UPDATED: 14/02/2024
14 February 1881, Henry Perkins, a murder suspect himself, murdered.
14 February 1889, De Beers Benefit Society started, South Africa’s first medical aid society.
14 February 1900, The Beaconsfield Town Guard captures Alexandersfontein from the Boers.
14 February 1922, Pioneer and benefactor Bernard Klisser dies in London.
14 February 1941, William Berry, foreman fitter at the De Beers Workshops who made the Long Cecil, dies in Cornwall.
14 February 1961, Decimal coinage (the Rand) introduced in RSA.
KLISSER OF KLISSERVILLE
Bernard Klisser, after whom the suburb of Klisserville is named, died in London, England on Valentine’s Day (14 February) 1922.
He was born in Amsterdam Netherlands on 8 May 1854 to Samuel Levie Klisser and Rachel Baruch Klisser (nee Perel), one of ten children and arrived, aged 17 years, on the diamond fields in 1870 with his uncle, Mark Klisser.
They settled initially at Dutoitspan village, and started off as kopje wallopers, visiting the individual claims and buying diamonds direct before selling them at the Exchange and Auction Mart. When his uncle died, Klisser formed his own diamond buying company and became a wealthy diamond merchant until the diamond crash of the early 1880s when in 1883 he was declared insolvent.
He did recover his fortune and when he died in 1922 left £44 000 to the poor and needy of Kimberley. The money was placed in the Alfred Beit Memorial Fund and was termed the Bernard Klisser Bequest.
Failing eyesight – from the glare of the summer sun of Kimberley – necessitated a move to the cooler climate of England which is where he stayed until his death.
“I wish to let the money I made go back to where it came from, where I have been happy, and where most of my friends are.”
He was known locally as “The Great Kimberley Philanthropist” and for many years on the anniversary of his death, the Kimberley Municipality had a wreath laid on his grave in London. The council also commissioned a bust by Anton van Wouw which was placed outside the Public Library. This bust has been moved into the Africana Library for safekeeping.
There is a magnificent drawing of Klisser painted by William Timlin in the Kimberley Club.
Pictured is the Timlin drawing and the bust outside the Kimberley Africana Library.
UPDATED: 14/02/2018
14 February 1881, Henry Perkins, a murder suspect, himself murdered.
14 February 1889, De Beers Benefit Society started, South Africa’s first medical aid society.
14 February 1900, The Beaconsfield Town Guard captures Alexandersfontein from the Boers.
14 February 1922, Pioneer and benefactor Bernard Klisser dies in London.
14 February 1941, William Berry, foreman fitter at the De Beers Workshops who made the Long Cecil, dies in Cornwall.
DID YOU KNOW
What a to-do in Kimberley from December 1880 until February 1881. It involved as principals in an ongoing drama, two men, James Carson and Henry Perkins, and brought together in an improbable scenario; murder, an alleged affair, illegal diamond buying, an execution, robbery, and an unsolved murder, which was quite possibly revenge for the earlier murder.
It all began on the morning of Friday 10 December 1880 when the body of a white man, identified later in the day as James Carson, was discovered by Kimberley character Kidger Tucker on the Kimberley Mine debris heaps less than 100 yards from his residence in Parson’s Lane, West End. His servant had reported to him at 5am that a body of a white man was lying near Baring-Gould’s well near the house and Tucker had gone to investigate, finding Carson’s body. There had been no sign of a struggle Tucker said, although Carson’s head had been smashed in, rendering his features as unrecognisable. At least four or five large stones, all covered with blood and hair, lay close to the body of the murdered man. There had been footprints near the body, and Carson’s hat as well as a bottle of brandy was close by. Tucker had then reported the murder to Sergeant McCarthy at the West End Police Station, who found a watch, pencil case, handkerchief and tobacco in Carson’s pockets, one of which had been turned inside out.
The inquest later that day before Mr J.L. Truter, heard some startling revelations. James Carson, an engine fitter, had been recently discharged from the Cape Diamond Mining Company in the Kimberley Mine. His widow, mentioned throughout as Mrs Carson, told Mr Truter that he had promised to come and meet her on the Thursday afternoon but had not, and indeed did not return home that night. She had identified the body as that of her husband by his clothes and his hands. She mentioned that there had been some ill feeling between her husband and his immediate boss, Henry Perkins, at the mining company on Monday 6 December, five days prior to his death.
Mr Richardson, the publisher of the Diamond News, brought to the attention of the inquest that the deceased had come to his newspaper offices on Friday 3 December in order to place an advertisement. In the advertisement, which he did not publish, Carson wanted to state that he had caught his wife (Mrs Carson) kissing Henry Perkins and that he was going to sue Perkins for damages. According to Carson’s story, he had then hit Perkins, and the following morning had gone to complain about Perkins to Mr Grellert, the manager of the Cape Diamond Mining Company. He had refused to publish, said Richardson, because he needed to know more of the facts. Carson and Richardson had met again on Thursday 9 December evening between 6 and 7pm when Carson said that Mr Grellert had dismissed him from the Cape Diamond Mining Company. He told Richardson that he could not get any satisfaction from Grellert as Perkins was related to the manager, and that his wife had now left him and “gone away with Perkins”. At some stage after meeting with Mr Richardson of the Diamond News on the Thursday night, still between 6 and 7pm, Carson had stopped off at Girling’s canteen in the West End and purchased a bottle of Cango brandy from the barkeeper, Joseph William Needham.
Called before Mr Truter, John Murray, the Traffic Manager of the Rose-Innes (Diamond Mining) Company, added fuel to the fire by saying that Carson had told him that his wife was involved in “criminal misconduct” with Perkins, and that he was afraid of losing his job if he did something to Perkins. William McIntosh, Cape Diamond Mining Company Engineer, said that Carson had told him that Perkins had accused him (Carson) of buying diamonds from Africans. It had been Mrs Carson who had told Perkins the tale, McIntosh related, adding that Henry Perkins had later told him exactly the same story relating to the diamond buying and from whence it came. Mr Truter adjourned the inquest to the following day, a day that produced even more drama than the first.
Mrs Carson was the first on the stand, and said, quite incredulously considering the comments of the day before, that she knew no one who had any personal ill feeling against her husband. She added that he was a person who enjoyed his liquor but was not often “the worse for it”.
Dr Dyer, the District Medical Officer who examined the body, said that a post mortem had not been necessary as it was clear how Carson had met his death. “I could push my finger into the brain in any direction.” He had examined the body at about 11.30am that Friday, and said that death had occurred at least some eight to nine hours earlier that day in his opinion.
Mr A Grellert, Cape Diamond Mining Company Manager, was next on the witness stand: “James Carson was in my employ as an engine fitter. Henry Marriott Perkins was the manager on the washing floor. Carson was under Perkins’ immediate control, more especially so as I was absent at the time from Kimberley for a few days. Carson reported to me on my return on the 3rd instant, that he had been dismissed. I had not time to talk with him, but told him to speak to me again next day. I spoke to Perkins before I spoke to Carson again. Perkins told me that he had called at the house Carson lived in and that there had been a row chiefly about a carpenter who was lying there sick and to whose presence Carson objected. Perkins had threatened to discharge deceased, deceased had dared him to, and he had therefore dismissed him. I was not satisfied with this reason for Carson’s discharge, but Perkins then told me that Carson had been buying diamonds illicitly. I then ratified his dismissal.” The story became more interesting after another question from Mr Truter, Grellert replying that Perkins lived in the “floors” region, about three-quarters of a mile from Carson’s house. Perkins had been ill for some time and had spent some days in the country, returning on Wednesday 8 December, a day and some before Carson had been killed. “Perkins was not at work on Thursday morning, I took his place. He was sick. He gave some orders in the stables on Friday but did no other work. He was walking about with his arm in a sling. He said he had a swelling under it. He rode into town on Friday about this very case.”
It all looked cut and dried. Suspicion had automatically fallen on Henry Perkins, as it appeared from the evidence laid out before the court that he may well have been having an affair with Mrs Carson, and indeed, had been off work for some time. Suddenly, or so it appeared to readers of the various Kimberley daily newspapers, an arrest of an African in connection with the murder of James Carson, put paid to the rumours doing the rounds.
Four Africans; Mahash, Jonas, Scotchman and Basket, all stayed at the same house, and one night, Thursday 9 December, shortly before sundown, Scotchman went out for brandy, followed some time later by Mahash and Jonas. Upon their return, Mahash came in and told Basket, who had stayed behind and was the Crown witness, that “we have murdered a white man”. Basket had replied that he would suffer for it. Mahash had said that the three of them – they had met up with Scotchman – had met the white man on the road who had asked them where they were going and whether they had any diamonds to sell. Mahash had told the white man that he would take him to a place where the diamonds were hidden, and when they reached the spot, Mahash had killed the white man with some large stones. Scotchan and Jonas had been some paces behind Mahash and they could not stop him from killing the white man. Jonas, who also worked for the Cape Diamond Mining Company, but did not know Carson as Carson worked on the floors and he on the mine, said that the white man and Mashash had turned off the tramway and made their way to the “heaps” some 40 yards away. When they reached the heaps Mahash “threw the white man with a stone. It hit him about the face. He fell on his back. Mahash continued to throw him with stones. They hit him on the head. We were some way off, about 15 yards. Mahash was still beating the white man’s head, while I was pulling the four shillings out of his trousers pocket. I then ran back to Scotchman.” The three of them, Mahash, Jonas and Scotchman then divided the four shillings between them.
This stunning evidence from out of the blue brought the inquest to a close, and Mahash was arraigned on a charge of wilful murder, and remanded until the court case began in February 1881. But all the jigsaw pieces had not yet been fitted into place, and a few more shocks lay in store for the public of Kimberley.
Mr Justice Buchanan presided over the case when it opened, with Advocate Brown appearing for Mahash, and Advocate Lange for the Crown. The case lasted a whole day, with not much going on except the examining and cross-examining of the witnesses to the murder. Mahash accused the others of the murder; but they all disagreed claiming that it was Mahash who had committed the murder. Basket, one of the key witnesses, contradicted himself on occasion, and even the counsel for defence remarked that the evidence incidentally adduced against Basket was graver than that against the prisoner Mahash. The judge summed up the case for the jury, who retired for their deliberation at 5.30 pm, returning a mere ten minutes later with their verdict that Mahash was guilty of wilful murder. However, it was the opinion of the jury that Mahash was “not the sole perpetrator of the crime”, and took the opportunity of calling attention to the alarming “increase of insecurity to life and property in the three camps” which they attributed to the lack of police supervision.
After a few words to the guilty party, Mahash, Mr Justice Buchanan passed sentence of death upon him in the usual solemn manner and the prisoner was escorted to the gaol on Transvaal Road to await the executioner. But all was not over, not by a long chalk. Six days after Mahash had been led away there was an attack on Henry Perkins that was so severe that he died from his injuries.
At about 7 am on the morning of 13 February 1881, David Andrews, the African groom of the Cape Diamond Mining Company, had arrived at Perkins’ house situated at the Mining Company’s “compound” on their floors in the West End of Kimberley. Perkins had been brutally attacked while lying in his bed, and he lay there, half in and half out his bed, still breathing but in a pool of blood. Next to the bed was a blood stained piece of tramway rail-line and a crowbar. The small safe in the house had been opened with the crowbar and was empty, while the assailant had left his cap and belt on the floor. Perkins’ arm was outstretched towards a loaded shotgun that was close to hand. Andrews immediately called Mr Grellert who rushed to the scene, and upon seeing the unconscious Perkins, called in Doctor Leander Starr Jameson and Dr Heuter. The two doctors removed the badly injured man to the Carnarvon Hospital, but it was to no avail as Perkins died without regaining consciousness at 1am on 14 February. He was 28 years and three days old when he died.
The police had taken a suspect into custody – one Franz Williams. He was the cart driver who had driven Perkins to Barkly West for an evening out, and then back to Kimberley the same night Perkins had been attacked. Williams was soon released as he had another story to tell. While on the way to visit Jane Mauby at Barkly West, the cart had been forced to stop near the “German Flag” canteen because an African man was blocking the road. After being whipped by Perkins, he still refused to move, so Perkins got off and beat him with his fists. Despite this beating the man still chased after the cart throwing stones. Perkins and Williams stayed at the women’s house for a while, and then returned to Kimberley, but did not see the African again. Jane Mauby had another story. Perkins had pointed out to her a white man, Patrick O’Donnell, as a man who had tackled him quite recently under a bridge near his home. She had seen O’Donnell after that incident, and he had worn a hat similar to the one found at the scene of the murder. Possibly it had been he who had killed Perkins, she claimed.
The Daily Independent, however, chose to disbelieve the robbery theory, and linked Perkins’ death with Carson’s in December: “Carson’s murder, although one man has been condemned to death for participation in the crime, remains a mystery. The murder of poor Perkins may possibly serve as a means of elucidating the first crime more thoroughly; that is, provided the perpetrators of the second crime are brought to light. There can be little doubt that the second crime is the outcome of the first. Or, rather, to use plainer language, that the murder of Henry Perkins has been the consequence of the miscarriage of justice in the case of the murder of Carson. It is no use mincing matters now. Henry Perkins has gone, poor fellow, to his last account, and it can serve him nothing to gloss over or hide the circumstances which, most people think, led to his shocking death. We shall not refer to these matters here, because it is the province of the law to unearth and sift such things before the journalist has the right to comment upon them. We do not, for one moment, believe that the murder which was committed on Saturday night was a crime, the object of which was robbery. Everything points unmistakably to revenge as the motive of the crime. And here is the only redeeming feature of the case, if we may be allowed to call it.”
No mincing about the bush with that editorial. In the same edition, it was reported that yet another murder had been committed in the West End, again the victim being an employee of the Cape Diamond Mining Company. The African, an “engine boy”, had been killed on 15 February, and the “probability is that the murderers of Henry M. Perkins feared he would come forward with evidence against them.” The report continued, stating that no arrest had yet taken place, “and the police, as usual, seem to be utterly without clue.”
Does the story end there. Well, the murderer or murderers of Henry Perkins were never found. Was it a revenge killing for the death of Carson? Was Perkins involved in the murder of Carson in some way? Or was Perkins having an affair with Carson’s wife as Carson himself thought, and someone did not like the way Perkins had gotten rid of Carson? Perkins was dead, and he could not answer any of the questions. Nor could Carson, and Mrs Carson herself did not say a word. Of more than passing interest, Perkins’ grave has a headstone, but not Carson’s. Who was it that placed the headstone? Mrs Carson? We shall never know.
14 February 1881, Henry Perkins, a murder suspect, himself murdered.
14 February 1889, De Beers Benefit Society started, South Africa’s first medical aid society.
14 February 1900, The Beaconsfield Town Guard captures Alexandersfontein from the Boers.
14 February 1922, Pioneer and benefactor Bernard Klisser dies in London.
14 February 1941, William Berry, foreman fitter at the De Beers Workshops who made the Long Cecil, dies in Cornwall.
Pictured is the Beaconsfield Town Guard at Alexandersfontein.
DID YOU KNOW
From the diary of Lt-Colonel RG Kekewich, Commander of the Garrison in Kimberley, 14 February 1900:
“A very busy day. At 6 am Major Fraser reported from Beaconsfield that he thought Alexandersfontein was evacuated. I instructed to at once ascertain if this was true, and very shortly afterwards heard that he and about 100 men of the Beaconsfield Town Guard had occupied Alexandersfontein. Prisoners, waggons, ammunition, cattle, despatches etc were captured, and a quantity of vegetables and supplies fell into our hands. I reinforced Major Fraser with 125 mounted men under Col Peakman and later in the morning Captain O’Brien 2nd Lt Webster and about 74 men 1/LN Lan Regt proceeded to take command and for Col Peakman and Major Fraser to return.
This morning I directed a small reconnaissance to be made in the direction of Toll Pan. During it Major Rodger DFA was shot through the forearm – the enemy was found to be in considerable numbers in this direction.
The following message was sent by helio.
‘From Kekewich to Ch of Staff. Alexandersfontein found evacuated daybreak to-day, and have occupied position, and am now strongly entrenching same so as to prevent enemy obtaining access to springs there possible may result in enemy abandoning laagers East of Wimbledon ridge – owing to want of water. Large movement waggons from Spytfontein towards North in progress eight to ten miles West of Kimberley –Carter’s ridge also very strongly occupied apparently to cover movement of waggons. Small reconnoitring party sent out daybreak towards East found enemy in possession Tollpan. Two hundred Boers showed themselves and opened vigorous fire with Nordenfeldts and small arms. Our casualty Major T Rodger DFA flesh wound left arm.’
‘From Int KB to Int MD. Feb 14 No 218. First result occupation Alexandersfontein two Boer despatch riders with despatches and three other men rode into place and were captured. Despatch dated 12th Feb from Genl Breyternboch to Genl De Wet has been translated refers to fight at Koodoosberg 8th following expression occurs in despatch begins, I found my laager in not too satisfactory a state. General Kolbe under circumstances has gone to Griquatown ends. Despatches to General Cronje also captured not yet translated. One relates to compensation for colonial burghers if their property damaged by British Troops, another relates to Boer deserters being sent back to Modder River. Cannot obtain much information from prisoners. Following are principal items of intelligence collected. Burghers of Republican forces becoming very dissatisfied, numbers of men from Hoopstad laager have deserted. Four hundred Boshofers left Alexandersfontein eleven pm yesterday on arrival of horsemen from South who reported Cronje and large commando captured by our troops yesterday. It is believed Boshofers went East. Five thousand men are investing Kimberley. Three thousand men have at various times gone from Scholtz Nek to Colesberg last one-thousand strong left last week. Portion of Winburg Laager south of Alexandersfontein left for South 10 pm yesterday.’
‘From Int KB to Int MD Feb 14th 7 pm 219. Todays news small reconnoitring party sent East daybreak came into contact with enemy at Toll Pan causing Boers to disclose their position. Major Rodger DFA wounded in left arm. Daybreak information received Alexandersfontein evacuated by Boers. Beaconsfield Town Guard advanced and occupied Boer position and were reinforced with guns Mounted Troops and North Lancs. Two despatch riders, some Boers with waggons carrying food, ammunition, cattle, horses came into our lines unaware change of situation and were captured. Slight resistance by one party resulted in Boer being killed. Since our occupation Alexandersfontein enemy has directed artillery and small arms fire on our troops all day. Our casualties to present time three men wounded. Enemy recommenced bombardment Kimberley 7 am. Civilian named Robinson killed by fragment of shell falling N part of town. Enemy fired 84 shells at Alexandersfontein, 84 at Kimberley included in latter are 35 from siege gun.’
‘From Int KB to Int MD Feb 14 7 pm No 220. Considerable movement waggons towards East and west observed to-day especially in latter direction.’ ”
From Kimberley Calls and Recalls on Facebook By Steve Lunderstedt
Shortlink for this post: https://www.kimberley.org.za/?p=12778