Adriaan Jacobus Louw Hofmeyr

Born in Calvinia on the  13 April 1854 and died in Bellville, Cape Province  on 01 May 1937, minister of the N.G. Kerk and political agitator, was the eldest son of Prof. N. J. Hofmeyr of the Theological Seminary, Stellenbosch, and his wife, Maria Magdalena Louw.

Hofmeyr  was educated at Stellenbosch where he completed the B.A. degree at the Victoria College and his training at the Theological Seminary. In 1879 he was admitted to the ministry and in 1881 ordained at Willowmore. In 1883 he was called to Prince Albert, and was, as in the previous parish, active in promoting church music and rehabilitating the indigent. Requested by the Cape Church, he visited its members in Mashonaland in 1891, becoming an enthusiastic supporter of Cecil John Rhodes’s  plans for expansion north of the Limpopo. Although he made his mark as a public speaker he refused a request to stand for election to the Cape parliament. After the Jameson Raid (1895-6) he tried in vain to reconcile J. H. Hofmeyr (Onze Jan) and Rhodes.

In 1895 he accepted a call to Wynberg but in July 1899 the Presbytery found him guilty of serious misconduct and suspended him.
Subsequently he settled in Bechuanaland where he was mainly active with political propaganda against the government and the policy of the neighbouring Transvaal Republic. He acquired an unfavourable reputation among the Afrikaners as being markedly pro-British and shortly after the start of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) he was taken prisoner by an invading Boer commando at the Palapye railway station. From November 1899 he was detained in the State Model School in Pretoria together with British officers who were taken prisoner and with whom he identified himself completely. Among them was the British journalist Winston Churchill. When Pretoria was occupied in June 1900 he regained his freedom and on the recommendation of Sir Alfred Milner, whom he taught Afrikaans, was engaged as agent by the military authorities to persuade the republicans to lay down their arms. His efforts failed, however, and after several months he left for England where he published an account of his experiences during captivity under the title The story of my captivity (London 1901). The work was characterised by declarations of loyalty towards Britain and contempt for the fighting Boers.

Next he campaigned to influence British public opinion against the deputation of the Cape politicians, John X. Merriman and J. W. Sauer, who visited England from January to July 1901. By means of letters in the London press he also tried to refute the disclosures of Emily Hobhouse about the concentration camps. The issue was confused, however, when the Liberal opposition press released the facts connected with his suspension from the ministry and stressed that H. had no status or prestige among his own people.
After the war he settled at Kuruman. In 1926 he was readmitted to the ministry and became assistant minister at Heilbron.
In 1928 he was ordained minister at Kuruman and retired in 1933. He married Anna Joubert. A photograph of him appears in The story of my captivity (supra) and in the Jaarboek van die Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerke in Suid-Afrika, 1938.

Search this database of over 300 records of people who died in the Norvalspont concentration Camp. Norvalspont was probably established about November 1900, in order to relieve the overcrowded Bloemfontein camp with its dire shortage of water. During a visit to this camp Emily Hobhouse could not even find a trained nurse.

This database provides names and surnames as well as an approximate date of death and whether the deceased was over the age of 15 or not.

Below is list of names to be found in the database.

Adendorff, Badenhorst, Baird, Becker, Bekker, Bezuidenhout, Blignaut, Bloem, Boshoff, Botha, Bowen, Brink, Brits, Brouwer, Brummer, Calitz, Coetzee, Collins, Cordier, Cronje, De Beer, De Klerk, De Koker, De Swart, De Villiers, Dissels, Drotsky, Du Plessis, Du Plooy, Du Preez, Du Toit, Erasmus, Esterhuizen, Ferreira, Fouche, Fourie, Fowler, Greyling, Griesel, Grobbelaar , Grobler, Haasbroek, Hamilton, Havenga, Heckroodt, Hendrikse, Herholdt, Horak, Houman, Hugo, Human, Huygen, Jackson, Jacobs, Jansen, Jooste, Joubert, Kerr, Klassen, Kleinhans, Klopper, Kock, Kotze, Kruger, Lamprecht, Lanfield, Lategan, Lee, Liebenberg, Lombaard, Lopkins, Lorentz, Lotz, Louw, Lubbe, Maartens, Marais, Mosenger, Muller, Myburgh, Mynhardt, Nel, Nienaber, Norval,
Oberholzer, Olivagen, Olivier, Oosthuizen, Orlandini, Parkin, Peyper, Pienaar, Potgieter, Pretorius, Reinecke, Reneke, Richter, Roos, Roux, Schoeman, Scholtz, Schoonfeldt, Serfontein, Small, Snyman, Steenekamp, Steyn, Strauss, Strydom, Stuart, Swanepoel, Swart, Swarts, Tromp, Van der Linde, Van der Merwe, Van der Walt, Van Heerden, Van Jaarsveldt, Van Niekerk, Van Rensburg, Van Schalkwyk, Van Staden, Van Tonder, Van Vreden, Van Vuuren, Van Wyk, Van Zyl, Venter, Verwey, Viljoen, Visagie, Visser, Vorster, Wydeman,

Also look at the images of the memorial of this tragic event.

Philanthropist and authorBorn: St. Ives, Cornwall, UK – 09 April 1860

Died: London, UK – 08 June 1926)

On the maternal side a Trelawney, Emily Hobhouse  has traced her descent from two well-known families belonging to the British aristocracy. Her father was the Anglican minister in the Cornish village of St. Ive, near Liskeard, where she lived a life of frustration up to her 35th year.

A typical Victorian education for girls denied her the intellectual development enjoyed by her youngest brother, the sociologist Prof Leonard T. Hobhouse, a kindred spirit. The social work she did in the parish and caring for an invalid widowed father presented few opportunities for self-expression. After his death she broke away and became a church social worker – the only task she felt competent to do – at Virginia in a mining region of Minnesota, to which Cornish miners had emigrated.

Emily’s engagement to an American businessman fell through, and on the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War she found herself in London in the circle of the pro-Boers, prominent among whom was her uncle, Lord Hobhouse. As secretary of the women’s branch of the Conciliation Committee, which tried to avert the war, she organised a mass meeting of women to protest against the war in Queen’s Hall, London.

Reports of the systematic burning of Boer farms by British soldiers caused her to see ‘a sort of vision’ of herself amidst homeless women and children. She established a relief fund, came out to South Africa, and during the first five months of 1901 visited many of the camps in the Free State and the Northern Cape to which civilians were being herded in their hundreds and where bad organisation and a serious epidemic of measles combined to claim an appalling number of lives.

For her Britain’s honour was at stake. Her flaming indictment of conditions prevailing in the camps caused the British war government to be severely criticised by the Liberal Opposition for their ‘methods of barbarism’. A Government committee under Millicent Fawcett substantiated the most serious of her charges after a fatal delay of months, but ‘that Miss Hobhouse’ was reviled for her compassion for enemy subjects.

She was denied further access to the camps and when she arrived again in Table Bay on 27 October 1901 to render what aid she could to destitute British refugees from the war zone, she was deported under martial law.

Early in 1903 she visited the devastated districts in the Transvaal and the Free State to which ruined Boer families were returning after the cessation of hostilities at the height of a severe drought. She criticised the repatriation committees and established a relief fund mainly for the purchase of spans of oxen and seed for the farmers. She also established a fund for home industries, which from 1905 to 1908 she personally initiated with a school for spinning and weaving, first at Philippolis and later also in Johannesburg. A lace making school at Koppies (Orange Free State) formed part of this scheme.

When the National Women’s Monument was erected at Bloemfontein, the motif depicted by Van Wouw in his principal group was a camp scene as recorded by her. She was invited to unveil the monument on 16 December 1913, but owing to heart trouble she had to cut her journey short at Beaufort West; her inaugural address was, however, read out and circulated in both official languages.

Her books The brunt of the war and where it fell (1902), an English translation of the diary of Alida Badenhorst (Tant Alie of Transvaal, her diary, 1880-1902 1923), and her compilation of Boer women’s war experiences, War without glamour (1924), did pioneering work in giving documentary proof of civilian suffering in time of war, and amounted to a plea for the abolition of war.

A fervent pacifist, she co-operated with the Women’s International Peace Movement during the First World War, spending three months in Amsterdam. In 1915, on her way to Italy and without the knowledge of her government, she went to Germany where she tried to act as mediator between the belligerents. For this she was denounced in Britain as a traitor. In spite of poor health she carried on an untiring struggle against famine in post-war Europe, especially in Leipzig and Vienna, for which she received contributions amounting to £15,500 from South Africa. On the initiative of her friend, the wife of President Steyn, funds (£2,300) were collected in South Africa for Emily Hobhouse to enable her, poor and infirm, to buy a house at St. Ives, the well-known seaside resort in Cornwall.

Women from the Orange Free State used to send her a ‘wonder box’ of South African delicacies every year. Up to her death she remained grieved at heart because her own people never understood that her concern for her country’s honour had been one of her chief motives.

Following Mrs. Steyn’s suggestion her ashes were brought to South Africa and buried at the National Women’s Monument on the occasion of a great national gathering on 27 October 1926. The village of Hobhouse (Orange Free State) was named after her.

Emily Hobhouse

Source: SESA (Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa)

In the early days of the settlement at the Cape people of note were buried inside church buildings. Provision for a place of worship was at once made inside the Castle. Consequently the Rev. Joan van Arckel was laid to rest at that particular spot in the unfinished Castle in Jan. 1666. Only a fortnight earlier he himself had officiated at the laying of one of the four foundation stones of the new defence structure. A few months later the wife of Commander Zacharias Wagenaer was buried in the same ground; likewise Commander Pieter Hackius, who died on 30th November 1671. By 1678 the little wooden church inside the Castle proved too small, and when a new site was selected provision was made for a cemetery immediately outside the church, but the custom of burials inside the building continued. The whole piece of ground where the Groote Kerk and its adjacent office building now stand was enclosed by a strong wall. People were buried on this site before the completion of the church building. The first to be buried there was the Rev. Petrus Hulsenaar, who died on 15th December 1677 and was laid to rest where the church was to be built. The bodies of those who were buried in the wooden church inside the Castle were reinterred here in a common grave. After that a fee equivalent to about R12 was charged for a grave inside the church, as against R1.00 for a burial-place in the churchyard.

The church building was completed in 1703, and the first governor buried inside its walls was Louis van Assenburgh, who died on Sunday, 27th December 1711. The following year ex-Governor Simon van der Stel died on 24th June and was buried inside the church; a memorial was put up behind the pulpit. He was followed by several notable persons, all buried inside the building: Governor Maurits Pasques de Chavonnes, whose death occurred on 8th September 1724; Governor Pieter Gijsbert Noodt (died 23rd April 1729); the wife of Governor Jan de la Fontaine (June 1730), Governor Adriaan van Kervel (19th September 1737) and Governor elect Pieter, Baron van Reede, who died at sea on the way out and was buried in the church on 16th April 1773. The last of the Governors to be buried in the Groote Kerk was Ryk Tulbagh. Although his death occurred on 11th August 1771, the burial was postponed 17th August to enable country folk to attend the funeral of the `Father' of the people. Some memorial tablets and escutcheons can still be seen at the Groote Kerk, but most disappeared during rebuilding operations, including that of Simon van der Stel. The escutcheon- of Baron Pieter van Reede is still to be seen on the outside wall of the enlarged building near the original steeple. Another conspicuous tablet, but of a much later date, is that of Chief Justice Sir John Truter and Lady Truter, who died in 1845 and 1849 respectively and were buried in the churchyard a few years after the reconstruction. It is believed that the first Jan Hendrik Hofineyr in South Africa, who was superintendent of De Schuur and died in 1805, lies buried in the little cemetery still preserved at Groote Schuur, but it is impossible to identify his grave.

Notable Huguenot personalities are buried in Huguenot cemeteries at French Hoek, La Motte and Dal Josafat. A historic Jewish cemetery has been preserved in Woodstock, while many notable figures lie buried in the cemeteries at Mowbray and Woltemade. The Cape Malay community at all times took a pride in the graves of their leaders who died at the Cape. Apart from the kramat at Faure where Sheik Yusuf lies buried, there are kramats on the slopes of Signal Hill, being tombs of Khordi Abdusalem, Tuan Said (Syed), Tuan Guru and Tuan Nurman. New structures were erected here in 1969.

Comdt. Tjaart van der Walt, 'the Lion-Heart', was buried in 1802 where he fell in battle against the Xhosa tribes in the hills at Cambria, a few km from the Gamtoos valley. Dr. John Philip of the London Missionary Society, who died in 1851, is buried near Hankey railway station in the Gamtoos valley, and with him his son William Enowy, who drowned on the day when his father's water scheme was officially opened. Frederik Cornelis Bezuidenhout, whose death in 1815 was the prelude to the Slachter's Nek Rebellion, lies buried on his farm on the upper reaches of the Baviaans River, near the Bedford-Tarka road. A significant number of British settlers and sons of the 1810 Settlers were killed in battle in the Frontier Wars. At least one had the place he was buried named after him – Bailie's Grave near Keiskammahoek in the Ciskei; Charles Bailie, son of Lt. John Bailie, the founder of East London, was killed here in the Sixth Frontier War. Settler cemeteries in various parts of the Eastern Province contain the graves of many leading pioneers.

At Keiskammahoek is Gaika's grave, proclaimed a national monument. He was the founder of the Gaika tribe and died in 1829. The grave of his son and successor, Sandile, killed in the Ninth Frontier War in 1878 and buried at Stutterheim, has been provided with a bronze inscription by the Historical Monuments Commission. In Durban, the cemetery of the Old Fort has been proclaimed a national monument along with the fort itself; also the grave of Lt. King on the B1uff (James Saunders King was one of the original settlers at Port Natal). The site was also proclaimed where a few Voortrekkers fell fighting against the British at Congella station.

In Zululand is Piet Retief's grave where he was buried, next to the other victims of the massacre, in 1839 in the present Babanango district by the Commando that avenged his death. Near by, on the battlefield of Italeni, European graves have been found recently by Dr. H. C. de Wet and farmers of the neighbourhood. Two graves, some distance away from the others, may possibly be those of Comdt. Piet Uys and his son Dirkie. The graves have as yet not been opened nor identified with any degree of certainty. In the immediate vicinity of Dingaan's Kraal, where Retief lies buried, the Historical Monuments Commission's bronze plaques protect several Zulu graves: Senzangakona, founder of the Zulu nation and father of Shaka, Dingaan, Mpande and Mageba – all in the district of Babanango. When Dinuzulu died near Middelburg (Tvl.) in 1913 his last wish was granted – to be buried with his fathers. His grave, like that of Senzangakona, has an inscription in the Zulu language only. The memorial to Shaka near Stanger has been proclaimed a national monument; also Mpande's kraal and grave in the Mahlabatini district. Cetewayo's kraal, also in Mahlabatini, has the Commission's plaque. Comdt. Hans de Lange's grave at Besters station near Ladysmith has been preserved.

In the Orange Free State the grave of Moroka, chief of the Seleka branch of the Barolong tribe near Thaba Nchu, has been provided with a bronze plaque. Of the Republican presidents three lie buried in Free State soil: J. P. Hoffman at Smithfield, J. H. Brand in the Old Cemetery at Bloemfontein, and M. T. Steyn at the foot of the National Women's Monument. President J. N. Boshof's grave is in the Old Cemetery at Pietermaritzburg, that of M. W. Pretorius in Potchefstroom, and F. W. Reitz at Woltemade in Cape Town. Gen. C. R. de Wet and the Rev. J. D. Kestell rest at the foot of the National Women's Monument, where the ashes of Emily Hobhouse are also preserved. Sarel Cilliers is buried at Doornkloof near Lindley.

Much of the early history of Kimberley can be read from tombstones in three old cemeteries: the Pioneers' cemetery; Du Toitspan cemetery, where the victims of the concentration camp (1901- 02) were laid to rest; and the Gladstone cemetery which contains the graves of Lt.-Col. N. Scott-Turner of the Black Watch, of George Labram, maker of `Long Cecil', and of those who fell during the siege of Kimberley at Fourteen Streams, Dronfield and Carter's Ridge.

Interest in Pretoria centres largely round the Heroes' Acre in the Old Cemetery in Church Street West where Paul Kruger was buried, and Andries Pretorius as well as President T. F. Burgers were reinterred in 1891 and 1895 respectively. The children of A. H. Potgieter refused the reinterment of their father and so he still rests where he died, at Schoemansdal in the Zoutpansberg. Of the Prime Ministers of the Union of South Africa, two lie in the Heroes' Acre, namely J. G. Strijdom and Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, while Gen. Louis Botha was buried in the same cemetery, but before a corner of it had come to be designated Heroes' Acre. Gen. J. B. M. Hertzog is buried on his farm Waterval in the Witbank district. Gen. J. C. Smuts was cremated and his ashes scattered on a koppie on his farm near Irene. Dr. Malan was laid to rest in the cemetery outside Stellenbosch, as well as the President elect, Dr. T. E. Donges. Dr. E. G. Jansen, Governor-General, was buried in the Heroes' Acre.

Of the Prime Ministers of the Cape Colony, Dr. L. S. Jameson died in-London, W: P. Schreiner in Wales, and T. C. Scanlan in Salisbury, while Cecil John Rhodes rests at World's View in the Matopos. The first Prime Minister, Sir John Molteno, lies in Claremont cemetery, Sir Thomas Upington at Maitland, Sir Gordon Sprigg at Mowbray; and John X. Merriman, though he died at Stellenbosch, was laid to rest in Maitland cemetery. J. H. Hofmeyr (`Onze Jan'), by whose grace the Prime Ministers ruled, is buried at Somerset West. Of the Prime Ministers of Natal, Sir Henry Binns, who died at Pietermaritzburg, was buried in the military cemetery, Durban. Natal's first Prime Minister, Sir John Robinson, lies in the Church of England cemetery in Durban; Sir Frederick Moor at Estcourt, Sir George Sutton at Howick, and C. J. Smythe at Nottingham Road. Sir Albert Hime died abroad. The only Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony (1907-10), Abraham Fischer, died in Cape Town and was buried at Maitland.

Of the Boer generals among the older generation, Piet Joubert was buried on his farm Rustfontein in Wakkerstroom, in accordance with his own request; Schalk Burger on his farm Goedgedacht in Lydenburg, Piet Cronje on his farm Mahemsvlei in Klerksdorp, and J. H. de la Rey in the Western Transvaal town Lichtenburg. Of the famous South African literary figures, Olive Schreiner, initially buried at Maitland, was reinterred on the summit of Buffelskop, near Cradock; Jan Lion Cachet and Totius (J. D. du Toit) at Potchefstroom, and Jan F. E. Celliers in the Old Cemetery, Pretoria; while C. Louis Leipoldt's ashes were interred on the Pakhuisberg in Clanwilliam. The co-founder of the Kruger National Park, Piet Grobler, was buried in the New Cemetery, Pretoria, and the best-known finance minister of the Union, N. C. Havenga, at his home town Fauresmith. Public-spirited communities as well as private families all over South Africa have at numerous places gone to great trouble to preserve the graves of pioneers and public figures. At Ohrigstad the tombstones of Voortrekker graves have been brought together in a concrete but in the form of an ox-wagon, the oldest stone being that of J. J. Burger, born at Stellenbosch, over 1 600 km away, in the 18th century.

Cornish Immigrants

The Cornish legacy to South Africa is a many facetted one. It embraces a mining and commercial heritage, derived from such eminent early Cornishmen as Francis Oats, Samson Rickard Stuttaford and Charles Chudleigh; a spirit of concern for the under-privileged given by Bishop Colenso and Emily Hobhouse, and the international links provided by the English language which cement family and friendly associations in all English-speaking countries. The legacy is also to be found in the place names, streets and buildings of South Africa and in the speech of South Africans today. What they eat also has Cornish links, as have what they do, working, playing sport, relaxing or simply their mode of living. The weekend excursion, the picnics, the benefit associations and superstitions that still persist, for none of these existed before the mineral revolution and the influx of new blood into South Africa in the second half of the last century.

The great contribution was the strengthening of the English language, which it can be surmised were it not for this influx, would have largely disappeared into a much broadened Afrikaans for Dutch from which Afrikaans has principally grown, is the most akin language to English – and they both spring from the same branches of the Teutonic family of languages. But the Cornish introduced the unusual in speech. They contributed many of their colloquialisms and expressions that have become standard South African English, which in its own way, is as much a growing language as Afrikaans: a few that are still used – usually in modern idiom are:

she went up along the street (Going up Camborne Hill coming down …) – she walked up the street on the hill coming down
I took the grizzley up – I examined the large sieve (made of large crossed rails of heavy iron bars, used for sorting ore)
I felt grizzley all day – I felt depressed, I felt like weeping all day
What go out under the sea – the lodes go out under the sea
a cuppa tay – a cup of tea
there can’t be many of them here in this dozen, they’re too cheap – astonishment at the price for a dozen commodities
I skat thee down – skats, scats, I will knock you down, I will scatter you
I’m tipsy – I have had too much to drink
C‘mon Boy – a term of encouragement addressed to anyone no matter the age, and probably the origin for the use of Boy in the mines when speaking to someone. The Cornish addressed everybody as Boy; a term of affection for the more junior.
I’m clonkey – my throat is sore, and can’t swallow, I’ve been clonked
I be going up town – I’m going into the centre of the city/town
Fagotting – to cheat, to defraud, to pretend to be something you are not Tommy Knockers is here again – a rumbling in a mine, usually indicative of an impending collapse, a mine to be watched. Tommy Knockers is the proverbial Cornish mining gremlin
to fooch – a pretence at doing a job, playful contact, maybe the origin of footchy footchy (in South Africa today voetsie-voetsie)
knacked bals – disused mines; bals were knacked – mining activity ceased, useless to pursue further
as bowld as brass
as black as ink
getting married isn’t all beer and skittles
It was also said that when the Cornish swore, their swearing sounded like poetry.

In the field of international links, there is hardly a South African family descended from the influx at the time of the mineral revolution that does not have relations abroad – and with whom many still keep up the contact.
The second most important contribution to South Africa’s heritage is mining skill, a skill that has led this country to great heights of achievement. The traditional Cornish approach of imparting mining knowledge from father to son was slowly superceded by the more advanced mining schools that came into being, culminating in the world renowned Camborne School of Mines. There were many of this School’s students who went on to make their mark in South African mining history. Barney Barnato’s legacy to South Africa, the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company Limited was to employ many a mine manager from the School. William John Hosking Ivey, a surveyor with De Beers in Kimberley was another Cornishman who took his expertise to the Seychelles.

Mining skill was introduced from abroad, to develop an industry that has been the mainstay of the economy for well over 100 years and appears to be capable of being so for the next hundred.
Cornish engineers introduced the rock drill that was to revolutionise payability; they added water to it so as to reduce dust inhalation hazards (ignored by the miners themselves) and they introduced pneumatic tools.
But mining has to be taught and certainly today there is no room for traditional skills to be slowly handed down from father to son. Mining requires a deep understanding of not only the people involved, but the reason for doing it. Importation of skilled labour and educated mining men were the original answers, but as early as 1890 when the goldfields discoveries had been proved, reservations were held about the ability of the mines to continue attracting the required expertise from abroad. A movement for the establishment of a local training school was born then, the initiators at the Cape assuming that it would be located in Cape Town and fall under the jurisdiction of the South African College. But it was pointed out, logically, that such a school should be where the mining was, either in Kimberley or Johannesburg. A compromise was reached and it was agreed that the theoretical part of the course could be taken at Cape Town and the practical and technical aspects at Kimberley. In 1896 the school opened in Kimberley.

This was to grow from being housed in one small room in De Beers Road to new premises built in Hall Street in 1899 at a cost of £9 000. But it continued growing, modelled closely on the Redruth and Penzance Mining Schools, which were to be later amalgamated in 1909 into the now world renowned Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining. After the Anglo-South African War the school moved to the principal area of mining activity, Johannesburg. In 1904, it re-opened in wood and iron buildings in Plein Street, as the Transvaal Technical Institute, changing its name firstly to Transvaal University College in 1906, and then in 1910 to the South African School of Mines and Technology. Finally it became, after much lobbying and controversy, the University of the Witwatersrand in 1922, born at the time of much strife amongst the miners themselves. Go to our Research Books section to read more.

Quakers (Friends, or Religious Society of Friends). The Quaker movement arose in Great Britain out of the religious ferment of the mid- 17th century and soon spread to North America. Probably the first members to visit South Africa were whalers from Nantucket, who often called at Table Bay around 1800. Immigrants followed later and settled in various parts of the country. As their numbers grew they gathered for worship and counsel, first in isolated groups, then on a wider basis, until eventually national gatherings became possible.

In 1946 the Friends in Southern Africa were given recognition as an autonomous body within the world fellowship. They now have their own places of worship in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Salisbury and Bulawayo, with regular services in a few other centres; also in Malawi, Tanganyika and Zambia. At various dates mission centres were started in Madagascar, on Pemba and in Kenya, where a large membership also function as an autonomous body. Contrary to general opinion, meetings for worship are public occasions, open to all races. Although those of English descent predominate, there are Afrikaans-speaking and Bantu members.

When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899 English Friends set up a South African Conciliation Committee; travelling extensively in Natal and the Cape, representatives visited the concentration camps and reported their findings direct to Parliament in London in 190I. Creating a South African Relief Fund, which worked in close co-operation with Emily Hobhouse, both during and after the war, they undertook the personal distribution of clothing, books and money to those in greatest need.

Tracing and then returning many highly prized family Bibles was another small but greatly appreciated gesture of goodwill. As South African members shared in these undertakings, lasting links were created between the two countries. At present Friends in England provide generous support for the locally administered Quaker Service Fund, which offers practical assistance to those facing problems of many kinds.