Duties Not Rights: Physical Culture Clubs

The establishment of the Civil Service Club in Cape Town in 1858 was the model for all clubs, such as the one that Stewart called for, in the Cape Colony and Province. A founding member, John Currey, stated: “The club should be the means of raising the tone of the government service and creating a stronger esprit de corps among the young members by giving them opportunities of mixing freely with their elders and if possible keeping them out of bars”. Capetonians were exposed to international physical culture displays from the late nineteenth century onwards. In 1898, Edwin Dinnie, a 19-year-old Scottish Strongman, “a marvel with dumbbells”, visited Cape Town with his father, also a veteran physical culturalist. Then, in 1904, Tom Burrows, the ‘World Champion Indian Club swinger’, visited Cape Town where he gave displays in Fillis Circus. One of Burrows’s acts included- swinging clubs in a lion’s cage while the animals were being fed. In that same year, Eugen Sandow visited Cape Town. The German strongman Herman Goerner visited South Africa in 1922 and 1936, performing in front of segregated audiences in Pagel’s circus. These were European physical culturalists who exposed South Africans to physical culture. Many South Africans, across the racial and class divide, imitated them and formed clubs. A certain George D. Stewart wrote a letter to the APO in 1912 where he stated that: “Physical culture is practically unknown [meaning unorganised] amongst coloured people in Cape Town… there is one such club in Johannesburg…. I should like to hear of a few coloured fellows interested in weightlifting and all-round development, with a view to forming a physical culture club”.