Delving into Brakpan’s past

Brakpan is celebrating its centenary in August.

In honour of this momentous milestone, the Herald is publishing extracts from Selby Webster’s book about the history of the town, The Brakpan Story.

Chapter One: A farm called Weltevreden

Originally the area, which was later to become Brakpan, fell under the control of the magistrate in Potchefstroom.

During 1864, the South African Republic (later Transvaal) decided to bring some sort of order to the widely spread and poorly marked farms.

An inspector, JD Marais, who was based in Heidelberg, was given the task of measuring out the area into suitably sized farms.

Records show that on November 12, 1864, he laid out a farm which he called Weltevreden, on which there were many pans of water in the numerous hollows.

This farm was about three hours’ ride on horseback northwest of Heidelberg.

During 1866, Heidelberg became a district in its own right and in January 1867, JP Botha became the very first owner of the farm Weltevreden.

He did not keep it very long and, in April of the same year, sold it to A Broderick.

Read: Be part of Brakpan’s centenary celebrations

During April 1869, at the request of Broderick, a qualified surveyor, George Moodie, checked the landmarks laid out by Marais and erected beacons.

The farm was now officially proclaimed at the office of the magistrate in Heidelberg and Broderick remained here for 19 years.

When gold was discovered in Johannesburg in 1886, the value of ground in the vicinity increased tremendously.

Many big mining companies were being formed.

To them money was no object as long as they could have the farm where there was a prospect of finding gold.

Their search was concentrated around the Johannesburg area where many claims were being pegged.

In order to keep control of claims, the Volksraad appointed Jan Eloff as the first mining commissioner (Eloff Street in Johannesburg was named in his honour).

His younger brother, FC Eloff, who had married a daughter of former President Paul Kruger, obviously had a hunch that there was a very good chance of gold being found further east.

He negotiated with Broderick and, in June 1886, bought the farm Weltevreden for the princely sum of £350.

About the same time, his father-in-law, Kruger, bought a neighbouring farm – Geduld.

The discovery of gold enticed people from all walks of life and from many parts of the world to make their way to Johannesburg in the hope of making a fortune, and it wasn’t long before prospectors, both east and west of Johannesburg, were looking for signs of the precious metal.

However, this was not Barberton or Pilgrim’s Rest where gold had been found in rivers and streams.

On the Reef (as it was later called) the gold lay deep underground.

Shafts had to be sunk and power was needed to bring the rock to the surface and to crush it so the gold could be extracted.

Steam power was the only means by which this could be accomplished, and many transport riders were doing a lucrative trade carting logs of wood as fuel for the boilers.

This was not very satisfactory and a search for coal was soon underway.

Towards the end of 1887, a German prospector, Johan Gauf, started work east of Johannesburg and found a seam of coal in the Boksburg area.

However, while this did help, the quality of the coal was not very good.

Read: What’s up in Brakpan

The following year, Gauf extended his search eastwards and found a better-quality coal about 30m below the surface, on Eloff’s farm, Weltevreden.

The Transvaal Coal and Trust Company was formed to purchase the farm.

They put down a shaft in what became the grounds of the John Vorster Golf Course (later known as the Brakpan Country Club and now the States Mines Country Club) and called it the Brakpan Colliery.

The colliery was soon operating and by the middle of 1895 boasted that it had supplied one million tons of coal to the Witwatersrand.

The naming of the Brakpan Colliery is the first time that the name Brakpan appears officially on any record.

The name Brakpan is an Afrikaans word describing a pan or pool of brackish water.

There were no less than 10 pans in the area, but only the largest of these, where the Brakpan Dam is now situated, fitted this description.

In the winter, the dried up area of this pan turned white (brackish).

This pan, however, is a long way from the colliery and there appears to be little to tie up the one with the other.

A copy of the original plan of the Brakpan Township as drawn by Ewan Currey, the government land surveyor, in April 1911, states the township is on “the farm Weltevreden, alias Brakpan”.

In light of this, one can only assume that either Broderick or Eloff decided, unofficially, to call the farm Brakpan.

Confirmation of this theory comes from statements by pioneers of the town who can recall the foundations of a farmhouse on the crest of the hill next to Elliot Road and Victoria Falls Road (Anzac).

They also state that they were told Kruger stayed there.

The site of the house overlooks the big pan and the name of the farm as Brakpan would thus be most appropriate.

Have a story?

Contact the newsroom by emailing: Thelma Koorts  (editor) brakpanherald@caxton.co.za

or Stacy Slatter (news editor) stacys@caxton.co.za

 or Miné Fourie (journalist) minev@caxton.co.za

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