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Aberdeen | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 32°29′S24°4′E / 32.483°S 24.067°E | |
Country | South Africa |
Province | Eastern Cape |
District | Sarah Baartman |
Municipality | Dr Beyers Naudé |
Established | 1856 [1] |
Area | |
• Total | 15.4 km2 (5.9 sq mi) |
Population (2011) [2] | |
• Total | 7,162 |
• Density | 470/km2 (1,200/sq mi) |
Racial makeup (2011) | |
• Black African | 19.4% |
• Coloured | 73.0% |
• Indian/Asian | 0.4% |
• White | 6.7% |
• Other | 0.4% |
First languages (2011) | |
• Afrikaans | 80.7% |
• Xhosa | 15.5% |
• English | 2.2% |
• Other | 1.6% |
Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
Postal code (street) | 6270 |
PO box | 6270 |
Area code | 049 |
Aberdeen is a small town in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. With its numerous examples of Victorian architecture, it is one of the architectural conservation areas of the Karoo.
Aberdeen lies some 55 km south-west of Graaff-Reinet, 155 km east-south-east of Beaufort West and 32 km south of the Camdeboo Mountains. Laid out on the farm Brakkefontein as a settlement of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1856 (now the NGK), it became a municipality in 1858. It is named after the Scottish city of Aberdeen. [3]
In 2023, it was proposed for Aberdeen to be renamed to Camdeboo. [4]
Aberdeen began as one of six congregations established in 1855 in what was then the Cape Colony, and the penultimate of the year. [note 1]
On 10 September 1855, the church council of the NG congregation of Graaff-Reinet, the oldest congregation in the Eastern Cape, considered a request for the separation of a new congregation in the vicinity of where Aberdeen would later be established. Like many towns in the former Capeland, Aberdeen was founded as a church town. On 16 October, the Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet, the so-called third precinct (after Cape Town and Swellendam), formally separated the congregation during a session at Cradock. The Brakkefontein farm was selected as the location for the town and church. Reverend Andrew Murray Sr. [note 2] was appointed as a consultant. The farm, owned by Jan Vorster, was purchased for £4,875, and on October 16, 1855, the Presbytery signed the congregation's establishment. The locality's name was changed from Brakkefontein to Aberdeen, after Murray’s birthplace in Scotland. (The following year, the town and congregation of Murraysburg were also named in his honor.)
Lots were surveyed and sold, while the church council retained control over the town land and the right to levy the inheritance tax. Nearly a century after its founding, in 1949, as was the case with Steytlerville (another Eastern Cape church town), the church council transferred all its rights to the town council, which had been established in 1858. From this arose the later municipality.
A small church building was erected, but the town grew very slowly. On 21 January 1856 a man named Swarts was appointed as the first reader, sexton and schoolmaster of the town at a salary of £50 per year. After years of unsuccessful searches for a minister, the congregation's first minister, Reverend Thomas Menzies Gray, accepted his post on September 21, 1862.
Ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church in Aberdeen:
Schools in Aberdeen are the Aberdeen Senior Secondary School, Luxolo intermediate School, Camdeboo Primary, and the Aberdeen Primary School
The Aberdeen Provincial Hospital is situated in Aberdeen.
Graaff-Reinet Xhosa(eRhafu) is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province and the fifth oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the centre of a short-lived republic in the late 18th century. The town was a starting point for Great Trek groups led by Gerrit Maritz and Piet Retief and furnished large numbers of the Voortrekkers in 1835–1842.
The following lists events that happened during 1834 in South Africa.
Jacobus Nicolaas Boshof was a South African (Boer) statesman, a late-arriving member of the Voortrekker movement, and the second state president of the Orange Free State, in office from 1855 to 1859.
Nieu-Bethesda is a village in the Eastern Cape at the foot of the Sneeuberge, approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Graaff Reinet. It was founded in 1875 as a church town, like many other Karoo villages, and attained municipal status in 1886. The name is of biblical origin and means "place of flowing water".
The Camdeboo National Park is located in the Karoo and almost completely surrounds the Eastern Cape town of Graaff-Reinet. It contains the Nqweba Dam.
Pearston is a small town in the eastern Karoo, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It lies between Graaff-Reinet and Somerset East at the foot of the Coetzeesberge, about 160 kilometres (100 mi) north of Port Elizabeth. It falls within the Blue Crane Route Local Municipality and has a population of approximately 4,500 people.
Jansenville is a town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
Jeremias Frederik Ziervogel M.L.A. was a founding member of the Cape Parliament, in which he represented Graaff-Reinet, and was prominent in fighting the Eastern Province Separatist League.
Middleton is a hamlet in the Blue Crane Route Local Municipality of the Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Middleton is situated on the banks of the Fish River off the N10 road and is about 30 km south of Cookhouse.
Dr Beyers Naudé Municipality is a local municipality within the Sarah Baartman District Municipality, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The municipality was established by merging the Camdeboo, Ikwezi and Baviaans local municipalities. The decision to merge the municipalities was taken by the Municipal Demarcation Board in 2015 but only took effect after municipal elections on 3 August 2016. The new municipality is named after the Afrikaner cleric and anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naudé. Its seat is in Graaff-Reinet. The merger was motivated by political interests because the ruling party, the African National Congress, was losing support in the area. One of the municipalities, Baviaans, was already governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance.
Reinet House, located in Graaf-Reinet, Eastern Cape, was built by the Cape Government between 1805 and 1812 as Dutch Reformed Church Parsonage It is now a museum. Reinet House was built as a church house for a member of the clergy. It was built by slaves and members of the community.
The Somerset-East Reformed Church is the fourth oldest congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) in the Synod of the Eastern Cape and the 15th oldest in the entire South African denomination.
The Johannesburg North Reformed Church/Andrew Murray Congregation is a bilingual congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) in the Johannesburg suburb of Orchards. It was formed in 1999 by the merger of the NGK congregation and the Andrew Murray Congregation and functions as a church without borders.
The Linden Reformed Church was a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) in the northwestern Johannesburg suburb of Linden. On July 1, 2018, it merged with the Aasvoëlkop Reformed Church to form the Aan die Berg Reformed Church.
The Potchefstroom Reformed Church (in Potchefstroom, North West, South Africa, is the oldest congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa in what was then the Transvaal or South African Republic. At its founding in March 1842, it was the 28th congregation in what would later become South Africa and the tenth outside of the Western and Southern Cape Synod.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Aberdeen is a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Synod of Eastern Cape. It is one of six congregations established in 1855 in what was then the Cape Colony, and the penultimate of the year. Jansenville, also in the Eastern Province, was first on February 4, Ceres was second on March 21, Sutherland third, then Aberdeen, Heidelberg fifth and Simon's Town sixth. The church is the tallest congregation in the country.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Jansenville was the first of a total of seven congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church that was founded in 1855 and is therefore the 61st oldest congregation in the entire Church and the 13th oldest congregation in the Synod of Eastern Cape. The NG municipality Middelburg, Cape, merged with its daughter municipality Middelburg-Uitsig as Middelburg-Karoo in 2010 and that year has since been indicated as its founding date, because Jansenville moved up one place.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Burgersdorp is a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Synod of Eastern Cape in South Africa. It is the eighth oldest congregation in this Synod and was founded in 1846, 54 years after Graaff-Reinet. In the entire NG Church it was the 34th foundation, all of which except Pietermaritzburg (1839) and Potchefstroom (1842) were located in the single Cape Colony. In 2016, the congregation had 510 professing and 135 baptized members. Of the professing members, only 200 were under 50, while 140 of the 510 lived locally. On August 17, 2020, the church was damaged by a fire.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Robertson is a large rural congregation in Robertson, South Africa, in the province of the Western Cape and the NG Church's Synod of the Western and Southern Cape. It was founded in 1853 as the 52nd congregation in the entire Church, but is currently (2015) the 51st oldest congregation after the incorporation of the NG congregation Middelburg, Cape with its daughter congregation, Middelburg-Uitsig, in 2010.