More info about Pirates Arms
I refer to the article in today’s newspaper regarding the building of the present Pirates Arms,and I believe that Ms Gemma Roberts is correct in her claim that the original Pirates Arms was demolished in the 1960s. I stayed in the Pirates Arms Hotel on my first visit to Seychelles in 1955 and remember attending a Poppy Day dance in the hotel. The hotel was strictly run by a Mrs P. Whitewright, a lady sometimes irreverently referred to as Mrs Quite Right. I took a picture of the hotel, which appears opposite Page 320 in my book on the history of Seychelles from 1920 to 1976, entitled To Be A Nation.
There is a touching description of the final sale by auction of the old hotel in the Seychelles Bulletin of 11 February 1967. There was apparently only one bidder, Mr Artoff Chetty, who bought the building and its contents for R.1,000. “To those who had known this unique hotel in its colourful heyday, the scene at the auction had about it a nostalgic, perhaps even a pathetic atmosphere,” the Bulletin reporter notes.
Picture of the original Pirates Arms taken by William McAteer
According to the report the Pirates Arms started off as a Government Rest House, constructed from the wood of the original slave stockade at Anse aux Pins. The building was later added to by a new owner, who named it the Raffles Hotel. In 1935 the ownership was transferred to Mr Harry Savy, who with financial help from the Government was able to run it profitably. However a decline in tourism during the Second World War forced him to sell. Again under new ownership the hotel expanded upwards with another storey added, and the name was changed to the Empire Hotel. Its third and final name change to the Pirates Arms came in 1951 when the property was taken over by Commander Bentley-Buckle.
The article concludes: “Early next week, the Pirates Arms will begin its slow but steady demise as the demolition work gets under way.”
William McAteer
Glacis.
Source: Today.sc 2-25-15
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Pirates Arms: the difference between “privatization” and “piratization”
It is with great interest that I have read the long feature article on the Pirates Arms Building which you have published yesterday morning. My understanding is that the article is published to get the historical record straight in the context of the debate whether the actual Pirates Arms Building should be demolished in order to make room for a more modern and perhaps more impressive building in this strategic part of Victoria.
When I was growing up in the 50s, there were only two hotels in Victoria. In fact, this is what Alec Waugh wrote in 1952 in one of the first books ever written about the Seychelles “Where the Clocks Chime Twice” (first published in 1952 by Cassell & Co. Ltd, London) –
“The evenings that I spent in the town of Victoria I stayed at the Continental.
Victoria owns two hotels; the Empire is the other one. Accommodation is available at either, at the shortest notice. The clientele and atmosphere are completely different. The Empire stands opposite the club. It is the first building that the visitor sees as he drives up from the pier. Prospective residents use it as a base while they are discovering ‘how the land lies’. It has a large hall that is hired for weddings and receptions; meals are served punctually, and breakfast tables are cleared at nine. The Continental is two blocks away. It advertises itself facing ‘the quiet of the Cathedral Close’. The Cathedral stands at the junction of the road over the mountain and the road along the coast. This latter road is also the main shopping thoroughfare. On the other side of it lie the taxi-stand and car park. Behind these lies the football field. The Continental stands, therefore, in the noisiest corner of the town. It is the hotel that I preferred...”
Ironically, the Continental Hotel was owned and operated by none other than my late father, Richard Mancham - but when I married my first wife in 1963, the wedding reception was held at the Empire Hotel which had just been renamed the Pirates Arms by Mr. Bentley Buckle, who had just become its new owner.
This strategically-placed hotel opposite the Seychelles Club was in fact a very impressive French Colonial wooden building which would have warranted conservation, if at that time, we had in place a policy of preserving national heritage. Unfortunately, it was left unattended and uncared for and was subsequently demolished. It is there and then that Mr. Michael Von Oswald and Mr. Ken Roberts decided to buy the site and build the new Pirates Arms as it stands today.
If we must preserve Pirates Arms as it is, in order to commemorate the pioneering efforts and confidence of early investors in Seychelles or to honour the engineering feats of Mr. Roy Garden, who was the engineer behind the construction, this is certainly one thing. But to say that the Pirates Arms Building, as it now stands, constitutes an architectural monument deserving a Seychelles heritage status and therefore qualify for preservation, is certainly another story.
The veracity of the story which we are told about the historical ownership of the Pirates Arms Building remains a puzzle which should be solved. The researcher of the article, you published, wrote “....after 5th of June 1977 coup the Seychelles government acquired the building, the terms of that acquisition are not very clear.” I certainly cannot agree with your researcher more - “The terms of acquisition are not very clear.”
At all material time, I was a good friend of Mr. Michael Von Oswald, who had become the sole owner of the property after buying out the shares of his partner, Mr. Ken Roberts, a few months before the coup.
My understanding is that following the coup, Mr Von Oswald was pressured to sell the property not to the Seychelles government but to one individual. That any individual would acquire a hotel in Seychelles just a few days after a revolutionary coup would suggest, in my view, that this individual was himself involved in the coup or closely associated with those involved in it.
It would therefore be interesting to know precisely the historical truth about the ownership of the Pirates Arms. Who were the real owners? By which process did the government acquire the property? Why was there a need for government to approach Dr. Ramadoss for help as you suggest in your article? And what is all this business about a subsequent offer by Dr. Ramadoss to government to buy the building and how and when did the Pension Fund come in? Some clarifications are certainly called for.
I am sure that a researcher to these questions will be able to demarcate where “privatization” stopped and “piratization” began.
Yours faithfully
James R. Mancham
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Dear Editor,
I found the articles on Pirates Arms from Mrs Gemma Roberts and Mr McAteer very interesting. Her version is totally correct. Ken Roberts was a very bright Jewish entrepreneur from Wales who was sent by the World Bank to establish a commercial bank in Nigeria. While he was on Poivre Island, he made butter for the population. I wonder what has happened to all the equipment when the island was taken over?
The tale of Mr McAteer, is also correct and his old photo of Pirates Arms is unique to me. However, I would like to add that the first building erected on that site in late 1929 was a large edifice built under the directive of the Superintendent of Public Works Major Harold Kenworthy, an Irishman and the building was used as his Head Office. Later, when the Public Works Department was moved to another location, that building was rented as a hotel. It was named the Raffles Hotel.
In 1938 the latter was demolished and another larger hotel with two levels was erected and apparently opened at the end of the same year, known as “The Empire Hotel”. It was later as, Mr McAteer has pointed out, that it was renamed “Pirates Arms” in 1951.
Julien Durup
Source: Today.sc 2-26-15