Archistori

Full name:  Ernst Karl Erich Mayer Lifespan:  1876 Germany - 1960 Pretoria [84] Occupation: Artist Primary Mediums: Watercolors, oil paintings, sketches, and woodcuts. Key Subjects: Highveld landscapes, rural farm life, Baobab trees (Kremetartbome), vernacular architecture. Erich Mayer² Timeline Early Life & Architectural Beginnings Ernst Karl Erich Mayer was born on April 19, 1876, in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was awarded a bursary to study architecture at Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule (Berlin) from 1894-1896. He had to end his studies in 1896 due to illness, Seeking a warmer, healthier climate to aid his recovery, Mayer immigrated to South Africa in 1898 and initially found work as an assistant land-surveyor in Vrede, Free State. Technische Universität Berlin . Image source: Industriekultur. Wartime Confinements and Exile When the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, he actively joined a Boer commando unit. He spent his nights sketching the local farmers and landscap...

Lifespan: (1776 England - 1852 England) Occupation: Merchant. Uncle of Saul Solomon (1817-1892) Saul Solomon² Timeline Saul Solomon, known widely as the "Merchant King of St Helena," was an English-born merchant of Jewish descent who built a commercial empire on the isolated South Atlantic island of Saint Helena. He is most famous for founding Solomon & Company—a business that has dominated the island’s economy for over two centuries—and for his complex relationship with the exiled French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Early Life and Arrival on St Helena Lieutenant Read's m ap of St Helena (drawn by him in 1817) ³ St Helena was completely uninhabited when it was discovered on 21 May 1502 by Portuguese navigator João da Nova. For more than a century, the Portuguese kept the island's location a secret, using it as a temporary stopover to gather fresh water and fruit. It was first permanently established and occupied in May 1659 by the English East India Company. The...

Lifespan: 1817 St Helena - 1892 Scotland [75] Occupation: Journalist, publisher, politician. Family:  His parents were Joseph Solomon (c.1789 England - 1861 Cape Town) and Hannah Moss (1793 England - 1860 Cape Town). He married Georgina Margaret Thomson (1844 - 1933) in 1874 in Cape Town. They had five children. Image source: Old Mutual Timeline Saul Solomon (1817-1892) was one of the most influential, progressive, and fascinating figures in 19th-century South African history. Often referred to as the "Cape Disraeli" or "the member for Cape Town," he was a powerhouse merchant, media mogul, and liberal statesman who fundamentally shaped the Cape Colony's politics. Early life Born into a Jewish family on the remote island of St Helena, his family eventually migrated to Cape Town in 1831.  As a young child sent to England for schooling, he contracted an illness (likely rickets or rheumatic fever) that permanently stunted the growth of his legs. He grew to a heigh...