A Natural Wonder
The Zambezi River
The Victoria Falls
Formation of the Victoria Falls
People of the Victoria Falls
Enter the Ndebele
Discovery of the Victoria Falls
In Livingstone's Footsteps
Development of the Railway
To the Banks of the Zambezi
Development of the Falls
To The Congo
Development of Tourism
Development of Victoria Falls Town
Recent History
Further Information
Collectables

    
Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

To The Victoria Falls

Development of the Victoria Falls

Growth of Victoria Falls Town



The following text is adapted from 'Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls', researched and written by Peter Roberts and due for publication in 2017. Please visit the Zambezi Book Company website for more information.



Bathing Costumes and Mackintoshes

With the 1930s defined by the Great Depression, the longest and most severe worldwide economic depression of the twentieth century, global tourism growth slowed significantly. Regional travel to the Falls was encouraged by the Railway Company with the offer of inclusive travel and accommodation fares, with passengers staying at the Hotel. Special fares were not available for the busy public holiday periods when the Hotel often had a long waiting list. A 1930s Southern Rhodesian government guide to the Victoria Falls contained the following advice for visitors to the Falls:

“Visitors are advised to provide themselves with mackintoshes and galoshes (boots) when traversing the Rain Forest, or when exposed to the spray-clouds. Oilskins and sou’-westers can be hired from the hotel... When spray from the Falls is heavy, visitors will find it an advantage to wear a bathing costume only underneath the mackintosh.” (Martin, 1997)

Swimming, golf, tennis, and fishing were all listed as available leisure and sports activities, and a 15 minute flight over the Falls cost £1. The pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook promoted the Falls in 1930 as a fashionable destination:

“There is a splendid and comfortable hotel at the Falls and during the season the fashionable throngs in the grounds and on the verandas are more reminiscent of a European spa than of a retreat in the interior of Africa.” (McGregor, 2009)

Victoria Falls was proclaimed a National Monument in 1935 and in 1937 the Victoria Falls Reserve (an area extending some five miles from the Falls) came under the control of the Historic Monument Commission.

Vintage 1931 Cunard Victoria Falls Poster

Visit of Prince George

In 1934 His Royal Highness Prince George the Duke of Kent visited the Falls, arriving by overnight train from Bulawayo and staying at the Falls Hotel. The Prince spent the Easter weekend exploring the Falls.

“A mile wide and with a drop of four hundred feet, the Falls presented an inspiring sight when the Prince, changing into a vest and shorts soon after his arrival, hurried from the hotel to have a first look at them. The Zambesi was coming down in flood, and enormous quantities of water were hurtling over the falls, estimated to amount to one hundred million gallons every minute. During the weekend the river steadily rose as the result of rain in the heart of Africa, and when the Prince left the Falls two days later, it had reached a new record high level.

“Because of the vast volume of water pouring into the chasm the spray was very dense, and somewhat obscured the view but the Prince spent so much time around the Falls that he saw every possible aspect of them. Declining to use a waterproof coat, His Royal Highness thoroughly explored the wonders of the Rain Forest, in which he wandered about opposite the Main cataract until he was drenched to the skin. The Prince spent many hours energetically visiting every vantage point, despite the uncomfortable heat. He was particularly impressed by the lunar rainbow...

“The Prince did a lot of walking in the countryside around the hotel, the whole area being a game reserve and abounding with animals and birds. But the Prince unfortunately did not see any crocodiles, which thrive on the Zambesi River. The flood waters had driven the reptiles way.” (Frew, 1934)

Prince George, Duke of Kent, 1934
The Prince George, Duke of Kent at the Victoria Falls, 1934

The fifth child, and fourth son, of King George V and Queen Mary, and younger brother to Kings Edward VIII and George VI, Prince George died in a military air-crash, on board RAF Short Sunderland flying boat, on 25 August 1942, marking the first death of a member of the British Royal Family on active service in 400 years.

External Link: Pathe News Report - Prince George visits the Victoria Falls.

Livingstone Statue

The famous bronze statue of David Livingstone, sculpted by W Reid-Dick, RA, was unveiled overlooking the western view on the south bank of the Victoria Falls on 5th August 1934 by Mr Moffat, CMG, ex-Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia (1927-33), and nephew of David Livingstone’s wife, Mary Moffat. The bronze statue, ten-and-a-half feet (3.2 m) high stands on a 37-ton rough hewn solid granite base, at the time claimed to be the largest block of stone quarried in Africa. News reports of the unveiling of the statue claim Livingstone’s initials were still faintly visible on the tree he had originally carved them into in 1855.

Livingstone statue opening, 1934

Rhodes-Livingstone Museum

The town of Livingstone added a significant tourism attraction with the development of the David Livingstone Memorial Museum, opened in 1934. The museum was originally envisaged to preserve the material culture of local ethnic groups but was expanded the to include the life of Dr David Livingstone. In 1939, following the addition of collections on Cecil Rhodes, the museum was renamed the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum (and is now known as the Livingstone Museum).

Victoria Falls Reserve

The Victoria Falls Executive Committee was established on the north bank in 1934 under the Victoria Falls Reserve Preservation Ordinance, with the primary objective to foster tourism. Developments in 1935 included the first chalets at the North Bank Rest Camp and establishment of the Game Park, later to become the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

On the south bank the Victoria Falls Reserve Preservation Act (1928) had been drawn up establishing the Victoria Falls Reserve, a zone extending upstream and downstream of the Falls. In 1931 the Victoria Falls Game Reserve was established under the Game and Fish Preservation Act (1929), later to become the Zambezi National Park.

“In 1931 the Victoria Falls was declared a ‘protected area’ and the use of the environs of the Falls became more strictly controlled... In 1932... the piped water supply was extended to the Police Camp and to the remainder of the village in the following year.”

“To the north of the curator’s cottage... five stands had been occupied by Messrs. Spencer, Gibson and Lloyd, and further north, by a Mr. J. Picken. It was decided to accept the status quo and to re-plan the township incorporating these five stands, the curator’s cottage and the police camp... Little major development took place between 1930 to 1939.” (Heath, 1977)

The Victoria Falls Special Area, a zone extending upstream and downstream of the Falls, was proclaimed a National Monument by Government Notice 318 on the 14th May 1937, under the Southern Rhodesia Monuments and Relics Act (1936). Government Notice 317 approved the bylaws which were to be enforced within the protected area, which now fell under the control of the Commission for the Preservation of Natural and Historical Monuments and Relics.

Map of the Victoria Falls (from 1950s tourist brochure)

Worlds Fair New York

The World’s Fair was conceived in 1939 with hopes of lifting New York City and the United States out of the continuing economic depression. Four years went into planning, building and promoting the event. The Southern Rhodesia exhibit included a 186 feet (56.7 m) by 22 feet (6.7 m) working replica diorama of the Victoria Falls, one of the feature attractions of the exhibition.

“As you walk up a curved ramp toward the door of the main section of the building, the dull roar drums louder in your ears until it becomes vast thunder. You are in the heart of Africa.” (World’s Fair Guidebook, 1939)

Once inside the show, visitors could browse through displays of “native arts and crafts, Bushman paintings, animal heads and war weapons.”

The Southern Rhodesia Government Department of Publicity enthusiastically promoted tourism to Rhodesia and the Falls, ‘the open air paradise of the world’ and ‘unspoilt playground of Africa.’ In an increasingly competitive relationship, a 1941 publicity leaflet for the Livingstone Publicity and Travel Bureau positioned Livingstone as ‘the Tourist Centre for the Victoria Falls’ (Arrington, 2009).

Strip Roads

During the 1930s the Southern Rhodesian Government started laying down ‘strip roads,’ the early beginnings of a national road network. These consisted of two parallel strips of concrete or asphalt each about 60 centimetres wide and 80 centimetres apart, and allowing single file motor-vehicle traffic to run unhindered in one direction. When another, then occasional, car approached from the opposite direction, each pulled over to its respective side of the road, to the left, running inside wheels on one side of the strip road and risking the others on the wide dirt margins that ran alongside either side of the road. The strip road from Bulawayo to the Victoria Falls was completed in 1941. Parts of the original strip road can still today be seen alongside the modern-day road from Hwange to the Falls in sections where the modern road has abandoned its old route for a more direct pathway.

Old Rhodesian strip road.

Next page: From Croydon to Cape Town

References

Frew (1934) Prince George's African Tour Blackie & Sons.

Heath R A (1977) Victoria Falls. The Growth of a Rhodesian Village Proceedings of the Geographical Association of Rhodesia 10:15-29

McGregor, JoAnn (2009) Crossing the Zambezi : The Politics of Landscape on an African Frontier. Oxford : James Currey & Harare : Weaver Press

Martin, D. (1997) Victoria Falls: Mosi-oa-Tunya African Publishing Group, Harare.

Meadows, K. (2000) Sometimes when it rains: white Africans in black Africa. Thorntree Press.

Further Reading

Roberts, P. (2021) Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls. Zambezi Book Company.

Footsteps Through Time - A History of Travel and Tourism to the Victoria Falls


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Discover the Victoria Falls with the Zambezi Book Company

'To The Victoria Falls' aims to bring you the wonder of the Victoria Falls through a look at its natural and human history.

This website has been developed using information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually, although many key references are identified on our References page. Many of the images contained in this website have been sourced from old photographic postcards and publications and no infringement of copyright is intended. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website.

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