Page 88 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

In the early years
The modern SARB is one of the most respected public institutions in South Africa. The depth of its expertise today can give an impression that it never had growing pains, but it did. It went from not having a building of its own and being a bank only on paper, as its new officials scrambled to establish a fully functional central bank in the early 1920s with a national footprint, to today’s globally respected institution.
In the course of establishing the institution, the SARB experienced peculiarities and challenges. Most occurred internally and some in private engagements with certain parties. Other oddities and difficulties that the Bank came up against found their way into the news, in small and big ways, which may have caused discomfort for the institution.
Typewriters
The minutes of the first Board meeting, and all other meetings at that time, were neatly written in calligraphy handwriting in a yellow notebook. It is not clear on which specific date the SARB received its first typewriter, but the first time its Board minutes were typed was in 1928. Writing in calligraphy must have been painstakingly slow as the writer made no apparent errors at all. If there were any, then those pages must have been discarded, forcing the writer to start afresh.
The SARB’s records also show that although the detail captured in the minutes remains, the language style used in documents and correspondence has evolved over the years, and is markedly different today. The ending of every letter between the SARB and other government institutions, for instance, was signed off with the words: ‘I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant’. Today, officials use ‘Yours faithfully’ or ‘Yours sincerely’.
Another peculiarity is the use of ‘shewn’ instead of ‘shown’. The SARB’s documents show almost exclusive use of the former for at least the first two decades of existence, perhaps a reflection of the style of writing in the British Empire’s official documentation at the time.
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Example of a typewriter used during the SARB’s early years. /Getty Images