The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (the JSE) was founded by Benjamin Wollan on 8 November 1887. In 1916, a Talmud Torah was also started for the children of the congregation so that they could learn the laws and customs of the very orthodox form of Judaism practiced in Ferreirastown and Marshalltown (the building is technically in Marshalltown). JHB Central police station opened in 1968 (designed by Harris, Fels, Sacks, Jankes, and Nussbaum) was once known as John Vorster Square, the notorious building of the Apartheid regime where interrogations, torturing, and detention was the order of the day. Cantonese club remaining exterior wall corner (Source: Marc Latilla), Cantonese Club remaning exterior wall (Source: Marc Latilla). Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa. The Jewish Community of Johannesburg, 1886-1939: Landscapes of Reality and Imagination. Thanks Mo! Empress Victoria Buildings (former Empress Victoria Hotel) degraded over time and became cheap rooms for rent. Other than that, they lived, worked, and existed on opposite ends of the town. We have three Accor accommodations around the city in Bedfordview, Randburg and Midrand for you to choose from … Menze. For owner JK. By the inauguration of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the gold industry rested on a firm financial footing. The government hoped the gold rush would be short-lived and the congregated masses and structures would soon vanish. The new premises that included a nursing home were established on the corner of West and Main Streets around the mid-1930s. In 1887, with the second sale of preferential rights on stands between the 2 existing strips of Randjeslaagte (roughly between Bree and President, Diagonal and Nugget), it was decided to reserve some 81 stands in the north-west of this area for ‘Arabs’, the word used to designate Indians. For example, the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act would provide the blueprint for Apartheid in the 1950s. There was a dining room and a living room, which at night doubled as a bedroom for my eldest brother, Ismail. Jeppestown in 1888 Commissioner Street, circa. Ferreirastown school Commissioner Str c1967 (Source: Museum Africa). Stone-walled ruins of Sotho–Tswana towns and villages are scattered around the parts of the former Transvaal in which Johannesburg is situated. After some negotiations, the ‘Transvaal Experiment’ proceeded but with strict and restrictive stipulations. The early Eastern Europe Jews soon moved from the camps into the township setting up commercial, service, and trade businesses. In 1895, British officials tacitly endorsed the Jameson Raid, a coup attempt against the Transvaal government conceived by the mining magnate Cecil John Rhodes. Most of the work was trench digging to obtain ‘indications’ of the gold that could be expected when full-scale mining started. Although determined to resist discrimination, they preferred the less public and more solitary and peaceful action. They used stone tools. This same law also prevented Indians from owning land. Worse, the Transvaal government seemed unable to enact or enforce the kind of discriminatory taxes and rigorous master-servant laws that the Randlords regarded as essential to their campaign to reduce Black labour costs. In 1890, just four years after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, realising a great need for education for the children of the mineworkers, the Anglican Church established St Michael’s College in Troyeville. B-183/184 TVL Chinese United Club 1909 The first billiard table was brought in by Chas Brown for a saloon in Ferreira’s Camp. It appears as though the original building was demolished when the new synagogue was built. It was part of the clearance for the Magistrates Court buildings. Slums are part of every developed city in the world but were further aggravated locally by racial segregation. Cecil John Rhodes evidently stayed in it for one night and thereafter opted to rather sleep outside in a wagon. Liz Delmont kindly sent me research she had done on early Indian and Muslim communities that included information on the site of the first mosque. According to the Government Gazette No.303 from 10 November 1886, Mining Commissioner Jan Eloff issued 25 hotel licenses. Schlesinger on 9 June 1912 and the synagogue was officially opened on 8 December 1912 by Gustave Imroth. It was known as Beth Hamedrash (House of learning). Ferreira’s Dorp or Ferreira’s Town (or both one-word variations) is an area in the south-western part of the originally laid out township of Johannesburg. W-277 & 278 Rooms 1895 An architectural consortium, comprising several leading architectural firms, conceptualised the design of the building on a seven-hectare stand. Edgson built the Central Hotel in Commissioner Street and leased it to F. H. Bussey who was the hotel keeper of the original wooded Central Hotel. Once Ferreira’s Camp was incorporated in Johannesburg, these wayside licenses presumably lapsed. These didn’t just affect Ferreira’s, but around the same time, also parts of Doornfontein, Prospect Township (south of Natal Camp), and Bertrams. This ties into the 1888 scenario as this area was still within Ferreira’s Town. Prior to Anglo’s 45 Main Street, the block had strong connections to early Jewish history in Johannesburg. In the 1930s an Art Deco building was erected on stands W-96, 97, 98 & 99. After the Boer war, the slum conditions flourished. Early farms and original camps of Johannesburg (Source: Johannesburg: One Hundred Years). Regner man med omkringliggende forsteder og såkalte townships, har Stor-Johannesburg en befolkning på 7, 8 millioner. It’s not known if this was a new building for the purpose or an existing building. The partnership started in Johannesburg in 1888 and was at one time housed within the old two-storey ‘Corner House’ in Commissioner Street. That foothold was not always able to be transferred into legal upward commerce. By mid-1886 an army of diggers had descended on the Witwatersrand, hacking away with picks and shovels along a line that soon stretched 40 miles west to east. Johannesburg er Sør-Afrikas største by.Selve Johannesburg bykommune har en befolkning på 4,4 millioner innbyggere (2011). The official name from the plans is ‘Johannesburg Wesleyan Coloured Circuit Mission Hall’ and was designed by D. Macdonald Sinclair who worked on several Wesleyan churches. The new immigrants (sometimes known as ‘greeners’) were more socialist in their views. History. As mineowners had hoped, the Transvaal’s new imperial overlords were sensitive to the industry’s needs, rescinding Boer tariffs and concessions and enacting onerous new taxes and a pass law explicitly designed to force Blacks to accept employment at whatever wages whites were willing to pay. The design by Burnet, Tait & Lorne of London (same as 45 Main Street later) the building oozes power and permanence, and interestingly, is devoid of any branding. Another house in Alexander street was also used later (M-228). A fascinating ‘trade’ brought over by the Chinese was a game called ‘fahfee’. It was the cafes and penny drinkshops and Kosher restaurants through which there moved by day and night a colourful pageant made up of the denizens of the underworld and the ‘alte Afrikaners’ [Yiddish term for Jewish immigrants who had been in South Africa for a long time]. Unfortunately and prior to the experiment, local Chinese were included in legislation along with Indians (termed ‘Asiatics’) that curbed and controlled competing with white-owned businesses. Pencharz and Jacobson attorneys was appointed trustee (transfer no 4193) on behalf of Church Council of the Mahomedan Church. Started as a bar with the addition of rooms in 1892 and then became a hotel in 1896 designed by C. H. Brauer for owners Bloom & Goldberg. The first school was demolished for the Magistrates Courts and the second school opened on the corner of Fox and Alexander Street around 1934 (G-222). The worst slum area was opposite Ferreira Mine. 1897 . It spoke about entering Johannesburg from the town side of Ophirton, and that although there was nothing that resembled a gate, there was a broken down scotch cart on one side of the track, and a white tented wagon on the other near which were Col. and Mrs. Ferreira. Dedicated to Anthony Simon Pursell. Another map also points out this spot. This rapid influx of people and the establishment of Ferreira’s Camp happened between June and December 1886. PROVISIONING JOHANNESBURG, 1886 – 1906 . The Apartheid Museum, the first of its kind, illustrates the rise and fall of apartheid. There was unhappiness from some traders that had set-up stores in Ferreira’s Camp. Many of these are considered firsts in Johannesburg. As the scale of the gold deposits became apparent, Johannesburg became the 19th century’s last great boomtown. When that failed, they seized on the plight of the “uitlanders”—the foreign, mostly British, miners in Johannesburg, who were denied the right to vote under Transvaal law. The area was declared white under NP rule and the property was eventually sold in the 1980s and a new hall built in Lenasia with the proceeds. There was also very little actual mining being done in the early days on account of a lack of equipment and/or capital. Johannesburg: African Museum (Collected by A. Smith and unpublished). The other two were Natal Camp (near Jeppestown) and Paarls Camp or Afrikaaner Camp (where Paarlshoop is today). In July 1886, one wattle and daub hotel was called Walker’s Hotel. It was historically known as the Malaikam. The region surrounding Johannesburg was originally inhabited by San hunter-gatherers who used stone tools. The first motorcar drives through Johannesburg and Nkosi Sikelel 'iAfrika is composed by Enoch Sontonga. The history of the Jeppe Schools is intertwined with the history of Johannesburg. History. The new city was called Johannesburg, apparently in their honour. Racial sectors of Johannesburg 1904 (Source: Beavon). The slums were demolished and land either set-up for light industry, like New Doornfontein, or white housing projects, like Maurice Freeman Park in Bertrams. The Burmese teak bar at the Radium in Orange Grove, evidently came from the original Ferreirastown Hotel. Sunday was the most popular day as most domestic staff and mine workers had their day off and would, by accounts, spend the whole day drinking. In the beginning, Braamfontein was originally a farm that adjoined Randjeslaagte (the triangular piece of government-owned land between the farms) on the west. These were for owner A. Collings. The 63 695 imported indentured Chinese miners, who first started arriving on the Rand on 22 June 1904 and finally left in March 1910, are not the forefathers of the Johannesburg Chinese community. A Matter of Honour: Being Chinese in South Africa. 1899 . The early history is not known, but it was known as Avalon Theatre in the 1950s. Legally, only Africans could be forced to stay. The photo is dated to the 1955. Vol.1 No.2 December 2004. https://ziladoc.com/download/contents-122_pdf [Accessed 22 March 2020], Norwich, R. 2013. The South African Government awarded a 5-year airmail contract to Union Airways to convey mail matter to main centres in South Africa. They settled in and around the slum areas. In the Lebanese Maronite church history text, there is a reference to miner’s cottages in Westgate. Sheebeens themselves, while promoting commerce and meeting places, also increased prostitution and drunkenness which often ended in fights and stabbings. “Ancient Ninevah and Babylon have been revived,” a visiting journalist wrote in 1913. Cantonese Club c1930 (Source: Golden City), Cantonese Club 1955 (Source: Museum Africa), Cantonese club demolition lines on the orange brick building (Source: Google Earth). University of South Africa Press. When the fighting ceased two and a half years later, the Transvaal and its sister republic, the Orange Free State, were colonies of the British Empire. This may coincide with the upgrade of the area in the 1940s when most of the slum buildings were demolished. K-76 & 75 1st Johannesburg Chinese School Kuomintang (KMT) and Chinese press The modern history of Johannesburg officially began with the 1886 discovery of gold beneath the hills of the Witwatersrand area, which attracted fortune seekers from throughout the world. John B. Ferguson designed the 1931 flats. JOINT SUPERVISOR: Professor J Hyslop . A Quest For Resources . One of the older inner suburbs in Johannesburg, Bertrams is surrounded by Highlands and Troyeville to the north and south respectively, and New Doornfontein and Lorentzville to the west and east respectively. The buildings are very different in design (see further down for Block R details). Ferreirastown postcard (Source: Johannesburg Album), “Society has discovered discrimination as the great social weapon by which one may kill men without any bloodshed,” Hannah Arendt, In the early 1930s, it was described by Miss Spurr as, ‘…conglomeration of dilapidated wood and iron dwellings housed on either side of narrow streets, some with broken wooden verandahs, and window panes plastered with brown paper or cheap chintz to keep out the wind and rain. Signatures of a cross-section of pioneers living in Ferreira’s Camp (Source: Harry Zeederberg). The combination of a lack or shortage of housing for low-income people near low-paying jobs coupled with unscrupulous landlords who look to profit from the situation promotes the formation of slums. Census 2011. N-203 & 204 Ebeneezer Congregational Church 1902 Cnr Wolhunter & Main Str The row still stands today, Marshall Str near ferreiras town 1955 (Source: Museum Africa), Shops on stand 175 Marshall Street 2020 (Source: Marc Latilla), U-177, 178, 179 & 180 Tin Town Theatre The sports grounds usage was likely later when the school was in Alexander Street. (In the political economy of the day, a nation’s strength was a direct function of its hard currency reserves, and the reserves of the Bank of England had fallen to ominously low levels.) Building completed 12 Oct 1912. There where further additions in 1902 after the war designed by Aburrow & Treeby, African or Rand Hotel drawings (Source: Museum Africa), African or Rand Hotel floor plan (Source: Museum Africa), Rand / African Hotel site 2020 (Source: Marc Latilla). Please follow me on Instagram at @johannesburg1912 where I post interesting Johannesburg related stuff on weekends (mainly). In a letter dated 1 September 1887, the residents of Ferreira’s Camp wrote to the president complaining that they had purchased stands and were paying license fees and were therefore excluded from doing the same in Johannesburg. On 14 July 1886, Col. Ferreira and J. P. Meyer leased this part of Turffontein No.198 from J. F. Bezhuidenhout Junior. It was land literally to the west of Ferreira’s Dorp, and although there was no physical gate, it was where one entered the city from the west. The history of Johannesburg is intricately linked with the political situation of the region. Two new cottages and 10 rooms for owner Marcus Baron designed by May & Christie, H-202 Cottages 1905 There were various concoctions like skokiaan, skomfana, isiqataviku (kill-me-quick), and chechisa (hurry-up). Johannesburg and the camps were never meant to become permanent. Designed by Pabst, this sculptural building was described best by Chipkin as “..curved forms and cubic projections; rounded corners alternating with sharp rectangular cantilevers. Here was Cohen’s Yard or West Anderson Chambers, which consisted of single-storey rooms on three sides opening into a yard in the middle in which the tenants did their work.” (Quoted in Barry and Law, 1985: 28). On the 11 October 1887, the South African Republic bought the contract for 5000 Pounds and incorporated the area into Johannesburg. Stand 227 the walled-off piece of land next door to 1 Fox Street (Source: Google Earth), Official documents show that the mosque, the Jooma Masjid, was acquired by a transfer dated 5 April 1888, with the certificate of transfer duty number 3524.’ (Eshak n.d. :1), The 1893 (20 June) title deed (lost but copied) certified on 16/02/1926 shows that the following had title granted by the Mining Commissioner Johannes Lodewicus v.d. We had many fights with young white policemen, especially on Friday nights, when they returned to Vorster Square after drinking sprees in town. The city’s history is inextricably part of South Africa’s history, and the struggle for freedom and democracy. Over a hundred thousand years ago people in what is now South Africa lived by hunting animals and gathering plants. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Thesis for Faculty of Humanities University of Pretoria, Beavon, K, 2004. History of Sandton. Johannesburg’s early history is the story of gold. Scroll down on the right after archives and add your e-mail address. It’s also been a prayer mosque and a fishing equipment store. Johannesburg: Chris Van Rensburg Publications. South African music reflects a Johannesburg (Xhosa: eGoli, Zoeloe: iGoli, letterlik: "Plek van Goud") is die vernaamste sake- en bevolkingsentrum van Suid-Afrika met 'n oppervlakte van 1 645 vierkante kilometer en 'n bevolking van 4 434 827 in die metropolitaanse gebied volgens die sensus van 2011. Pretoria, Van Der Waal, G-M, 1986. The European presence in South Africa dates back to the 17th century when the Dutch East India Company established the Cape Colony outpost. those with South African citizenship) are descendants of immigrants from China who arrived after 1870 and came from the Guandong Province of South China. After Tambo’s exile, Mandela moved the practice to Flat 13 Kholvad House a few blocks away in Commissioner Street in 1960. ‘Town beer’ had to be made quickly to avoid detection by the police. Transvaal Chinese United club (Source: Golden City), Interior of a Chinese club (Source: Do you know JHB? Then about 2,000 years ago people in the west learned to herd sheep and cattle. These connections led me to join the ‘Becker Street Gang’ and we earned a healthy respect from the community. These included other ‘Asiatic’ laws relating to citizenship, land ownership, and pass laws. Of interest, the city's name is said to come from the two Zuid-Afrikaansche Republijk surveyors, both named Johannes, who helped to establish the new community. Part of Brickfields land was purchased by NZAM for railway expansion into a goods yard in 1893 (completed in 1895) and residents were relocated to Vrededorp and further to Albertskroon and Albertville. The Zurich Insurance Company now takes up the entire O block, Zurich Bryte head office (Source: Google Earth), This house was still on the stand in the 1980s. Ferreirastown Chinese quarter c1913 (Source: Museum Africa). Lock in 1922. The Mia family have not responded to my requests to verify this information. Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo opened their law firm in 1952 in offices in Chancellor House. The first circus (and professional) performance was given in Ferreira’s Camp by Fillis’s Circus in September 1886. Click here to view more of Davie's work.Jews first settled in Johannesburg a year after the town was proclaimed. It was managed by Rosenthal & Ritson. The Gauteng Opera company converted it back to a theatre and used it up to 2017 before current management took over in 2019. W-96 Shops and room 1895 Architect H. A. Goodman also designed the Freeman cottage in Braamfontein across from where Kitchener’s is today. 1900. Johannesburg History The scene of the last great gold rush, it took less than 100 years for precious metal to turn a stretch of unprepossessing scrubland into South Africa’s economic hub. Wow Marc your research of an area never fails to impress me, thank you. There is evidently a brass plaque at the site commemorating the society, but I could not find it. It was, however, the beginnings of what would later be known as the South-Western Townships or Soweto. Transvaal Chinese United Club 2020 (Source: Marc Latilla), B-187/188 Chinese connection (now vacant land), C-148 Chinese connection (now vacant land), D-103 Originally shops and rooms designed by Kroll 1896 Chinese connection. Johannesburg Firsts. One of the key organisations was the Transvaal Chinese Association. Part of the Ferreirastown slum clearance made way for the magistrate’s court block which in turn attracted new buildings that replaced the old. From mining camp to metropolis. Find link is a tool written by Edward Betts.. searching for History of Johannesburg 24 found (46 total) alternate case: history of Johannesburg Ophirton (166 words) exact match in snippet view article find links to article "Sub Place Ophirton". A group of concerned Muslims had hoped to build a mosque on stand no 227 but nothing materialised. … Two weeks later, the whole zone was surrounded with corrugated iron, saturated with paraffin, and set alight. The conciliatory South African Party remains in power until 1924 (Smuts succeeds Botha as prime minister in 1919), but it is increasingly the Nationalists who set the nation's political agenda. Little Swallow Commissioner Str c1957 (Source: Eliovson). A long, but immensely satisfying read. The Chassidic synagogue had moved to Doornfontein in the 1920s already. The government decided to survey Randjeslaagte for use as a township and Josias De Villiers was told to cram as many stands as possible into the area with as many street corners, as the corner stands would fetch higher license income. It was this conflict between trying to segregate races while still needing their labour ‘from dawn until sunset’ that continually caused overcrowding in various parts of Johannesburg. More than 3000 people which included a Chinese delegation rejected the Transvaal Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance that required Asians of 8 years and older to carry passes as well as generally restricting Asian’s rights and immigration. Book holiday packages to visit historical places in Johannesburg at Yatra…