Melrose House is a stately mansion and museum located opposite Burgers Park in Pretoria, South Africa.
| Melrose House | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Edwardian and Victorian |
| Address | 275 Scheiding Street |
| Town or city | Pretoria |
| Country | South Africa |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | WT Vale |
Built in 1886 by the prosperous Pretoria businessman George Jesse Heys, it was named after the famous Melrose Abbey in Scotland. Melrose House gained fame during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) when Lord Roberts requisitioned it as the headquarters for the British forces after Pretoria was invaded in June 1900. For more than 18 months, instructions for the British forces in the field were issued from here. The use of the house as a military headquarters ended when the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the war, was signed there on 31 May 1902.
The Pretoria City Council purchased the house and its contents in 1967 for R300,000 for restoration, culminating in State President of South Africa Charles Robberts Swart opening it as a museum and declaring it a national heritage site on May 17, 1971.
Today the elegant mansion is a historic house museum. It is an example of the transition from Victorian to Edwardian architectural styles and interiors. The interior is characterised by colourful stained glass windows, paintings by English artists, carpets in rich colours, ornate ceilings and fireplaces, as well as valuable porcelain ornaments. The majority of these items belonged to the Heys family itself. Notably the museum contains the room and the table on which the Treaty of Vereeniging (which ended the Second Boer War) was signed. Annual antique markets are held on the premises.
Pretoria is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
The South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result of the Second Boer War.
The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa from 1899 to 1902.
The Transvaal Colony was the name used to refer to the Transvaal region during the period of direct British rule and military occupation between the end of the Second Boer War in 1902 when the South African Republic was dissolved, and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The borders of the Transvaal Colony were larger than the defeated South African Republic. In 1910 the entire territory became the Transvaal Province of the Union of South Africa.
Louis Botha was a South African politician who was the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa – the forerunner of the modern South African state. A Boer war veteran during the Second Boer War, he eventually fought to have South Africa become a British Dominion.
The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other.
Petrus Steyn, is a small farming town between Tweeling and Kroonstad, 35 km north-east of Lindley in the Free State province of South Africa. It is at the centre of an agricultural area known for wheat, maize, sunflower, potato, cattle, hunting, sheep production and forms part of the breadbasket in the Free State. It is the highest town above sea level in the Free State. In 2012 the town's name was changed to Mamafubedu. Farming industries in Mamafubedu provide potatoes worldwide.
Christiaan Rudolf de Wet was a Boer general, rebel leader and politician.
Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM was a prominent South African and Commonwealth statesman and military leader. He served as a Boer general during the Boer War, a British general during the First World War and was appointed field marshal during the Second World War. In addition to various cabinet appointments, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and from 1939 to 1948. He played a leading part in the post war settlements at the end of both world wars, making significant contributions towards the creation of both the League of Nations and the United Nations.
Samuel Marks was a Russian Empire-born South African industrialist and financier.
The Pretoria Convention was the peace treaty that ended the First Boer War between the Transvaal Boers and Great Britain. The treaty was signed in Pretoria on 3 August 1881, but was subject to ratification by the Volksraad within 3 months from the date of signature. The Volksraad first raised objections to a number of the clauses of the treaty, but did eventually ratify the version signed in Pretoria, after Britain refused any further concessions or changes to the treaty.
Willem Johannes Leyds was a Dutch lawyer and statesman who served as state attorney and state secretary of the South African Republic. From 1898 to 1902, during the crucial period of the Second Boer War, he was the Republic's special envoy and minister plenipotentiary in Brussels, accredited to several European states.
Jan Christoffel Greyling Kemp was a South African Boer officer, rebel general, and politician.
The military history of Australia during the Boer War is complex, and includes a period of history in which the six formerly autonomous British Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia. At the outbreak of the Second Boer War, each of these separate colonies maintained their own, independent military forces, but by the cessation of hostilities, these six armies had come under a centralised command to form the Australian Army.
Johannes C. Krogh, of Danish extraction, was a civil servant and politician of the former South African Republic.
Bittereinderdag is celebrated annually on May 31 by Afrikaners, commemorating the Boer Commando guerillas known as Bittereinder who fought during the Second Boer War.
The Namaqua Copper Company 0-4-2STPioneer of 1901 was a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Cape of Good Hope.
The following is a timeline of the history of Pretoria, in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng province, South Africa.
Christiaan Botha was a younger brother of Louis Botha (1862–1919) and Philip Botha (1851-1901), but an older brother of Theunis Jacobus Botha (1867-1930), and likewise a Boer general in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) who then both fought the British to the end.
Johannes Gerhardus Celliers was a Boer general in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa.
