This is an old map of Durban that I found many years ago from the year 1898. It is very interesting looking at it the allocation and division of land at that point in time.
If you look at the map, on the extreme right hand side across the Umbilo River, this is where "Robert Newton Dunn" purchased land and called it "Seaview". The property that he purchased originally was betweeb the Umhlatuzana River and the Umbilo River on each side and then from Pinetown to Rossburgh in Durban. So a fairly large tract of land.
Unknown to me, until very recently, I visted the area often as a child, I remember visiting an uncle Sunny who lived behind the Seaview train station. Would love to meet up with any of this family again. To add to the confusion, I also boxed at the Seaview Boxing Club for a year or two. When I came to understand the family link to the area, I got quiet emotional understanding how close yet how far I was to my heritage.
Reading some of the history, I found out, after Robert Newton Dunn died, all the land was left to his wife Anne Harold Biggar / Dunn. Many of the afrikaaners in and around the area were not happy that a women was the owner of the land. It is not clear but it seems that a few came in and took the deeds to the land and forced her to leave the area. (The information as to exactly what happened and how it happened is not very clear. All that is clear is that she left Durban and returned to the Cape.) It is also not clear what or how much she got out of the whole deal, as far as I can gather she left with very little. Nothing close to what the property was worth.
Unfortunately the documentation that covered the history around that time in Durban, is vary scarce and hard to find.
If anyone has any information that can shed some light on this mattter, please feel free to let me know so that I can update my informaton.
Thanks
Lawrence
this is a test comment by Lawrence