The Battle and Seige of Congella
In May 1842 British forces under Capt. T. C. Smith occupied Port Natal for the purpose of making an end to the republic of Natalia. The protests of the Volksraad and Commandant-General Andries Pretorius he rejected. His camp was situated under the Berea on the Point side of the Umgeni River, where he had dug himself in well. He had about 240 men, with Capt. Lonsdale and 4 lieutenants, under his command.
Was your Ancestor a Beauty Queen?
Was your Ancestor a Beauty Queen? As we celebrate the Miss World Contest we congratulate Candice Abrahams a South African who has been crowned Miss World at the 27th Miss World Pageant held on 12th March 2016 at Dongguan, in China, we also look back at the winners of the Miss South Africa and the South African winners of the Miss Universe contest as well. Many beauty contests have been held in South Africa since 1910. The most important being those in which the winners are entered in overseas contests.
The Battle of Blaauwberg
In August 1805, while the French army with which Napoleon intended to invade England was still in waiting at Boulogne, a formidable British fleet sailed southwards on a secret mission, The Battle of Blaauwberg was going to happen. It was proposed to take the Cape - the key to India - from the Batavian Republic (which was an ally of France) by means of a surprise attack. Naval and cargo vessels, 61 in all, under the command of Commodore Sir Home Popham had 6,654 soldiers and officers under Major-General Sir David Baird on board. Baird, who had spent ten months at the Cape during the first British occupation, knew the fortifications well. Reports of a mighty fleet sailing south reached Lt.-Gen. J. W. Janssen’s, the Governor at the Cape, and he made all possible preparations, but it was the harvesting season and he could not mobilise the burghers without sufficient information of an intended attack.
St. Stephen’s Church
St. Stephens in Cape Town is the only Dutch Reformed church named after a saint; and its congregation used to be known as the only Coloured congregation that formed part of the Nederduitse Gereformede Kerk (the mother church), with full admission to its synod, while all other Coloured parishes of the N.G. Kerk belong to the daughter or mission church. The rectangular edifice was erected during the First British Occupation and is the oldest theatre building in South Africa, having been erected for that purpose by the Governor, Sir George Yonge, on what is now Riebeek Square,
Clues in your family house name
The names of houses are a fascinating way of tracing your ancestors as they may have been the people that actually named the house. Many people name their houses after the towns or places they originated from or places that are strongly associated with the family. These place names could be vital clues when looking for that missing link. House names also contain names of people, eg Alison & Donald become “Aldon” - they could be named after children, spouses or something special in their lives.
Epidemics in South Africa
The term epidemic is used to indicate an unusual prevalence of a disease. The disease which most harried early navigators, occurring in epidemic form on long voyages, was scurvy. It was known that the condition was caused by absence of fresh food in the sailor's diet. Only in the present century, however, was it discovered that the factor absent from such stored or preserved foods was a vitamin. Vitamin C, the anti-scorbutic factor, is the most vulnerable of all the vitamins, readily destroyed by heating, drying and other methods of food preservation.
How to write a biography
A biography is the story of a person's life. Some biographies are just a few sentences long, others are a book. Short biographies give the basic facts of a person's life. Longer biographies include the facts with more details. Most biographies are about famous, or infamous, people. Some are about historical people, and others are about people still living. Everyone can have a biography.
Kenhardt Cemetery
Kenhardt is situated 710 km south of Upington and 74 km west of Putsonderwater, the nearest station on the De Aar - Upington railway. A bus service operates between Putsonderwater and Kenhardt. A special magistrate [...]
Maitland Cemetery Records
Are you looking for Cemetery records in South Africa? Are you looking for plot cards for Maitland Cemetery or personalised visits and graves photographed?
Pagel’s Circus
Friedrich Wilhlem August Pagel was born in Plathe, Pomerania, Germany on 5 February 1878 Friedrich, the 'strong man' and circus proprietor, was the 2nd of eight children born to Antonia Fraudnich and August Pagel, a huge strong man. Friedrich inherited his father's great size and strength which he enhanced by working at a smithy in his home town. He qualified as a blacksmith when he was seventeen, but became a ship's stoker and travelled widely and adventurously, finally deserting his ship at Sydney, Australia,
Kleinmond Cemetery
Kleinmond Cemetery is situated in the town of Kleinmond which is a coastal town and holiday resort with a small fishing harbour in Sandown Bay, between Gordon's Bay and Hermanus, in the Caledon district. The [...]
Basters of Little Namaqualand
The Basters of Little Namaqualand lived in the five Coloured reserves - Concordia, Komaggas, Leliefontein (Lily Fountain), Steinkopf and the Richtersveld - in the magisterial district of Namaqualand, Cape Province, provide nowadays a field in [...]
Origins of Public Holidays in South Africa
Before the Union of South Africa was established in 1910 each of the four Colonies had its own legislation on public holidays. That of the Cape Colony was promulgated in 1856, but was amended [...]
Moving home with your Family Tree
The decision to move will inevitable come at some stage of our life where we need to downscale and get rid of stuff. Whether it’s your own decision or be it a parent going into frail care or even you, when you are forced to make decisions on those precious family items and heirlooms we all hang on to its going to be a difficult one.
Was your ancestor a petty criminal?
Some years ago whilst searching through the Government Gazettes I came across an interesting list of Criminal Offences from 1855 and a List of Prisoners Committed to the Cape Town Goal. By PE de Robaix Esq. Justice of the peace. These were true extracts by N. Stewart Gaoler. Browse below and see if one of your ancestors appear,
Dirk Ligter Clanwillam
Dirk Ligter a renowned stock theif of a singularly engaging temperament and with characteristics all his own, who became a legendary figure in Afrikaans literature. He is believed to have been born in the vicinity of [...]
Rose’s Round-up June 2016 No 270
IN SEARCH OF VULTURE PHOTOS Well-known ornithologist, Richard Dean, is writing a book on the bird collectors in southern Africa. Part of the story includes information on the military men who collected birds. The army section includes information on the two men who helped Colonel Sloggett collect material around the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein during the Anglo-Boer War. Richard is now searching for photographs of the vulture colony at Nelspoort – it was one of the largest in the Karoo. Richard says: “The colony became extinct in the early 1900s.” There was also a huge vulture colony at Gamkaspoort, [...]
Rose’s Round-up May 2016 No 269
OH YUM – IT’S CRADOCK The Karoo Food Festival, a feast of food and fun, takes place in Cradock from April 29 to May 1. Festivities kick off with a carnival, which promises to be highly entertaining, at the Meeting Ground at Cradock High School. Tickets cost R20 per person and children under 5 will be allowed in for free. “Live music and great food will set the pace,” says organizer Lisa Antrobus. “Visitors will be able to “build” their own feasts and choose their own portions. Among the typical Karoo dishes on offer will be skaapstertjies, bazaar-sosaties, gourmet boeries, [...]
Rose’s Round-up April 2016 No 268
ALL FOR THE SAKE OF THE RABBIT The Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Drylands Conservation Programme has proved successful, reports senior field officer, Bonnie Schumann. This programme focuses not only on the conservation of the critically endangered riverine rabbit, but also on socio-economic upliftment opportunities for the rural community in this area and the provision of jobs during habitat restoration. “The restoration techniques improve habitats and the biodiversity of the ecosystem to ensure the survival of this unique, threatened species, and the other species sharing the riparian areas,” said Bonnie. “With quite some trepidation we planted out about 3 000 nursery-grown Karoo plants [...]
Rose’s Round-up March 2016 No 267
DESERT TOURISM GROWS APACE Desert tourism is growing steadily. Previously a difficult product to sell, “dryland tourism” has now become a recognized niche market across the world for discerning arid zone travelers. “Perceptions have changed from down market and cheap to exciting and adventurous. Remoteness, bareness, silence and solitude have become drawcards,” says Doreen Atkinson, an authority on Karoo tourism. In an article in the Journal of Arid Environments, she states that the Karoo is reaping dividends from the trend towards “getting away” and really exploring the great outdoors. “The Karoo is no longer considered hostile, dangerous or boring. It [...]
Rose’s Round-up February 2016 No 266
FOR ALL WHO LOVE PRINCE ALBERT There’s a treat in store for all who love Prince Albert. A new book, compiled by Cultural Foundation members, Lydia Barella, Mary Anne Botha, Judy Maguire and Derek Thomas, has just become available. Prince Albert - Sense of History, Sense of Place, celebrates the town’s unique cultural and environmental history covering everything from geology, palaeontology, archaeology and anthropology to architecture and agriculture. These are brought to life through stories of the people who settled in the area, among them the De Beers, of the original farm, De Queekvalleij, as well as residents of Bo-dorp, [...]
Rose’s Round-up January 2016 No 265
TOP AWARDS FOR CONSERVATION Towards the end of last year conservationists, Sue and Richard Dean, received two top awards. One was a Cape Nature Stewardship award for excellence in the field of conservation and the other a special award for their outstanding contribution to biodiversity conservation in the Western Cape. Both were for work done at Wolwekraal Nature Reserve, a small 113 ha protected area on a farm, near Prince Albert. Richard and Sue identified this spot as a conservation area in 2005. In 2013 Wolwekraal farm owners and the Department of Environment Affairs officials signed a Memorandum of Agreement [...]
Rose’s Round-up December 2015 No 264
CELEBRATING MEDICINE IN THE KAROO A Medical Humanities Literary Festival, scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the Richmond Booktown Book Fair in October 2016, will celebrate medicine in the Karoo. The event follows on the opening of South Africa's first Museum of Optometry and Ophthalmology at this year’s event. The new museum was established to salute the work of Albert Gaston Eugen Fick, the developer of the contact lens. Way back in the late 1880s several people began speculating on the possibility of applying a lens or shell directly on to the eye to correct visual disorders. A variety [...]
Rose’s Round-up November 2015 No 263
ANNUAL TREAT FOR BOOK LOVERS The ever-popular Richmond Literary Festival, Boek Bedonnered, is scheduled for October 22 to 24. The programme, designed to appeal to the hearts of all book lovers, is jam-packed with exciting launches, good reads, talks and poetry sessions. One of the highlights is a discussion with South Africa’s greatest living Afrikaans poet, Breyten Breytenbach, about his new book, a compilation of all his public speeches over the past 50 years. This will be undertaken by Dominique Botha and Riaan Malan. Another highlight will be the official opening of the Museum of Optometry and Ophthalmology by [...]
Rose’s Round-up October 2015 No 262
A FESTIVAL OF READING (AND WRITING) Print has not died. The Association of American Publishers say that e-books are having a tough time and that their sales dropped by about 10% in the first five months of this year. This was encouraging to the organisers of Prince Albert’s annual Leesfees. Their aim is to develop a culture of reading and a love of books. This year’s event, scheduled for November 4 to 7, includes talks by bestselling authors, but the festival is not only about books and publishing, the programme includes discussions of writing techniques, a workshop, poetry, performances, [...]
Rose’s Round-up September 2015 No 261
FIRST CONFERENCE OF ITS KIND IN SA The first Depth Leadership Trust Conference to be held in South Africa will take place in Prince Albert from September 3 to 5. The theme is Crucibles of Leadership and the programme includes top speakers, each a specialist on his or her field. Among them will be clinical psychologists, artists, authors, academics, corporate and government leaders. Conference organisers explain that the term “depth” refers to a leadership approach that uses the theories and practices of depth psychology, a formal sub-discipline of clinical psychology. These theories, which have been used for more than [...]
Rose’s Round-up August 2015 No 260
THE MAN WHO WENT TO TIMBUKTU REMEMBERS Chris Marais’s memoirs, The Journey Man, was successfully launched at the Cradock Writers Festival. This book, a great read, tells the exciting tale of a photo-journalist’s experiences across Africa and in more than 50 foreign spots, including Mongolia, Borneo, Timbuktu, Madagascar and the French Quarter of New Orleans. It’s the inside storey of a roving reporter’s life on newspapers such as The Pretoria News, The Rand Daily Mail and The Sunday Tribune, and on magazines such as Scope, Style, Country Life (more recently) as well as a slew of international airline publications before [...]
Rose’s Round-up July 2015 No 259a
TIME TO CELEBRATE WRITERS Tel No 082 932 8864 The 6th annual Schreiner/Karoo Writers Festival – Skrywersfees / Umnyhadala Wababhali – will be held in Cradock from July 23 to 26. “As ever this festival features a delightful mix of stories, tours, walks, talks, videos, books – old and new – glimpses of history, theatre productions, poetry readings and fireside chats, as well as many opportunities to enjoy the clean, fresh Karoo air and star-studded night skies,” says organizer, Lisa Antrobus Ker. “Book and Karoo lovers can rest, relax, unwind, browse and enjoy the region’s widely known, warm, friendly hospitality, traditional [...]
Rose’s Round-up July 2015 No 259
AND THE WINNERS ARE ... The inaugural South Africa Independent Publishers Awards dinner, recently held in Richmond, during the J M Coetze\Athol Fugard Festival, was an exciting gala event. Virtually every category was keenly contested. The Miriam Tlali Prize for autobiography was unanimously awarded to the late Edwin Jackson for Flight of the Moth, which was published with encouragement of Booktown Richmond. This prize was named in honour of the first black woman to publish a novel in English. Judges were astounded that a simple farmer, faced with a terminal disease, could pen a book of such immense beauty. [...]
Rose’s Round-up June 2015 No 258
DON’T FORGET THIS FESTIVAL South Africa’s greatest living playwright, Athol Fugard, will be speaking at J M Coetzee\Athol Fugard festival in Richmond on Saturday, May 30. This is an occasion not to be missed. This year’s event, the third of its kind, boasts a programme is packed with talks, readings, poetry and plays. The festival opens at 09h00 on Thursday, May 28, with a documentary entitled Falls The Shadow, The Life and Times of Athol Fugard. From there the programme moves on through interesting items and the day ends with the first self-publishing awards’ dinner the Supper Club. Many [...]
Rose’s Round-up May 2015 No 257
EMPIRE, WAR & CRICKET – A RICH, REWARDING READ Dean Allen’s book, Empire, War & Cricket, highlights a time when Victorian society was being redefined and cricket promoted as “the imperial game, sport of the Empire”. A fascinating social and political history it weaves the development cricket, “the gentleman’s game” into the biography of arrogant, entertaining, hospitable, intriguing James D Logan, Laird of Matjiesfontein, and undoubtedly one of the most colourful men of South African history. Central to the story is Matjiesfontein, once hailed as “the cleanest place in the Colony”, the aspirations of British Empire in the South Africa [...]
Rose’s Round-up April 2015 No 256
COMING SOON – THE LAIRD AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO CRICKET Dr Dean Allen’s long-awaited book, Empire, War and Cricket in South Africa: Logan of Matjiesfontein, is to be launched in early April. The book, published by Zebra Press, explores how James D Logan, Laird of Matjiesfontein, and one of SA great entrepreneurs, established a health resort for the rich and famous in the far-flung Karoo, as well as how he developed and promoted cricket from this remote spot, despite gathering clouds of war. A unique social and political history, this well-researched biography looks at life in the late 1800s [...]
Rose’s Round-up March 2015 No 255
JOIN THE FUN – THIRD LEAP DAY FOR FROGS South Africa is home to some 120 species of frogs, each fascinating in its own way. To celebrate this, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) is once again organising a Leap Day for Frogs on Saturday, February 28. This will be the third day of its kind and the aim of the day is to celebrate the diversity of frogs, their behavior and habitats, raise awareness about these amphibians and highlight the fact that globally they are the most threatened of all vertebrates – 30% of all South African frogs are vulnerable [...]
Rose’s Round up February 2015 No 254
TWO NEW POWER PLANTS PLANNED The Department of Energy has announced the creation of two new CSP (concentrating solar thermal power) plants in the Northern Cape. One will be the first of its kind in Africa. Kathu Solar Park and Redstone Solar Thermal Power are the preferred bidders and each company will build a 100MW capacity plants capable of storing solar power generated during daylight hours. The new plants will add to the five already commissioned in this hot, dry province. The Kathu Consortium’s plant will incorporate parabolic trough technology and will be equipped with a molten-salt storage system that [...]
Rose’s Round-up January 2015 No 253
SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT THE GIANT FLAG Ecologist, Professor Sue Milton-Dean wrote to express her concerns regarding the Giant South African Flag, being laid out near the Valley of Desolation, outside Graaff-Reinet. “The website and press reports all state that ‘millions of different coloured succulent plants’ will be used to create this R170-million world first giant flag. My main concern is that non-indigenous succulent species i.e. red and yellow barrel cactus and blue agave, are being used for colour-planting. These all come from the Americas. The only indigenous plant species in the flag will be spekbos (Portulacaria). I find this strange [...]
Rose’s Round-up December 2014 No 252
ANGORA RAM FOR THE KING A young Angora ram from Prince Albert has been presented to King Letsie III of Lesotho. This gesture was made by the Ladybrand-based agricultural company, OVK, (Oos Vrystaat Kaap Bedryf Ltd), as part of its efforts to promote wool and mohair production in the Mountain Kingdom. The ram came from the Van Hasselts in Prince Albert, who are widely known for breeding high quality stock and the presentation was made when OVK presented plans and proposals for increasing market share in Lesotho to the king and other dignitaries. In a news story on Radio [...]
