Smallpox

The first recorded epidemic of smallpox in the Cape was in 1713 and later 1735 and 1767. However many people seem to forget the outbreak in 1755 which hit the small settlement very hard – a quarter of the White inhabitants died in the first epidemic, and nearly half the slaves. Further smallpox epidemics occurred at the Cape in 1767, 1807, 1812, 1839, 1858 and 1881. That of 1881 was the most virulent.

Typhus

In 1867 a Typhus epidemic broke out. Typhoid is a disease of unsanitation, spread by contaminated human excrement. During this time it was not unusual for people to throw sanitary waste into the streets as well as carcass remains and other unsavory remnants of human and animal waste. The only serious epidemic of this disease occurred in South Africa at the beginning of the century as a result of the disorganisation brought about by the Second Anglo-Boer War. The mortality among civilians and military personnel was severe. Fairly high incidence continues in primitive, unsanitated communities.

A Cholera epidemic broke out in 1869 not long after the Typhus one a few years prior. These epidemics still occur in Southern Africa every few years.

Poliomyeltis epidemics occur periodically in South Africa. The public tends to be gravely frightened of this disease because of the pitiful crippling of children that so often results. The total number of cases occurring has, however, been relatively small compared with the other diseases that occur in epidemic form. There were epidemics in 1918, 1948 and (the worst one) the summer of 1956-57. `Epidemics’ of some hundreds of cases occurred in 1960 and 1966. In epidemic years vast numbers of children became infected without showing any sign of the disease. Such children are naturally immunised, but this is a very risky method of acquiring immunity, as the paralytic form may so easily be triggered off; e.g. by violent exercise or trauma of any kind. Subsequent crops of babies will not acquire such immunity and will provide material for the next epidemic unless submitted to vaccination.

Influenza

Some of the entries for one day (15 Oct. 1918) at the Maitland Cemetery, Cape Town, when the influenza epidemic was at its peak.

Epidemics of influenza or grippe occur at intervals. In South Africa extensive pandemics were experienced in 1918 and in 1957, which swept through the country within two months. The 1918 epidemic caused nearly 140 000 deaths in the Union of South Africa, mostly among the Bantu and Coloured sections of the population, although the death-rate among Europeans was also unusually high. The 1957 pandemic was not nearly so severe: most patients had a relatively minor illness and there were very few deaths. Epidemic outbreaks occur frequently in Southern Africa, but do not present unusual features as compared with epidemics elsewhere, although the illness tends to be more severe in the Bantu than in persons of European descent, and complications involving the lungs tend to be more frequent.

South Africa experienced outbreaks of influenza in not only in 1918 but also 1836, 1854, 1862, 1871, 1890 and 1895. The 1918 epidemic first manifested itself in Europe, where so many German and Austrian soldiers fell ill that a German offensive was delayed until March. It spread to Spain, where 8m people were affected. The death-roll in Europe was comparatively light however, and in Spain only 700 people died. The disease was spread by carriers, and it was soon contracted by British, French and American troops in France. Outbreaks were reported as far afield as Norway, Switzerland, Hawaii, China and Sierra Leone. There is little doubt that ships brought the epidemic to South Africa. At first it affected the ports and principal towns. It was reported in Durban on 14 Sept., in Kimberley on the 23rd, and in Cape Town and Johannesburg on the 25th.

Like the earlier epidemics, the 1918 `flu’ attacked men rather than women, and all races alike. There the similarity ended, for whereas previously the very young and the old were more prone to contract influenza, now adolescence and old age seemed immune, and the special incidence fell on the group between 25 and 45 years of age. The epidemic spread rapidly, following the lines of communication: the railways and roads. Hundreds of thousands of people fell ill, and the economy of the country, including the mines, was nearly brought to a standstill. Coal was no longer being produced, and factories closed their doors. Commerce almost ceased, only food-shops remained open, and transport was more precious than gold. The railways operated a skeleton service, trams ran spasmodically, and motor-cars were short of petrol. In the towns essential foodstuffs were scarce – no bread, since the bakers were ill; no milk, since the farmers were unable to bring it to town. The greatest shortage, however, was of people – hands to nurse the sick, feet to bring essentials of life when whole families lay ill.

At first the death-rate was low – then suddenly it began to rise. Doctors, many of them ill themselves, could not cope with the flood of patients, emergency hospitals overflowed, the supply of coffins gave out, and people were sometimes buried in mass graves. Nor was there safety in the country, for refugees spread the epidemic far and wide. The Transkei, with practically no medical assistance available, was particularly hard hit. The authorities did their best to cope with the situation, but thousands died without ever seeing a doctor. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the epidemic ceased.

On the 25th of September 1804 Mr. De Mist formally laid down his authority as commissioner-general so that the governor might be more free to act with vigour. The great question of the time was how to place the Colony in a condition for defence, as no one doubted that sooner or later it would be attacked by the English. Mr. De Mist did not profess to know anything of military matters, and thought that the governor, upon whom the responsibility would fall, should have sole authority, though they had worked together in perfect concord. There are many indications that they were both too far advanced in modern opinions to remain popular in this country much longer, unless they made large concessions to the sentiments of the colonists. General Janssens was the more flexible of the two. He was already beginning to see plainly that a body of people secluded from intercourse with Europe for more than a century could not be dealt with in the same manner as men who had lived in the whirl of the French revolution.Mr. De Mist resided at Stellenburg, close to Wynberg, from August to November 1804, when he removed to Maastricht, at the Tigerberg. On the 24th of February 1805 he embarked in the American ship Silenus, and on the following day sailed for the United States. So entirely was Dutch commerce driven from the seas that there was no other way by which he could return to Europe.

In January 1805 a post for the conveyance of letters and the Government Gazette was established between Cape Town and the various drostdies. A mail bag was conveyed weekly by post-riders to Stellenbosch and Tulbagh, and to the other drostdies whenever the government wished to send despatches. In this case farmers along the lines of road contracted to forward the bag from one station to another, and the landdrosts sent the letters and papers to the fieldcomets with the first convenience.

As the northern boundary proclaimed by Lord Macartney it not include all the occupied farms, and as in one place it was somewhat obscure, on the 20th of February 1805 the council rectified it by resolving that it should thenceforth be the Koussie or Buffalo river from its mouth to its source in the Koperberg, thence south-eastward in as nearly as possible a straight line-but following the mountains-to the junction of the Zak and Riet rivers, thence the Zak river to its source in the Nieuwveld mountains, thence the Nieuwveld mountains to the Sneeuwberg, and thence northeastward a line enclosing the Great Table mountain to the Zeekoe river at Plettenberg’s beacon. The eastern boundary as defined by Lord Macartney was not changed, though it was worded differently, namely, as the Zuurberg, thence a line along the western side of the Bamboesberg enclosing the Tarka and Kwadehoek and passing along the foot of the Tarka mountain through Kagaberg to the junction of th Baviaans’ and Fish rivers, and thence the Fish river to the sea.

It has already been stated that the high court of justice was independent of the executive and legislative branches of the government. It was intended that all the judges should be appointed in Holland, and should be removable only by the supreme authorities there. The full court was to consist of a president and six members. As one of the judges had not arrived, and as there was good reason to suppose that he would never reach South Africa, on the 6th of October 1803 the commissioner-general, with the concurrence of the governor and the council, appointed Mr. Jan Henoch Neethling, a doctor of laws, to the vacant place. The office of secretary to the, council, which he had previously held, was given to Mr. Jan Andries Truter. Mr. Gerrit Buyskes, the secretary’ to the high court, who was appointed in Holland, did not arrive until two years later.

The inferior courts were remodelled by an ordinance enacted by the governor and council in October 1805.

The landdrosts were to remain, as before, the chief representative of the supreme authority in their respective districts. They were to guard the rights of the inhabitants to personal freedom and possession of their property; to encourage industry, education, the extension of agriculture, and the improvement of cattle; to maintain peace and friendship with the aborigines beyond the border; to protect the Hottentots in their rights as a free people; to preserve forests, and encourage tree-planting; ‘to keep a record of land-grants of every kind, and to prevent the alienation of vacant ground to the prejudice of the public; to receive revenue; to take preparatory examinations in charges of crime; to cause deserters and vagrants to be arrested, and to send them, together with prisoners charged with the commission of serious offences, to Cape Town for trial; and to protect slaves from ill-treatment. Their power of inflicting punishment upon slaves was limited to imprisonment for six months, the infliction of a moderate number of lashes, or placing the culprit in chains. In cases of petty crime, for which the law provided penalties not exceeding fifty rix dollars the landdrosts were left at liberty to compound with the offenders without public trial. The office of auctioneer was separated from that of landdrost, and was attached to that of district secretary. Each landdrost was to be provided with a house, a garden, and a cattle run. He was to have a salary of two thousand five hundred rix-dollars a year, and was to be entitled to specified fees for certain duties. The landdrost of Stellenbosch was to have five hundred rix-dollars a year extra salary.

In each district there were to be six heemraden, selected from the most respectable and trustworthy burghers. The qualifications of these officers were the attainment of thirty years of age, residence in the district for three years, and the possession of freehold property or the occupation of a leasehold farm. They were to receive no salaries or emoluments, as their office was to be regarded as one of honour. On the formation of a new district the heemraden were to be appointed by the governor; but at the end of each succeeding year the two who had served longest were to retire, when the governor was to select their successors from a list of four names supplied by the board. A session of the court of landdrost and heemraden was to be held monthly in the districts of Stellenbosch and Tulbagh, quarterly in the other districts. The landdrost was to preside, except in case of unavoidable absence, when the senior heemraad was to take the chair. The landdrost and four heemraden were to form a quorum.

This court had jurisdiction in all disputes concerning the boundaries of farms and the impounding of cattle, all suits connected with auction sales, and all civil cases in which the amount contested was less than three hundred rix-dollars. There was a right of appeal from its decisions to that of the high court of justice in eases over the value of twenty-five rix-dollars. The landdrost and heemraden were to perform the duties of coroners. They had charge also of the highways, and generally of such matters as were carried out at the expense of the district. In their judicial capacity they were responsible only to the high court of justice, and criminal cases -were reported by them to the attorney-general. In all other matters they were responsible to the governor.

There was a very useful class of officers, termed field – comets, whose sphere of duty other than military had only been recognised of recent years, as they had gradually and almost imperceptibly taken the place of the corporals of militia and the veldwachters of earlier times. The ordinance of October 1805 gave them a better position than they had previously occupied. Every district was now divided into wards, none of which were to be of greater extent than could be ridden across by a man on horseback in six hours; in each of these wards there was to be a fieldcornet, nominated by the landdrost and appointed by the governor. He was to be a man of unblemished character over twenty five years of age, a resident for more than two years in the ward, and in possession of freehold property or in occupation of a leasehold farm. He was to be the representative of the landdrost, to maintain order and tranquillity to settle petty disputes, to keep a register of the people, to make new laws known, and generally to promote industry and whatever might tend to prosperity. He was to be free of district taxation, and was to have a farm without rent or twenty five rix-dollars a year.

For military purposes the fieldcornets were to call out and lead the burghers of their wards whenever required by the landdrost. The burghers were divided into three classes. The first to be called upon for personal service were those between sixteen and thirty years of age, next those between thirty and forty-five and lastly those between forty-five and sixty years of age. If all the men of a class were not needed, the unmarried and those without employment were to be called out before the others. Such as were not called upon for personal service were to be assessed to supply food, horses, and means of transport. When in the field, the several divisions of the burgher militia of each district were under the general orders either of the landdrost or of a commandant appointed by the governor, and the fieldcornets often had the title of captain conferred upon them. In this manner the whole European population of the colony was organised for military purposes

During recent years reports of various kinds had reached Cape Town concerning the settlements formed by agents of the London missionary society north of the Orange river, and as some of these reports were to the effect that a community hostile to the colony was growing up there, the government resolved to send a commission to inspect the settlements and obtain accurate information. The officers chosen for this purpose were Landdrost Van de Graaff, of Tulbagh, and Dr. Henry Lichtenstein, surgeon of the Hottentot corps. In May 1805 these gentlemen left Tulbagh, and travelling by way of Karoo Poort, reached the colonial boundary without difficulty. Along the route they heard numerous complaints of depredations by Bushmen, and ascertained that the arrangements made with these people in former years had completely failed in their object.

At the mission station on the Zak river they found the colonist Christiaan Botma in charge during the reverend Mr. Kicherer’s absence in Europe. The Bushmen gathered together here had dispersed as soon as the missionaries’ means of providing them with food failed, and only about forty individuals remained, most of whom were half-breeds that had from youth professed Christianity. Botma, the teacher, was a man of great zeal, and had expended a large portion of his private property in maintaining the station; but it seemed to the commission that the principles on winch the work was being conducted were decidedly wrong. Religious services were .frequently held, and were attended by everyone on the place. But industry was not enforced, and the habits of the people formed a striking contrast to those of the residents at the Moravian institution in the district of Stellenbosch. The mission was doing no harm politically or in any other way, though it appeared to be of very little service to the few people under its influence.

Here a party of farmers joined the travellers as an escort, making the whole number up to eight Europeans, twelve Hottentots, and five slaves. On the southern bank of the Orange a horde of Kosas was met, under two near relatives of the chief Ndlambe who had wandered away from their own country.

The Orange was crossed at Prieska Drift. On its northern bank the missionaries Vanderlingen and Jan Kock were met, journeying from the Batlapin country towards the Cape. Kock, who understood the Setshuana language was easily persuaded to send his family on to the station at the Zak river, and return with the commission.

At Lauw-waters-kloof which was reached on the same day, a number of half-breeds and Koranas were found. Here two more missionaries Koster and Janssen by name were met returning from the Batlapin country, having abandoned the work there. Lauw-waters-kloof was ascertained to be one of six mission villages inhabited by half- breeds and Koranas, with several Namaquas and a few blacks and Hottentots from the Cape Colony. The other five were Rietfontein, Witwater, Taaiboschfontein Leeuwen kuil, and Ongeuksfontein. In these villages nearly a thousand people were living, many of whom were half-breeds that had been wandering along the southern bank of the Orange for fifteen or twenty years, before the missionaries induced them to settle down to receive instruction. Among them were also several individuals who had grown up in the families of colonists These had always worn European clothing, and were baptized professors of Christianity before the arrival of the missionaries.

The district in which the villages were situated – [since 1880 the colonial division of Hay] had from time immemorial been occupied by Koranas and Bushmen, who were at bitter feud with each other. The half-breeds, Namaquas and colonial Hottentots were recent immigrants who had come in with the missionaries. Smallpox in a mild form was prevalent among the people, and was said to have been brought from the north, but how or when was not ascertained. It had been unknown in the Cape Colony since 1769, and most likely had spread overland from Delagoa Bay.

At Leeuwenkuil the missionary Anderson was then residing. The travellers were greatly impressed with his devotion to his work, and with the exemplary life he was leading. He and Mr. Kramer were the only white men living in the district, the others who had formerly assisted them having retired from that field.

The commission found that nothing was to be feared from this settlement. Mr. Anderson regarded himself as subject to the colonial government, and the half-breeds, who gained their subsistence chiefly by hunting, were so dependent upon Europeans for ammunition and other necessaries that their engaging in hostilities was out of the question.
From Ongeluksfontein, the farthest of the six villages to the north, the travellers set out for the Batlapin country. Since the journey of Messrs. Truter and Somerville to Lithako in 1801, a good deal had been heard of the Betshuana, but the different accounts by no means agreed. Among those who supplied information was the reverend Mr. Edwards. This missionary, who might be supposed to know more than any other European about the Batlapin, left the Kuruman river towards the close of 1803, and visited Cape Town, where he gave the government a description in writing of the people he had been living with, some portions of which could only be regarded as fabulous. For instance, he stated that they regarded his wife as a goddess, and offered him a great number of cattle for a daughter born at Molehabangwe’s kraal. In March 1805 he wished to return, but the council declined to give him permission and shortly afterwards Messrs. Van de Graaff and Lichtenstein were instructed to include the Batlapin country in their tour.

A little beyond Ongeluksfontein the travellers met a waggon containing the families of two half-breed brothers named Jantje and David Bergover, who had been in Jan Kock’s service on the Kururman river. They had left the Kururman with a view of following Kock to the mission station on the Zak river, but had been attacked on the way by Bushmen, and the two men and one little girl had been murdered. The party from the south arrived just in time’ to rescue the other children and the women.

In the valley of the Kuruman the first Batlapin were found. The principal kraal of Molehabangwe was then only a short distance from the spot where that stream issues with great force from a cavern. The kraal was found to consist of five or six hundred huts, and to contain about five thousand people. The year after Messrs. Truter and Somerville’s visit, the Barolong under Makraki had separated from the Batlapin, and had moved away to the neighbourhood of their kinsmen in the north. This migration reduced the kraal to one-third of its former size. The commission was received in a friendly manner by the old chief Mlolehabangwe, and by his sons Mothibi, Telekela, Molimo, and Molala. There were no missionaries remaining on the Kuruman, all who had been there having left for the Colony; but it was Jan Kock’s intention to return. The commission could not ascertain that any of them except Kook had made the slightest impression upon the people, and what benefit had been derived from his teaching was in an improved method of tilling the ground, not in the adoption of Christianity.

Of the Betshuana tribes to the north – the Barolong, Bahurutsi, Bangwaketsi, Bakwena and others which have since disappeared – some information was gathered, but it was not very reliable. The existence of slavery among these tribes, which was not suspected by Messrs. Truter and Somerville, was proved beyond all doubt. In fact two boys were offered for sale to the commission at the price of a sheep each. But the abject state in which the slaves were living at a distance from the principal kraal was not made known until some years later.

The Kuruman was the farthest point reached by the expedition. During the return journey nothing occurred that was of more than passing interest, and the travellers arrived safely at Tulbagh again after an absence of three months.

- Mission Suisse daps 1′Afrique du SudMissionary society which originated in the small Protestant Free Church of the French-speaking canton of Vaud when, in 1869, Ernest Creux and Paul Berthoud convinced their co-religionists of the need for missionary work among the natives of Africa. The synod of that church accepted their proposal and the Mission Vaudoise (Mission of Vaud) was thus inaugurated. Because of the close relations between the Protestant churches of France and Switzerland, the Vaud committee in 1872 sent Creux and Berthoud to the Basutoland station of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society for training. Here they worked under the direction of the Paris society until 1875, when they set out to look for a suitable field of labour in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Missionaries of the Berlin Society at Botshabelo advised them to proceed to a group of Tsongas in the Spelonken valley in the Northern Transvaal. They were the first missionaries to appear among that tribe, called the Magwamba (or `Knopneuse’, by the Voortrekkers), and received a cordial welcome from the chief and his subjects. They named their first station, established in 1875, Valdezia, after their canton, Vaud. Mission stations were also established at Elim (Tvl.) (1879) and Shiluvane (1886).

This field of endeavour was further extended by the activity of some converts who joined the main body of the Tsonga tribe in neighbouring Mozambique, preached the gospel there, and requested assistance. Berthoud went there to organise the work. Mission stations were established at Lourenço Marques (1889) and Antioka (1890).

The work of the original missionaries was soon supported by the other Free Protestant churches in French Switzerland. Later, churches in German Switzerland also contributed considerable sums and made expansion possible. In 1883 the name of the Mission Vaudoise was changed to Mission Romande, to mark the participation of other French-speaking cantonal churches (Geneva, Neuchatel), and in 1917 to Mission Suisse Romande. In 1929 the name was changed to its present form in order to reflect the participation of the German-speaking Protestant churches of Switzerland. The head-office remained in Lausanne.

New mission stations continued to be established, as at Pretoria (1897), Kurulen (1905) and Masana (1917), in the Transvaal, and at Matutuene (1902), Rikatla (1907), Chikumbane (1908) and Manjacaze (IC)2I), in Mozambique. Indeed, Mozambique developed into the largest field of the Swiss Mission. When Bantu from these regions proceeded to the gold-fields as miners, mission stations were also established in Johannesburg (1904) and later at Welkom (195S), as it was the aim of the Swiss Mission to unite the Tsonga tribe in its entirety in its church. The attempt was unsuccessful, as part of the Tsonga tribe was established in the Portuguese territory of Mozambique, with a different mode of life, and some members of the tribe joined other churches while working on the gold-fields. 20 000 Bantu are members of this church.

Like other societies, the Swiss Mission established schools for young people and training centres for teachers at Lemana (1906), in the Northern Transvaal, and Rikatla, in Mozambique. Evangelists and ministers are trained at the theological school at Morija in Lesotho. The mission’s system of education has been unable to develop fully in Mozambique because the Roman Catholics discourage the work of Protestant churches. A teacher-training school, opened at Manica in 1930, was closed on orders from the authorities a few years later.

The Swiss Mission has hospitals in Mozambique (established at Lourenço Marques in 1905 and at Chikumbane in 1908) and in the Transvaal (at Elim, 1899, Shiluvane, 1948, and Masana, 195S). The hospital at Shiluvane trains Bantu nurses. In the Transvaal these institutions are subsidised by the province and are under the management of hospital boards, but in Mozambique the mission hospitals receive no assistance from the authorities. In both the Transvaal and Mozambique the objective is to lead the mission church to independence. Preparations are in hand for the unification of this church in the Transvaal with the Presbyterian Church.

Source SESA Copyright Naspers

Dr. Daniel William Alexander, Doctor of Divinity, Archbishop and Primate of the Province of South Africa and East Africa, in the African Orthodox Church-an independant Episcopal Church with apostolic succession through the Original Patriarchal See of St. Peter at Antioch.

Born 25th December, 1880, at Port Elizabeth, Cape Province. Second eldest child of Henry and Elizabeth Alexander (father a native of the French West Indies, Martinique). Educated at St. Peter’s Primary and Secondary Schools and the Sisters of Mercy (Catholic). Married Elizabeth Koster 28th August, 1901, at Pretoria. Boatbuilder by trade. Joined the British in the Anglo-Boer War, was captured at Colenso and sent to Pretoria.

After the capture of Pretoria joined the Anglican Church and was appointed chaplain at the Old Prison, eventually studying for the ministry under the Fathers Bennet and Fuller of the Community of the Resurrection, and Canons Farmer and Rev. H. Mtobi. Elected secretary of the A.P.O., Pretoria Branch, and the secretary of the committee for the purchasing of the Lady Selborne Township, Pretoria.

Resigned the Anglican Church and went to Johannesburg and joined the African Life Assurance Society as agent on their starting the Industrial Branch, and opened the Pretoria office after two and a half years. Resigned and was elected Grand True Secretary of the I.O.T.T., Northern Grand Lodge, before the separation. Re-elected 1920-21. Refused nomination 1922.
In 1924 organised the African Branch of the African Orthodox Church and was appointed Vicar-Apostolic by Bishop George A. McGuire, M.D., D.D., D.C., and in the following year was elected Bishop for the Province of South Africa. On arrival in New York was given Catholic Orders by Bishop W. E. Robertson and Archbishop McGuire respectively to the Priesthood, and on the 11th September, 1927, was consecrated Archbishop and Primate of the Province of South and East Africa, in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Boston, U.S. America. The Degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by the Faculty (Honorary)) on the Archbishop.

Editor of the African Orthodox Churchman, a monthly magazine of the Province, and author of An Orthodox Catechism. Dean of the Seminary of St. Augustine for the ministerial students for the Church. Address: 3, Brimton Street, Beaconsfield, Kimberley, South Africa.

Mrs GWAYI TYAMZASHE, nee Daniels, was born at Paarl. She migrated with her parents to the Diamond Fields where she attended school. Married the Rev. Gwayi P. Tyamzashe a struggling young minister of the Native Congregational Church. Mrs. Tyamzashe, father was a French Huguenot and her mother was coloured. Mrs. Tyamzashe was the mother of nine children, Rachael, James, Henry, Catherine, Mejana, Elizabeth, Benjamin, John and Charlotte. Mrs. Tyamzashe was a great help to her husband. She died five years after the death of her husband.

Dr. WILMOT BLYDEN, at the age of nineteen, became first professor in the Liberia College, then an explorer, and later a Minister of State and a diplomatic representative of Liberia in England and France. Also served the British Sierra Leone Government. Deeply versed in English, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Latin, Hebrew and Greek. Author of many books. Personal friends included such great Englishmen as Milner, Gladstone, etc.

Cetshwayo, son of Mpande - Source: Cape Archives, E3248

What were our ancestors doing in 1882?

Who was making the headlines and What did they talk about around the supper table?

Here is a look at some of the people, places and events that made the news in 1882.

Huguenot Memorial School

The Huguenot Memorial School (Gedenkschool der Hugenoten) was opened on the 1st February 1882 on the farm Kleinbosch in Daljosafat, near Paarl. It was a private Christian school and the first school with Afrikaans as teaching medium.

The school was under the auspices of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners. Past pupils included the writers Andries Gerhardus VISSER, Daniël François MALHERBE and Jakob Daniël DU TOIT (Totius). The first classes were given in a small room but soon an old wine cellar was converted into a two-storey building which housed two classrooms downstairs and the boarding school upstairs. The first Afrikaans newspaper, Die Patriot, as well as the first Afrikaans magazine, Ons Klyntji, came from this school.

The Coat of Arms of "Die Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners"

The school was closed down in 1910 as by then Afrikaans was taught in government schools. In 2001 renovation work was started after a fundraising campaign brought in more than R1-million. Most of the money came from readers of the Afrikaans newspapers, Die Burger and the Volksblad. Naspers, the Stigting vir Afrikaans and KWV also made important contributions. The renovated building was opened in March 2002. It has an Afrikaans training centre upstairs and guest rooms downstairs.

The main people behind the renovation project were writer Dr. Willem Abraham DE KLERK (1917 – 1996) and Fanie THERON (chairman of the Simon van der Stel Foundation and the Huguenot Society, deceased 1989). Others who were also very involved included Sr. C.F. ALBERTYN (Naspers director), Van der Spuy UYS and Dr. Eduard BEUKKMAN. In 1985 they launched the Hugenote Gedenkskool Board of Trustees and with a R10 000 donation from the Helpmekaarfonds, a servitude on the building and land was bought. De Klerk’s wife, Finnie, and Theron’s wife, Anna, were at the official opening as their husbands did not live to see their dream come to fruition.

Dutch as official language

After the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806, English became the only official language. In 1856 J.A. KRUGER, the M.L.A. for Albert, asked for permission to address Parliament in Dutch. His requested was denied, and this started a campaign to get Dutch recognised as an official language in Parliament. On the 30th March 1882, Jan Hendrik HOFMEYR (1845 – 1909), also known as Onze Jan, appealed for the use of Dutch as an official language in Parliament alongside English. He was supported by Saul SOLOMON, a Jewish newspaper publisher and printer in Cape Town. On the 9th June the campaign finally got a positive result when an amendement was made to the Constitution allowing the use of Dutch in Parliament.

Official status was granted on the 1st May and the Act was later passed. On the 13th June, Jan Roeland Georg LUTTIG, the Beaufort-West M.L.A., was the first to officially deliver a speech in Dutch. There is no official record of the speech in Dutch, but the English version was published in the 14th June 1882 Cape Argus newspaper. The other version is in the Cape Parliament Hansard.

It was a short speech – “Meneer die Speaker, ons is baie dankbaar dat die opsionele gebruik van die Hollandse taal in albei huise van die parlement toegelaat is. Wanneer ek sê dankbaar, dink ek praat ek namens diegene wat die twee huise met hul petisies vir dié doel genader het. Ek put vreugde daaruit dat my Engelssprekende vriende die voorstel nie teengestaan het nie, my komplimente gaan aan hulle.

Ek hoop om die raad in die toekoms ook in Engels, in my ou Boere styl, toe te spreek. Sodoende kan dié Engelse vriende wat nie Hollands verstaan nie, die geleentheid hê om te verstaan wat ek probeer oordra. Ek vertrou ook dat alle nasionale verskille in die toekoms sal verdwyn en dat mense van alle nasionaliteite en standpunte hand aan hand sal beweeg om die welvaart en vooruitgang van die kolonie te bevorder”. According to the Hansard, the Speaker pointed out that the Act had not yet been proclaimed, so members could not yet make speeches in Dutch, but that the House would accommodate him this time.

On the 15th June, Cape school regulations were amended to allow the use of Dutch alongside English.

On the 26th and 27th June, the town of Burgersdorp celebrated the use of Dutch. The celebrations were organised by Jotham JOUBERT (M.L.A. and later a Cape Rebel ) who also proposed a monument to mark the occassion. A country-wide fundraising campaign was launched. The monument was built by S.R. OGDEN of Aliwal-North for £430. It consisted of a sandstone pedestal on which stood a life-size marble statue of a woman. She points her finger at a tablet held in her other hand on which the main inscription reads “De Overwinning de Hollandsche Taal “. The monument was unveiled on the 18th January 1893 by D.P. VAN DEN HEEVER, with Stephanus Jacobus DU TOIT (1847 – 1911) delivering the main speech.

During the Anglo-Boer war, the monument was vandalised by British soldiers who took parts of it to King William’s Town where they buried it. After the war, Lord Alfred MILNER had the rest of the statue removed from Burgersdorp. After much protesting, the British eventually provided Burgersdorp with a replica in 1907. This one was unveiled at ceremonies on the 24th and 25th May 1907 when former President M.T. STYEN and the author D.F. MALHERBE addressed the crowd. The original monument was found in 1939 and returned to Burgersdorp. In 1957 the damaged original monument was placed next to the replica.

In 1883 knowledge of Dutch was compulsory for some government positions. In 1884, it was permitted in the High Courts and in 1887 it became a compulsory subject for civil service candidates. Afrikaans only gained equal status with Dutch and English as an official language in South Africa via Act 8 of 1925. Dutch remained an official language until the 1961 Constitution stipulated the two official languages in South Africa to be Afrikaans and English.

Goosen and Stellaland republics

In 1882 a group of Boers established the short-lived republics of Stellaland and Het Land Goosen (aka Goshen ) to the north of Griqualand West, in contravention of the Pretoria and London conventions by which the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek had regained its independence.

On the 1st April the republic of Het Land Goosen was declared. The terms of the Pretoria Convention of August 1881 had cut away part of the Transvaal. This led to problems as local Chiefs disputed the boundaries. Britain did not help matters by acknowledging Mankoroane as Chief of the Batlapin and Montsioa as Chief of the Barolong, both beyond their traditional territories. Supporters of Moshete, under the leadership of Nicolaas Claudius GEY VAN PITTIUS (1837 – 1893), established Het Land Goosen. One of the co-founders was Hermanus Richard (Manie) LEMMER, who later became a General in the Anglo-Boer War. Het Land Goosen later merged with the Stellaland republic to form the United States of Stellaland.

Stellaland was also a short-lived republic established in 1882 by David MASSOUW and about 400 followers, who invaded a Bechuana area west of the Transvaal. They founded the town of Vryburg, making it their capital. The republic was formally created on the 26th July 1882, under the leadership of Gerrit Jacobus VAN NIEKERK (1849 – 1896). In 1885 the British sent in troops under Sir Charles WARREN, abolished the republic, and incorporated it in British Bechuanaland.

Shipping accidents

Shipping accidents (wrecks, groundings, etc…) were common along the South African coast. In 1882 there were quite a few:

January – James Gaddarn, a barque, off Durban

February – Johanna, a barque, off East London

March – Poonah, off Blaauwberg

March – Queen of Ceylon, a barque, off Durban

April – Gleam, a barque, off Port Nolloth

April – Roxburg, off East London

April – Seafield, a barque, off East London

May – Francesca, a barque, off East London

May – Louisa Dorothea, a schooner, ran aground at Mossel Bay

May – Clansman, a schooner, off East London

May 28 – two ships, the Agnes (Capt. NEEDHAM) and the Christin a (Capt. G. LOVE), run ashore at Plettenberg Bay

June – Bridgetown, a barque, off Durban

June – Louisa Schiller, a barque, off Cape Hangklip

June – Ludwig, a schooner, off Algoa Bay

June – Gloria Deo, a barque, off Quoin Point

July – Elvira, a barque, off Durban

July – Erwood, off Durban

December – Adonis, a steamer, off Portst Johns

December – Zambezi, a schooner, off Durban

Smallpox

A smallpox epidemic broke out in District Six in 1882. This led to the closure of inner city cemeteries, and the construction of drains and wash-houses in the city. These improvements didn’t go as planned. The cemetery closures led to riots in 1886. The cemeteries along Somerset Road were not in a good condition, so Maitland cemetery was built. As the Muslim community carried their dead for burial, Maitland was too far for them, and along with the Dutch, they protested against Maitland for two years. Once the inner city cemeteries closed, the Dutch compromised but the Muslim community did not. They buried a child in the Tanu Baru (first Muslim cemetery) in protest. About 3 000 Muslims followed the funeral procession, as police watched. After someone threw stones at the police, a riot started and volunteer regiments were called out. One of the Muslim leaders, Abdol BURNS, a cab driver, was arrested. In the end, neither the Dutch nor the Muslims used Maitland. They found a piece of ground next tost Peter’s cemetery in Mowbray and used it as their cemetery.

The smallpox threat was felt further afield. It was believed that smallpox could be beaten by whitewashing the walls of homes, and for this reason lime and carbolic acid was distributed free to residents in Beaufort West. At Modder River, about 35 km from Kimberley, the settlement was used as a quarantine station to keep smallpox away from Kimberley. Travellers enroute to Kimberley had to produce a valid vaccination certificate or be vaccinated at the station.

Zulu King in London

Cetshwayo reigned as King of the Zulus from 1873 to 1884. He made an alliance with the British in order to keep his long standing enemies, the Boers, away. The alliance collapsed when the British annexed the Transvaal and supported Boer land claims in the border dispute with Zululand. This led to the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War where the British suffered defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana and Zulus at the Battle of Ulundi. Cetshwayo was captured and taken to the Cape. In 1882 he travelled to London where he met Queen Victoria on the 14th August. On his return he was reinstated as King in a much reduced territory and with less autonomy. He died on the 8th February 1884.

Sporting moments

Ottomans Cricket Club was founded in the Bo-Kaap in 1882. The Rovers Rugby Club was founded in Cradock on the 6th September 1882. The first rugby match in Mossel Bay was played on Saturday, 2nd September 1882. Mossel Bay Athletic Club played against George Athletic Club. The first bowling green was laid out in 1882 when a club was established atst George’s Park in Port Elizabeth. In 1882 the Jockey Club was founded by 10 horse-racing members at a meeting held in the Phoenix Hotel in Port Elizabeth. The first South African soccer club was Pietermaritzburg County. On the 17th June 1882, its delegates met at the London Restaurant in Durban ‘s West Street and the Natal Football Association was founded.

Transit of Venus

The transit of Venus was observed from stations in Durban, Touws River, Wellington, Aberdeen Road (a railway stop) and at Cape Town ‘s Royal Observatory.

Banking

District Bank was established in Stellenbosch in 1882. It paid between 5 to 6% on fixed deposits and 2% on current accounts, compared to the Standard Bank which paid an average of 3.5% on fixed deposits and no interest on current accounts. The District Bank did not charge cheque fees or ledger fees. It was later taken over by Boland Bank. The Natal Building Society (NBS) was also established in 1882, in Durban.

New brewery

The Old Cannon Brewery in Newlands was established in 1852. In 1882 it merged with Ohlsson’s Cape Breweries.

Steel industry

South Africa ‘s industrial development has heavy roots in its mining industry. With virtually no steel industry of its own, the country relied on imported steel. The first efforts to introduce steel production dates back to the creation of the South African Coal and Iron Company in 1882. The first successful production of pig iron occurred only in 1901, in Pietermaritzburg.

Mariannhill Monastery

The monastery near Pinetown was founded as a Trappist monastery by Father Francis PFANNER in 1882. It became a renowned missionary institute with schools, a hospital, an art centre and a retreat.

Boswell’s Circus

The BOSWELL family has been involved in the circus business since the 1800s in England. James BOSWELL was born in 1826 and went on to perform in various English circuses as a clown, horseman and equilibrist. He died in the circus ring of Cirque Napoleon in Paris in 1859 while performing a balancing ladder act. He had three 3 children, all of whom performed in circuses. His eldest son, James Clements, opened his own circus, Boswell’s Circus, in 1882 in Yorkshire.

Boswell’s Circus toured England and was very popular until it closed in 1898. James Clements and his five sons – Jim, Alfred, Walter, Sydney and Claude – continued performing in theatres and music halls, and eventually put their own show together called Boswell’s Stage Circus. Madame FILLIS, who owned Fillis’ Circus in South Africa, saw one of their performances and signed them up for a six-month contract. In 1911 James Clements, his sons, Walter and Jim’s wives, six ponies, a donkey and some dogs set sail for South Africa. The family and their animals were stranded when Fillis’ Circus closed down some months later. Fortunately for generations of South African children, this did not stop them and they went on to build a successful business that is still in existence.

Pretoria

A public sale on Church Square, Pretoria, in the 1890's

Church Square was created in 1855, on the orders of M.W. PRETORIUS. The DEVEREAUX brothers, town planners, designed a square for market and church purposes. Pretoria expanded around Church Square. During its early days the square was also used as a sports field and in 1883 the long-jumper Izak PRINSLOO set the first world record by a South African. The first church on the square was completed in 1857, but burnt down in 1882. Burgers Park was established as Pretoria ‘s first park in 1882. On the 14th June 1882, the Transvaalsche Artillerie Corps was formed under the command of Cmdt. H.J.P. PRETORIUS.

Stephanus Johannes Paulus KRUGER, later President of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek, was born on the 10th October 1825. He was so respected by his people that the first Kruger Day was celebrated on the 10th October 1882. The following year it was declared a public holiday. After the Anglo-Boer war it lost official status, until it was again declared a public holiday in 1952. In 1994 the day again lost its official status.

Kimberley

On the 2nd September Kimberley became the first town in the southern hemisphere to install electric street lighting. It was an initiative of the Cape Electric Light Company. Electric lighting was also installed in Parliament in 1882, and an arc-lighting installation was commissioned in the harbour. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Christmas 1882 saw the world’s first electrically-lit Christmas tree installed in the New York house of Thomas EDISON’s associate Edward H. JOHNSON.

The Kimberley Club was founded in August 1881 and opened its doors on the 14th August 1882. Cecil John RHODES was one of the men behind the club’s establishment. Amongst the first members were Charles D. RUDD, Dr. Leander Starr JAMESON, Lionel PHILLIPS and J.B. ROBINSON.

Knysna

The farm Melkhoutkraal was laid out in 1770. In 1808 George REX, who arrived at the Cape in 1797, bought the farm. In 1825 Lord Charles SOMERSET decided to establish a town on the lagoon, to make use of the surrounding forests for ship building. George REX donated 16 ha of land for the new village, named Melville for Viscount MELVILLE, First Sea Lord from 1812 – 1827. Knysna was formally founded in 1882 when the two villages, Melville and Newhaven (founded in 1846) amalgamated.

Muizenberg

In 1882 the railway line reached Muizenberg. The area was originally a cattle outpost for the VOC before it became a military post in 1743. It was named Muijs se Berg after the commander Sergeant Willem MUIJS. Muizenberg was a staging post between Cape Town and Simon’s Town. After the railway line was extended, the area developed fast and became a popular holiday destination.

One of Muizenberg’s prominent residents was Professor James GILL. He was born in Cornwall in 1831 and came to the Cape in 1860, where he took the post of professor of Classics at Graaff-Reinet College. In 1871 he moved to Cape Town as Classics professor at the Diocesan College. He was an opininated man who did good things throughout his career but was also involved in many controversies. He was dismissed from the College in 1882. He opened a private school in Muizenberg and became the editor of the Cape Illustrated Magazine. He died in Muizenberg on the 1st February 1904.

Villiers

The town of Villiers, on the Vaal River, was established in 1882 on the farms Pearson Valley and Grootdraai. It was named after the owner, L.B. DE VILLIERS. In 1882 the Volksraad was requested to open a post office there, and this led to Villiers being proclaimed in 1891. In 1917 it acquired municipal status.

Newcastle

The first government school in Newcastle was established in 1882 as a junior primary school with 47 boys and 30 girls.

Okiep

The Cornish Pump House was built in 1882. It was used to pump water from the mine and this pump house is the only remaining one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

East London

A view of East London in the 1880's

The prison in Lock Street was built in 1880, replacing the old one on the West Bank. It was built by James TYRRELL and comprised an officers’ quarters, administration block, hospital, kitchen and two single-storey cell blocks to hold 100 prisoners. The first execution happened in 1882, for which a drop gallows was placed in the hospital yard. St.Andrew’s Lutheran Church was established by German settlers in 1872. It is the second oldest church in East London and was dedicated on the 30th November 1882.

Grahamstown

City Hall was officially opened on the 24th May 1882 by the acting Mayor Samuel CAWOOD. The foundation stone was laid on the 28th August 1877 by Sir Henry Bartle FRERE, Governor of the Cape.

Durban

Durban Girls’ High School was established in 1882. The old theatre Royale was built in 1882 and had seating for 1 000. It was closed in 1937. The Natal Herbarium was started in 1882 by John Medley WOOD, then Curator of the Durban Botanical Gardens. It was initially known as the Colonial Herbarium but changed its name in 1910 when it was donated by the Durban Botanical Society to the Union of South Africa.

Port Elizabeth

South End Cemetery in Port Elizabeth was started. The country’s oldest art school, Port Elizabeth Art School, was founded in 1882. It later became the College for Advanced Technical Education, originally situated in Russell Road, Central. In 1974 it moved to Summerstrand and became the PE Technikon in 1979.

Kaapsehoop

In 1882 gold was discovered in the Kaapsehoop valley. When a larger deposit of gold was found near the present day Barberton, most of the prospectors moved there. The first payable gold was mined at Pioneer Reef by Auguste ROBERTE (aka French Bob) in June 1883. Barber’s Reef was the next big find in 1884. Sheba ‘s Reef, the richest of all, was discovered by Edwin BRAY in May 1885.

Port Shepstone

Port Shepstone came into being when marble was discovered near the Umzimkulu River mouth in 1867. It flourished from 1879 when William BAZLEY, one of the world’s first underwater demolition experts, blasted away rock at the mouth to form the Umzimkulu breakwater. The town was named after a Mr SHEPSTONE, one of the area’s prominent residents. Before 1901 the area depended solely on a port that was developed inside the river’s mouth. Boats were often wrecked and blocked the harbour entrance, but it provided a vital transport link for the tea, coffee and sugar cane grown by farmers along the river’s banks.

Supplies were brought in on the return voyages from Durban. With the arrval in 1882 of 246 Norwegian, 175 Briton and 112 German settlers, this shipping service became more important. The Norwegians arrived on the 29th August aboard the CHMS Lapland. The new settlers were offered 100 acre lots around the town at 7 shillings and 6 pence an acre. Port Shepstone was declared a full fiscal port in 1893 and, after Durban, became the region’s second harbour. Eventually, with the ongoing ship wreckages and the arrival of the railway, the harbour was closed down.

Harding

In 1882 the first hotel was opened in Harding. The village then consisted of three trading stores and four private homes.

Dundee

Dundee was established on the farm Fort Jones belonging to Peter SMITH, who had bought it from a Voortrekker settler, Mr DEKKER. He named the town Dundee, in memory of his original home in Scotland. By 1879, as a result of the Anglo-Zulu War, a tent town had sprung up on a portion of the farm. British soldiers attracted traders, missionaries, craftsmen and hunters but after their departure the tent town ceased to exist. With his son, William Craighead; son-in-law Dugald MACPHAIL; and Charles WILSON, Peter proclaimed the town in 1882.

Dewetsdorp

The Anglican Church was inaugurated on the 17th December 1882 by the Anglican Bishop of Bloemfontein. It was named St. Bartholomew’s. Before this, Anglicans held services in the town hall. The church’s foundation stone was laid on the 18th August. It cost £395 to build and seated 60. Rev. L.A. KIRBY was the first minister. The first baptism was on the 7th January 1883, that of Arthur SKEA. The church was declared a national monument in 1996.

Fort Hare

Fort Hare was built in 1847. It was named after Lt.-Col. John HARE and remained a military post until 1882, when part was given to Lovedale and part to the town of Alice.

Kuruman

The London Missionary Society (LMS) established the Moffat Institute in Kuruman in 1882, as a memorial to Robert and Mary MOFFATT and in the hope that it would revive the mission station.

Upington

Upington’s history starts with Klaas Lukas., a Koranna chief, who asked for missionaries to teach his people to read and write. In 1871 Rev. Christiaan SCHRODER left Namaqualand for Olyvenhoudtsdrift as the Upington area was then known. He built the first church, which today houses the Kalahari-Oranje Museum. In 1879 Sir Thomas UPINGTON visited the area to establish a police post, which was later named after him.

In 1881 SCHRODER, Abraham SEPTEMBER and Japie LUTZ helped build an irrigation canal. Abraham (Holbors) SEPTEMBER, said to be a Baster and the son of a slave from West Africa, was farming in the area in 1860. He was married to Elizabeth GOOIMAN. He devised a way to draw water from the river for irrigation purposes. In 1882 he was granted land facing the river. In 1896 Abraham and Elizabeth drew up a will, bequeathing the land to the survivor and thereafter to their three sons. Abraham died in 1898. In 1909 Elizabeth appeared before the Court in Upington on a charge that squatters where living on the land. It was here that she heard that Willem DORINGS, a smous, was claiming the land as his. This claim was to have repercussions, even in 2000 when the great-great-grandchildren of Abraham were still fighting for the land in the Land Claims Court.

Elizabeth and her sons owed Willem £326, but Willem produced documents that they sold him the land for that sum. The family were under the impression that they had a debt agreement with Willem. They refused to leave the farm and Elizabeth died there in 1918. In 1920 the family were removed from the farm by the new owners who had bought it from Willem. According to Henk WILLEMSE, Abraham’s great-great-grandson, the family started action in 1921 to get their land back. He has documents dating back all these years, which also show that Willem DORINGS was William THORN. Part of their land claim was for the land on which the Prisons Department building stands in Upington’s main road. This belonged to Abraham’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who lost it when service fees were not paid. In 1997 Nelson MANDELA unveiled a memorial plaque to Abraham.

The Waterfront

A view of East London in the 1880's

The Victorian Gothic-style Clock Tower, situated near the site of the original Bertie’s Landing restaurant in Cape Town, has always been a feature of the old harbour. It was the original Port Captain’s office and was completed in 1882. On the second floor is a decorative mirror room, which enabled the Port Captain to have a view of all activities in the harbour. On the ground floor is a tide-gauge mechanism used to check the level of the tide. Restoration of the Clock Tower was completed in 1997. The Robinson Graving Dock was also constructed in 1882, as was the Pump House. The Breakwater Convict Station was declared a military prison in 1882. This allowed military offenders from ships and shore stations to be committed for hard labour.

Sources:

Drakenstein Heemkring

Afrikanerbakens; Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge publication

Burgersdorp: http://www.burgersdorp.za.net/burgersdorp_photos.html

Maritime Casualties: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/2216/text/MARITIME.TXT

The Will of Abraham and Elizabeth September: The Struggle for Land in Gordonia, 1898-1995; by Martin Legassick; Journal of African History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1996)

Land Claim Case: http://www.law.wits.ac.za/lcc/wp-content/uploads/jacobs2/jacobs2.pdf

Rapport newspaper, 23 Jan 2000

Boswell’s Circus: http://www.boswell.co.za/

Article researched and written by Anne Lehmkuhl, June 2007

Biography of Ruda Wahl

Ruda was born on 18 November 1953 in Hartswater in the Northern Cape and was educated at Hartswater Primary School, Parow Central Primary, Keimoes High School and Upington High School, where she spent her final school years as a boarder. After matriculating she entered the Civil Defence College in George where she undertook voluntary military service for a year in one of the first women's army camps in South Africa.

In November 1977, she married JP Landman and begun her career as a TV newsreader in 1983. Her hobbies include r eading, movies, spending time with friends over good wine and good food and she, like many other South African women, belongs to a monthly book club. Ruda has one son Johannes Petrus who is 20 years old.

Ruda has few memories of her grandparents as most of them died when she was small. She remembers: "Oupa Gert" was my father and Oupa Wahl, his father, "Oupa Jonnie" as we called him, lived with us when I was little. He died when I was four. Unfortunately I don't remember much about him, but my dad talked about his family of course – I knew most of them, and so did my mum.

Oupa Wahl fought in the Anglo-Boer War as a young man and the legend was that he took so many Grandpa headache powders that his sleeping spot was surrounded by little pink papers in the morning. He also fought in the Rebellion – one of his sons (my uncle, my father's brother) was called Manie Maritz Wahl after General Manie Maritz.

Do you have any family heirlooms that belonged to your ancestors?

I have a handcarved wooden jewellery box. Written on the side is "From S van der Merwe T Miss G/T/C (very ornate) Verster Aandenking uit Tokai 1903". That would mean the jail after the Anglo Boer War. I don't know who made it, probably Schalk Willem Jacobus van der Merwe, my mother's grandfather. But who is the mystery Miss Verster? In 1903 he was a married man with children! And the jewellery box is in our family, i.e. his daughter inherited it. My brother has a hand-tied shawl and a little wooden chest from the same period.

Did any of your family members make an impact in your life and why?

I only knew my mother's father, Andries Petrus Viljoen. I lived with him and his sister (his wife died in childbirth in 1933) for a few months when I was nine, and we often visited them for holidays before and after that. He was "Oudad", devoted to his newspaper every evening, quietly comfortable with the neighbours we shared evening with. I was probably more affected by the place, the desert heat and simplicity, than by specific people.

What aspect of you family's history has fascinated or interested you the most?

The War and the Rebellion. I wish I could have talked to my grandfather about that.

Do you have a personal motto which you live by?

From Byron Katie: What is, is. Don't resist what is; don't waste energy on how other people should behave. Accept what is, and decide how you want to respond to it.

Memoirs of the Wahl Family

Stofvlei Farm, in the Magisterial District of Springbok, is where Gert Kotze Wahl was born. The old farm had a petrol pump and a post office. There were three buildings on the farm which included the house, the shop and about 300 metres west from the house was a third tin cottage. According to family legend Grandmother Gerrie's family (the Kotze's – had "money"). Initially grandmother Gerrie was the postmaster, and later it was Grandfather John. Grandpa John, who was General Maritz's attendant, promised him that he would name his next son after the General, and so the Manie Maritz name was brought into the Wahl family on 21 November 1914.

Naturally they were pro-German. Grandfather made a knives/forks bowl from wood in the Johannesburg Jail, as well as a tray. On the bowl it says: "Aan mijn lieve Vrouw van John, Johannesburg Tronk 28 Oktober 1915".

The Wahl's enjoyed playing Bridge and their ancestors were wagon makers. Grandfather John was an Elder in the N.G. Kerk in Loeriesfontein his entire life and the middle services, in-between Holy Communion, was always held on Stofvlei farm.

According to grandchild, Andries Wahl: "We knew grandfather as "Oupa Wahl" and all the other people I ever heard talking to or of him, used the diminutive – or in Afrikaans pronounced with a long "ô", or in English pronounced as "Johnny". During my stay in Keimoes I also managed an agency from the office in Pofadder, and there I dealt with 5 or 6 people who knew him. All of them added the "ie/y". A guy who rebelled against the English didn't want to be "John" if his name was "Adam Johannes".

Many of the area's children went to school at Nuwerus. The school lorry's destination, which was the transport of the area's schoolchildren to and from Nuwerus, was Stofvlei. Both Grandma and Grandpa Wahl's graves are in Stofvlei.

Grandfather Johnie had two sisters and as the family story goes there were two Wahl's that came from Germany. The one Wahl settled himself in Paarl and became Afrikaans and the other in Cape Town who became English – this part of the family included the well-known optometrist.

Grandfather Wahl's one sister married an Englishman, and grandfather never spoke to her again after that – remember it was the time of the Anglo-Boer War. I knew the other sister. She was Aunt Bettie Bodley and lived in Paarl. She had three daughters. Aunt Bettie's husband was Tom Boyley, but he died very young. The daughters were Hettie (her husband was a Van der Westhuizen, teacher at Boys High in Paarl), Magdaleen – married to a Hugo (English pronunciation), and Elise. Elise was a famous artist, especially for her sketches of wild flowers. She was married to Apie van Wyk, also an artist.

Grandfather John was a dignified, strict man with a good sense of humour who could always tell a good story – a trait that goes through all the Wahl's

Behind the scenes

Ruda Landman's birthplace in the dry and dusty town of Keimoes, in the Northern Cape, is a far cry from where her family's humble beginnings started in the lush and fertile valleys of Europe. From the Persecution of her family in France in the 1600's, her ancestry consists of a kaleidoscope of French refugees as well as Dutch and German Immigrants.

When the French Huguenots arrived at the Cape in 1688 as a closely linked group, in contrast to the Germans, they all lived together in Drakenstein, although they never constituted a completely united bloc; a number of Dutch farms were interspersed among them. Until May 1702 they had their own French minister, Pierre Simond, and until February 1723 a French reader and schoolmaster, Paul Roux. The Huguenots clung to their language for fifteen to twenty years; in 1703 only slightly more than one fifth of the adult French colonists were sufficiently conversant with Dutch to understand a sermon in Dutch properly, and many children as yet knew little or no Dutch at all. The joint opposition of the farmers toward W. A. van der Stel shortly afterwards brought the French more and more into contact with their Dutch neighbours; as a result of social intercourse and intermarriage they soon adopted the language and customs of their new country. Forty years after the arrival of the Huguenots, the French language had almost died out and Dutch was the preferred tongue.

In South Africa we are extremely lucky to have such superb and dedicated family historians, as well as exquisite records in our Archives, which begin prior to Jan Van Riebeeck landing at the Cape. Jan's diary of his voyage to South Africa is documented and stored in the Cape Town Archives.

This mammoth task of tracing Ruda's family tree in record time, was compiled to find out how far back the Wahl family and its branches can be traced as well as how many sets of grandparents can be found.  Click here to view Ruda's family tree.

The Wahl Family

Daniel Hendrik Wahl was born circa 1850 and research has proven that there is no legitimate documentation to prove his parentage. On the 17th February 1874, Daniel Hendrik applied for a special marriage license to marry Maria Catherina Reynecke.

Photographer of the Paarl: Daniel Hendrik Wahl's Insolvent Estate (In further documentation, and finding the Liquidation and Distribution account, it is noted that Daniel was known as the “Photographer of the Paarl and Wheelwright of Paarl” in 1883)

And in another image one section of the document refers to the surname as "de Wahl" and not "Wahl", which meant that one would now have to search under the many variants of including de Wahl, Waal and de Waal. Mr D.H Wahl's Insolvent Estate

Further documentation also mentions the "widow Reynecke" Elisabeth Wilhelmina Reynecke, which was his mother in law, as well as a Constant Wahl and Adam J Wahl who thus far cannot be linked to this immediate family as no parentage exists for Daniel. It is assumed that the two men mentioned are possibly brothers as they fit well with other documentation of the same period.

Unfortunately the common problem with variants of name spelling has been a classic example of the "brick wall" scenario, which has been encountered here thus the time limit on this research has been halted. The original Wahl Family whom Daniel Hendrik would have descended is (1) Johan(n) Christia(a)n Wahl, from Strelitz in Mecklenburg (Germany). Arrives here in 1752 as a soldier. Citizen in 1756. Married 10th September 1757 to Christina Gerrits, daughter of Herman Gerrits (2 children) or (2) Johan(n) Coenraad or Conrad Wahl, from Wildungen (Germany). Arrives here in 1774 as a soldier. Citizen in 1780. Died 15th October 1814. Married 12th November 1780 to Catharina Hilledonda van Dyk (7 children). Motto: Factis non verbis.

Most family pedigrees of this extent can take many years to complete and we at Ancestry24 have managed to go back 10 generations in two weeks.

A lineage and direct relation to South African actress Charlize Theron has also been illustrated and Ruda finds herself as the ½ 5th cousin to this Hollywood star.  Click here how Ruda and Charlize are related.

Jaques De Savoye

Jaques De Savoye (Ruda's 7 times great grandfather on her maternal side) was born in Ath, Belgium around 1636 and died in the Cape in October, 1717. He was a merchant and Cape free burgher and was the son of Jacques de Savoye and his wife, Jeanne van der Zee (Delamere, Desuslamer).

Jacques was a wealthy merchant in Ghent, Belgium, but his devotion to the Protestant religion led to his persecution by the Jesuits, and there was even an attempt to murder him. In 1687 he moved to the Netherlands and left for the Cape in the Oosterland on 29th January 1688. In addition to his wife, mother-in-law and three of his children, he was accompanied by the brothers Jean, Jacob and Daniel Nortier.

De Savoye soon became a leader among the French community at the Cape: he was one of the deputation which, on 28th November 1689, asked the Governor and Council of Policy for a separate congregation for the French refugees, and the following year he helped to administer the funds donated to the French refugees by the charity board of the church of Batavia. At various times he also served on the college of landdros and heemraden.

To begin with, Jacques farmed at Vrede-en-Lust at Simondium and in 1699 was also given Leeuwenvallei in the Wagenmakersvallei ( Wellington ), but settled at the Cape soon afterwards. He apparently experienced financial difficulties since in 1701 he owed the Cape church council 816 guilders and various people sued him for outstanding debts. In 1712 he described himself as being without means.

In March 1712 he left for the Netherlands in the Samson, accompanied by his wife and mother-in-law. He enrolled as a member of the Walloon congregation in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 16th December 1714, but only four months later, on 20th April 1715, it was reported that he had returned to the Cape. There is, however no documentary proof of his presence neither at the Cape neither after 1715, nor in C.G. Botha's assertion that he died in October 1717.

De Savoye often clashed with other people. During the struggle of the free burghers against Wilhem Adriaen van der Stel, he was strongly opposed to the Governor and was imprisoned in the Castle for a time. He was also involved in a long-drawn-out dispute with the Rev. Pierre Simond, and he and Hercules des Pré went to court on several occasions to settle their differences.

He was married twice: first to Christiana du Pont and then to Marie Madeleine le Clercq of Tournai, Belgium, daughter of Philippe le Clercq and his wife, Antoinette Carnoy. Five children were born of the first marriage and three of the second. Three married daughters and a son remained behind at the Cape, as well as a son who was a junior merchant in the service of the V.O.C. and who died without leaving an heir.

Acknowledgements & Sources:

Ruda Landman
Gert Wahl
Keith Meintjies
National Archives Respository Cape Town
Dr Chris Theron
Janet Melville
Genealogical Institute in Stellenbosch
SAG Genealogies Volumes 1 – 13 www.gisa.org.za

Images Acknowledgement:

Images.co.za / Die Burger / Werner Hills; National Archives Respository Cape Town
Who's Who of Southern Africa (Ruda Landman)

(*Ormiston, East Lothian, Scot., 21.12.1795 – †Leigh, Kent, Eng., 8.8.1883), missionary of the L.M.S., Tswana linguist and Bible translator, was born of humble parentage, the third son in a family of five sons and two daughters. His father, Robert Moffat, was a custom-house officer, his mother was Ann Gardiner, of Ormiston. His sketchy elementary education was supplemented by the teaching of the minister and by the influence of his kind, but sternly religious mother.

After serving his apprenticeship as a gardener he from 1809 found employment first in Fifeshire, then in Cheshire, and, subsequently, in 1815, with a nursery gardener named James Smith at Dukinfield, near Manchester. Smith was of a strongly religious turn and his daughter, Mary, was a pious young woman with ‘a warm missionary heart’. M.’s own heart was set on missionary work and in 1816 he was accepted by the L.M.S. A Presbyterian by upbringing, M. had, while serving as a gardener in Cheshire, come under the influence of some earnest Wesleyan Methodists. He had resolved to devote his life to religious work and to become a missionary.

He sailed for South Africa in October 1816 in the company of the missionaries J. Kitchingman, J. Evans, J. Taylor and John Brownlee and arrived in Cape Town on 13.1.1817. During his stay at Dukinfield he had fallen in love with Mary Smith (1795-1871), and she with him. James Smith, however, was determined that his daughter should not go abroad, and it was not until three years later that this objection was overcome.

M.’s destination was Great Namaqualand, north of the Orange river, but to his disappointment the local authorities, for political reasons, at first refused him permission to proceed there. M. usefully filled in the time of waiting by going to Stellenbosch to acquire a working knowledge of Dutch. He also accompanied the missionary Dr George Thom to mission stations of the L.M.S. and reported many irregularities. Permission was eventually obtained; he left Cape Town in October 1817, crossed the Orange river at Pella drift, and reached Great Namaqualand in the following January.

The people among whom he was to work were ruled by Jager (Christiaan) Afrikaner, formerly a notorious Hottentot freebooter who lived at Afrikanerskraal, some distance to the east of the present Warmbad in South-West Africa. M. made a considerable impression on Afrikaner, and persuaded him to go with him on a joint visit to Cape Town . Meanwhile he had journeyed far north in South-West Africa with Afrikaner, but saw no hope of establishing a mission there, and travelled eastward to Griquatown and Dithakong in Bechuanaland before returning to Afrikanerskraal and to Cape Town. His early observations on the geology of the Griqua and Bechuana country are of particular interest in view of later mineral exploitation of this region.

On his arrival in April 1819, M. found in Cape Town a deputation from the L.M.S. This consisted of Dr John Philip and John Campbell, who had been sent out to investigate various allegations that had been made against the society’s missions and missionaries. The deputation invited M. to accompany them as their interpreter in Dutch, but their tour was cut short by the Fifth Frontier War (1819) on the eastern border of the colony. M. returned to Cape Town in time to welcome his fiancee when she landed in South Africa for the first time. Robert and Mary were married in St George’s church, Cape Town, on 27.12.1819.

It was an ideally happy union; Mary had faith and courage of a high order, for without these she could not have left her home and parents to sail to the other end of the world. She also had a will of her own and her views on people were direct and uncompromising. At the same time she was wholly engrossed in her husband’s work and found her fulfilment in supporting him with a care that grew more constant with the years.

Apart from his marriage M.’s visit to Cape Town had other important consequences. He was persuaded by the deputation to abandon Namaqualand and to take over the society’s station among the Tswana. He arrived at Dithakong, one hundred miles north of Klaarwater (Griquatown) in March 1820. Permission to live there was at first withheld by the authorities, but was given after M. had temporarily returned to Griquatown. In May 1821 the Moffats again took up residence at Dithakong.

The people among whom M. laboured were the Tlhaping, the most southerly of the tribes collectively known as Tswana (Bechuana). They were not unknown to Europeans, having been visited by Truter and Somerville in 1801 and thereafter by several travellers. Their chief was Mothibi, son of Molehabangwe, who in 1813 had invited John Campbell to ‘send instructors’ to his country, at the same time promising to be ‘a father’ to them.

The first missionaries sent in response to his invitation, John Evans and Robert Hamilton, were, in fact, rebuffed, but the. elder James Read and Hamilton obtained a foothold at the end of 1816. In the following year Read persuaded Mothibi to move the tribal capital southwards from Dithakong (Old Lithako) to the Kuruman river. Read was transferred and Hamilton then struggled on alone until M.’s arrival.

The Moffats had not long settled at Dithakong when there began a period of considerable excitement and anxiety. In 1823 one of the hordes, part refugees, part banditti, set in motion by the wars of the Zulu chief Shaka invaded southern Bechuanaland . M. acted promptly and enlisted the help of some of Andries Waterhoer’s Griquas, mounted riflemen, who put the invaders to flight.

Although the immediate danger of invaders from the east had been averted, the following years were difficult and depressing, as can be gauged from M.’s letters and journals of the period 1820-1828, published in 1951 (Schapera, infra ). The people remained deaf to the missionaries’ teaching; bands of marauders roamed the countryside and sometimes threatened the station; Mothibi drifted away with most of his people. The missionaries refused to be discouraged and in 1829, as if miraculously, the sky seemed to clear and thereafter there was peace. In that year, too, the first converts were baptized. Meanwhile the station itself had moved. In 1824 M. persuaded Mothibi to transfer the tribal capital from New Lithako (Maruping) to Seoding, the present site. This was further up-stream and nearer the famous ‘eye’ of Kuruman, where a veritable underground river bursts into the open.

By instinct and training a gardener, M, used the water of the river to raise crops by irrigation. His efforts to teach the natives better agriculture, though not quickly successful, showed results in the long run.

The year 1829 was not only memorable for an improvement in the fortunes of the mission. It also saw the beginning of M’s extraordinary friendship with Mzilikazi, chief of the Matebele. This chief, his curiosity aroused by tales about the white men, sent two headmen to Kuruman on a visit of inquiry. M. accompanied them to Mzilikazi’s town near the site of future Pretoria. At their first meeting Mzilikazi conceived an extraordinary affection for M. which remained undiminished for thirty years. M. visited Mzilikazi again in 1835 at Mosega in the western Transvaal , this time accompanying the great expedition to the interior led by Dr Andrew Smith. After the Matebele had moved beyond the Limpopo to Bulawayo , M. paid three more visits to Mzilikazi in 1854, 1857 and 1859. The extensive journals kept by M. and dealing with these occasions were discovered in 1942 and published in 1945 (cf. L P. R. Wallis, infra).

It was never remotely likely that Mzilikazi would become a Christian, but, short of that, he went to extraordinary lengths to please the man whom he revered. He moderated his laws, mitigated his punishments, submitted meekly to many harsh reproofs for his depravity, and in his old age actually permitted the L.M.S. to establish a station in his country at Inyati.

Almost as soon as he had mastered the Tlhaping dialect of the Tswana language, M. began to translate the Bible and to prepare other devotional and educational publications in this language. Of his first Tswana spelling and reading book (published in London in 1826) only a fragment has survived. With the help of Rogers Edwards this became the Buka ea Likaélo tsa ntla … (Kuruman, 1842), of which a third edition, with variation of contents, appeared in 1843, other editions following in 1850 and 1857.

In his early years at Kuruman M. also prepared the first Tswana catechism, a translation of the catechism of Dr Brown, of Edinburgh , to which he added the third chapter of St John (printed in Holborn, London, in 1826). Various later editions appeared at Kuruman and in London until 1848, all containing, besides questions, extracts from the Holy Scriptures.

By 1830 M. had completed his translation of St Luke, which he took to Cape Town and composed for printing with his own hands at the government press. The book was printed under the supervision of B. J. van de Sandt, from whom M. learned to set up type, to print and to bind. This knowledge he was to apply when, in 1831, he brought his hand printing-press by ox-wagon to Kuruman and started the printing of his own Tlhaping work, as well as literature produced by his missionary colleagues of the Paris Evangelical mission society at Mothito, who used the Rolong dialect of Tswana.

While working on his Bible translation, M. published a collection of hymns ( Lihela tsa tuto le puloko tsa Yesu Kereste, Kuruman , 1831), with later editions and a supplement in 1855. With Edwards he wrote and printed at Kuruman a book of Bible lessons ( Likaelo tsa ri tlauchoeng mo Bibelieng … ) in 1833, with a second edition of 5,000 copies in 1841, and this was evidently used in teaching at other mission stations, too.

M.’s publication of the gospel of St Luke in 1830 had been the first published translation of a portion of the Bible in any South African native language. By 1836 he had struck off on his press part of his translation of St James, and in 1839 took to Cape Town for printing his translation of the whole New Testament. As he could not arrange for the printing to be done in Cape Town, he took his manuscript to Britain where his Tswana New Testament appeared the following year ( Kholagano enca ea Yesu Keresete … London, 1840). This was the first complete translation of its kind into a South African native language, and was followed in 1841 by the publication in London of his translation of Psalms, which he had actually done while in Britain.

On his return to Kuruman M. continued his monumental task of also translating the Old Testament with the help of his colleague, William Ashton (1817-1897), also printing it on his trusty old mission press (now preserved in the Kimberley public library) in two parts: the first in 1853, the second in 1857. When M. presented the final parts of his Bibela ea boitsépho to Sir George Grey in November 1857, it was the first full translation of the Bible in any South African native tongue. Likewise, through M.’s initiative and energy, Tswana was the fifth language in Africa to have a translation of the New Testament, and the third to have a complete translation of the Bible. At the same time M. had confirmed his claim to a place among the great translators by completing this herculean labour.

During his sojourn in Britain from June 1839 to the beginning of 1843, he wrote and published his Missionary labours and scenes in southern Africa ( London, 1840), which aroused unprecedented public interest. The fourth edition appeared in 1842 while he was still in Britain, and by 1846 eleven thousand copies and a French edition had been printed. M. appeared before enthusiastic gatherings, preaching and lecturing, and some of his addresses were published: Africa: or, gospel light shining in the midst of heathen darkness. A sermon on Isaiah IX2 … preached … before the directors of the London missionary society ( London, 1840); African scenes; being a series of anecdotes … related by the Rev. R. Moffat, at public meetings … (Sunderland, 1843); Incidents in the life of the Rev. R. Moll at, being an address delivered by him … 1842 ( Birmingham, 1842); The farewell services of Robert Moffat, in Edinburgh, Manchester, and London. Edited by John Campbell ( London, 1843).

His visit also gave rise to a number of publications by others on his work in South Africa . It was in 1841, too, that M. met young David Livingstone, then studying for his ordination in London, directed his interest to Africa and secured his services for the mission to the Kwena. By the end of 1843 he was back at Kuruman.

M.’s fourth visit to Mzilikazi in 1857 had as its object a mission to the Matebele. It was on this journey that he persuaded Mzilikazi to release from military servitude Matsheng, rightful chief of the Ngwato. In doing so he innocently brought much trouble on that tribe (cf. Sekgoma I and John Mackenzie).

In 1858 irresponsible Tlhapings raided the O.F.S. and the Transvaal republic, suspecting that the Kuruman missionaries were in league with the tribesmen. The Transvaal seemed disposed to frustrate the expedition which Moffat was to lead to Matebeleland. At the same time burghers were reported to be making preparations to attack Kuruman. M. appealed to Sir George Grey, governor of the Cape Colony, who obtained from President M. W. Pretorius a repudiation of the plan to attack Kuruman; nor was anything more done to stop the proposed journey. M. accordingly led a missionary party to Matebeleland and returned to Kuruman in August 1860, leaving his companions at the new station of Inyati. One of the Matebele party was his own son, John Smith Moffat.

After this date M. did not undertake any more long journeys. He remained at Kuruman, devoting himself to the work of the station and out-stations, where there was more than enough for him to do.

In 1848 he had translated and published at Kuruman Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s progress; his third visit to Mzilikazi he described in a pamphlet in 1856, and in 1863 appeared an account of his work in the mission field, entitled Rivers of water in a dry place. An account of the introduction of Christianity into southern Africa, and of Mr. Moffat’s missionary labours.

(London, 1863, with new editions in 1867 and 1869).

M.’s last years were saddened by family bereavements. He preached at Kuruman for the last time on 20.3.1870 and a few days later the patriarchal pair set out for Britain and retirement. Mary Moffat died in Brixton in January 1871. M. continued to travel about the United kingdom, preaching and advancing the cause of missions. He revised his translation of the New Testament, of which a new edition, as well as an edition of the whole Tswana Bible appeared in 1872. In the same year the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the honorary degree of D.D.

He went to live in London, where he was present at the funeral of David Livingstone in 1874, and at the unveiling of the Livingstone statue in Edinburgh in 1876. In 1877 he visited Paris by invitation to address a great gathering of French children. In 1879 he went to live at Leigh, near Tunbridge, and on 7.5.1881 he was publicly honoured in London at a dinner attended by leading figures in the religious, and philanthropic world, and representatives of both houses of parliament.

M. lies buried in Norwood cemetery, beside the remains of his wife. There is a monument to his memory in Ormiston, his birthplace. He and his wife had ten children, four sons and six daughters, of whom two daughters and a son died young. His eldest daughter, Mary Moffat (1821-1862), was the wife of David Livingstone; the second daughter, Anne Moffat (1823-1893), married a French missionary, Jean Fr6doux (1823-1866), of Mothitho; the eldest surviving son, Robert Moffat (1827-1862), was a trader; Helen Moffat (1829-1902) married J. Vavasseur; the youngest son, the missionary John Smith Moffat, was also the biographer of his parents; Elizabeth (Bessie) Lees Moffat (1839-1919) became the wife of Roger Price, and the youngest daughter, Jane Gardiner Moffat (1840 to 1927), died unmarried.

M. was a simple man of extraordinary zeal, de-termination and courage. He was essentially evangelical, holding that the missionary’s chief task, indeed his only task, was to ‘teach poor heathen to know the Saviour’. Any other interest he held to be irrelevant and likely to obscure this supreme objective. He disapproved strongly; for example, of John Philip’s ‘political’ activities, al-though these were aimed at improving the lot of the native peoples. He had no interest in native customs and traditional usages, which he either condemned as sinful or dismissed as silly and squalid.

He was also strangely insensitive to the devotion which he inspired in Mzilikazi, which he neither understood nor appreciated. Although M. missed so much, his writings, which consist of letters, reports and an autobiography, nevertheless contain much historical material concerning the native peoples, as well as many vivid sidelights on the trials and triumphs of a missionary’s life. It has been suggested that his overwhelming personality allowed little scope for the development of a strong succession; that he centralized too much and fostered initiative too little; that his prestige obscured the contribution made by other workers in his field. Even if true, this does not detract from his achievements. Under his guidance Kuruman became not only the focus of Christian civilization in southern Bechuanaland, but also a springboard for the exploration and evangelization of the still more remote interior. M.’s place is among the great nineteenth-century missionaries.

Portraits of M. are to be found in the three volumes of his published journals and letters, the biography by his son, and most other works on his life. The frontispiece of the 1843 edition of his Missionary labours contains the Baxter print of the youthful missionary; an etching of the portrait by Leon Richelson at the time of M.’s visit to Paris in April 1877 is in the Africana museum, Johannesburg. The stone church at Kuruman, built by M. from 1830 to 1833, was proclaimed as a national monument in 1939. M.’s home, though dilapidated, was still in existence in 1964.

Source: Dictionary of South African Biography (Volume 1)

Some information on Robert Moffat’s wife, Mary Smith Moffat:

Mary Smith Moffat (1795-1871) was missionary wife of Robert Moffat, and mother of Mary, the wife of David Livingstone. Born in New Windsor, England, she married Robert Moffat in December, 1819 at Cape Town, South Africa. They settled at Kuruman in Bechuanaland and established a mission there. They had ten children: Mary (who married David Livingstone), Ann, Robert (died as an infant), Robert, Helen, Elizabeth (died as an infant), James, John, Elizabeth, and Jean. The Moffats returned to England in 1839 for their only furlough. In 1870, the aged missionaries returned to England to stay. Mary died shortly thereafter.

Robert Moffat

Mary Smith

Christiaan (Frederik) Louis Leipoldt

Born in Worcester, 28 December 1880 and died in Cape Town, 12 April 1947. Physician, poet and author, Louis was the fourth child of Christiaan Friedrich Leipoldt (Died: 11 November 1911), a Rhenish missionary and N.G. Kerk minister, and his wife Anna Meta Christiana Esselen (Died: 24 December 1903), the daughter of the Rev. Louis F. Esselen, a Rhenish missionary of Worcester, in whose home in Adderley Street Leipoldt was born and where he lived with his parents until he was four years old. His maternal grandfather gave Leipoldt his first lessons in reading and writing, guided his general education and exerted great influence on him during his formative years. His paternal grandfather, J. G. Lepoldt, was a Rhenish missionary at Ebenhaezer on the Olifants River and at Wuppertal. Leipoldt’s father was also a missionary, first in Sumatra and from 1879 at Worcester. In 1883, however, he became an N.G. Kerk minister and settled in 1884 at Clanwilliam in the N.G. parsonage in Park Street.The relationship existing among the members of the Leipoldt family was not a happy one, while Leipoldt’s relations with his mother were decidedly unhappy. However, he held his father in high esteem and greatly respected him.

An intellectually gifted child, Leipoldt received an exceptionally good grounding at home in the natural sciences, history, geography, languages (Greek, Latin, French), literature and Eastern religious conceptions. His father had an extensive library and gave Leipoldt informal instruction and guided him towards independent study by teaching him to consult source material and to solve problems on his own. This laid the foundation for his independent trend of thought in later years. His curiosity and spirit of investigation also manifested themselves in later life in his diversity of interests apart from literature: in education, the supernatural, in politics, psychology, philosophy, history, botany and in the culinary art. Even as a child his general knowledge was exceptional.

Leipoldt’s three home languages were English, German and Dutch. As a child he was able to read the language of the Malays. At a very early age he read a great deal, evinced a thirst for knowledge, a great capacity for work and an astonishing memory. He read the works of Dante, Bunyan, Milton, Racine and Scott, and before he was ten years old he knew long passages from the works of some of these authors. English became the language he used for journalism, while his poetry, prose and plays were written mainly in Afrikaans, although he began by writing his poetry in English.

Leipoldt’s childhood days were not happy. As his mother prevented his association with other children, he led a very lonely life in Clanwilliam. He remained at home until he had passed his matriculation examination. Two trips to Cape Town (1886 and 1890) made a deep impression on him. Although he attested to his unhappy life right to the end, nevertheless some of his poems reveal the intense joy which as a child he experienced in nature.

As an artist Leipoldt developed at an early age. His father encouraged him to read literary works and made him write essays which he criticized. This encouraged the artistic qualities dormant in him. From his sixth year he corresponded with his grandfather Esselen and this first conscious setting down of his observations trained him in the art of writing. Because of his loneliness he, even before his eighth year, created imaginary playmates in his writings. Throughout his life he continued to converse with himself in his poems, especially in his “Slampamperliedjies” (vagabond songs).

As the age of eight he wrote a tragedy inspired by Van Limburg Brouwer’s Akbar. Between the ages of ten and twelve he earned his first money with stories, which were published in the London Boy’s Own Paper and The Cape Argus, as well as with journalistic literature in The Cape Times, Cape Monthly Magazine and Scientific African. His creative and journalistic work during these early days was thus combined. At the age of fourteen he became a reporter for The Cape Times in the North-Western Cape. During these early years he also furnished news items for Johannesburg and Bloemfontein newspapers. He was helped with his poetry by an English minister, the Rev. C. D. Roberts, who also wrote poetry.

Leipoldt’s love for botany was awakened early in his life. In his twelfth year he met the well-known German botanist Rudolph Schlechter collecting plants in the veld outside Clanwilliam. Schlechter invited Leipoldt to accompany him on his trip by ox-waggon to Namaqualand. He later also became friendly with other well-known botanists such as Peter MacOwan, Harry Bolus and Rudolph Marloth.

Journalism was Leipoldt’s first profession. In 1896 he wrote to The Cape Times on the colour question, which gave rise to a violent controversy and F. S. Malan the editor of Ons Land devoted a leader to it. In 1898 Leipoldt published a number of sketches on Clanwilliam in the Cape Industrial Magazine. He also matriculated in that year. As the life in Clanwilliam was too confining for his budding genius, he moved to the Cape where he became a journalist for De Kolonist. Before his twentieth year he was already a contributor to several leading newspapers abroad. When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out Leipoldt was unable to reconcile himself with the pro-Rhodes sentiment of De Kolonist and Het Dagblad and became the Dutch correspondent for the pro-Boer newspaper the South African News, which sent him to the North-eastern front. He also wrote communiques on the war for overseas newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian and Daily Express (England), Het Nieuws van de Dag en De Telegraaf (Holland), Petit Bleu (Belgium), the Hamburger Neueste Nachrichten (Germany), the Chicago Record and the Boston Post (U.S.A.). During the war Leipoldt travelled about a great deal in the Cape Colony as a shorthand recorder for the circuit court, and in 1900-01 he attended the court sessions dealing with Cape rebels. During this period he wrote a number of poems which appeared later in his first volume of poetry, such as ‘Oom Gert vertel’, which originated in Dordrecht in 1901, based on incidents related to him by an old man shortly after the engagement at Labuschagnesnek. His first published verses were war poems which appeared during the war in English in the pro-Boer New Age. In 1900 he published two sketches ‘De Rebel’ and in 1901 ‘Bambinellino’ in the Dutch art publication Elesevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift . They were written in Dutch but with an Afrikaans dialogue. It was the first belletristic contribution by an Afrikaans author to a Dutch paper. ‘De Rebel’ was the forerunner of the poem ‘Oom Gert Vertel’.

At the end of 1899 the editor of the South African News was imprisoned under martial law and the nineteen-year-old Leipoldt became editor until October 1901, when the paper was temporarily suspended under martial law. Leipoldt refused an offer from a Rhodesian newspaper and in 1902 went abroad. He travelled through Holland, Belgium, France and Spain as a reporter for the Manchester Guardian. In 1903 he enrolled at Guy’s Hospital, London, as a medical student but continued with his journalism, writing for English and American papers. In addition he attended lectures on law, and on occasion he travelled to the Netherlands to interview Pres. S. J. P. Kruger in Utrecht on behalf of the British press. In 1904 he became the editor of Sir Henry Burdett’s The Hospital, travelling to Europe and America to collect in-formation about hospitals. He also edited School Hygiene, the official publication of British school physicians.

In 1907 Leipoldt completed his medical studies, being awarded the gold medal for surgery as well as for medicine. He became a houseman at Guy’s hospital and furthered his studies in orthopaedics and children’s diseases in Berlin, Bologna, Vienna and Graz. In 1909 he went on a six-month luxury yachting excursion along the coast of America as personal physician to the eleven-year old son of the millionaire press-magnate, Joseph Pulitzer. In the U.S.A. he visited orthopaedic centres. In 1909 he received the F.R.C.S. in London and again travelled to France, Italy, West Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1909 his first book appeared: The ideal graduate study institution: what Germany has done (London, 1909). Between 1910 -11 he was attached to the large children’s hospital in Chelsea, London, and to the German hospital at Dalston. At this time he published his first book on nutrition and diet: Common sense dietetics (London, 1911), an adaptation of which he issued a quarter of a century later entitled The belly-book or diner’s guide (London, 1936).

He became a school doctor, first in south London and then in Hampstead, and in this capacity he frequently travelled to the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and the U.S.A. In January 1912 for health reasons he accepted the post of ship’s doctor in the Ulysses, on its voyage from England to the Dutch East-Indies, where he visited Java, Sumatra and Borneo. In June 1912 he returned, resumed his work in Hampstead and wrote a manual entitled The school nurse: her duties and responsibilities (London, 1912). While in London Leipoldt studied for and obtained various diplomas in cookery. Throughout his life he was interested in the culinary art and is known for his Kos vir die kenner (Cape Town, 1933). During the war in the Balkans (1912 -13) he again acted as war correspondent, for the allies, the Bulgarians, Roumanians, Servians and Greeks in their struggle against Turkey, but as a physician he on occasion even tended wounded Turks and as a mark of gratitude the University of Constantinople conferred an honorary degree on him.

Leipoldt’s poetical talent flourished during the years that he spent overseas, but as a poet he still felt the indelible effect of the Second Anglo-Boer War. In 1910 his friend J. J. Smith helped him in London with the editing of his first volume of poems, Oom Gert vertel en ander gedigte (Cape Town, 1911). It consisted of poems which dated from 1896 and is one of the most important volumes of early Afrikaans poetry. Together with J. F. Celliers and Totius (J. D. du Toit), whose volumes of poems appeared more or less simultaneously, he became known as one of the ‘Driemanskap’. The poems included in Leipoldt’s first volume are written in a magnificent colloquial Afrikaans bearing the characteristic Afrikaans and South African stamp; the volume has also some of the finest Afrikaans war poems. The poem which also furnishes the title of the volume is a dramatic monologue and Oom Gert is regarded as the first vital character in Afrikaans literature. This volume also contains brilliant nature poems and illustrates Leipoldt’s interest in the child, both in his role as a physician and later as a foster father.

Leipoldt in his role of the child’s friend reveals himself at an early stage in his other literary works. One of his most attractive stories entitled ‘Die weeskindjie wat ‘n moeder wou hê’, appeared in 1914 in Die Brandwag.

In 1914 Leipoldt returned to South Africa, and in April of the same year he became chief medical inspector of schools in the Transvaal, the first post of its kind in South Africa. When the First World War broke out in August, Gen. Louis Botha commandeered him for service in the Department of Defence. Later on he accompanied Botha as his personal physician, but in June 1915 he resumed his duties as school medical inspector.

In the meanwhile Leipoldt continued his work as a creative artist, and in this year revealed his ability as a dramatist. His first published play, Die Laspos, a one-act play which appeared on 25 May 1919 in Die Brandwag, was followed in 1920 by his second volume of poems Dingaansdag (Pretoria, 1920) which did not attain the high standard of the first. It dealt with the Great Trek and the Afrikaner nation during the First World War and the Rebellion. In his first volume the poet had sympathised and associated himself with the suffering and fortunes of his people, but in the new volume his political sentiments had undergone a change. Shortly afterwards a third volume of poems entitled Uit drie wêrelddele was published in Cape Town in 1923, and these poems were a great improvement on those of the previous volume. Some of them were written in England and others in the East Indies. Three of the best known poems in this volume are ‘By die vlei’, ‘Die man met die helm’, and ‘Grys-blou butte’, depicting a lonely man advanced in years. In ‘Droom en doen’ Leipoldt endeavours to forget the Second Anglo-Boer War and sallies forth to meet a new future. The poet who was so indignant about the war in Oom Gert vertel en ander gedigte now sought conciliation. He also revealed a strong cosmopolitan outlook.

Leipoldt evinced a strong interest in the East, its religion, customs, inhabitants and scenery, as is illustrated by his journey to the Orient (1912) and his poems on the East Uit Drie wêrelddele and Uit my Oosterse dagboek (Cape Town, 1932). His art was permeated by his interest in the exotic, the strange and extraordinary, the supernatural, the problem of death, the here-after, and in abnormal and deviate characters. Whereas Leipoldt had always been a man of sober, sound judgement in the scientific field, in journalism and in his everyday relationship with people, in the sphere of art he tended to be swayed by emotion.

In 1916 he assisted with the medical inspection of schools in Natal and in 1919 in the Cape. As a medical inspector of schools he did much for school tours, school holiday camps and convalescent homes for ailing children. His love of teaching was not only clearly discernible in his medical work but also came to the fore in various writings, such as Praatjies met die oumense (Pretoria, 1918), in which he proffered a miscellany of advice to parents on educational, medical and other topics. In 1919 Leipoldt and Dr Anne Cleaver established a school clinic in Johannesburg, the first of its kind in South Africa, and in the following year he published Die Afrikaanse kind in siekte en gesondheid (Cape Town, 1920). Among his best-known books for children are the educational Praatjies met die kinders (Pretoria, 1920), Stories vir kinders (Cape Town, 1922) en Kampstories (Pretoria, 1923), which appeared at a time when there was comparatively little in the way of Afrikaans reading matter for children.

During the time that Leipoldt was living in Pretoria in the capacity of medical inspector of schools he was also a regular contributor to Die Brandwag . He edited the Transvaal Medical Times and published poems and popular science articles in periodicals and newspapers such as De Goede Hoop, Ons Moedertaal, Die Boervrou, Die Volkstem and Die Huisgenoot. In Pretoria he became friendly with Dr F. V. Engelenburg, the editor of De Volkstem. In 1922 Leipoldt joined the editorial staff of the newspaper and in 1923 became its assistant-editor. However, he could not agree with Gustav S. Preller who succeeded Engelenburg in 1924 and was dismissed in 1925, butLeipoldt continued to write the column ‘Oom Gert se diwigasies’ for the paper until 9 December 1931.

In the early twenties Leipoldt published his greatest dramatic work entitled Die heks (Cape Town, 1923), which he had commenced writing in English during the years 1910-11 while in London. It was rewritten in Afrikaans in 1914 prior to his return to South Africa and he continued working on it until it was published in 1923. Even today it is regarded as one of the most important Afrikaans dramatic works and established Leipoldt as one of the pioneers in this field.
In the 1924 general election he stood as a candidate for the South African Party in the Wonderboom constituency, but was defeated. In April 1925 he again moved to Cape Town to set up practice as a child specialist, and spent some of his happiest years there until his death. Leipoldt cherished a deep affection for Cape Town with its scenic beauty and historical associations with the past.

Leipoldt opened his home ‘Arbury’ in Kenilworth to underprivileged boys who resided with him as his foster children. He legally adopted one boy, Jeffrey Leipoldt. In 1928 he accompanied a group of school children on a two-month holiday tour to England.

In Cape Town Leipoldt wrote medical articles for The Cape Argus. In 1926 he became secretary of the Medical Council of South Africa and editor of the South African Medical Journal, and also acted as a part-time lecturer on children’s diseases at the University of Cape Town (1926 -39). In 1939 he became part-time secretary of the South African Medical Council, travelled throughout the country and attended congresses and meetings. In 1934 an honorary D.Litt. degree was conferred on him by the University of the Witwatersrand.

From the thirties onwards Leipoldt showed a growing interest in his literary work, and these years proved particularly rewarding for him as an artist. Die laaste aand (Cape Town, 1930) was the first Afrikaans play ever written in verse form, although he had begun working on it as early as 1915. It is one of his best works, for which together with Die heks he was awarded the Hertzog prize in 1944. Die Bergtragedie (Cape Town, 1932), a long poem on which he had begun working before 1900 (originally in English), is not of a high standard although Leipoldt considered it good. A volume of poems entitled Skoonheidstroos (Cape Town, 1932), appeared at this time and included poems written during the period 1923-32. This work was also awarded the Hertzog prize and contains a number of Leipoldt’s loveliest poems, such as ‘n Kersnaggebed’, although it never achieved the heights attained by Oom Gert vertel en ander gedigte. At the beginning of the thirties a number of less successful works appeared: Afgode (1931), Die Kwaksalwer (1931) and Onrus (1931). Apart from these dramatic works Leipoldt also published three one-act plays: Jannie (1919), ‘n Vergissing (1927) en Die byl (1950).

His prose works were chiefly a product of the thirties. The first to appear was Waar spoke speel (Cape Town, 1927); it was followed by Wat agter lê en ander verhale (Cape Town, 1930); a long psychological novel: Die donker huis (Cape Town, 1931); and a lengthy historical novel set in the period shortly after the Great Trek: Galgsalmander (Cape Town, 1932). Die moord op Muizenberg (Cape Town, 1932) is a detective novel. Die rooi rotte (Cape Town, 1932) is a book of short stories. Uit my oorsese dagboek (Cape Town, 1932) is an absorbing travel book. Die verbrande lyk (Cape Town, 1934) is another detective story. Die dwergvroutjie (Cape Town, 1937), is a psychological story and was originally written in English. Bushveld doctor (London, 1937) is a well-written autobiography. This was followed in 1939 by Die Moord in die bosveld (Cape Town, 1939). In his prose works, which consist mainly of murder and detective stories, Leipoldt’s preoccupation with the abnormal in psychology, and with the supernatural and the mysterious comes to the fore. His prose works never attain tLeipoldthe heights achieved in his plays and poetry, yet he possesses a flowing and absorbing narrative style; and although it was small, he undoubtedly had a share in the development of Afrikaans prose. During these years he also wrote stories for children: Paddastories vir die peetkind (1934), Die wonderlike klok, Die mossie wat wou ryk word (1931) en Die goue eier (1937). He also published popular science fiction for children as exemplified in As die natuur gesels (two volumes, Cape Town, 1928, 1931).

Apart from his creative work during the thirties he published a number of works such as Medicine and faith (London, 1935) and various historical works based on secondary source material: firstly, Jan van Riebeeck: a biographical study (London, 1936), of which a German translation also appeared : Holland gründet die Kapkolonie: Jan van Riebeeck Leben and Werke (Leipzig, 1937). There is also an Afrikaans version entitled Jan van Riebeeck: die grondlegger van ‘n blanke Suid-Afrika (Cape Town, 1938). Leipoldt had begun to collect the material for his biography as early as 1896. The most significant facts about the Voortrekkers were summarised by him for young people in Die groot trek (Cape Town, 1938), which coincided with the Voortrekker centenary. During the Huguenot jubilee year he also published Die Hugenote (Cape Town, 1939). After his period of office as secretary of the South African Medical Council and editor of the council’s journal had ended in 1944, he devoted himself mainly to journalism and to acquiring information for a biography on Pres. S. J. P. Kruger which he had begun in 1906 but never completed. In his poetry and plays Leipoldt also showed an interest in historical characters such as Wolraad Woltemade, Pieter Gijsbert Noodt and other figures like De Lesseps and Multatuli.

When the Second World War broke out Leipoldt favoured South African participation. He wrote sonnets on the war for The Cape Times, the Forum, Die Volkstem, en De Stoep, a Curacao newspaper.

Leipoldt died shortly after the war of a heart complaint caused by rheumatic fever which he had contracted at the age of seven. The casket containing his ashes was interred at the entrance of a cave surrounded by boulders in the rocky country of the Pakhuispas near Clanwilliam, that countryside which he had loved so deeply, a short distance from the Clanwilliam-Calvinia road near Kliphuis. It is a picturesque part of the country where he roamed as a child. After his death three volumes of his poems were published: Die moormansgat en ander verhalende en natuurverse (Cape Town, 1948); Gesëende skaduwees (Cape Town, 1949) which contained poems written during the period 1910 to 1947; and The ballad of Dick King and other poems (Cape Town, 1949), Leipoldt’s only volume of English poems. This contains verses written at the time of the Second World War and also older poems, some even dating from his youth. They appeared under the name Pheidippides, a pseudonym whichLeipoldt had used in newspapers when publishing his English poems on the Second World War.

After Leipoldt’s death, 300 years of Cape Wine (Cape Town, 1952) and Polfyntjies vir die proe (Cape Town, 1963) also appeared, compiled from particularly absorbing articles written under the pseudonym K. A. it. Bonade in Die Huisgenoot (1942-7). His valuable collection of cookery books and his manuscripts of recipes are in the S.A. Library, Cape Town.

The University of Cape Town has a valuable and comprehensive collection of Leipoldt’s letters, manuscripts and journalistic work, as well as books which he donated to the library, such as the comparatively unknown poems which he wrote for the University of Cape Town Quarterly in the thirties.

Biographical information written by Leipoldtand published in Die Huisgenoot, include ‘Clanwilliam: herinneringe aan ‘n ou dorpie’ (5 November 1926), ‘Eerste skoffies’ (1 December 1933), ‘Oor my eie werk’ (6 December 1940), ‘Jeugherinneringe’ (9 May 1947) and ‘My jubileumjaar’ (17 January 1947). His ‘Outobiografiese fragment’ appeared post-humously in Standpunte (18 December 1950). He never succeeded in carrying out his resolution to write an autobiography.

Leipoldt’s literary output constitutes only a part of his rich, versatile life, and yet it represents one of his greatest contributions to South Africa. Remarkably diverse in nature, his works include articles on popular science, journalistic work, translations, and numerous volumes of poetry, plays, novels, short stories and travel reminiscences. The quality of his work is not uniform and his poems frequently lack finish; nevertheless he is still one of the greatest Afrikaans poets and dramatists.

Leipoldt, who from childhood had received a strongly English-orientated education, enjoyed moving in English circles and during his later years spent most of his time among the English-speaking section. As a poet, although he wrote typically Afrikaans poetry and transformed the then unmoulded literary Afrikaans of the early twenties into an elevated medium for poetry, later he tended to ridicule the Afrikaner, the typically Afrikaans characteristics, and the Afrikaans language which he had employed so skillfully as a writer. He even spoke disparagingly of his war poems, describing them as a product of youthful immaturity. He had always been opposed to the Afrikaans-Calvinistic viewpoint, although he frequently employed Christian sentiments in his poems and was without difficulty able to identify himself with the aspirations of the Afrikaner. The English press devoted a good deal of space to Leipoldt in their columns at the time of his death; nevertheless, his passing was felt most keenly by the Afrikaans-speaking section and his memory remains indelibly imprinted among the Afrikaner people. There are two facets discernible in Leipoldt’s character: on the one hand his astounding versatility, his ability to contend with a number of interests simultaneously, and on the other the picture of a person of many conflicting emotions.

Although Leipoldt confessed to being lonely, he had a wide and influential circle of friends and acquaintances, including Gen. J. C. Smuts, Dr Engelenburg, Prof. P. D. Hahn, John X. Merriman, the Roman Catholic priest F. C. Kolbe, Prof. P. MacOwan, Dr Rudolph Marloth, Marcus Viljoen and Dr Harry Bolus. It was Dr. Bolus who encouraged Leipoldt’s love of nature, made him conscious of the beauty of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and provided him with financial backing when he went overseas in 1902. Abroad Leipoldt made the acquaintance of Pres. S. J. P. Kruger, Dr W. J. Leyds and Ramsay Macdonald. Leipoldt also numbered Cecil John Rhodes and a few prominent women among his acquaintances. Although he never married and on occasion made odd pronouncements about women and also wrote little love poetry, he was known for his conspicuous gallantry towards ladies and there are agreeable female characters in his poetry, in “Die heks” and in “Van Noot se laaste aand”.

In his poetry Leipoldt created an impression of strong individualism and detachedness, yet he contrived to serve his fellowmen in public life in many spheres: as a physician, as a journalist and as a lover of children.

There is a statue of Leipoldt in plaster of Paris by Florencio Cuairan in the Jagger Library of the Cape Town University, and one in bronze in the public library, Clanwilliam, and in the Medical Centre, Wale Street, Cape Town. Photographs taken at different stages in his life appear in Burgers (infra).

Source: Dictionary of South African Biography (Volume II)

Image: Cape Town Archives