by Mike Bruton
While caring for the wounded at Kimberley Hospital, senior surgeon Macdonald met a young nursing sister, Helen Evelyn Zondagh (born 1877), a descendant of the Voortrekker leader, Johannes Jacobus Uys, whose origins in South Africa can be traced back to 1668. Margaret’s great-great-grandmother was Sarah Uys who, as a girl of 13, had loaded her father’s guns at the Battle of Blood River. Helen was to become William Macdonald’s wife and Margaret’s mother. She was unusually well-qualified for a woman in those days, having trained as both a teacher and a nurse, and later became mayor of Indwe, the first female mayor in the Cape Colony. She was also active in civic affairs and was the local golf champion. In an interview with Beryl Richards (1987) Margaret said, ‘Mother was very like me and understood my ways. I have always taken an interest in public affairs and in working for the community in which I live and in this I follow in her footsteps’. Later, JLB Smith was to develop great respect for his mother-in-law and they had a strong relationship (J Smith, pers. comm., 2017).
William Macdonald and Helen Zondagh were married after the Second South African War ended, and settled in the village of Indwe in 1903 (Richards, 1987). Indwe, 297 kilometres north of East London in the interior of the Eastern Cape, shares the isiXhosa name of the blue crane (Anthropoides paradiseus), South Africa’s national bird, which occurs there in large numbers.
Although Indwe is relatively insignificant today, it was an important, though rough, coal-mining centre then, and the fourth town in South Africa (after Kimberley, Johannesburg and Cape Town) to receive electricity. The ‘Indwe Railway Collieries and Land Company’ was formed in Kimberley in 1894, with De Beers playing a major role, and a railway line to the town was completed in March 1896. By 1899 the Indwe coal mine was producing over 100,000 tons of coal a year. Although the coal boom was short-lived, and the colliery closed in 1917 after better quality coal was discovered in the Transvaal, it was in this booming little industrial town, with its beautiful natural surroundings, that the Macdonalds set up a medical practice and raised a family in their home, ‘Inverness’. They had three children: Flora (1906), Chisholm (1908) and Margaret Mary (1916).
Margaret’s father was active in church and civic affairs and was a popular medical doctor, described in a memoir published shortly after his death as ‘a scholarly and deep-thinking physician, but he possessed a human side, so that all could bring their troubles and none were sent away uncomforted’ (The Frontier Guardian, Dordrecht, 8th May 1919) – traits that Margaret inherited.
Margaret Mary Macdonald (right) as a young child, early 1920s.
Margaret Mary Macdonald (known as ‘Mary’ as a child) was born on 26th September 1916 in Indwe, on the same day of the year as her future husband, JLB Smith (though 19 years later). (Margaret and JLB’s son, William, grew up believing that all parents were born on the same date.) Sadly, William Macdonald died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Indwe on 26th April 1919. Margaret was just 2½ years old and Flora and Chisholm were 13 and 11 respectively, and their mother had to raise the three children alone by teaching and acting as a midwife. ‘She opened several nursing homes in Indwe for “catching babies”, as the nearest medical facilities were in Dordrecht 43 km away’ (I Sholto-Douglas, pers. comm., 2016). Another disaster later struck the family when a candle lit by young Chisholm1 set fire to the wooden stairs and ‘Inverness’ was burnt down, with little being saved. Many years later Margaret would give the name ‘Inverness’ to her home at 37 Oatlands Road, Grahamstown, where she stayed with her elder sister, Flora, from 1972 until their deaths in 1987.
Flora was educated at Collegiate Girls’ High School in Port Elizabeth and then the University of Cape Town, where she studied education, and initially took up a teaching post at Indwe Primary School; her salary helped to pay Margaret’s university tuition fees (which the family could ill afford) at Rhodes University College (RUC) (I Sholto-Douglas, pers. comm., 2016). In 1933, Flora married Robert Sholto-Douglas, an employee of the Receiver of Revenue, and continued her teaching career (English and Music) at Bryanstown High School and later St Catherine’s in the Transvaal (now Gauteng). After Margaret commenced her university studies in Grahamstown in 1934, their mother, Helen Macdonald, moved to Florida in the Transvaal to live with Flora and her husband.
By the time Margaret reached school-going age, Indwe had developed substantially and she attended Indwe High School, where she was Head Girl and Head Scholar as well as chairman of the debating society, captain of netball and tennis, and holder of the tennis shield for girls from 1929 to 19322 Margaret achieved a first-class pass in her matriculation exam, which helped her to gain entrance to RUC in Grahamstown.
Margaret was also an accomplished singer and musician and, at the 1933 Wodehouse Eisteddfod, won eight medals for singing (soprano and mezzo soprano), violin in trio, recitation, and for composing a sonnet, an English essay and a poem. She may have inherited her ‘singing genes’ from her father as he reportedly had an ‘exceptionally fine bass voice’ (The Frontier Guardian, 8th May 1919). At the East London Eisteddfod in 1933 she won the gold medal for singing (girls under 17 years) and before she matriculated in 1933, she was also awarded music certificates for piano and harmony by the University of South Africa.
A slim Margaret Smith at the age of 40 years in the laboratory of the Department of Ichthyology in 1956.
Margaret said of her early life that she had had a happy and carefree childhood, playing simple games of hide-and-seek with her sister, brother and cousins in the large house and spacious garden, and hiking, ‘nature studying’ and riding horses in the rural countryside. Music and singing were also an important part of her early upbringing and she remembered many family concerts and musicals. She learned to play the piano, like all well-educated girls of her age, but preferred singing, especially in choirs. Later, while an undergraduate at RUC, she lived in a room just above the Woods’ family shop in Grahamstown after she left residence, and Muriel Woods remembers her singing frequently in the evenings (I and I Sholto-Douglas, pers. comm., 2016).
There was also a serious side to her personality, and she had a scholarly bent as a child. She took a keen interest in her parents’ discussions on their careers in medicine and civic affairs, and resolved early on to become a medical doctor who could serve her community, in the footsteps of her late father. As her family had to make a considerable financial sacrifice to send her to university, she was doubly motivated to make a success of her studies. At that time one of the few ways in which a woman could study medicine was to obtain a BSc degree at any university and then register for postgraduate studies at a university with a medical faculty. The family chose RUC as it was relatively nearby and had a well-developed student residential system for girls. (Rhodes would only become a stand-alone university, independent of the University of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1951.)
Margaret Macdonald attended RUC from 1934 to 1936, during which time she was an active member of various committees and led a rich social life. In a 1976 SATV documentary she stated that she had heard about JLB Smith on her second day at Rhodes during a tour of the campus when she was told that one of the university’s most famous scientists worked in the Chemistry Department – but studied fishes. Whereas others were known as ‘Doc this’ or ‘Doc that’, he was simply known throughout the campus as ‘Doc’.
She did not meet him during her first year but, in her second year, he taught organic chemistry to the BSc undergraduates and also handled most of their practical work. Margaret remembered the first day that she met him, on 1st April 1935, April Fool’s Day. ‘Everyone was in class waiting for him to arrive … suddenly the door opened a chink and a couple of little saucers “came in” … they started giving off tear gas and there was a rush for the door.’ As Margaret and a friend escaped from their doorside seats (‘I had had a funny feeling about that class …’) and fled up the corridor, they saw JLB around a corner convulsed with laughter (Richards, 1987).
This incident, however, did not foreshadow an informal atmosph
ere in the classroom. ‘We were terrified of him, he was a real martinet – the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and guess who the Lord was!’ she said in the 1976 SATV documentary. She did mention, though, that he was courteous to the students and would ask their permission if he wished to speak for even a few minutes over the scheduled lecture time (Richards, 1987). In their third year JLB Smith ‘became more human’ but ‘still kept us on our toes’, and showed a gift for considering the needs of his students and addressing their problems. He was an inspiring, though strict, teacher and Margaret benefited greatly from his tuition.
She completed her BSc in 1936, majoring in physics and chemistry (with distinction) and also attended the Grahamstown Training College’s School of Music, where she obtained her University Teachers’ Licentiate in Music (UTLM; Singing) from the University of South Africa. In 1937 she was appointed as a Senior Demonstrator in the Chemistry Department where her duties included assisting with the practical work that JLB Smith supervised.
Much later, in 1945 and 1946, she would tutor students in chemistry at RUC and, in 1945, taught physics at St Andrew’s College. When her son, William, began teaching chemistry to students in 1959 (while still a student himself), she supported him strongly. According to Trevor Letcher (pers. comm., 2017), Professor of Chemistry at Rhodes University from 1981 to 1991, Margaret also championed the hosting of school science festivals at the university.
At the end of 1937 Margaret travelled to Johannesburg, to the home of her elder sister, Flora, with the intention of starting her studies in medicine the following year at the University of the Witwatersrand. ‘I was going to be a career woman’, she says in the 1976 SATV documentary, ‘I had no interest in marriage’. JLB Smith, however, had other ideas. He had seen in his young student and research assistant the kind of spark and grit that attracted him in a partner, and that Henriette had lacked. Even though he realised that they had very different personalities (as had been the case with JLB and Henriette), he decided to propose to Margaret and followed her to Johannesburg, where he first asked her mother and then informed Margaret ‘that she was going to marry him’.
This was probably not the ideal way to propose to a headstrong young woman, and Margaret’s initial, firm response was, ‘Oh no, you aren’t’, but she eventually relented when he persisted and emphasised how much he needed her (‘When JLB spoke, no-one could resist’). According to William Smith and his wife, Jenny, they had a strong mutual attraction from the outset, and Margaret also felt sorry for this ‘divorced man with three children to raise, given his position in the academic community and frail health and six months to live!’ (J Smith, pers. comm., 2017). It was common currency that JLB had suffered permanent damage as a result of the tropical diseases he had contracted during the First World War and from injuries he sustained in a serious bicycle accident in 1915, and he seems to have used this as further leverage to win Margaret’s hand. At the age of 21 years she decided to sacrifice her medical career and agreed to marry him. Although her mother apparently assented to the match, Margaret’s sister Flora ‘loved saying unkind things about JLB. She never forgave him for marrying Margaret!’ (Shirley Bell, pers. comm., 2017). Flora’s main issue was that JLB had prevented Margaret from following in her father’s footsteps and becoming a medical doctor; she was of the (well-founded) opinion that Margaret would have made a superb MD.
Margaret and JLB Smith shortly after their wedding in 1938.
Their modest wedding, a civil ceremony, took place in a church in Florida, Transvaal (now Gauteng), on 14th April 1938 and is recorded in the Registry of the Presbyterian Church (F Way-Jones, pers. comm., 2017). According to Margaret, she was nervous at the wedding as she was unsure how she would be able to live with this ‘great brain’, who some claimed had less than five years to live, at the most (SATV documentary, 1976). She said many years later (Horning, 1979): ‘I was terrified of him before we married, and stayed a little scared all our 30-odd years together’.
She realised, though, that they complemented one another well, as she was physically strong whereas he was relatively weak. She also realised that he would give her complete freedom to become the tomboy that she had always wanted to be. She commented later (Horning, 1979):
‘He had an excellent intellect, and I could never understand why he chose to marry me. For one small thing, he was 40 and I was just 21. I knew I’d have to work at our marriage from the outset, and that’s the secret to success.’
And work she did, making herself indispensable.
‘There were only two areas where I could [contribute]. And boy did I use them! One was my mathematical ability and the other my robust health … My husband was a very frail man, and I taught myself to row for him and run a boat for him and fish for him. I nearly throttled myself with tackle the first time I tried to cast.’
Soon she was digging up mud prawns, fishing, diving and doing the ‘dirty work’ on his field trips. Later, during their epic fish-collecting expeditions up the East African coast:
‘Margaret did most of the physical work, keeping the camp in order, cooking, preserving the fish, even rowing the boat, yet she still found time for her fish paintings’ (Bruton, 1988).
As far as her name was concerned, she later explained that, ‘“Mary Macdonald” sounded good, but “Mary Smith” was grim’, so she adopted the married name of Margaret Smith. In later years, JLB would admonish family members who called her Mary by saying, ‘There is no Mary here, her name is “Margaret”’ (I Sholto-Douglas, pers. comm., 2016).3
At the tender age of 21 years she was catapulted into a ready-made family that included JLB’s two teenage children from his marriage to Henriette, Robert (‘Bob’) and Cecile (‘Pats’), who were only 7 and 8 years younger than she was, respectively, as well as the baby, Shirley (4 years old), for whom JLB and Margaret developed a strong admiration later in life (W Smith, pers. comm., 2017).
JLB insisted that Margaret should be a mother to his children, and she accepted this challenge with relish. She remarked, later in life, that being a stepmother ‘was one of the easiest of her motherly duties’ but that JLB was so strict that she acted as a buffer, and relates how she once heard one of the children say ‘that’s the worst of these old fogies – they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be young!’ Margaret claimed that, as a result of her successful handling of the stepchildren, she developed an inflated opinion of her ability as a mother. When their first (and only) child, William Macdonald Smith, was born in Grahamstown on 25th June 1939, she changed this opinion: ‘William arrived two weeks early and has been in a hurry ever since!’ (MM Smith, 1996). After William, there was no thought of having any further children because of JLB’s obsessive devotion to his career and especially ‘the fish’. JLB wanted her to have at least one child ‘to keep her company as he believed that with his precarious health he might die in 1938’ (J Smith, pers. comm., 2017).
Margaret quickly settled into married life with JLB Smith in Grahamstown. In private she called him ‘Len’ (after his middle name, Leonard, as he had been known at school and as an undergraduate) but in public he was ‘the Professor’; everyone else called him ‘JLB’ or ‘Doc’. She later commented, ‘A wife can be independent or indispensable, not both. I chose to be indispensable’. She supported his work in chemistry and also took a keen interest in his angling and fish-collecting hobby. She was happy to endure the hardship of arduous fishing trips to the coast, during which they often camped out overnight, a prospect that would have been unthinkable for Henriette, as would the even more strenuous fish-collecting expeditions of the 1940s and 1950s. It is clear that the changed emphasis in JLB’s life in the late 1920s and early 1930s, from a comfortable, home-based existence as a university academic to a peripatetic and passionate angler and fish researcher, eventually caused the breakdown of his first marriage, and ushered in the historic ‘Margaret’ era.
According to an Ichthos article and an unpublished memoir by Glyn Hewson (1999, 2004), son o
f a next-door-neighbour in Grahamstown, the Smiths lived in a simple house, designed by JLB, on erf 65 in Gilbert Road on a property belonging to Miss A Tidmarsh and Miss M Sleading. Hewson remembers the Smiths from his childhood:
‘In this unique community, JLB and Margaret Smith together with William, with their own brilliance and eccentricity, added their own stamp and style. To this 11 year old, JLB was an awesome figure: he seemed to be perpetually in motion, both physically and mentally. Lean, tanned and severe, he and Mrs Smith, no less tanned and strong, only strode: through roads between the students residences to their “Department”; or seemingly ceaselessly across the hills around Grahamstown, through the late light of afternoons, come summer, come winter. I had started doing a lot of cross-country running then and would frequently see them. There was always a smile, always a wave, but never a break in the rhythm and purpose of their striding. They were so together.’
JLB Smith continued his teaching and research in chemistry and avidly pursued his amateur interest in fishes. By then he was the acknowledged authority on the marine and freshwater fishes of the Eastern Cape and, with Margaret’s help, handled a voluminous correspondence with anglers and ichthyologists. Little did they know it, but this was the beginning of a remarkable husband-and-wife partnership that was to change the course of ichthyology in Africa. Many years later Peter Jackson wrote:
‘I first met Margaret Smith with her husband in 1946, of course, as it was unusual to see one without the other. She was then a solemn young woman who seldom laughed or smiled and rarely spoke unless spoken to. She was so constantly with “the Professor” as she called him and seemed to share his thoughts so much that they appeared almost an inseparable entity’ (Jackson, 1996).
