The original Athenæum was founded at the height of the Victorian era, in the 1850s, when little public entertainment was available in the city. A group of citizens gathered “to promote a larger variety of cultural and scientific projects.” Committees requested a land grant to create a Town Hall, library, and other buildings along with the Athenæum. When the foundation stone of the Town Hall was laid in October 1858, the conditions of the land grant secured accommodation for the Athenæum forever. Initially the Dramatic Society of the Athenæum was very active, but then for years there was little heard of the Athenæum. During this time the library expanded and took the space originally allocated to the Athenæum. In 1893, the Art School in Port Elizabeth, the Port Elizabeth Young Men’s Institute, the Photographic Society, and the Port Elizabeth Society came together to revive the Athenæum and the old claim to its accommodation in the Town Hall, where it opened again officially in 1896. Five years later, the building acquired a new wing, the Loubser Hall. This Hall would be enlarged in 1946 and be transformed into what is now known as the Little Theatre. In the early years of the new millennium the building fell into a state of disrepair, resulting in its closure during the latter half of the early 2000s. The Little Theatre continued to operate.