Episode 268 - The Theodolite and the Hardepad: Thomas Bain’s Silent Mountain Pass Artisans

There is something magical about mountain passes, weaving through majesty, each corner beckoning a driver like a formidable and compelling saga, muffled in mist or bright in the sunshine. Imaginations are fired and children go quiet as the ravines plunge beside the vehicle, timeless in their elegance, conquered only by the blast of dynamite or the steady chipping of picks.

There is an old Chinese saying, Yào xiàng fù, xiān xiū lù” If you want to get rich, first build a road.”

British engineers in the second half of the 19th Century recognized that they possessed an expertise that was in short supply elsewhere, and were prepared to travel abroard in large numbers in order to provide it. So it is with great fanfare and the blasting of many a bugle to announce that South Africa’s greatest road engineer was born in Graaff-Reinet.

The dramatic saga of how roads were built in South Africa is a forgotten story of plunging horses, wagons somersaulting, with dreamers armed with theodolites or sometimes, only their amazing capacity to estimate lines across tilted Cape Sandstones with their naked eyes.

Thomas Charles John Bain was one, who bequeathed the country with an impressive list of mountain passes and roads — and he made the single biggest contribution to these arteries which wind their way across the landscape.

Son of Andrew Geddes Bain, another born builder of roads, Thomas only took one month’s leave during 46 years of service at the Public Works Department. He married Johanna Hermina de Smidt in 1854. They had 13 children and enjoyed a long and happy marriage - apparently absence does make the heart grow fonderl. Just for the record, Johanna was the ninth child of Willem de Smidt, who was the Secretary of the Central Road Board. Keeping it in the family so to speak.

Hidden beneath Thomas’ stout hat and moustache, was an excellent judge of character, selecting foremen and overseers, to manage the mainly convict labour, motivating all to toil away for years inching along the side of cliffs and ledges.

Bain owned a Cape cart, a two-wheeled local invention, and he travelled between road, pass, bridge and drift construction sites that were hundreds of kilometers apart. Somehow, despite the time he spent away, he was a family man who’s favourite trick to stop a flood of youthful tears was by cutting a slice of watermelon.

Thomas and his father Andrew built 30 mountain passes and roads between them and perhaps the place where imagination leaps most is down through the tangled forest of Bloukrans Pass south of Plettenberg Bay. You can stand on the old Bain causeway, and look up at the vast marvel which is the Bloukrans Bridge famous these days for being the site of the world's highest commercial bridge bungee jump at 216 meters.

Some say Thomas Bain was a traveller who painted all those pictures, but that is a different Thomas Bain who was a gifted artist. Just to further confuse matters, Thomas Bain the road builder was also a prodigious artist. Perhaps that confusion is one reason why the engineer who was known by colleagues as the man with the theodolite eye, was to be almost forgotten for half a century. While his father Andrew was the giant of early infrastructure, Thomas went on to build 24 mountain passes, three major roads, and dozens of smaller routes.
He did all of this without modern explosives, he had no crushing or screening plants, no power drills, front-end loaders, bulldozers, graders, water tankers or cement mixes, no quarrying equipment, pile drivers and streamlined tarmac procedures. Then of course, neither did the men who did the real work.

What he had were the straining arms and muscles of convict and black labour — the other forgotten heroes of roadbuilding in the 19th Century. They have been pushed to the back of the heroes of history queue. The convict labour system formalized by John Montagu in 1844.