Hanover Street was located in what was once known as Panmure (now East London's CBD).
The street was formed in 1877 and given its German name in honour of the German settlers -- both the
British-German Legion and the German agricultural settlers who had arrived in East London in 1857 and
1858 and had settled in that part of the town.
In 1914, however, when anti-German sentiment became strong in East London because of the outbreak
of the Great War, Hanover Street was renamed Gladstone Street after John Herbert Gladstone, South
Africa's first Governor General.
