The Worker’s Museum: Joburg’s final standing migrant compound
JOBURG – The Worker's Museum was once a place of poor living standards and racial segregation
If you’ve ever visited Newtown Park, you’ve surely seen the Worker’s Museum – but do you know its history?
The building, which is now known as the Worker’s Museum, was a cleansing and sanitary compound in 1913 when it was opened by the City Council.
It was built to house the migrant workers who were employed by the department of sanitation and at a nearby power station, but according to the workers who once lived there, conditions were less than comfortable with 13 men sometimes sharing one small room with no electricity.
According to the Newtown Heritage Trail, black workers from across Africa left their families to pursue their careers in Johannesburg and were made to sleep side-by-side on concrete bunks, with no privacy and living under the control of the compound manager, while the white workers were deemed more skilled and lived in houses on the north side of the compound.
In the years that followed, the Newtown compound was inhabited by a number of different working groups including electricians and general municipal workers who were employed in the quickly developing Johannesburg area.
It was in the 80s that the compound was converted for use as a storage facility, but shortly after this brief stint, the Newtown Workers’ Compound was declared a national monument in 1996.
The property, however, was poorly maintained until 2008 when architect, Henry Paine, began restoration on the building.
It was reported by City of Joburg, that ‘steel beams were installed to hold up the sagging interior trusses; the rusty gutters were replaced, graffiti was removed from the brickwork, the walls were repainted and the terracotta floors were cleaned’.
It was this revamp that garnered the venue an award of excellence from the South African Institute of Architects.
The venue is now open to the public and is available as a meeting and event venue, and is also a library.
As the final surviving municipal compound, it serves as a reminder of migrant struggles during a tumultuous time in South Africa’s past.
