the Fishermen’s Cross in front of it and decided to do a Then and Now post with it.

St Peters Anglican Church was started in temporary premises as a daughter church of St Mary’s in 1871. The church obtained part of the St Mary’s cemetery land and built a permanent church building just above the cemetery in 1875.  It was designed and built by Rev George Smith, who became the first minister. The church was inaugurated in 1877 and served the culturally mixed community who resided in South End.  The church also housed a school for coloured and Malay children, as they had no school of their own.  St Peters was the first school in South End to educate up to standard 6 (grade 8) which was the maximum level available for coloureds at that time.  During the 1960s, the apartheid Government declared South End as a white area and the existing residents were forcibly removed.  The Government decreed that some churches, mosques and schools would be spared the demolitions, and initially St Peters church survived.  By 1970 most of the congregants had been forced to leave the area and the church was not that much in use anymore.  It was deconsecrated in 1972 and the empty building was vandalised to the extend of what little is left of it today.

Source of information “South End as We Knew it” by Yusef Agherdien, Ambrose C George and Shaheed Hendricks as well as “Port Elizabeth” by Margaret Harradine.