Luipaardsvlei (E 9)

Name: Luipaardsvlei

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Jameson's troops were captured to the southof the town, an event that seems to have traumatised the Dutch-speaking whites ofthe area and prompted displays of rampant Boer national chauvinism. Poems wereprinted in Ons Volk, the local Dutch newspaper that condemned the display of ‘HetJingodom’ at ‘Luipaardsvlei’, the farm where some of the action took place and where a major British-owned mine, the Luipaard's Vlei Estates and G.M.____________________________
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195Co. Ltd., was situated. A local Boer resident wrote a letter to Ons Volk, whichreferred to the ‘rednecks’ (‘rooinekken’), an insulting term used by Boers in referenceto Englishmen. Another resident wrote the following words:By Luipaardsvlei, o jingoes, hebt gy op meuw geboet,/ Majubaskruinblyft vas staan, tot schande voor den Brit42Changes in the townscape reflected these tensions and there are indications thatboth the architectural design and the sites chosen for key government buildings inKrugersdorp expressed what could be termed an aggressive ‘Boer nationalchauvinism’. For example, the Krugersdorp railway station which was built in 1896was placed in the south because it was designed to be used mostly by miners, but itcan also be ‘read’, in so far as a city is text, as an ‘counter-invasion’ of BritishUitlander space by technological elements (the NZASM railway service was ownedby Dutch capital) sympathetic to the Republic.43 Like the courthouse built earlier, therailway station (figure 3.5) was opened by Kruger himself and expressed TransvaalRepublican architecture found in key government symbols such as, for example, thePalace of Justice and Staatsmodelskool in Pretoria.44Unlike this courthouse, though - which was built further north and overlooking theMarket where many Dutch-speaking farmers gathered - the railway station was builtfurther to the south, close to the mines and in a space almost entirely used byEnglish-speaking miners. In this case, the Krugersdorp Railway station’sarchitecture clashed more starkly with its immediate surroundings of miningheadgear. It had ‘ornate gables’ of the Cape tradition and the usual array ofembellishments that became the signature of M.C.A. Meischke the man who built___________________________42 Ons Volk, 13 June 1896, untitled. Loosely translated as ‘By Luipaardsvlei, o jingoes, you were punished, Majuba Ridge still stands to disgrace the British’43 Such military terminology is appropriate in the circumstances, tensions were high and the town was militarised to some extent. In January 1896 Commandant-general Piet Joubert visited Krugersdorp and a Volunteer Corps was established. In February they were given their first task: to guard the Paardekraal Monument as there were rumours that ‘criminal elements’ from Johannesburg were planning to blow it up. See Krugersdorp 100 jare/years, p. 53.44 Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings, p. 283.
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196these stations throughout the Transvaal and who had arrived from Utrecht a fewyears earlier. It was seen by contemporary English-speakers as ‘one of the mostimportant projects’ seen in a long time in the town and its timing and its architecturemust have had a deep and profound impact.45Figure 3.5. The Krugersdorp Railway Station, 1896.Source: Krugersdorp 100 Years/Jare, p. 43A police station was also built in 189746 (figure 3.6) because the town's growingpopulation and increasing crime necessitated such a structure. However thisstructure can also be interpreted as evidence for growing Boer national chauvinism.Although it was established in the western section of the town (see Map Seven),which seems to undermine the argument that it was intended to project Boer poweronto the English-speaking mining population, one can, nonetheless, make the casethat it constituted a symbol of Boer authority by exploring the ideological values ofthe east-west axis along the same lines as the north-south axis were explored___________________________45 This is quoted in Afrikaans as a paraphrase from the Krugersdorp Times and West Rand Advertiser, 1 August 1896, in Schutte, ‘Die Geskiedenis van Krugersdorp’, p. 53, (‘was een van die belangrikste projekte wat in `n groot behoefte voorsien het’). How Schutte obtained this source is a mystery as no copies of the newspaper survive in the State library. 46 Krugersdorp 100 jare/years, p. 136.
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197earlier. Figure 3.6. Krugersdorp’s Police Station, 1897Source: Krugersdorp 100 Years, p. 137.The western section of the town, it is contended, was developed after the JamesonRaid, as an additional ‘sacred’ region for Dutch-speaking whites and so marked anextension of the sacred territory around the Paardekraal Monument and the DistrictTownship to the western parts of the town. This made sense because the westernpart of the town faced the rural hinterland of Boer farms rather than in the east thatfaced Johannesburg or in the south near the mines dominated by English-speakingminers (the reef turns sharply south as it reaches Krugersdorp and the Randfonteinmines and Randfontein Village are to the south-west of Krugersdorp). Further to thewest was the Boer dorp of Potchefstroom, a symbol, along with Pretoria to the northof the town, of Boer Independence. Map Seven: The Position of Krugersdorp’s Police station in West Krugersdorp.
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198Source: CAD, Transvaal Public Works department (TPB), TALG 494, Town Engineer’s Department, 1938This area lay lower than the rest of the town and further from the mines (see MapEight), so it may well have been cheaper land, but there may also have beenimportant symbolic considerations as well. The architecture of the police station wasagain typically Republican and, to reinforce the ‘message’ of Boer nationalchauvinism, the foundation stone was laid by President Kruger.47It was asubstantial building 26 metres in length and thus successfully projected Republicanpower.48 The Republican police were used not only to suppress crime but to ensurethe preservation of Boer control over an increasingly restive Uitlander population on___________________________47 Schutte, ‘Die Geskiedenis van Krugersdorp’, p. 52 (‘...reghoekige gebou waarwan die sye 26 meter lank was...’)48 ibid.
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199the Rand. A number of police residences were also constructed,49 using distinctiveRepublican redbrick walls, in the ‘sacred’ north of District Township, underlying theideological connections that were being made between north and west in the town.The visual effects of these two new buildings, in the south and the west, togetherwith police residences to the north and the ‘Transvaal Republican’ architecturalfeatures these incorporated, would have had the effect of ‘redundancy’ combininginto a powerful ‘mnemonic of Republican power. This would have been furtherreinforced by the presence of Boer commandoes marching through the town and thedisplay of the Republican ‘Vierkleur’, hoisted and visible at different points of thetown. The ‘British’ town, centred on the Luipaard's Vlei Estate and G.M. Co. Ltd.,was, thus, ‘surrounded’ by a national chauvinist, military aggressive TransvaalRepublican built environment.The effect was deepened by the establishment of` the Boer residential area of‘Burghershoop’, also in 1897 (see Map Eight). This space was composed of free‘Government’ stands to the west of the town50 and was purpose-built toaccommodate marginalised, poverty-stricken Dutch-speaking Boers. These peoplehad been thrown off the land during the 1890s as victims of a process ofproletarianisation, as farmland became increasingly capitalised and relationshipsbetween landowners and a type of sharecropper class, known as the ‘by-woner’ wastransformed into a capitalist-worker relationship.Bywoners, as a small under-capitalised agricultural class, could not retain theiraccess to the land under these circumstances and many refused to work for thelandowners as a rural proletariat or were seen as unsuitable by the commercialfarmers in this regard. Similar areas were laid out around the Rand, for example,___________________________49 ibid.50 CAD, Transvaal Local Government archives (TPB) 542, TA 1408, Krugersdorp Asiatics Locations Inquiry, 1910, evidence of J.A. Burger, p. 63.
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200Vrededorp.51 These ‘poor whites’ made a living partly from brick-making activities, inthe case of Johannesburg, at the Braamfontein Spruit or in Krugersdorp, at theDistrict Township ‘spruit’ which constituted the ‘Monument Brickfields’, to the north-east of the town. The encirclement of ‘British’ space by ‘Boer space’ was, thus,completed at this point.Map Eight: A Topographical map of Krugersdorp depicting Burghershoop Source: J. Henning, ‘the Evolution, Land Use and Land Use Patterns of Krugersdorp’, BA Honours dissertation, University ofthe Witwatersrand, 1963, p.2.It can further be argued that the ‘reach’ of this cosmology was extended to include‘black space’ as well, but in complex and contested ways. Colonial towns whether‘British’ mining towns or ‘Boer dorps’ were ‘white spaces’. Black residents essentially___________________________51 See C. van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1887-1914, vol. one, New Babylon, Ravan, Johannesburg, 1982, pp. 114-21 and 158-9.
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201had to ‘fit in’, and had no capacity to choose their living spaces as these wereallocated by local authorities, usually on the periphery and on undesirable land (nearsewerage farms and rubbish dumps, for example). This created segregated spacesin these towns where blacks and whites lived apart in different parts of the town andthese were usually separated by a natural border like a stream or by artificial man-made structures such as factories.52Urban segregation was so common to colonies all around the world that Ross andTelkamp53 as well as King54 define it the quintessential feature of the ‘colonial city’This is not to say that the urban subaltern groups had no effect on the allocation ofspace or the dynamics of urban living - many works in urban history testify to theinfluential roles that the subaltern plays in constructing colonial urban space, as doesmy own work55 as will be demonstrated in later chapters.In the same year that Burghershoop was established in the west of the town, the‘mixed’ (Indian, Coloured and African) location was removed from the town, a ‘KaffirLocatie’ was laid out a mile to its north-west Africans and Coloureds and a ‘KoelieLocatie’ immediately beside the ‘white space’ of Burghershoop (see Chapter Five).56This latter development is particularly significant as there is no doubt that Indianswere seen in a broadly if muted negative light by Boers who freely used thederogatory appellation of ‘Koelie’ in reference to Indians. It is, thus, a matter of some___________________________52 This pattern appears in both ‘Boer’ and ‘British’ towns, see, for example, A.J. Christopher, ‘Race and Residence in Colonial Port Elizabeth’ in South African Geographical Journal, 1986, pp. 1-19 and E. Nel, ‘Racial Segregation in East London, 1836-1948’, in South African Geographical Journal, 1991, 73, pp. 60-68.54 R. Ross and G. Telkamp (eds.), Colonial Cities, Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1985.55 A. King, Colonial Urban Development, Culture, Social Power and Environment, Routledge andKegan Paul, 1976.56 C. Dugmore, ‘Blurred Demarcations of Authority and Power: the Conflict Between Indian and White Shopkeepers in Krugersdorp, 1887-1923: Towards a Pragmatic Conceptualisation of Democracy and Local Government’, History Workshop Paper, University of the Witwatersrand, 1994.
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202difficulty to explain why the Boer authorities would place them next to ‘poor Burghers'especially during a phase of Republican chauvinism and the construction of aRepublican cosmology, especially given President Kruger's profound sympathy forthis class of marginalised ‘poor Burghers’57One possible explanation is that the Indian residents were, in fact, ambivalentlytreated by the Voortrekker state and by ‘Boers’ generally, as Chapter Five will argue.Kruger himself noted on several occasions that Indians provided necessary goods toBoers at a cheaper rate than ‘English’ traders and could not use Boer debt to gainmortgages as they could not own land.58 Thus, locating Indians next to the poorBurghers made sense as it lumped the providers of cheap goods with those most inneed for such services. The Dutch-speaking whites did, nonetheless, look down atthose with darker skins than themselves, particularly if they were non-Christians, aswas the case with the Hindu and Muslim Indians in Krugersdorp. The residents ofBurghershoop complained almost immediately of their proximity to a ‘Koelie’ locationand argued that this stigmatised them as Indians were stereotyped as ‘insanitary’and ‘unscrupulous’.59 Thus, this does not seem to be a satisfactory explanation.A more probable explanation is the pressure resulting from the political power playbetween British and Boer in the late 1890s. The ex-Mining Commissioner of___________________________57 CAD, TPB 542, TA 1408, Asiatics Inquiry, 1910, evidence of J.A. Burger, p. 63.58 See van Onselen, New Babylon and C. van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886-1914, vol. 2, New Nineveh, (New Nineveh), Ravan, Johannesburg, 1982, especially the chapters on ‘Johannesburg's Jehus’ on cabdrivers, and ‘The Main Reef Road into the Working Class’.59 Pillay reports that the Volksraad supported the segregation of Indians by a narrow margin of 24 votes to 18, and President Kruger remarked that Indian traders provided ‘...a reasonable service at reasonable prices for poor burghers’, B. Pillay, British Indians in the Transvaal: Trade, Race Relations and Imperial Policy in Republican and Colonial Transvaal, Longmans, London, 1976, p. 13.
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203Krugersdorp gave evidence during a 1910 inquiry into the Indian location that theBoer authorities had wanted to place the Indian location further to the west in 1897(presumably to be close enough for the Burgher consumers to visit but sufficientlydistant to remove the ‘stigma’ that was felt by proximity to a ‘Koelie Location’) butyielded to pressure arising from the stipulations of the London Convention to treat‘British subjects’ fairly.60 Indians were included under the rubric ‘British subjects’ bydint of their citizenship of a British colony in Indian or in other colonies like Natal. Indians themselves made the most of this pressure to secure concessions forthemselves in the Republic and would complain frequently and vociferouslywhenever they perceived that they were badly treated by the Republic's officials.Hence my contention that Indians were both the victims of competing whitenationalist struggles and, simultaneously played Boer off against Briton, adopting anactive role to secure a desirable commercial and residential area in the heart of thetown. To avoid a potential casus belli, the Republican officials had to ensure thatIndian traders, as a general principle in the Republic, although segregated fromwhite residents, were in sufficiently close proximity to white customers so that theirbusiness would not suffer harm. This suggests that the spatial expression of a Boernational chauvinist cosmology had its limitations and was constrained through fear ofprovoking war with Imperial Britain. Nonetheless, the establishment of Burghershoop, its location on the westernperiphery, the building of the railway and the police station in ‘Transvaal Republic’architectural styles and the blatant Boer chauvinist displays in the streets ofKrugersdorp by the Krugersdorp Commando, all point to the imposition of Boernationalist ideology onto the formerly ‘mosaic’ town where a degree of co-operation___________________________60 See, for example, De Voortrekker, 15February 1899, ‘Koelie Locaties’, an editorial that reflected its readership among the literate Dutch-speaking residents of Krugersdorp that expressed ‘deep dissatisfaction’ (‘groot ontevredenheid’) with the placing of burghers next to an IndianLocation.
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204and social harmony used to prevail prior to 1895. Krugersdorp's English-speaking middle and working class had to endure a period ofhostility and an overtly aggressive assertion of the Transvaal Republic's hegemonyover the town that led, in turn, to the inscription of Boer ideology onto Krugersdorp'sbuilt environment. However, given the small size of the town and the economicinterdependence of its two white groups, such hostility was not likely to last. The Restoration of Spatial Harmony, 1897-1899As time wore on, the pain caused by the Jameson Raid steadily gradually eased forKrugersdorp's Boer residents who returned to the day-to-day grind of routine andhabit. Then, in 1898, Krugersdorp’s built environment was profoundly altered in away that can be explained as a return to the social harmony that existed before theJameson Raid. Luipaardsvlei, a British middle class suburb to the Southeast of thetown was constructed, restoring the spatial balance in the layout of the town tooffset, as it were, Burghershoop in the west. 61 A harmony in the town's layout bothreflected and helped to advance a more balanced and friendly relationship betweenits English- and Dutch-speaking residents - it was almost as if the brick and mortar ofthe town was permeating the consciousness of the town dwellers, restoring the easyamicability of Boer and Briton. Conventional explanations will point out that a mining boom meant increaseddemand for housing stock in close proximity to the mines and that a propertysyndicate took the opportunity to lay out stands and auction these for a quick profit.The ‘ecological model’ also seems to apply here where the middle class and upperworking class moved out of the increasingly less desirable stands in the town itself tomake way for a new influx or ‘wave’ of working class miners who, in turn, moved out____________________________61 CAD, TPB 542, TA 1408, 1910 Asiatic Inquiry, evidence of J.A. Burger, p. 63.
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205of the boarding houses and single residences of the mines on Krugersdorp’speriphery as they started to marry and raise families (see Chapter Two).Burgess and other writers from the ‘Chicago School’ explain this process in terms of‘invasion’ and ‘succession’, drawing from botany. In this view, lower status minersmoved into the centre of Krugersdorp and made this residential area less appealing tothe middle class and upper stratum of workers such as foremen, who lived there, andthey began to look for new homes. 62 Sensing an opportunity, the LuipaardsvleiSyndicate, like property developers across the Rand, developed the LuipaardsvleiTownship as a relatively elite residential area, a suburb situated at some distance fromthe increasingly crowded, noisy and unpleasant town. Luipaardsvlei, thus,corresponded to Burgess's ‘Deutschland’, an environmentally superior living space inChicago for the ‘labour aristocracy’ and the lower middle class. Luipaardsvlei seems tohave retained this reputation as an elite space for many decades thereafter.63However, the timing and position of these stands, together with their architecturalfeatures and the circumstances in which these houses were built, suggest thatsomething altogether more interesting was occurring and requires more detailedexamination. Luipaardsvlei was designed as a ‘semi-government township’, where theLuipaardsvlei Syndicate received one-third and the state two-thirds of the stand licencemoney. This, too, could provide an explanation for the government’s decision to grantpermission to build a township although further investigation reveals that ideology mayalso have played a role. The Luipaardsvlei Syndicate was owned by the Luipaards' Vlei Estate G.M. Co. Ltd.64 which was, in turn, owned by Rhodes' Goldfields of South Africa___________________________62 Burgess, ‘The Growth of the City’, p. 91. For a discussion of this approach to South African towns, see also J. McCarthy and D.P. Smit (eds.), South African City: Theory in Analysis and Planning, Juta, Cape Town, 1984, p. 13. 63 The Standard, Krugersdorp 3 July 1912, ‘Townships in the Krugersdorp Area’.64 See The Standard, Krugersdorp, 21 October, 1905, ‘As Others See Us!: A Few Impressions by a
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206G.M. Co. Ltd.. It was remarkable, then, that the Boer government would grantpermission to build a township to a company owned by Rhodes who was, after all, thenemesis of the Boer Republic, having had attempted to overthrow the Boer governmentduring the Jameson Raid. Furthermore, Rhodes had earlier built a sandstone cottage on the Luipaard’s Vlei mineand it was rumoured that weapons and ammunition were stored there during theJameson Raid65. The co-operation of the Republic in building a township in such anideologically loaded space is highly significant and cannot be attributed merely to therelatively trivial income that would be secured through stand licences. Rather, theconstruction of Luipaardsvlei Township should be understood as attempt by theEnglish- and Dutch-speaking white residents - especially its elite elements - to restoresocial harmony after the traumatic events of 1895.There is ample evidence of such attempts at rapprochement between Krugersdorp’stwo white communities. For example, the local English language newspaper, TheStandard, Krugersdorp, which began publishing in late 1898, openly criticised theUitlander political associations on a number of occasions. Run by the local Britishmiddle class trio of Stammers, Wallis and Law and their ‘Standard Printers andPublishers Co. Ltd.’, the newspaper declared that it would refuse to toady ‘to this orthat political party or clique’, it would be ‘absolutely fearless and independent’.66 Thenewspaper demonstrated its conciliatory approach by describing the PaardekraalMonument as ‘a sacred place’, indicating that at least some elements within theEnglish-speaking middle class had recognized and had internalised the core featuresof the cosmology suggested earlier, concerning this monument.67____________________________Visitor’. 65 See, for example, the history of the company published by the proprietors: The Goldfields of South Africa, The Goldfields, 1887-1937, Goldfields of South Africa, Johannesburg, 1937, p. 10. 66 See Krugersdorp 100 jare/years, p. 8067 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 31 December, 1898, untitled.
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207In this, they shared much in common with the proprietors and editors of Ons Volkthat - after its short-lived patriotic vitriol described above - took great pains to bringabout Boer and British reconciliation after the Raid, in 1897. Thus, the newspapercongratulated the British residents over the celebrations commemorating QueenVictoria's Jubilee, wishing her a ‘long and prosperous life’ (‘een lang en voorspoedigleven’).68 The Standard, Krugersdorp showed a similar respect for President PaulKruger, praising his ‘seasonal and tactful speech’ on Old Year's Eve and noted that itshould go a long way in removing the obstacles that stood in the way of ‘a completefusion between the old and new populations’69One can likewise detect a return to the normal friendly relations betweentownspeople and farmers from the rural hinterland which is reflected in calls by thelocal newspaper to improve conditions in the ‘Markt Plain’ and to clean up the‘sloots’, as the English-language newspaper put it, and to build a covered MarketBuilding to protect farmers' produce from the elements.70 Improved economicconditions also helped to repair the wounds of the Jameson Raid. It was reported in1898 that ‘the market is beginning to boom once more’,71 a testament to theeconomic benefits of co-operation and reconciliation.The symbiosis captured in the rebuilding of the Market House reflected a realisationthat English-speaking town and Dutch-speaking countryside were economicallyinterdependent. The Market Master was an Englishman, Mr. Bedford, who worked hardto secure such a building from the government, a fact gratefully acknowledged by thelocal Dutch-speaking farmers.72 Mr. Bedford had a very close relationship with the local___________________________68 Ons Volk, 23 June 1897, ‘...a long and prosperous life’.69 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 31 December 1899, untitled.70 De Voortrekker, 14 September 1898, untitled. See also The Standard, Krugersdorp, 21 January, 1899, untitled.71 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 31 December 1898, untitled.72 The Standard, Krugersdorp 10 December 1898, ‘Ourselves’.73 Schutte, ‘Die Geskiedenis van Krugersdorp’, p. 90. See also P. Fitzpatrick, The Transvaal From Within, Heinemann, London, 1899, p. 188.
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208farmers and was an elder in the N.G.K. He was one of the many ‘pro-Boers’ that lived inKrugersdorp, as will be discussed later in this Chapter. The symbolic restoration ofspatial harmony indicated by the Market Square is remarkable given that theJameson Raid soldiers had actually been held prisoner in that square, guarded byheavily armed Boer Troops, just two years earlier.73 Nevertheless, hostility hadremained latent and the spirit of reconciliation began to break down as war cloudsgathered in 1899.The Rise of the British Imperial Colonial Town, Krugersdorp 1899–1902The rapprochement between Boer and Briton was not to last long in Krugersdorp asforces much more powerful than small town editors, landdrosts or shopkeepers,were shaping events at a national level. Major figures like Rhodes and Chamberlain,together with the new British High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, applied pressureon the Boer authorities to extend the franchise to the English-speaking Uitlanders -which both sides believed outnumbered the Boers - and war grew imminent. A flurryof negotiations took place between February when a massive Uitlander petition wassent to the Queen and September 1899. People talked freely and constantly of thepossibility of war, encouraged by a shamelessly ‘jingo’ British press, particularly theTimes and The Star, the Johannesburg newspaper.As with the Jameson Raid, but now from the British point of view, an identity shifttook place from ambiguity and hybridity to a form of unreasoning patriotic chauvinismdescribed as ‘jingoism’, among Krugersdorp's English-speaking residents by the startof the South African War. This shift can be detected in the growing use of Britishsymbols. The Standard, Krugersdorp’s leader articles and editorials can be analysedand this transformation can be traced in the changes in the terms and metaphorsthat were used in headlines and in major articles in the newspaper. There was adistinct shift from broad declarations in support for peace to distinctly war-mongering____________________________
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209terms.The earlier editorials warn about war's destruction and talk about the tragedy ofneighbours and friends fighting one another: ‘WAR, war with all its attendant horrors’including ‘friends hacking at each other’.74 Later articles, however, offered veiledthreats in an analogous fashion to the famous Battle of Dorking that appeared inBritain in 1870s and its many French and German imitators, which anticipated WorldWar One.75 During the months leading up to war, the newspaper carried a number ofsuch articles. An early editorial took pride in Britain's immense power by pointing outthat ‘50 000 soldiers’ could be quickly mobilised and sent to the Transvaal in theevent of war:Suppose these 50 000 English troops were to join hands and extend in a line. They would form an unbroken chain reaching 56 miles, or equal to the distance from Pretoria to Heidelberg...If they were in skirmishing order twenty paces apart, and advanced they would form a line 188 miles long, and could stretch from Laing's Nek to Komatie Poort. Suppose they came in on ordinary bullock wagons, 50 men on each, they would fill 1000 wagons, a procession that would extend from the Market Square, Krugersdorp, to well up Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, and would be six hours passing any given spot... 76The use of familiar place names such as the Market Square and natural features,such as those associated with Boer power like ‘Laing's Nek’, were designed toproduce an immediate and concrete sense of menace. A later editorial was infused by this late-Victorian idolisation of force77 and appears to be even more aggressive,____________________________74 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 29 April 1899, untitled.75 See I.F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War, 1763–1984, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1966.76 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 9 September 1899, untitled.77 See W. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1957.78The Standard, Krugersdorp, 18 May 1899, untitled.
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210wondering ...how anyone could even contemplate war with so powerful a nation..., a power that holds the armies of Europe in chain will [not] hesitate to crush without mercy a twopenny-halfpenny crowd of men with guns who are foolish enough to challenge and defy.78This demeaning and belittling characterisation of the Boer armed forces wascomplemented by a subsequent depiction of Kruger's advisers as ‘harpies’ givingPresident Kruger ‘evil advice’.79 A note of dehumanisation and demonisation of theBoer political elite had now crept into the newspaper’s discourse. The shift inattitudes to Boers culminated in one of the last pre-war editorials from The Standard,Krugersdorp that again visualised a future war with Britain, warning that: The [British] advance will be under a paralysing shell fire from a line of seven or eight miles long.... The Boer's sole idea of fighting is lying quietly...behind a kopje and taking slow and deliberate aim. He had never known what it is to have to lie quietly when his comrades are being smashed around him by deadly hail of bullets falling from the sky... killing his horses and picking off men lying like ant bears in the holes.80Another striking shift in the discourse of the local English newspaper was its use ofDutch words, as already mentioned above. Dutch aphorisms like ‘Wacht Een Betjie’81 and ‘Alles Zal Recht Kommen’82 were used in earlier editorials untranslated,____________________________79The Standard, Krugersdorp, 5 September 1899. untitled.80 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 26 August 1899, untitled.81 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 29 April 1899, ‘Wacht Een Betjie’ (this can be translated as ‘Wait
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211assuming that British leaders would understand these terms and as a sign offriendship and respect for their language and idiom. Later editorials would no longeruse such Dutch phrases.In a similar vein, the word ‘jingo’ that had earlier been used to attack ‘hotheads’ orthe tub-thumping imperialists that Kipling derided, disappeared from the newspaper'sleading articles and editorials as the war grew more imminent. While the newspaperearlier played down the ‘Edgar Incident’ involving alleged ill-treatment of an Uitlanderby a Boer policeman or ‘ZARP’, it later played up a trivial incident involving anEnglishman's arrest in Krugersdorp, into ‘Police Terrorism’.83All these signs indicate a marked identity shift in the English-speaking population ofKrugersdorp. Boers became steadily demonised in the local newspaper's pageswhile British icons, particularly military men like Roberts and Kitchener, appearedmore frequently and were referred to with admiration. The Queen's Birthday marksan excuse for the most sentimental and jingoistic mush where the monarch's virtueswere supposed to be so self-evident that even the perfidious Boer must secretlyadmire her. In an article entitled ‘God Bless Her’, the editor remarks that,...there were few tutored hearts in this country which did not thrill with pleasure on the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Her Majesty, QueenVictoria. Her virtues as a mother, her powers as a ruler of vast Kingdom and as Empress spreading over a territory equal in size to all the Russias,her influence for the welfare of her people, in many cases preventing bloodshed, her heartfelt sympathy with them in times of trouble and disaster, and above all her true womanly qualities have endeared her to all, and the spontaneous prayer, ‘Long may she reign’, uttered this week, comesnot from the hearts of Britons alone.84____________________________a Moment’).82The Standard, Krugersdorp, 15 April 1899, ‘Alles Zal Recht Kommen’ (this can be translated as ‘Everything Will Be All Right’).83 The Standard Krugersdorp, 27July 1899, untitled.
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212The friendly, co-operative atmosphere between Boer and Briton in Krugersdorpdeteriorated in bar brawls and bravado in the streets. English-speaking miners andthe middle class began to book railway tickets to Kimberley or Mafeking.85 Many ofKrugersdorp's English-speaking residents volunteered to fight against theirneighbours and friends by joining the Imperial Light Horse86 and other similarregiments while, on the Boer's side, many Dutch-speaking men joined theKrugersdorp Commando and were soon in action at some of the key battles of thewar. Most of Krugersdorp’s English-speaking residents, however, fled to the coastaltowns of the British colonies in the Cape and Natal. Pietermaritzburg’s population, forexample, more doubled during the war from 9 000 to 19 000 whites clearly indicatingthat it was a major destination for British refugees from the Rand.87 It seems likelythat at least some of Krugersdorp’s British residents made their way to this town andif they did, the similarities with Krugersdorp would be immediately evident. Aspointed out earlier, ‘Pieter Mauritz burg’ as it was originally called, was once a Boerdorp and shared many features of the District Township of Krugersdorp includingwide streets and long blocks typical of dorps laid out in erven. It even shared withKrugersdorp a powerful Boer monument in the form of the iconic Boer symbol, theChurch of the Vow.88 When the British took over the town in the 1840s, it quicklytransformed the Boer dorp into a British Imperial Town and its parks and MarketSquare may have served as a model for the later transformation of Krugersdorp___________________________84 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 27 May 1899, untitled.85 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 8 July 1899, ‘Of General Interest’.87 See, for example, R. Viney, ‘Officers and Gentlemen: Masculinity, English Speaking South African Colonial Troops and the British Army during the South African War, 1899–1902’, Paper presented at ‘The Anglo–Boer War: a reappraisal’ Conference, 12–15 October, 1999. See also, W. Ramsay Macnab and J.W. Smith, Guide to Krugersdorp and the West Rand, W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh, n.d., p. 29.88 See T. Wills, ‘The Segregated City’, in J. Laband and R. Haswell (eds.), Pietermaritzburg, 1888-1938: A New Portrait of an African City (Pietermaritzburg), University of Natal, Shuter/Shooter, Pietermaritzburg, 1989, pp. 33–47.
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213along similar lines.Those who stayed in Cape Town and Durban would also have imbibed the culturalinfluences of Imperial Britain that were omnipresent in these British colonial townsespecially in the parks that were heavily infused with statues and other Imperialimagery.89 It is striking that even while hostilities still raged, plans were made in 1902for a park in Krugersdorp, to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII.90 Theseeds for this idea may well have been planted in the minds of Krugersdorp’sEnglish-speaking residents during their stay in the Imperial towns of Cape Town,Durban and Pietermaritzburg in the course of the war.After the South African War ended, the English-speaking residents returned to theirhomes and businesses profoundly aware that the Union Jack now flew over theTransvaal. The Dutch-speaking officials were gone, replaced by military authoritiesthat imposed martial law on the town. A large ‘Burgher Camp’ was situated close tothe town and held Boer POWs. The surrounding farms were burnt-out shells.The local newspaper described the new Imperial Krugersdorp with evident delightwhen it resumed publication in 1902:Never before in the history of Krugersdorp has the town presented such a military...appearance as it has acquired since the British occupation. Columns of soldiers frequently move about the district, generally to the accompaniment of martial music, and it is certain that such unwonted gaiety is not a little appreciated by the inhabitants.91____________________________89 For example the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Cape Town's Houses of Parliament, and in Durban's Town Gardens, see Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings in South Africa, pp. 51 and 243. An elaborate fountain commemorated the Queen's Golden Jubilee opposite Durban's Town Hall while the Town Gardens also sported an ornate bandstand.90 CAD, Archives of the Colonial Secretary (CS), 85, 3851/02, Assistant Resident Magistrate Krugersdorp to the Acting Secretary, Transvaal Administration, Pretoria, 22 April 1902..The name was later changed to Coronation Park.91 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 6 September 1902, untitled.92 Personal inspection of the Monument.
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214The Paardekraal Monument had been desecrated during the war, or at least, this isreported in a plaque affixed to the Monument.92 Apparently a command was issued thatthe Paardekraal stones had to be taken to Vereeniging and were to be thrown into theVaal River beneath the railway bridge. 93 Whether this was a symbolic act tocommemorate the signing of the Peace Treaty, which seems likely; or a deliberateofficial desecration of the monument, needs to be further investigated. By contrast, the graves of ‘War Heroes’ who ‘fell in the Empire's cause’ were carefullytended by the Krugersdorp branch of the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africawhose members decorated the graves during the Christmas season using whiteribbon and evergreens (figure 3.7).94 The most blatant display of ‘jingoism’ camewith the Coronation day celebrations. Among the many events of the day, for whichbunting was lavishly laid out, was the unveiling of a garish, monstrously huge giltcrown. It was suspended in the air above Commissioner street, illuminated by lightsat night and decorated using Union Jacks.95 It must have been a sight for soreImperial eyes.96The most substantial alteration to the townscape was the building of the triumphal‘Coronation Park’ to the Southeast of the town, gazing out towards Johannesburgand set firmly in the ‘British’ quadrant of the town. The park was enormous in scale; itwas meant to mark the victory of Britain over the Boer Republic and, through itssheer size, conveyed British territorial expansion and hegemony. It was seeded___________________________93 see Krugersdorp, 100 years, p. 11. 94 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 17 January 1903, untitled.95 The Standard, Krugersdorp 13 December 1902, untitled. Such events, of course, occurred all over South Africa as well as elsewhere in British Empire, see Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings, p.133.96 Thompson argues that such ‘rituals and symbols’ were key elements in the construction of a ‘civic culture’ in towns across Natal. See P.S. Thompson, Natalians First: Separatism in South Africa, 1909-1961, (Natalians), Southern Book Publishers, Johannesburg, 1990.
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215intentionally with evergreens to evoke the enduring sway of the empire. An ‘oakpath’97 was laid out somewhat like a procession of British soldiers parading throughits heart. In the centre of the park were two large circular pathways intersectedpartially by converging pathways from all four compass points98 to be ‘read’, in thisreproduction of the great parks of London99 as the Empire upon which the sun neversets (see Map Nine).Figure 3.7: War Graves in Krugersdorp’s Cemetery after the South African WarSource: Krugersdorp 100 Years, p. 51.Rappaport states that ‘...parks have important meaning in the urban environment ...they communicate meanings of positive environmental quality’.100 The late Victorian and____________________________97 Krugersdorp 100 years, p. 73. See also Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings, p. 141 for a descriptionof a similar park in Paarl.98 Inspection of site by author, September, 1997.99 D. McCracken, ‘Parks and Gardens’ , in Laband and Haswell, Pietermaritzburg, pp. 59–65. The Queen Alexandra Park, established in 1863, and its nearby Botanic Gardens, may have served as a model for the Coronation Park in Krugersdorp.100 Rappaport, Meaning, p. 34.
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216the early Edwardian periods are well-known for the emphasis on parks that culminatedin Ebenezer Howard's ‘Garden City’ movement. Central Park in New York and Regent'sPark are two great parks established during this period influenced by a belief that parkswere the ‘lungs’ of the city.101Map Nine: Coronation Park c. 1905Source: CAD, Transvaal Public Works department (TPB), TALG 494, Town Engineer’s Department, 1938Thompson is one of the few South Africans to consider the importance of parks inpromoting a ‘civic culture’ to provide identity to the British settler within a wider Britishimperialism.102 He argues that civic ‘rituals and symbols’ were key elements in theconstruction of a ‘civic culture’ in towns across Natal which helped to sustain the___________________________101 See R. Beevers, The Garden City Utopia: a Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard, Macmillan, London, 1988 and D. Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape: the Redefinition of City-form in Nineteenth Century England, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986.102 Thompson, ‘Natalians’.
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217authority of - and provided the identity of - the British settler community.103 The‘symbols’ included flags, bunting, public monuments, certain public buildings and evenmicro symbols’ such as postage stamps, coins, royal monograms. The ‘rituals’ includedthe reception of dignitaries – especially royal visitors – and occasions of celebration likeroyal birthdays, coronations and the installation of officials.Through the combination of ‘many artefacts grouped together in particularrelationships’, these homogenous areas ‘add up’ and produce ‘strong, clear andredundant cues’, a ‘cultural landscape’. The construction of ‘English landscapes’ isfound in all the Dominions such as Australia, Canada and South Africa and, in eachof them, the indigenous flora and fauna was treated as an ‘alien landscape’ as‘negative’ that had to be supplanted by ‘familiar cues’.104 Coronation Park was abeautiful, restful place (figure 3.8) but it was also an ideologically-loaded space.Figure 3.8: Coronation Park c. 1905.Source: Krugersdorp: Official Illustrated Handbook, Krugersdorp Municipality, 1924, p. 11.___________________________103 ibid., p. 1.104 Rappaport, Meaning, pp. 137 and 140. The reproduction of British urban forms and urban culture could be found all over the empire. After the South African War, Johannesburg was described by J.A. Hobson as possessing an ‘aggressively British tone’, quoted in B. Kennedy, A Tale of Two Mining Cities: Johannesburg and Broken Hill, 1885–1925, A.D. Donker,Johanesburg, 1984.
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218In this way, the town's physical space and built environment was upset, transformingit into an ‘Imperial Town’. Burghershoop and the District Township was thrown opento speculators who bought up many of the stands, leaving the repatriated burgherswith no homes or means to make their livelihood.105 British rule ushered in aparticularly aggressive form of local capitalism that drove the ‘poor Burghers’ whomade bricks at the ‘Monument Brickfields’ out of business (who were replaced by the‘Victory Brick Company’106and the local amaWasha who washed clothes at thespruits107 (and who were replaced by the West Rand Steam Laundry).108In the military’s wake followed British property developers and businessmen whobuilt sumptuous new buildings in the sturdy classical lines of Edwardianarchitecture.109 They gave patriotic names to these buildings like ‘Jubilee’ and‘Victoria’.110 A new ‘men's outfitters’ shop advertised in a local newspaper that theywould take a gentleman's measurements and send these to London's Saville Rowwhere the whole suit would be made up and sent to the customer in Krugersdorp, allwithin as little as eight weeks!Krugersdorp became more aggressively imperialist and Edwardian in other ways,notably through its disciplining of the town. The ‘street’ in colonial towns was often aparticularly contested space. As a ‘public’ space, it was used by the dominant groupto assert its authority and its claims of superiority over the subordinated black___________________________105 CAD, Archives of the Lieutenant-Governor (LG) 128, 111/23 (2494), Deputation from Licensees and Inhabitants of stands – Burghershoop, Krugersdorp, 17 March 1903. The deputation noted that ‘...residents and licensees of Burghershoop had been deprived of stands during absence as Refugees, on Commando or as POWs, without any notification...’.106 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 6 December 1903.107 See van Onselen, New Babylon, chapter on the ‘AmaWasha’. Krugersdorp's laundry services seems to have been run by Indian ‘knights of the wash tub’ as the local newspaper facetiously putit, The Standard, Krugersdorp, 2 May 1903, ‘Street Whispers’.108 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 8 April 1905, ‘A Promising Local Company’.109 See Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings.110 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 24 February 1906, ‘The Rise of a Krugersdorp Firm’, refers to Robson and Holton Enterprises, which commenced business in 1895 and built over a hundredbuildings in Krugersdorp including the ‘Victoria’ and ‘Pioneer’ buildings. The partners also
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219residents. In 1903, a Krugersdorp resident asked impatiently,...is there not some by-law or regulation whereby Mr. Jack Kafir is requested to avoid obstructing the pathway? ...If you walk down Ockerse street...you can scarcily [sic] get foot away. Any lady coming down has to elbow her way through these louts or walk in the mud...111A number of by-laws were soon passed to ‘reclaim’ the streets and impose imperialdiscipline on these public spaces and, particularly over ‘non-white’ users of thestreets. If the Africans, Indians and Coloureds expected to be treated as ‘Britishsubjects’ after the war – and many did – their fond hopes were quickly and cruellydashed. Gambling in the streets, a remnant of the transient mining town, asdiscussed in Chapter One, was prohibited. Imperialism blended with the middleclass's desire for the stabilisation of the town, discussed in Chapter Two, to make thetown safe and a pleasant place in which to live. The reference to any ‘lady’ in thequotation above, reveals that the Imperial town was also one increasingly populatedby women and one that was both patriarchal and patriotic.New imperial legislation also clamped down upon the violence of the ephemeralmining town, particularly the threat of violence posed by the presence of largenumbers of black residents as the mines began to start up again and attract migrantworkers. The carrying of ‘dangerous weapons’ was prohibited but ‘weapons’ wereinterpreted so broadly that even walking sticks were banned.112 With the support ofthe English-speaking shopkeepers, the imperial government also clamped downupon the colonial street by imposing severe restrictions on Indian hawkers.113Congregations of blacks, for whatever purpose, could be broken up under new public____________________________established the ‘Victory Brick co.’ in 1906.111 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 27 June 1903, ‘Correspondence’: ‘Pertinent Queries’. See also The Standard, Krugersdorp, 9 May 1903 ‘Street Whispers’ that claimed that ‘black pandemonium’ existed in Ockerse street. See also The Standard, Krugersdorp, 24 January 1903, ‘Walking on the Footpath’.112 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 28 October 1905, ‘Dangerous Weapons’.113 The Standard, Krugersdorp, untitled, 20 January 1906, exorbitant licence fees were charged: 7 pounds for hawkers and 5 pounds for pedlars; hawkers could stay in one spot for more than 20 minutes and could not return to the same site within 24 hours.
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220disturbance laws. Responding to the above call to put Africans ‘back in their place’,new legislation prevented Africans from walking on the sidewalks.114Linton's Directory, printed to provide British investors with information, conducteddoor-to-door visits in Krugersdorp,115 as did another guide for merchants in England,which highlighted what products were in demand in the town.116 There was anobsessive ‘mapping out’ of Krugersdorp by various authorities with which‘geographers of empire’ are familiar with. A new rigid conception of time wasimposed on the town. A new clock was placed above the Post Office, a miniatureversion of Big Ben,117 while a ‘Hambe Kahle’ bell reminded black residents that theycould not be on Krugersdorp's streets after the nine o' clock curfew.118 The disciplineand rhythms of Industrial capitalism permeated the town, mingling with the militaryrigidity of barracks, curfews and policed space.Even the Dutch language of the ‘Other’, was proscribed in certain ways fromKrugersdorp. Alpheus Snell, born in the United Kingdom and trained at the ‘CapeUniversity’ (see Chapter Two), acted as schoolmaster in Aliwal North,119 ran the pro-Boer, Dutch language newspaper De Voortrekker, before the South African War.When he applied to re-start a similar newspaper after the war, his background waschecked by the local Resident Magistrate who described him as ‘Anti-English’.120___________________________114 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 29 November 1903, ‘A Ten Shilling Jeer’, apparently Town Regulations of 1889 covered this ‘offence’ at a fine of 10 shillings.115 The Standard, Krugersdorp 28 February 1903, untitled.116 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 7 February 1903, untitled.117 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 28 February 1903, untitled. The clock was ubiquitous throughout the Empire, adorning railway stations, post offices and particularly Town Halls, see Picton-Seymour, Victorian Buildings, ‘those clock-towered halls being built throughout the empire since the 1860s’, p. 110.118 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 9 March 1907, ‘night curfew’, by this time the efficacy of the curfew had come under question. Similarly, Austalian Aborigines were excluded from Darwinby a curfew between sunset and sunrise, see Kennedy, A Tale of Two Cities, p. 46.119 The South African Who’s Who, an Illustrated Biography and Sketch book of South Africa, (S.A.’s Who’s Who) South African Who’s Who Publishers Company, Durban, 1908, p. 377. 120 CAD, Archives of the Colonial Secretary (CS), 12821/02, Assistant Resident Magistrate, Krugersdorp to Colonial Secretary, 17 October 1902.
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221What was held against him particularly, was his reluctance to decorate hisemployer’s building using bunting during the Coronation festivities when instructed todo so. He was also reported to have taken the ‘oath of Allegiance’ as late as August1902.121 Thus Krugersdorp was denied a Dutch newspaper while the Englishnewspaper, The Standard, Krugersdorp, held exclusive sway.The Decline of the Jingo and the Imperial TownThe decline of Jingoism came with the passing of time, as the war grew more distantin people's memories. Reminders of the war disappeared from view as the BurgherCamp was rapidly emptied of its prisoners who were returned to their homes. MartialLaw was lifted and British troops left the town. A clear indication that time washealing and transforming the hurt and bitterness of war, was the remarkably speedyrendering of the war into a curiosity, a souvenir stand for tourists, and mementoes forcollectors. An exhibition of ‘War Pictures’ was advertised in the local newspaperpromising photographs on glass plates with images projected onto a screen thatwould depict, of all things, war scenes from ‘Bullwer's Campaign’.122 Since thesewould depict the defeat of British troops at the hands of the Boer commandoes, theexhibition marked an important turning point from the arrogant triumphal boastings ofthe immediate post-war period.123Even more remarkably, the popular Ben Viljoen mentioned earlier, who had servedas veldcornet and as Krugersdorp's representative in the Volksraad as well as aBoer officer during the South African War, left Krugersdorp to join a lucrative lecturecircuit in Europe and the United States. This was reported with pride in the localEnglish-speaking newspaper.124 An auction was held in Krugersdorp of ‘Boer curios’,___________________________121 CAD, Archives of the Colonial Secretary (CS), 12821/02, Assistant Resident Magistrate, Krugersdorp to Colonial Secretary, 17 October 1902. 122 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 25 October 1902, untitled.123 ibid.123 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 24 January 1902, untitled.124 ibid.
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222articles such as carvings and jewellery made by Boer prisoners on the islands of St.Helena and Bermuda,125 surely the ultimate example of the commodification andtrivialisation of the pain and suffering experienced by combatants of the war. The warhad grown distant and its effects in polarising Boer from Briton was weakened overtime.There can be detected in The Standard, Krugersdorp, an identity shift from exclusive‘jingo’ to a more balanced and inclusive identity that merged and synthesised Boerand British cultural traits into something new that was greater than a sum of its parts,perhaps even a new embryonic ‘South Africanism’. Boers who were ridiculed innewspaper columns in the early months after the South African War, were treatedwith more respect. This can be detected in the local newspaper's treatment of the exiled PresidentKruger. One article viciously opposed a proposal to allow the ailing former Presidentto return to his country to die and said that he had made his bed and should lie init.126 However, when Kruger died in 1904, the newspaper's owners, editor andreaders had abandoned such jingoistic knee-jerk responses and a sensitive articlereported that ‘widespread regret’ was felt throughout Krugersdorp upon his death.127We can also detect a drop in imperial fervour associated with imperial occasions.The King's Birthday was still celebrated in the Coronation Park with a ‘parade of alltroops in the garrison’ at noon in the park ‘at the east end of the town’, but the articleannouncing it was just four lines long and buried in amongst other ‘parish pump’ orparochial, municipal news.128Chamberlain's visit to Krugersdorp, while it was given all the full page treatment onewould expect for the arch-imperialist; was followed by a number of letters that are___________________________125 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 13 January 1902, untitled.126 ibid.127 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 5 November, 1904, Editorial. See also, same edition, ‘Talk of the Town’.128 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 8 November 1902, untitled.
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223revealing of identity shift towards a more conciliatory stance. The newspaper hadcriticised the poor grammar and bombastic language of the speech given by theReception Committee that, in the spirit of rapprochement was a mixed body of localBoer notables and British ‘pro-Boers’.129 Two successive letters by residents callingthemselves, respectively ‘Britisher’ and ‘Another Britisher’ condemned this attack onthe Reception Committee as ‘bad form’.130 The writers noted that Chamberlain hadstruck a conciliatory note in his speech by offering to repair the PaardekraalMonument that had been damaged by British troopers (although he remarked mostinsensitively that it would be fitting to include the names of British fallen on therestored Monument).131 The inclusion of such letters and the passion with which theywere written, is powerfully suggestive of a return to pre-war reconciliation. As jingoism declined the use of Dutch words in the local English newspaper seemedto alter. Dutch phrases again appeared, for example, ‘Langzaam mark zeker’ (‘slowbut sure’) in an editorial entitled ‘Moving Slowly’ which referred to the process ofreconstruction.132 As words changed (significantly, ‘jingo’ made a re-appearanceindicating a distancing by the editors from ‘them’, the arch-imperialists),133 so didattitudes and, reflecting these, the built environment also underwent transformationas the town, bent out of shape, began to return to its erstwhile ambience andharmony. What is particularly remarkable is how imperialist symbolism appears to have beenquickly and literally rubbished. The Coronation gilt crown seems to have beenabandoned on a rubbish heap on the Market Square even before Chamberlainarrived, a powerful symbol of how quickly overt patriotism was jettisoned.134 That the___________________________129 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 24 January 1903, ‘A Puerile Tirade of Venomous Vapourings’.130 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 7 February 1903, untitled. See also The Standard, Krugersdorp, 14 February 1903.131 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 24 Janaury 1903, ‘Mr. Chamberlain, Reception Krugersdorp’.132 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 13 September 1902, ‘Moving Slowly’.133 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 6 December 1902, ‘General’.134 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 13 December 1902, ‘A Derelict Crown’.
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224‘decline’ of such a powerful imperial icon should occur in the ‘node’ at the heart ofthe town so strongly associated with spatial and cultural harmony, is, indeed,remarkable. It was as if the Market Square was re-asserting itself as a symbol of co-operation between townspeople and rural folk, between Dutch- and English-speakingwhites, that is, between Briton and Boer.The Coronation Park, too, was transformed from imperial symbol, to a much moresedate, family-orientated and domesticated symbol as it became a favourite haunt ofblack nannies and their white charges rather than an imperial rallying ground. Noneof the typical array of heroic statues, plaques and fountains seems to have beenerected there. Plans had been made to erect a fountain in Market Square but whilecastings had been commissioned from Carnegie and Jamieson, local iron foundryowners, these were never bought by the Health Board that was subsequently sued bythe local firm. This failure is rather telling as fountains were a quintessential Victorianprop, and one that could easily be embellished into imperialist imagery with its virile jetsof water and the symbolism of fertility, eternity and purity that flowing water conveyed(see Chapter Seven).135An effort to Anglicise the Market Square by building a bandstand also proveddoomed and by 1905 it was described as a ‘relic of a bygone musical age...leaningout of true in the last stages of decrepitude’.136 Once the ‘pride of the Coronationcelebrations’, the crown was reported as lying ‘abandoned, unhonoured, unsung, and tosay the truth, a bit of a nuisance, on the Market Square’, which had itself become quitea ‘rubbish heap’.137 It was felt that the practice of ‘dropping golden crowns about thetown’ ought to be stopped before Mr Chamberlain arrived otherwise it might lead to ‘thewrong impressions’.138 The image of fallen crowns powerfully conveys the rapid decline___________________________135 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 28 February 1911, ‘W.C.T.U. Annual Meeting’. See also Picton- Seymour, Victorian Buildings ,various pages, where she highlights some striking fountains in Pietermaritzburg and other British colonial towns.136 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 25 March 1905, ‘Market Square’.137 ibid.138 ibid.
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225of unabashed patriotism and the demise of the ‘Jingo Town’. In its stead, the firstglimmerings of a hybrid South Africanism can be detected during 1905.The Rise of an Embryonic ‘South African’ Colonial Town, 1903–1906The Market Square lay at the heart of emergent rapprochement between English-and Afrikaans-speaking whites in Krugersdorp. It was, after all the market itself thatbrought together local Boers from the surrounding farms and rooinek townsmen asconsumers, in one place and at the same time. The English-speakingrepresentatives on the Health Board and, later, the Town Council, did much topromote reconciliation by pushing for improvements in the Market Square, especiallya plan to build a new market house to protect farmers' products from the elements,as already mentioned above. The English-speaking newspaper revived thiscampaign as early as September, 1902 when it published the ‘impressions’ of areturning Prisoner-of-War who condemned the ‘apology for a market house’.139 There-built Market house adjoined the new Town Hall, crowned with a clock tower, thequintessential British Victorian civic symbol (see Figure 3.9).Figure 3.9. Krugersdorp’s New Town Hall and the Market Hall in 1908___________________________139 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 6 September, 1902, ‘Impressions on returning to Krugersdorp of an ex-P.O.W.’.
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226Source: Krugersdorp 100 Years/Jare, p. 71.The Town Hall’s architect was an Englishman, C. Hoskings, and the foundation stonewas laid by Selborne, the High Commissioner, who placed British coins under it. Inaddition six different newspapers and the Mayor's Minutes, including those of G. vanBlommenstein, the Mayor in 1905–6, were also placed under the stone. General Smuts,the famous Boer general, formally opened the Town Hall on 21 December 1907, as asenior member of the new Het Volk government, again underlining the hybrid nature ofthis central municipal symbol.140The spatial proximity of these two spaces indicate that a balance was being restoredto the built environment. The importance of the Market Square to the economic life ofthe town meant that it was restored to its old position as a meeting ground betweentwo white groups and a symbol of co-operation and harmony. The local farmersbrought large quantities of local tobacco which had become popular with English-speaking residents, indeed, exports to Britain had taken off because during the War,the ‘Tommy’ or ‘British Soldier’, had acquired a taste for Magaliesburg tobacco.141Here was a perfect example of a merging between the two white groups: if thearchetypes of British ‘Tommy’ soldier and the Boer, the ‘son of the soil’, could find acommon ground; then there was hope of reconciliation. The Wanderers Sports Grounds were laid out in 1906, situated between thePaardekraal Monument and the Coronation Park (see Figure 3.10). It created aneutral meeting place for the two white elites. Krugersdorp’s Town Hall adjacent tothe Market Square in 1908.142 An abattoir was built in 1906 to serve the farmingcommunity but was placed in the southern British space of the mining area143 despitethe ‘negative externalities’ associated with such structures (see Figure 3.11). By1905, under the pressure of all these influences, the tensions between English-___________________________140 Krugersdorp 110 years, pp. 68–71.141 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 20 May 1905, ‘My Lady Nicotine’.142 ibid., pp. 96–7. 143 ibid., pp. 102–3.
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227speaking and Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking whites in Krugersdorp had dissipatedsignificantly. As if to underline this restoration of harmony and balance, two newbuilding developments commenced in different parts of the town. In 1905, a newworking class suburb was built in the Boer ‘territory’ to the west, beyondBurghershoop. This was to be called West Krugersdorp.144 The following year, 1906,Lewisham, a middle-class residential area was laid out as a semi-governmenttownship to the southeast of the town, further south and further to the east than anyprevious township.145 Again, a spatial balance had been restored to the town.Figure 3.10: The Krugersdorp Wanderers Sports Grounds in 1906Source: Krugersdorp 100 Years/Jare, p. 96.The District Township, long a symbol of the town's separation, became one of itsmost important symbols of reconciliation as a growing number of the English-speaking middle class made their homes there, happy to live close to thePaardekraal Monument and among Dutch-speaking neighbours who, for their part,welcomed them. Probably one of the most remarkable signs of reconciliation in this___________________________144 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 29 July, 1905, ‘New Freehold Township’.145 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 13 July 1912, ‘Townships in the Krugersdorp Area’.
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228regard was Abner Cohen who was, in many ways, the nemesis of the old BoerRepublic, as pointed out at the start of this Chapter. Figure 3.11: Krugersdorp’s Abattoir, 1907.Source: Krugersdorp 100 Years/Jare, p. 103.Cohen sold up his ‘Court Bar’ to allow for the expansion of the court building146 andthen appears to have used the proceeds to buy a number of erven as a consolidatedblock in the District Township. He proudly referred to his peri-urban plot as‘Homelands’ (See Map Ten). If Cohen could feel sufficiently welcome andcomfortable to set down roots in the heart of a Boer dorp and a stone throw’sdistance to the Paardekraal monument from which he had been evicted less thantwenty years earlier, then there was, indeed, meaningful reconciliation amongKrugersdorp’s residents.Even more significant as a symbol of reconciliation, the Paardekraal Monument wasrestored. The sandstone tablets bearing inscriptions ‘in the taal’ were restored inmore expensive marble, a poignant gesture of respect not only for the monument but___________________________146 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 17 October 1903, ‘The Court Bar’.147 The Standard, Krugersdorp, 30 January 1904, ‘Paardekraal Restored’.
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229also the Boer language itself.147 The Hospital, built in 1911 after the Union, wasnamed, not after Victoria, Albert or King Edward, but after the original farm,Paardekraal, an almost poetic return in full circle to Krugersdorp's hybrid roots.148Reconciliation is powerfully conveyed by the trade directory which promotedKrugersdorp to investors and industrialists (figure 3.12).Map Ten: Abner Cohen’s ‘Homelands’ in District TownshipSource: Archives of the Krugersdorp Town Planner’s Office, Plan showing the sub-division of ‘Homelands’ being the property ofAbner Cohen Esq: consisting of Erven Nos. 212-4, 251-3, situated in the District Township of Krugersdorp, compiled by theGovernment Land Surveyor, July 1904. A new building in the town was significantly named ‘Monument Buildings’ and wasbuilt for ‘Stegmann and Tindall’, a local law firm that promoted a partnership between‘Dutch’ and ‘English’ lawyers. This was one of the many such partnerships thatbegan to spring up in the town. The building was built in the ‘most modern’architectural style, with a forward-looking approach, rather than in the backward-looking ‘Republican’ and ‘Victorian’ styles.___________________________148 Krugersdorp 110 years, p. 151.
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230Figure 3.12: Cover of a Krugersdorp Promotional BookletSource: W. Ramsay MacNab and J.W. Smith, Guide to Krugersdorp and the West Rand, Johnston Ltd, Edinburgh, n.d., coverpage.ConclusionThis Chapter suggests that the concept of a ‘cosmology’, usually reserved fortraditional, pre-industrial urban spaces, can be borrowed from cultural anthropologyand applied to a modern town under particular circumstances of ideological tension.Co-operation between the white residents of the town and its surrounding hinterlandcharacterised the town's ’natural' state given the dynamics of the town's size, mutualeconomic interdependence and racial identity within a socio-economic systemcharacterised by racial capitalism. Conflict tended to arise mostly from outside thetown, through externally imposed ideologies and the effects of the onset of war, ofwar itself and then its aftermath on the town lying in its path.Conflict resulted in the growth of ethnic identification, of narrow nationalist
chauvinism that was reflected in the architecture and the distribution of buildings andresidences in the town which, in turn, influenced the people resident in town in theform of a ‘dialogue’ of ‘environment–behaviour’, between ‘flesh’ and ‘stone’.149 Theterminology of ‘cues’ and ‘mnemonic’ devices, of reading the city as a ‘text’, is drawnfrom urban semiotics and helps to shed light on the processes involved. The use ofan interdisciplinary approach opens up new opportunities for understanding urbanspaces and the built environment.___
The term is derived from R. Sennett, Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization, Faber and Faber, New York, 1994.

Other interesting info:
JOHANNESBURG June 14 Sapa

An off-duty police officer travelling on a suburban train from
Johannesburg to Luipaardsvlei on the West Rand on Sunday evening
was attacked and robbed of his pistol and wristwatch.

The officer escaped injury.

The train was carrying about 500 Inkatha supporters on their way
back from an Inkatha Freedom Party rally at Soweto's Jabulani
stadium when on the platform of Princess station a group robbed
a woman, Police liaision officer Capt Eugene Opperman said.

The off-duty policeman evidently tried to foil the robbery and
was then attacked and relieved of his 9mm pistol and his watch,
Capt Opperman said.

Subsequently, a large group of Inkatha supporters left the train
at Luipaardsvlei station and started walking home only to be
confronted by a large contingent of police who searched the group
and retrieved the policeman's pistol as well as a .38 revolver.

A woman found in possession of the police firearm was arrested.

The group was then escorted by the police to their quarters.

http://70.84.171.10/~etools/newsbrief/1992/news9206.15
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