James FISH, who was born at Manchester, England, in the year 1838. Early in life he was converted to God, and after service as a Sunday School teacher and Local Preacher he became a candidate for the ministry. He was accepted by the Yearly Conference of 1860, and appointed to Hinde Street, London, as assistant to the late Dr. PUNSHON.

He came to South Africa in 1861, and began his ministry in this country in the Grahamstown Circuit. His health was never robust, and at frequent intervals he had to desist from preaching. After sixteen years’ service he retired from our ministry, but at the South African Conference of 1884 he sought for readmission and was accepted. He laboured with much success in several of our principal English Circuits, but was compelled by failing health to become a supernumerary in 1891.

He spent the last eight years of his life in Stellenbosch, in reading and meditation, hoping against hope for the day on which he could resume his  beloved work of preaching. He stood in the front rank of the preachers of our South Africa Connexion, and his sermons were characterised by great originality of thought and freshness of treatment. He was remarkably gifted in prayer, and many are the testimonies that are given concerning the blessings experienced under his ministratrations, not only in the pulpit, but in the homes of sorrow and sickness, where his sympathetic words and his effectual prayer brought light and comfort to not a few. The end of his earthly life was unspeakably sad. By the accidental overturning of a lamp he was severly burnt, and after many months of intense suffering he went to the home of his son in East London in December last.

Under the advise of medical men he consented to the amputation of his right arm, but the mental shock was too great. His mind gave away, and in an unguarded hour he wondered from the hospital and was lost beyond trace. It is surmised that he fell  into the river and that his body was carried out to sea. After a troubled life, in which he endured many heavy sorrows, he entered into rest in January 1901, in the 62nd year of his age.

From: Minutes of Wesley Methodist Conference of 1901

J.Jackson WEST who was born at Effingham, Surrey, in the year 1867. He was converted to God in early youth, and at once began to take part in the Sunday School, Cottage Services and Prayer Meetings. The call to the ministry came to him very clearly, and in preparation for the work of his life he placed himself under the Rev. Allen REES at Wesley’s Chapel, London, where he received instruction, and was actively employed in the Mission work for two years.

He came to South Africa as a candidate for the ministry of our Church in 1894, and was accepted as a probationer at the Conference of 1895. Mr. WEST laboured in the circuits of Barkly East and Parijs with great acceptance. Owing to the War he was unable to take up his appointment at Lindley, but as a supply in other Circuits he rendered good service. He was most diligent and earnest in caring for the scattered members of his flock, both English and Native. He was beloved by his people, and especially by  the children, with whom he was very popular.

The young men looked upon him as a friend to whom they could always appeal for sympathy and help. He was loving and lovable as a man; open and loyal as a colleque:; earnest and devoted as a pastor, who was especially helpful in the rooms of the sick and the dying. The end of his life came with strange suddenness. Whilst attending the Synod at Kimberley he was laid low with fever, and only after one week’s illness he passed away on the 4th of February, 1901, in the 33rd year of his age and the 6th year of his ministry.

From: Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conference Minutes 1901

Rev. Barnabas Shaw

Barnabas J. SHAW, was born on the 1st February 1821 and was the son of the eminent missionary the Rev. Brnabas SHAW. Hewas educated at Woodhouse Grove School and won considerable distinction in classics and mathemathics. It was his intention to devote himself to Educational work, but after his conversion to God he heard the call to the higher tasks of the Christian Ministry. He was trained at the Hoxton Theological Institution, and offered himself for service in India. With a view to his new sphere he devoted himself to the study of Canarese. Circumstances however, prevented his going to India, and he laboured for a time in circuits in England. The Missionary Committee afterwards decided that he should join his father in South Africa, and to fit himself for his work he went to Holland to study the Dutch language. His first appointment in Africa was to the Cape Town Circuit, from whence he removed to Raithby, where failure of voice began to trouble him.

After a brief visit to England he settled at Salem as the first Principal of the Industrial School established by Sir George GREY, and when he spent many years of happy and prosperous life. He finally settled at Grahamstown and became eminently succesful as Head Master of a Private School. As a Christian educationist Mr. SHAW had few rivals in South Africa. Many of his pupils have attained high positions in various professions. Mr. Shaw rendered valuable service as a preacher of the Gospel. His sermons were deeply spiritual and instructive, and were delivered with peculiar grace and unction. He was a most lovable man, full of sympathy and always a welcome visitor to the homes of the people. His last days were marked by a singular calm and serenity of mind, and displayed in an eminent degree of beauty of Christian saintliness. He died at Grahamstown on the 15th of June 1902, in the 82nd year of his age.

From: Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conference 1903 Page 6 & 7

William Shaw DAVIS was born at Grahamstown in the year 1832. He was the son of the late Rev. William Jefford DAVIS, one of the pioneers of our Missions in Kaffirland. He spent seven years at Woodhouse Grove School and received much spiritual good there; but he always attributed his conversion to God to a sermon preached by the Rev. Frederick MASON.

The visit of the Rev. William TAYLOR to the Clarkebury Mission was made an unspeakable blessing to him. It was at that time that he translated into Kafir the hymn called “The Eden above,” which has been the means under God of awakening and bringing thousands of the Natives to the Saviour. In after years he composed and translated a number of the hymns in the Kafir Hymn Book, which has been favourites with our people. In 1871 he became a candidate and was accepted.

His first appointment was at Shawbury, where four years of self-sacrificing labours had a marked effect on the Chief and tribe. After a year spent  at Kamastone he returned to Shawbury at the request of the Home Committee. It was during this second term at Shawbury that he established the Girls’Institution which proved so great a blessing to our people. After three years spent at Etembeni. one of our most difficult Circuits, he was called to take charge of the Boys’Training Institution at Clarkebury. His perfect knowledge of the Kafir language and his sympathy with the young, coupled with his spiritual character, had a wonderful effect on the youths who came under his care. Many of them received “the grace of God,” and some have entered the ministry. He was quiet and gentle in his manners. His character was pure, his conduct exemplary.

He was an upright, kind-hearted, genuine, unassuming man, and a faithful and useful minister of Jesus Christ. The last two years of his life were spent at St. John’s, and though prostrated his weakness he did what he could, and his last effort was the erection of a  beautiful sanctuary which was dedicated to the service of God just three weeks before he died. He fell asleep in Jesus on the 29th of January, 1902, in the 70th year of his age and the 31st year of his ministry.

From: Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conference of 1902

Thomas OLDMAN was born near Wigton, England, on January 23rd, 1864. Blessed with godly parents he was nearly converted to God. After three years at the Didsbury Theological Institution, he came to this country in 1890 and laboured with great acceptance in various circuits. At Okiep his health broke down; and though, after a long rest, he resumed work for a few months, he was compelled to become a supernumerary in 1901. During along and painful illness he was gentle, patient, un-murmuring. He retained his interest in the Church and passing events to the last. As a pastor he was diligent and faithful. As a preacher he was thoughtful and interesting, his style quiet and unassuming, his language choice and refined. He died at Middelburg on the 11th of January, 1902.

From: Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conferences 1902

John Stegman DLAKIYA, born at Annshaw of Christian parents, was converted to God in early youth. He was educated at Healdtown and Lovedale. In 1889 he was accepted by the Conference, and subsequently laboured in the Jonono’s Kop, Durban, East London and Wesleyville Circuits. He was humble in spirit and earnest in his work. As a preacher he was clear and powerful, and God made him instrumental in saving many souls. We anticipated for him many years of great usefulness, but the Lord was pleased to call him to his reward at an early age. He died on the 31st of May 1901, in the 12 year of his ministry.
From Minutes of Wesleyan Methodist Conference 1902 Page 7-8

Joseph Henry Dobson

Joseph Henry Dobson was born at Nantwich, Chester, England on the 12th October 1878 and died in Johannesburg  on the 29th June 1954. He was an engineer and pioneer of South Africa’s industrial development, was the son of a railway engineer John Dobson and his wife, Sarah Jackson. Dobson had his early education at St Paul’s School and St Barnabas School. He served his apprenticeship with the London and North-Western Railway, but several scholarships enabled him to go to Victoria University, Manchester, where he graduated with the degree of M.Sc., and to Liverpool University, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 1926.

In 1904 he came to South Africa to take up the post of professor of Electrotechnics at the Transvaal Technical Institute, the predecessor of the University of the Witwatersrand. He held this chair until 1909, when he resigned his post to become town electrical engineer to the Johannesburg municipality. In the following year he was appointed general manager of the town’s gas, electricity and tramways department, a position he held for over ten years.
During the First World War (1914-18) he was officer commanding the South African Pioneer Battalion, and was mentioned in dispatches during the campaign in German East Africa. For outstanding service in this campaign he was later awarded the D.S.O. and appointed lieutenant-colonel in the Active Citizen Force.

In 1919 he acquired an interest in the engineering business of R.M. Dowson, and soon became managing director of the eminent firm of Dowson and Dobson Limited, engineers, merchants and contractors. This was the start of a career which brought great benefits to the industrial development of South Africa.

Dobson was an early and enthusiastic advocate of a steel industry in South Africa. When Iscor was founded in 1928 he became one of its first directors, and at the request of the government he withdrew from his own business to give his full attention to the problems arising when the corporation was approaching the production stage. From 1930 to 1933 he was also chairman of the Union Steel Corporation and chairman or director of several other companies. He became general works manager of Iscor in 1933 and made an immediate success of his task.

Dobson will be remembered for his outstanding service to South Africa as a pioneer in industry. He was responsible for the introduction of a number of new industries and processes, notably the rubber industry in Natal, the production of industrial oxygen, and the manufacture of hollow-drill steel and stranded copper-wire conductors. He contributed notably to the advancement of science and technology. In addition to his many noteworthy papers on mine air-conditioning, his research covered a wide field, including the generation, supply and distribution of electricity and the problems of industrialisation.

He was president of the South African Institution of Engineers; the Chemical Metallurgical and Mining Society; the Association of Municipal Engineering, South Africa, and the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies. He was twice awarded the gold medal of the South African Institution of Engineers and in 1938 was given the Moulton Gold Medal of the Institute of Chemical Engineers, London. His paper on the improvements of temperature and humidity conditions of the atmosphere of mines of great depth won him the J. Bernard Hall Prize in 1938 from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and in 1947 the University of the Witwatersrand conferred upon him the honorary D.Sc. degree in Engineering.

In his spare-time interests included the National Veld Trust, of which he was honorary life vice-chairman. Long before the introduction of decimal coinage he was a keen advocate of this system for South Africa and also supported the reform of the world calendar. He was married to Kathleen Florence and had two daughters.

French cartoon depicting Cecil John Rhodes with a bottle of champagne while the Transvaal burns.

The causes of the war must be sought first in South African politics and secondly in international politics at the end of the 19th cent. Because of their interrelationship these two causes are here treated as one. The 2nd Anglo Boer War began on 11 October 1899.

War between Britain and the Boer republics, 1899-1902

To a certain extent it can be said that the seeds from which the war was to stem were sown during the Great Trek. This had as one of its most important results the fact that the second half of the 19th century, after the two Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, had gained their independence -was to see an increasing conflict between the political aims of the Afrikaners and the British. In events such as the Basuto wars, which the Free State had to wage for self-preservation, and the annexation of the diamond-fields, the germ of the development of Afrikaner nationalism is to be found. The annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 and the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-82) which it caused gave this nationalism such an impetus that it was to become a dominant factor in South African politics.

At the same time British imperialism in respect of South Africa was revealed. Imperialism was not by any means limited to Britain, but was a world-wide tendency. Other European powers, such as Germany, France and Italy, were also engaged in it. The result was the ‘scramble for Africa’, in which these powers competed with one another to establish colonies on the continent. This acquirement of colonies was chiefly motivated by the idea that the colonies would provide raw materials for British industries and at the same time would be markets for manufactured products. When other countries also became industrialised and established their own colonies, Britain could no longer consider herself one jump ahead of the rest of the world. This fact was of particular significance for South Africa.

The champion of the British imperialist cause in South Africa was Cecil John Rhodes, who became a member of the Cape Parliament in 1881 and rose to be Prime Minister in 1890. His great ideal was to bring the whole of South Africa under British control. He was to find his chief antagonist in President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic, who became the leader of Afrikaner nationalism after 188i. Kruger’s great aim was to protect the political and economic independence of his state, to check British influence and to prevent British control. It was inevitable that there would be a clash between him and Rhodes, who succeeded, by the annexation of Bechuanaland and of Rhodesia, in surrounding the two Boer republics completely, precluding any further expansion on their part. After that the only outlet for them that was not in British hands was Delagoa Bay, to which the Transvaal built a railway, financed by German and Dutch capital.

The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal Republic in 1886 was to the advantage of British imperialism. Thousands of British subjects moved to the Transvaal to try their luck. They began to campaign for equal political rights, which the original Transvaalers could not grant for fear of losing their independence. After the agitation had continued for some years, some of the leading Uitlanders (foreigners) in Johannesburg conspired with Rhodes, which led to the abortive Jameson Raid at the end of 1895. This event not only marred the relations between English and Afrikaners in South Africa, but also revealed to an amazed world that Britain and Germany were no longer on very friendly terms. Germany had already invested a considerable amount of capital in the gold-mines, and besides she had an idea of gaining possession of Delagoa Bay. The Emperor William II was moved to send a congratulatory telegram to President Kruger on the failure of the Raid. This caused much indignation in Britain, and the Government, in which the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, was a leading figure, was determined to cut the knot in South Africa by terminating the independence of the Transvaal.

It was with this policy in view that Sir Alfred Milner, a convinced Imperialist, was sent to South Africa in 1897 by the British government as Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner in South Africa. He seized his opportunity at the beginning of 1899, when the Uitlanders in Johannesburg renewed their agitation. This time they sent a petition to Queen Victoria, begging for British support. Milner also urged interference on their behalf. Pres. M. T. Steyn of the Orange Free State, who feared that war would result and wished to prevent it, then invited both Kruger and Milner to a meeting in Bloemfontein to discuss the situation. The talks lasted from 31 May to 5 June. The main subject was the granting of the franchise to British subjects who had settled on the Witwatersrand. Although Kruger made considerable concessions, Milner remained unsatisfied, as he was already contemplating the destruction of the independence of the Transvaal by military force. For this reason the Bloemfontein Conference failed.

After his return to Cape Town Milner urged the British government to send troops to South Africa, and they began to arrive in Aug. and Sept. The Transvaal government now made further concessions regarding the franchise for foreigners, but these were not sufficient to satisfy Milner. The Orange Free State, as well as the Transvaal, saw in the arrival of the British forces a threat to their independence, and on 9 Oct. an ultimatum was sent to the British government: if the troops were not removed, a state of war would exist between Britain and the Boer republics. And so the war began on ii Oct. 1899. A few days later Chamberlain stated in the House of Commons that the war was necessary to maintain Britain’s position in world affairs. The diminution of British power, owing to the rapid rise of important competitors, turned the problems in South Africa into a matter of prestige for Britain. She had to show that she could compel a recalcitrant small state to submit to British domination.