Free State

In the article below, well-known writer Lucille Davie unpacks some of the complexity behind the life and personality of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. The piece was written on 23 August 2013 for the Media Club South Africa website shortly after the publication of Madikizela-Mandela's book 491 Days: Prisoner number 1323/69. Click here to view more of Davie's work.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela felt particularly close to her jailed husband, Nelson, in October 1970, after she was released from serving 491 days in solitary confinement. She wrote to him on 26 October, saying: "In a way during the past two years I felt so close to you. It was the first time we were together in similar surroundings for that length of time. Eating what you were eating and sleeping on what you sleep on gave me that psychological satisfaction of being with you."

She was responding to his letter of 1 October, which read: "I had to wait for 2 weeks before I could send you my warmest congratulations for serving 491, and still emerge the lively girl you are, and in high spirits. To you and your determined friends I say welcome back! Were I at home when you returned I should have stolen a white goat from a rich man, slaughtered it and given you ivanya ne ntloya [leftover traditional beer and sour milk] to down it. Only in this way can a beggar like myself fête and honour his heroes."

Nelson was 52 years old at the time, and had served six years of his...

On the shores of the Vaal Dam, on the Free State side opposite Vaal Marina, is a small graveyard containing a few graves but only a single gravestone. This marks the grave of Hermanus Lombard.

The inscription on the gravestone in the image below has been enhanced to make it more readable. Translated into English it reads:

Hermanus Stephanus

Lombard died at Erfbloem 9 May 1930

At an age of 91 years 9 month and 10 days

Born 1838 3rd of July

Hermanus's gravestone (Horst Müller)

Who was Lombard and why am I writing an article about him? What follows is the story of an event that happened during the 1st Boer War that totally changed his life.

Things began at the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit on 20 December 1880. A regiment of British soldiers proceeding to Pretoria was blocked by Boer forces. An uneven battle ensued leading to the loss of many men. The only British officer not killed or wounded was Captain Elliot. He was taken prisoner with the remaining men and sent to Pretoria. At that time, a Captain Lambert was also captured while transferring horses from the Free State to Pretoria.

In Pretoria, the two officers were given a choice, either stay in prison until the end of the war or accept a pardon and leave the country with the promise not to participate further in any action against the Boer republic. They...

Driving on the gravel road from Edenville to Heuningspruit in the Free State one will notice a strange looking tower sticking out from between the trees. What is/was that?

The answer is that it was a lime kiln, that is a technical term to describe an oven or furnace used to heat limestone to convert it to burned lime for use on the gold mines (as a neutralising agent and as building material). It was owned by the New Honingspruit Lime Works.

What remains of the plant is the kiln, the limestone mine, shells of some buildings and some hardware. It took a bit of detective work to figure out what the process was. The first step in the process was to mine the limestone. Limestone is essentially calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Pieces of limestone of a specific size were loaded onto koekepans, transported to the kiln and hoisted to the top. The fire in the kiln was burning continuously with loading and withdrawal at the same time, except weekends. It was filled in layers of 3000 lb (pounds) limestone followed by 800 lb anthracite (coal).

Heuningspruit Lime Kiln (Horst Müller)

The reaction is represented by the following chemical equation:

CaCO3 + heat--> CaO + CO2...

Out in the middle of the Northern Free State farm land is a little church. Not a very special building, not very large, not very beautiful but it has history and this is the reason I have decided to write about it.

This church is the Groenvlei German Lutheran Church. It gets its name from the farm roughly in the middle of the triangle formed by Heilbron, Koppies and Sasolburg. Click here to view the exact position.

The building was erected in 1921 on a foundation of natural stone. The walls, judging by the thickness, are constructed using burned bricks. On the broad side are support pillars put in from the beginning to prevent the building from slipping. In addition there are some tension bars to keep the two walls together. No major cracks can be seen. The structure is very solidly built (as I would expect from a team of German builders).

The only reminder of the German origins of the church is the marking on the toilet doors, saying 'DAMEN' and 'HERREN'.

Groenvlei German Lutheran Church (Horst Müller)

Inside the church are wooden benches, all still in good order. The altar is also wooden with no excessive decoration. The church used to have an organ, a small one about the size of a piano. This has been removed and is in private hands for preservation purposes. The church has a capacity of approximately 80 people.

The plain design and...

On the farm Leeuwpoort near Heilbron in the Northern Freestate are two residential houses built for the Weilbach family, both Provincial Heritage sites.

The older of the two is a typical farm house of its time. It is difficult to establish exactly when it was constructed and by whom. There is one piece of information stating that it was built by Engelbrecht, the occupier of the farm before Pistorius and Weilbach. That would put the date into the 1860s. In another source, the year 1850 is mentioned. In yet another, it is reported that the farm house was built by Carl August Pistorius for his daughter, Catharina Johanna, and son in law, JF Weilbach, when they got married in 1875 (Pistorius is the man who sold Maccauvlei to Sammy Marks for an, at the time, unheard of sum of £15 500.  Click here for more details).

Weilbach hartbeeshuisie door with old National Monuments Plaque on the right (Horst Müller)

The house is a typical farm house of those days. The brickwork, I have to assume, is made from mud bricks. The only exposed surface is on the inside of the gable, but that is made up of burned bricks dating from a later repair job. In 1943 it was reported that the building was in ruin and was later restored. The outside walls are remarkably thick, between 400 and 500mm. Window frames, lintels above...

Most photographers at the turn of the last century were upstanding and hard-working citizens, however, there is always the exception. This article is about one such exception, namely the photographer Maximillian Alfred Daubert who was based in towns such as Wakkerstroom, Reitz and Pietermaritzburg. Daubert who often clashed with the law, spent many months in local jails, due to various criminal transgressions.

Maximillian Alfred Daubert, was born in Braunschweig, Germany on 24 August 1865. His father was Heinrich Wilhelm Daubert and his mother Doretta Daubert (Nee Haacke). Alfred left Germany at the age of 23 and arrived in South Africa some time during 1888.

Photograph of Daubert, wife Alette (Nee Smit) and eldest son Heinrich (Circa 1912) taken by the photographer Jennings based in Vrede. Jennings was also active in Reitz where Daubert resided for a while.

Alfred Daubert initially moved around South Africa at regular intervals. It is possible that he was an assistant photographer at the studios of some more established photographers in the towns he visited before he finally settled in Wakkerstroom.

His movements were as follows:

• Kimberley between 1888 and 1889
• Johannesburg (Kerk & Harrison Street) between 1889...

Bothaville is a small town in the North-West Free State. It is known as the maize capital because it is surrounded by endless maize fields. The skyline is dominated by numerous silos feeding the maize processing industry as well as the tower of the main church, the Dutch Reformed Church or in short NG church (from the Afrikaans name Nederduits Gereformeerte Kerk).

What is so special about this church building that I want to write an article about it? The answer to this question is that it was Gerard Moerdijk's first church, designed at the start of his career as an architect.

The Church

A bit of history about the congregation. Members of the NG church living in the area applied to be ceded from the Kroonstad congregation and this was granted in 1891. The first church was built the same year. This was also the beginning of the town Bothaville. With a growing population and membership it became necessary to construct a new church which is the building described here.

Gerard Moerdijk, best known as the architect who designed the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, was born 1890 in Nylstroom, a son of Dutch immigrant family. As a young man he worked for the Public Works Department as a junior draughtsman. He spent a number of years in London studying to become an architect. Coming back to South Africa he joined the...

Jannie Roggeband, a Dutch citizen, was a field ambulance volunteer during the Anglo Boar War (1899-1902). Roggeband had a powerful accolade published in the Ficksburg community newspaper on 4 January 1923, a few days after the death of General George Alfred Brand (10 February 1875 – 24 December 1922). General Brand, one of President and Lady Brand’s 11 children, passed away at the young age of 47. A family photograph circa 1882, in the author’s collection, shows George and his older siblings, 7 of which were boys.

As a collector and researcher of Anglo Boer war related images, the author, on occasions, finds absolute gems where a letter or newspaper clipping is found with a photograph that relates to the “sitter” (person in the photograph), who was either a participant in the Boer War or simply a citizen caught up in the war.

Photographs in themselves tell stories, but to find the Roggeband photograph with a newspaper clipping certainly provides insight into the personalities as well as the nature of the relationships between various parties during the war (sometimes opposing parties).

Based on the author’s research, Jannie Roggeband has not been identified or named as a Dutch Volunteer in any previous research conducted. No mention, for example, is made of him in the recently published book by Chris Schoeman on the Dutch involved in South Africa during that era (Brothers in Arms: Hollanders in the Anglo Boer War).

This article not only reflects on the personality of Brand...

The Eerste Pastorie was built in 1850 in the newly formed town of Winburg in the Orange Free State of South Africa. It was a house built for the Dutch Reformed Church's Pastor or Predikant (the Dutch word for leader, in this instance Church Leader and is abbreviated as “ds" before his name).

Eerste Pastorie Today (Grant Hendrey)

In 1848 regular church services started being held in Winburg and the Church Council authorized the building of a church. A Pastor, ds Dirk Van Velden, was appointed and he was to arrive in Winburg in September 1850 from Holland.

ds Dirk van Velden

At the May 1850 Church Council meeting, the building of a house for ds Van Velden was tabled. It was to be built with the best building materials and with a roof of Tambookie grass. The house was built with 50 loads of stone and 40 000 bricks. Yellowwood planks and trusses were brought from the Cape by oxcart for the floors and roof. Unfortunately for Van Velden, when he arrived the house was not complete and he and his wife with 5 children...

With a melodic sounding name the Riemland is largely an area of wide flat horizons interspersed with not much else. It is however home to some very interesting heritage hotspots in the country. The Riemland covers most of the north and north-eastern Free State, including the towns of Sasolburg, Heilbron, Petrus Steyn, Lindley, Arlington and Senekal.

In days gone by large herds of game roamed the area. Hunters came to shoot the game and made thongs or riempies from the hides. These riempies were a necessity to most farmers and were mostly used as rope. The Riemland therefore is the area from where the riempies came. 

Accompanied by tour guides Twin Mosia and Piet Lombard, History and Heritage Tourism students of the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, visited some of the heritage sites in the Riemland area from 30 September to 3 October.

The Coalbrook tragedy 

One of the largely forgotten heritage sites of the Riemland is the place where the Coalbrook mining disaster took place in 1960. The bodies of the 435 miners who died there on 21 January, after a large underground cave in, were never found. This is the biggest mining disaster in South African history and ranks under the ten biggest coal mining disasters in the world. 

This occurred about 180 m below the surface in the area north east of the No. 2 Shaft of the Clydesdale Colliery. About 1 000 miners were underground at the time of which 435 became trapped. Rescue operations started immediately but were...