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  • Gubo

    Page from: Williams, G. 1902. The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of their Rise and Development. New York, London: Macmillan.
  • War dance

    Plate from Williams, G. 1902. The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of their Rise and Development. New York, London: Macmillan.
  • Diamonds Swallowed

    Plate from Williams, G. 1902. The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of their Rise and Development. New York, London: Macmillan.
  • "a simple, dignified and deeply moving ceremony"

    “In 1947, on the brink of the fateful election that saw the coming to power of D.F. Malan and the imposition of the apartheid system, the British Royal family spent just over two months touring the Union of South Africa. On 22 April 1947, two days before the end of the tour and the Royal departure, UCT conferred an honorary Doctorate of Laws on the then Queen Elizabeth. The Argus describes the event as: ... 'a simple, dignified and deeply moving ceremony ... in which Her Majesty occupied the centre of the stage as the Chancellor of the University, General Smuts, conferred the degree upon her' (The Argus, 22 April 1947). The report noted that, 'Long before the doors of the Jameson Hall were opened, professors, lecturers and students thronged the steps leading to the Hall. The brilliant gowns of the professors, mingled with the black undergraduate gowns of the students, formed a spectacle, which must have been one of the most colourful of the whole royal tour' (The Argus, 22 April 1947)” (Bloch 2016: 172).
  • Working conditions

    Gardner Williams writes about the living conditions of the mineworkers in one of the chapters (‘Workers in the Mine’) of his book – referencing the divided public opinion about it: One such was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Cape Colony, who came to Kimberley to investigate the conditions of life and treatment of the natives in the compound. On arriving at De Beers Compound, in company with his wife, he first impressed upon the natives whom he met that he was a member of the Cape Colony Legislative Council. He had come to the fields in their behalf, and he wanted them to tell him freely everything of which they had to complain. With the aid of an interpreter he interviewed a number of natives in the compound, asking searching questions about their treatment. One native told him that he had been working for eight years in the mines and had been outside the compound only three or four times in all that period. When asked if he was well treated in the compound his answer was, "" If I didn't like it, Baas, I wouldn't be here." Before leaving, the legislator said that he was glad to have the opportunity to inspect fully the operations of the compound. From what he had heard he had been much opposed to compounds, but he now saw with his own eyes that he was wrongly informed, and henceforth he should be a strong advocate of the system. Yet a year or two later, when questions affecting De Beers Company and the compound system arose in the Upper House, this gratified member was one of the first to denounce the system in an intemperate speech. (Williams 1902: 448 – 449)
  • Workers in the mines

    “In the mines operated by the De Beers Company alone, more than eleven thousand African natives are employed below and above ground, coming from the Transvaal, Basutoland, and Bechuanaland, from districts far north of the Limpopo and the Zambesi, and from the Cape Colony on the east and the south to meet the swarms flocking from Delagoa Bay and countries along the coast of the Indian Ocean, while a few cross the continent from Damaraland and Namaqualand, and the coast washed by the Atlantic. The larger number are roughly classed as Basutos, Shanganes, M'umbanes, and Zulus, but there are many Batlapins from Bechuanaland, Amafengu, and a sprinkling of nearly every other tribe in South Africa” (Williams 1902: 412-413).
  • Stow visits the Mantle Room

    A detail from a painted sketch by Stow that he used in creating his collages, collaged onto a photo of the Mantle Room collection of kimberlite specimens.
  • The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of their Rise and Development

    Front matter from Williams, G. 1902. The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of their Rise and Development. New York, London: Macmillan.
  • The Mantle Room

    “The initial impetus for establishing a collection of mantle materials for research purposes in South Africa was provided by Gardner Williams and his son Alpheus Williams in the late 19th and early 20th century. These two American mining engineers shared a great interest in the mining methods and geology of the South African kimberlite-hosted diamond mines they were supervising. Each wrote books on the subject and the two men assembled a collection of scientifically interesting rock samples and minerals from the mines. Subsequent to the death of Alpheus Williams, the Williams family donated this collection to the Geology Department at UCT for teaching and research purposes” (Department of Geological Sciences 2021).
  • The South African College

    “UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, a high school for boys. The College had a small tertiary-education facility that grew substantially after 1880, when the discovery of gold and diamonds in the north – and the resulting demand for skills in mining – gave it the financial boost it needed to grow. The College developed into a fully fledged university during the period 1880 to 1900, thanks to increased funding from private sources and the government. During these years, the College built its first dedicated science laboratories, and started the departments of mineralogy and geology to meet the need for skilled personnel in the country's emerging diamond and gold-mining industries” (University of Cape Town 2021).
  • The South African College

    “UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, a high school for boys. The College had a small tertiary-education facility that grew substantially after 1880, when the discovery of gold and diamonds in the north – and the resulting demand for skills in mining – gave it the financial boost it needed to grow. The College developed into a fully fledged university during the period 1880 to 1900, thanks to increased funding from private sources and the government. During these years, the College built its first dedicated science laboratories, and started the departments of mineralogy and geology to meet the need for skilled personnel in the country's emerging diamond and gold-mining industries” (University of Cape Town 2021).
  • Cecil John Rhodes statue

    The man who consolidated thousands of small diggings in Kimberley to found De Beers Consolidated Mines was Cecil Rhodes, who then used the profits to extend into gold mining in and around Johannesburg.
  • Sharpeville

    Stow’s discovery of coal deposits in 1878, found in the beds of the Vaal River, was of interest to the diamond magnate, Sammy Marks. Marks realised the importance of Stow’s discovery and the opportunity for using coal at the Kimberley diamond fields for energy generation (Leigh, 1968:112). He believed he could transport the coal from Vereeniging to Kimberley by floating it down-river by a series of weirs to his diamond claims. This turned out to be impractical and he had to resort to using ox-wagons as a method of transport instead (Leigh 1968:17). Marks & Lewis who at that time owned a quarter of all the Kimberley diamond claims sold most of their Kimberley claims to concentrate on the coal finds through their newly formed mining company, the Zuid-Afrikaansche en Oranje Vrystaatsche Mineralen en Mijnbouvereeniging (later to become the Vereeniging Estates Limited). In 1892, the small village of Vereeniging was formally established. Near Vereeniging the predominantly black community of Sharpeville was established where on the 21st of March, 68 years later, the Sharpeville massacre would occur.
  • H.4

    This object, a leather cartridge case said to belong to Sammy Marks, occupies a place in the Special Collections of the University of Cape Town. It forms part of the Sammy Marks Papers (BC770).
  • Sound from the Thinking Strings (installation detail)

    'Sound from the Thinking Strings' was comprised of twenty etchings created by Skotnes that drew on southern San mythology, archaeological and historical research and rock paintings; poems by the late poet Stephen Watson that interpreted extracts of nineteenth-century recordings of |xam cosmology compiled in the Bleek and Lloyd archive and pre-selected by Skotnes; and historical and archaeological contextualisations of these recordings in the form of essays by archaeologist John Parkington and historian Nigel Penn. The exhibition also displayed associated visual material that Skotnes sourced from the UCT and State Archives, the UCT Archaeology Department and the SAM.