1901 in South Africa

	1901 in South Africa
1898 1899 1900 « 1901 » 1902 1903 1904
List of years in South Africa

Events

January

• 15 – The HMS Sybille, a 3400-ton Apollo class cruiser, strikes a reef about 5 km south of Lamberts Bay.
• 31 – General Jan Smuts and his commandos capture Modderfontein, Transvaal, during the Second Boer War.

February

• 1 – Bubonic plague breaks out in Cape Town.

May

• 31 – Officially unrecognized Zulu king Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo refuses British instructions to take up arms against the Boers in the Second Boer War.

June

• Emily Hobhouse reports on the genocide in the 45 British concentration camps for Boer women and children in which, over an 18-month period, 26,370 people would die, 24,000 of them children under 16. Exact mortality figures in the 64 concentration camps for black displaced farm workers and their families are not known, but even worse.

July

• 2–6 – Boer prisoners-of-war are murdered by Australian members of the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Spelonken area near Louis Trichardt during the Second Boer War.
• 16 – The Fawcett Commission is established to look at living conditions of women and children, including water supply, sanitation, medical care and the mortality and birth rates in the concentration camps.

August

• 4 – Lieutenant-general Paul Methuen destroyed the village of Schweizer-Reneke under the British scorched earth policy
• 20 – General Koos de la Rey's 84-year-old mother is sent to a concentration camp at Klerksdorp.

September

• 17 – Commandant-General Louis Botha and General Cecil "Cherry" Cheere Emmett join forces to invade Natal during the Second Boer War.

October

• Mahatma Gandhi embarks at Durban for Mauritius en route to Bombay.

November

• 1 – Standard Bank opens its second branch in Johannesburg on Eloff Street.
• 9 – The electric tramline in Cape Town is extended from Sea Point to Camps Bay.
• 18 – Boer commandos invade the Cape Colony and come to within 50 miles of Cape town.

December

• 22 – Peace Sunday and Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, says: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth — the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." A crowd follows him home and breaks the windows of his house.

Births

• 9 September – Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa. (d. 1966)

Deaths

• 19 May – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first president of the South African Republic and founder of Pretoria, dies at the age of 81.

Railways

Railway lines opened

• 13 March – Natal – Stanger to Kearsney, 8 miles (12.9 kilometres).
• 27 July – Natal – Mtwalume to North Shepstone, 20 miles 70 chains (33.6 kilometres).
• 9 September – Cape Western – Malmesbury to Moorreesburg, 30 miles 51 chains (49.3 kilometres).

Locomotives

Cape

• Six new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Cape Government Railways (CGR):
  • Six 4-4-0 3rd Class "Wynberg Tender" locomotives in suburban service in Cape Town.
  • Eight redesigned American-built 6th Class 4-6-0 steam locomotives. In 1912 they would be designated Class 6G on the South African Railways (SAR).
  • Twenty-one 6th Class 4-6-0 steam locomotives, built to the older designs with plate frames. In 1912 they would be reclassified to Class 6H on the SAR.
  • Ten American built 6th Class 4-6-0 bar framed locomotives. In 1912 they would be designated Class 6K on the SAR.
  • Four 6th Class 2-6-2 Prairie type locomotives that are soon modified to a 2-6-4 Adriatic type wheel arrangement. In 1912 they would be designated Class 6Z on the SAR.
  • The first of sixteen 8th Class 2-8-0 Consolidation type locomotives. In 1912 they would be designated Class 8X on the SAR.

• The Namaqua Copper Company acquires its first locomotive, a 0-4-2 saddle-tank shunting engine named Pioneer for use on its tramway line between its main mine at Tweefontein and Flat Mine at Concordia.

Natal

• The Natal Government Railways (NGR) rebuilds one of its Class G 4-6-0 tank locomotives to a Class H 4-6-2T Pacific wheel arrangement.

• The Natal Harbours Department places a single 0-6-0 side-tank locomotive named Edward Innes in service as harbour shunter in Durban Harbour.

• The Zululand Railway Company, contracted for the construction of the line from Verulam to Tugela River, acquires one 2-6-2 tank locomotive as construction engine.

Transvaal

• The Imperial Military Railways places thirty-five tank locomotives in service, built to the design of the Reid Tenwheeler of the NGR.