4 January 1965: Kimberley’s first black librarian, Roderick Ndaki, begins work.
(Other than being born in 1942 there is no further information available at this stage about Kimberley’s first black librarian).
Cecil Rhodes’ luxury railway carriage
That there were two luxury railway carriages used by the De Beer’s Company Directors. The first, named “Shangani”, was used to transport Cecil Rhodes’ body from Cape Town to Bulawayo prior to internment in the Matopos hills, Zimbabwe, in 1902, and the carriage is now on display at the Bulawayo Museum.
Both luxury coaches were manufactured by the Pullman Company of Chicago, USA.
The second carriage, the Director’s Coach named “Victoria Falls”, was shipped to South Africa in 1903 and was in use by 1904. It cost the sum of ₤7463.00, and was last used by De Beers Director and nephew of Barney Barnato, Solly Joel, in 1937. It was donated to the Kimberley Mine Museum by Government Minister BJ Schoeman in November 1954.
(Pictured are Rhodes’ carriage (Bulawayo, above) and the DBCM Director’s coach, in Kimberley below).
DID YOU KNOW
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the discovery of diamonds brought all the various cultures currently in this country to the diamond fields in search of wealth. The black man worked hand in hand with the white man, and lived in the same mining camps with each other. Later, as the claims became incorporated into mining companies, the blacks lived in “compounds” close to the open pits and to the living quarters of the white workers. There were many compounds, some with few residents, and others with many. The very first large and closed compound for black mineworkers was opened officially on Saturday 17 January 1885 by the French Company who were based at the Kimberley Mine. The company marched 110 blacks into the compound from which they were not to leave for six months.
The white diggers died in hundreds. It can be safely assumed that the black miners died as well, and also probably in hundreds, if not more. Thus far, there are at least three known black cemeteries that date back to the early 1870s. A Malay cemetery and an African cemetery are next to each other in Bultfontein/Greenpoint, and the vacant land adjacent to the White Pioneers cemetery off Phakamile Mabija road is an African cemetery. Gladstone cemetery, which “opened” in 1883, also has a large African cemetery. There are other cemeteries, and they will surface. By the end of 1871 there were at least 50 000 whites and blacks in what is now the main Kimberley area. In 1876 there were at least 15 000 blacks working in Kimberley, with another few thousand in Beaconsfield.
Houses or huts were built by Africans arriving from all over Southern Africa on the fringes of the towns of Kimberley and what is now Beaconsfield, and this is where the “locations” became consolidated. The Malay Camp was to the east of the Kimberley and De Beers mines but in the 1870s was in an open area. Likewise the other sprouting villages were all outside the main residential areas, barring the mining companies and their compounds.
In 1899 the blacks employed by De Beers were housed in several mine compounds close to all five mines (12 out of 17 were owned by De Beers), while the balance resided in several areas, or “locations” dotted in and around Kimberley itself. These locations were Number 1, close to the Phakamile Mabija Road; Number 2, in the current satellite township named after Phokwani Uprising hero Kgosi Galeshewe; Number 3, also known as Meyer’s or the German Location and situated next to the Reservoir; Number 4, the opposite side of the Reservoir to Number 3; Flenter’s (also known as Venter’s), and on the western side of the Kimberley-Cape railway line on the outskirts of Kimberley; Greenpoint, opposite Flenter’s on the eastern side of the railway line; Mankurwane’s, south of Blanckenberg’s Vlei to the east of Kimberley; and the Malay Camp, a well-established township situated in Kimberley proper.
The inhabitants of the locations either lived in a Koranna type hut with metal door and frame, or they lived in a hut with a wooden framework, the sides covered by sacking, and the roof with iron sheets. Many had wooden fences or brick walls surrounding the house. The hut owners had laboured for years to erect such a building.
Pictured is an African family in and around a Cape cart. In the background can be seen some of their housing at the time. Photograph taken by William Leonard Hunt on his 1885 expedition to the Kalahari.
From Kimberley Calls and Recalls on Facebook By Steve Lunderstedt
