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Retief, de Ville & Co. were coachbuilders based in Paarl in the Western Cape, flourishing at a time when the Kimberley Diamond Rush and Witwatersrand Gold Rush saw an upsurge in the demand for reliable conveyances in South Africa.
The diamond rush of the 1870s created a pressing demand for transport, causing enormous production problems for the wagonmakers of Paarl and Wellington, who earlier had taken weeks to finish carts and wagons. A Paarl businessman, Pieter Bernardus de Ville, initiated the importing of steam-driven machinery, a move which was soon followed by others, and which changed the industry from traditional hand-manufacturing to a simple assembling of imported components. De Ville later amalgamated with J. P. Retief to form 'Retief, de Ville & Co'. In the 1920s their rival J. F. Phillips and Co. bought the company, becoming the largest wagon manufacturer in South Africa. Phillips introduced a 24-hour production line. The heyday of the industry was in the 1880s but even after the railhead had reached Kimberley and its diamond diggings in 1885, the demand for Paarl's conveyances continued. A census in 1891 found that the main centres of wagon-making were Paarl, Worcester, Oudtshoorn, Grahamstown, King William's Town and Cape Town, and that in 1887 there were no fewer than 220 small enterprises involved in wagon manufacturing in the Cape Colony.
Wagon-making was an essential service in the early history of the Cape Colony. On an eighteenth-century map a “wamaker” (wainwright) was marked in the valley of the Berg River, information critical to those who used wagons of any description - present-day Wellington still has a place named “Wamakersvallei” (wainwright valley). The industry spawned a multitude of smaller services and suppliers – blacksmiths, carpenters, woodturners, painters and decorators, wheelwrights, joiners, tanners, upholsterers, harnessmakers, canopy makers, and suppliers of Swedish steel, American hickory and local woods. Coachbuilders supplied an extensive range of vehicles to satisfy customers' needs - Retief, de Ville had no fewer than 91 models ranging from light gigs to heavy transport wagons. The wagonbuilder catered for the diverse needs of the community and manufactured service carts for use as ambulances, police carts and refuse removal, delivery, hearses, bakery carts and the "kakebeenwa", a capacious family-sized wagon for long-distance travel. In addition there were wool wagons, hay wagons, water carts, and elegant gigs for the use of doctors and judges. The completion in 1863 of a rail link between Cape Town and Wellington, which passed through Paarl, and the simultaneous construction of a telegraph line, helped the local wagon-making industry enormously - parts for construction of the wagons could conveniently be railed from Cape Town, assembled, and the finished wagons could be sent back.
When the 1820 Settlers had landed in Algoa Bay, they and their possessions were transported to their farms on wagons made in Paarl. [1] After the transport boom many of the smaller wagon and carriage builders went insolvent, and it fell to the larger companies to provide transport to the Boer and British forces in the Boer Wars, the campaign in South West Africa and South African forces in East Africa during World War I. The quality of the Paarl wagons led to the placing of orders by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for use in his infamous campaigns in Abyssinia. The Howitzer guns used by South African forces in World War II had carriages made in Paarl, two such guns being on display at the Union Buildings. [2] [3]
The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its diamond mining past and the siege during the Second Anglo-Boer war. British businessmen Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato made their fortunes in Kimberley, and Rhodes established the De Beers diamond company in the early days of the mining town.
The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush that began in 1886 and led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution.
Harrismith is a large town in the Free State province of South Africa. It was named for Sir Harry Smith, a 19th-century British governor and high commissioner of the Cape Colony. It is situated by the Wilge River, alongside the N3 highway, about midway between Johannesburg, about 275 km to the north-west, and Durban to the southeast. The town is located at the junction of the N5 highway, which continues westward towards the provincial capital Bloemfontein, some 340 km to the south-west. This important crossroads in South Africa's land trade routes is surrounded by mesas and buttes. It is located at the base of one of these called Platberg.
Koffiefontein is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. The name means coffee fountain in Afrikaans.
Barkly West is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, situated on the north bank of the Vaal River west of Kimberley.
Robertson is a town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, known as the valley of wine and roses, at the heart of the wine route - Route 62.
Pieter Mauritz Retief was a Voortrekker leader. Settling in 1814 in the frontier region of the Cape Colony, he later assumed command of punitive expeditions during the sixth Xhosa War. He became a spokesperson for the frontier farmers who voiced their discontent, and wrote the Voortrekkers' declaration at their departure from the colony.
"The Terror of the Transvaal" is a Scrooge McDuck comic story by Don Rosa. It is the sixth of the original 12 chapters in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The story takes place from 1887 to 1889.
The Mineral Revolution is a term used by historians to refer to the rapid industrialisation and economic changes which occurred in South Africa from the 1860s onwards. The Mineral Revolution was largely driven by the need to create a permanent workforce to work in the mining industry, and saw South Africa transformed from a patchwork of agrarian states to a unified, industrial nation. In political terms, the Mineral Revolution had a significant impact on diplomacy and military affairs. Finally, the policies and events of the Mineral Revolution had an increasingly negative impact on race relations in South Africa, and formed the basis of the apartheid system, which dominated South African society for a century. The Mineral Revolution was caused by the discovery of diamonds in Kimberly in 1867 and also by the discovery of gold in Witwatersrand in 1886. The mineral mining revolution laid the foundations of racial segregation and the control of white South Africans over black South Africans. The Mineral Revolution changed South Africa from being an agricultural society to becoming the largest gold producing country in the world.
A diamond rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area where diamonds were newly discovered. Major diamond rushes took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in South Africa and South-West Africa.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cape Colony was annexed by the British and officially became their colony in 1815. Britain encouraged settlers to the Cape, and in particular, sponsored the 1820 Settlers to farm in the disputed area between the colony and the Xhosa in what is now the Eastern Cape. The changing image of the Cape from Dutch to British excluded the Dutch farmers in the area, the Boers who in the 1820s started their Great Trek to the northern areas of modern South Africa. This period also marked the rise in power of the Zulu under their king Shaka Zulu. Subsequently, several conflicts arose between the British, Boers and Zulus, which led to the Zulu defeat and the ultimate Boer defeat in the Second Anglo-Boer War. However, the Treaty of Vereeniging established the framework of South African limited independence as the Union of South Africa.
The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony, when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try to capture the area when war broke out between the British and the two Boer republics in October 1899. The town was ill-prepared, but the defenders organised an energetic and effective improvised defence that was able to prevent it from being taken.
The South African Wars, including – and commonly referred to as – the Confederation Wars, were a series of wars that occurred in the southern portion of the African continent between 1879 and 1915. Ethnic, political, and social tensions between European colonial powers and indigenous Africans led to increasing hostilities, culminating in a series of wars and revolts, which had lasting repercussions on the entire region. A key factor behind the growth of these tensions was the pursuit of commerce and resources, both by countries and individuals, especially following the discoveries of diamonds in the region in 1867 and gold in 1862.
Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers mining company in Kimberley for use by the British in the Siege of Kimberley during the Second Boer War.
The Cape Government Railways (CGR) was the government-owned railway operator in the Cape Colony from 1874 until the creation of the South African Railways (SAR) in 1910.
James Hall Transport Museum (JHTM) is a transport museum that aims to preserve and promote the history of over 400 years of transport in South Africa in particular, and Africa in general. It is the largest transport museum in Africa. It is located at Pioneers' Park beside the Wemmer Pan in La Rochelle, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was established in 1964 by Jimmie Hall and the City of Johannesburg.
The Zeederberg Coach Company was a South African horse-drawn mail and stage coach service operating during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and founded by four Zeederberg brothers: Lewis, Pieter, Roelof and Christiaan, who were of Swedish descent.
In the Colonies and Boer Republics which became the Union of South Africa in 1910, several unofficial military decorations and medals were instituted and awarded during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Kimberley Star is an unofficial private campaign medal which was instituted by the Mayor of Kimberley in 1900. The medal was awarded to all who took part in the defence of the diamond mining town during the four months in 1899 and 1900 while Kimberley was besieged by Boer Republican Forces during the Second Boer War.
Parlshoop is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, around 4 km west of City Hall. It borders Langlaagte to the north and Homestead Park to the northeast. The name comes from the village of Paarlshoop, the oldest private township on the Witwatersrand.