Alexandra's population grew explosively in the late 1930s and 1940s as the previous chapter revealed. The national census of 1946 put Alexandra's population at 52 066. This was almost certainly an underestimate, mainly because many people are known to have evaded its reach. During a smallpox epidemic that struck Alexandra in May–June 1945, 60 000 people presented themselves for vaccination, and this was generally accepted as a more reliable population figure. By 1948 some observers were placing Alexandra's population as high as 80 000. This unprecedentedly rapid increase in numbers radically changed the social composition and complexion of Alexandra and disturbed some of the settled pattern of Alexandra's life of the preceding decades. The previous chapter documented the high points of political mobilisation and social unity in Alexandra, which were reached in the battles against expropriation and against bus fare increases. Other more subterranean pressures were, however, building up at more or less the same time, which were generating a variety of class and social conflicts within Alexandra, between stand holders and tenants, and between the young and the more mature, which ultimately gave birth to youth gangs and to the squatter movement of 1946– 47. At the same time and in parallel, a set of social activities cut across, and at least partly, bridged these divisions. This ‘inner life’ of Alexandra is the subject of this chapter and of Chapter Seven.

Bond houses

The new arrivals in Alexandra had to be housed, and Alexandra's stand owners were generally ready to satisfy the demand. Average rentals for a single room were between 10 shillings and £1 a month and up to fifteen rooms could legally be erected on most stands (in reality more). The financial windfall that could be gained, however, drew a good number of Alexandra's property owners into a fiscal trap. Since 1936 the Alexandra Health Committee (AHC) had enforced building regulations that required new structures to be built of burnt brick, and to conform to acceptable plans. Burnt bricks were, however, costly and beyond the means of many of Alexandra's stand holders. A new kind of financial predator now put in an appearance – the money-lending attorney. Among the first group of attorneys to enter the African mortgage field was the company of Sachs and Berman, which began lending money in 1936.