Browsing by Author "Lennox, Lyle Edward"

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    Blue, green and everything in-between : the history of the Cape Aquaria c.1902 - 1995
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Lennox, Lyle Edward; Swart, Sandra S.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Environmental historians have long sought to investigate the various ways humans have come to interact with the natural environment. Recently, some historians have focused their attention on the interplay of the environment, politics and socio-economic forces, over time, including the marine environment. This dissertation adds to this historiography through the investigation of a novel environmental subject namely the public aquarium. Several facets of South Africa’s marine culture, including the s ea fisheries industry, the professi onalization of marine science and recreational fish culture can be explored through the utilization of aquaria as case studies. These aquatic institutions, as we understand them today, were shaped by the aquarium boom between 1850 and 1880 in Britain and later in European metropoles. Although several popular iterations of the public aquaria existed throug hout the colonial empire, this dissertation highlights two popular trends, namely the sea-si de aquaria and the biological marine station. The dissertations focus is on three aquaria in specific, the St. James Aquarium of Kalk Bay (1902 – 1933), the Sea Point Aquarium of the Sea Point promenade (1939 – 1970) and the Two Oceans Aquarium situated at the historic Victoria and Albert Waterfront (1995 – present). By comparing the developmental patterns of Cape Town aquaria to those in Europe, this thesis analyses the connections between these two respective aquatic traditions. Emphasis is placed on the role of the Sout h African state in facilitating know ledge transfer to modernize the country’s fishing industry, the interplay betwee n private initiative and public context, the tension between entertainment and education, and the economies of knowledge and capitalism behind establishing and changing these aquaria. It includes a tentative foray into connecting the trends of aquaria, acclimatization and leisure with the history of private fish keeping.