Northern Cape

The March 2022 wedding reception of my niece at the Kalmoesfontein Wine Farm near Riebeek Kasteel provided us with the excuse for a  meandering road trip through the Cape.

En route to Hanover, we diverted to the civilian cemetery at Springfontein where I hoped to locate the grave of Constable Jury Johannes Geldenhuis killed during the 1922 Rand Revolt.

Springfontein Cemetery. The grave of Constable Geldenhuis may be towards the rear. (SJ de Klerk)

Colonel RS Godley in his memoirs Khaki and Blue, recalled Constable Geldenhuis cantering his horse down the Brixton Ridge on Friday 10 March 1922 to buy some bread at the nearest shop, when a striker on the veranda of an adjacent house shot and killed him. Initially buried in the temporary burial ground at Milner Park, his remains were seemingly later reinterred in Springfontein, where he and his wife lived. It seemed appropriate to visit his long forgotten grave, almost 100 years later to the day of his death. But after the recent country wide summer rains, the older precinct of this little cemetery was rather overgrown, and I was unable to locate it.

Travelling through the Karoo, the sight of a little hamlet such as Hanover remains a welcome one with the beckoning tower of the Dutch Reformed Church, abundant bird life, shady Oak, Acacia, Cypress...

Nedbank’s history is an assemblage of 15 entities that merged into the group throughout the past two centuries allowing Nedbank to trace its origins back to 1831. This collective consists of entities such as the Board of Executors (BoE), Syfrets, the Permanent Mutual Building Society, the Cape of Good Hope Bank Savings Society, Boland Bank, UAL, the Natal Building Society, and of course the Nederlandsche Bank en Credietvereeniging.

Pretoria roots

The first South African branch of the Nederlandsche Bank en Credietvereeniging was opened in Church Street, Pretoria, in 1888. By 1897, the bank’s presence had grown exponentially, and a larger building was built. The structure, designed by WJ de Zwaan, was completed in 1897 and still stands today, and is in use by the Tshwane Tourism Office and is still known affectionately as the Old Netherlands Bank Building. This sandstone masterpiece served as Nedbank’s head office until 1953, when the bank moved into its third, and final, Pretoria-based head office, designed by Norman Eaton. It is still in use today, on what is now known as Thabo Sehume Street.

The first South African branch of the Nederlandsche Bank

Old post...

The Cape Government Railway’s [CGR] construction of a railway from Cape Town to Kimberley (1875-1885) was governed by the imperatives of rapid construction and the limitation of costs. Consequently the alignment followed contours and minimised cuttings and embankments. Sections of this alignment became inadequate as traffic increased and faster times for train operation were demanded. Consequently the re-alignment of certain sections became imperative for operating and cost efficiencies. This work was tackled piecemeal when funds were available. The Boer War, branch line development and an economic recession which reduced CGR revenue (mid-1900s), restricted these regrades.

In 1906 the CGR General Manager [GM] reported that “surveys for the reduction of gradients in one or both directions, that is, for Up and Down traffic, or for Down traffic alone, between Grootfontein [later Koup] and Dwyka have been completed.”

As part of this upgrade, bridges in the section were to be strengthened. Reports and drawings were prepared and an indent for the necessary materials was sent to England in February 1906.

In 1907 the GM stated:

I strongly recommend that this work should be steadily continued .... with a view to reducing the cost of haulage ... the heavy passenger traffic from Cape Town is especially handicapped by the gradient between Touws River and Dwyka ... by an expenditure of    £276 000 a saving of £8 700 could be affected after payment of interest.

By regrading a portion of this section from Dwyka to Grootfontein [Koup] at a cost of  £54 000...

Prior to 1902, South Arica had three photographers with the surname Kisch, two of whom were active in the Natal province (Kwazulu-Natal today) and one in the provinces of the Northern Cape and the Orange Free State (Free State today). Each one of them has left a distinct individual impression on South African photographic history.

The two Kisch brothers, Benjamin and Henry, based themselves in Durban/Pietermaritzburg & Ladysmith whilst a family member, a second  cousin, Tiberias, based himself in Colesberg and Bloemfontein (with a remote possibility of photographic activity whilst based in Kimberley).

Having established themselves as photographers in different South African provinces, there was clearly no interaction between the two brothers and their second cousin. Whether they even knew of one another or had ever been in contact with each other could not be established.

The surname Kisch is Czech/Jewish Bohemian in origin. It is the habitational surname for someone who resided in Chýše (Chiesch in German), a town near Eger in Bohemia.

This article also clarifies one crucial aspect, namely that the B. Kisch that was based in Durban was Benjamin Kisch and not Braham (Abraham) Kisch, as has been erroneously recorded in some earlier publications or articles.

Braham Kisch, a medial practitioner, was the father to Tiberias Benjamin Kisch, the Colesberg based photographer. More about him later in this article.

A. Brothers Benjamin and David Henry Kisch

The brothers were born into an old Jewish-English established family (originating from Prague). Their father was Moses Judah Kisch (1810 – 1856)...

Jack Cockerill was working for the Chester Diamond Drilling Company when he was engaged on a contract at the Leicester Mine, on one of the kimberlite pipes found on the farm ‘Holpan’ between Windsorton Road and Barkly West in the Northern Cape. He was housed in bachelor quarters on the farm and came into contact with the family of Willie Wienand, who was in the cartage business in the area. Romance blossomed with Willie’s daughter Gladys May Wienand, and Jack became attracted to the lifestyle of alluvial diamond digging. He left Leicester Mine, applied for a digger’s licence and set up on his own dig. This account of Jack’s life as a digger was written by his daughter, Judy, and is part of our family history. [Olwyn Garratt]

My Dad’s diggings were on a farm belonging to Mr David (Dawie) Wright. The area was proclaimed and diggers had to be of good standing to be considered eligible to be granted a licence. The Holpan diggings were not deep and they did not require a mining inspector to approve them. Although they were loosely termed alluvial diggings they were not on a river and the water required for the running of the washing plant had to be brought in by donkey wagon and stored in a tank on a raised platform.

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On a trip to Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, South Africa, in 2009 I had some spare time to walk around the town and admire the clean, bright ambiance of the place. I discovered that the town’s hot streets had been planted over the years with a variety of exotic trees, mostly Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis). It was evident that the smooth pale bark of the Eucalyptus trees had become the irresistible surface for informal messages and designs. Some of the incisions reminded me of some of the more abstract scrapings of rock art and even of the Blombos Cave artefacts and engraved ochre dating to 70 000 years ago. This probably all goes to show that human beings, confronted with a flat surface, will find a way to draw on it!

The Uniting Reformed Church in Carnarvon was built in 1858. Note the many street trees.

Blombos Cave Artefact (via Wikipedia)

One of the engravings on the Carnarvon...

The N12 route via Kimberley to Cape Town, sometimes called the Diamond Fields route, offers a respectable alternative to the slightly shorter but more hectic N1 route. Kimberley, after all is where South Africa’s Industrial Revolution originated and if memory serves correctly was the first town to install electric streetlights.

Victoria West, situated approximately half way between Gauteng and Cape Town, remains a charming stop over. Most small Karoo towns display imposing churches, usually associated with the Dutch Reformed and Anglican faiths and Victoria West is no exception.

Dutch Reformed Church Victoria West (Wikipedia)

The St John’s Anglican church while less imposing than its Dutch Reformed counterpart nevertheless boasts impeccable credentials having been designed by Sophy Gray, wife of Bishop Robert Gray, the first Anglican Bishop of Cape Town. Bishop Gray and his wife arrived in Cape Town in 1848 with a mission to increase the number of Anglican clergymen in the Cape Colony. Within 25 years Robert Gray was instrumental in the erection of 50 churches of which 40 were designed by Sophy Gray.

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On rare occasions when finances and time permit, planning a leisurely road trip to Cape Town can be an exciting enterprise. Should one travel via Bloemfontein on the N1, Kimberley via the N12 or Upington via the N14? Perhaps even the N9 via Graaff-Reinet and then Montagu via the R62.

This time a slightly different route prevailed. Initially, via the N12 to Britstown and overnighting at the excellent Transkaroo Country Lodge (main photo). This hotel was operated by the Klass family for 66 years from 1907 until 1973. Then called the Central Hotel it was upgraded in the late 1930s in an attractive Art Deco style, still largely extant. Late-night carousing by wedding guests somewhat disturbed my slumber, but it would have been churlish to complain, especially when merely engaged in travelling and sightseeing. 

The following morning after visiting the historic Britstown Cemetery, I discovered a good gravel road directly connecting Britstown to Richmond. Stopping only on three occasions; firstly, when two mule carts of the ‘Karretjie mense’ galloped past, secondly when noticing a distant array of giant wind turbines lazily combing the wide Karoo skies and lastly, at the site of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital near the defunct Deelfontein Railway Station. 

‘Karretjie mense’ in this photo from Carnavon (SJ de Klerk)

Visiting this hospital site of the...

The town of Calvinia is situated south of the Hantam mountains. The name connects it to the early inhabitants of the area, the Khoekhoen, who probably called the place Hantam due to the abundance of the plant Pelargonium biflorium, which they called Heyntama.

The first colonists arrived in the 1740s. The farm Ackkerendam (now the nature reserve to the north of the town) was granted to Jan Otto Diedriks on the 24th December 1750. In 1763 it was transferred to Adriaan van Zyl, who passed it to his niece’s husband, Abraham van Wyk. The van Wyks later occupied the adjacent farm Hoog Kraal and in 1847 a section was sold to The Church Wardens of the Dutch Reformed Church at Hantam, the original name of the village. The first minister changed the name to Calvinia after the Protestant reformer, John Calvin.

The surveyor, J Knobel, laid out water erven from the centre of the town towards the Oorlogskloof River. These were watered from a spring at the western end of Water Street that led into a furrow that crossed these plots. On the other side of the long church square were dry erven. Later, the streets alongside the square were named Water Street to the south and Hope Street to the north.

The Census of the Cape Colony of 1865 showed the increases in occupations for the Clanwilliam District, of which Clanwilliam and Calvinia were the principle towns. From 1856 to 1865 those engaged in agriculture grew in numbers from...

Readers will no doubt be puzzled by a supposed mining link connecting Cape Governor Simon Van der Stel (1639-1712) to US President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964). They not only lived in different centuries, but also on separate continents 12 700 kilometers apart. Well, read on and decide for yourself!

Our story starts with a book, not just any book, but the ‘De Re Metallica’, which collectors of rare books and Renaissance historians will recognise as the first printed book on mining and metallurgy. Written by Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) and published by Froben in Basel, Switzerland in 1556, shortly after the author’s death. This book was considered so important it went through three subsequent Latin editions between 1561 and 1657, three German editions between 1557 and 1621 and one Italian edition in 1563, at a time when the printing of such a specialised volume was no ordinary event.

The ‘De Re Metallica’ (On the Nature of Metals) was the first book on mining and metallurgy to be based on field research and observation, containing 273 woodcut drawings and comprising several hundred pages. Much of the technical information provided by Agricola was either new or had not been given previously in enough detail to enable miners or craftsmen to perform the mining and metallurgical processes without further guidance. Agricola acquired the knowledge detailed in his book from personal experience and observation and it took him more than twenty years to complete this book. For almost 200 years it remained the only authoritative work...