European Settlement and gold mining

After the Great Trek European pastoralists also started settling in the Transvaal. Some of them chose to farm where Johannesburg was to rise later. Each burgher (citizen) was entitled to at least one farm, measuring 1500 morgen or about 3100 acres. The first recorded discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand was made by Jan Gerrit Bantjes in June 1884, on the farm Vogelstruisfontein. Other farms to become famous later included Langlaagte, Turffontein, Doornfontein and Braamfontein. George Harrison is today credited as the man who discovered an outcrop of the Main Reef of gold on the farm Langlaagte in February 1886.^[3] On 12 May 1886 Harrison and his partner, George Walker, entered into a prospecting agreement with the owner of Langlaagte, one G.C. Oosthuizen. Two days later Colonel Ignatius Ferreira staked out his camp on Turffontein to serve as a centre for diggers.^[4] Louwrens Geldenhuys found the Main Reef on Turffontein and Henry Nourse located it on Doornfontein.^[4] On 8 September 1886 nine farms, extending from Driefontein in the east to Roodepoort in the west, were declared public diggings^[5] Carl von Brandis was appointed as the mining commissioner for the area. On 8 November 1886 a diggers' committee was elected to assist the mining commissioner in the execution of his duties.^[6]

The earliest mining activities were concentrated along and adjacent to the outcrops of the main reef. Initially the diggers could perform the work themselves, using relatively little equipment. As the pits grew deeper, they needed additional labourers and machinery. Black Africans were recruited to perform the unskilled work. Machinery had to be imported from Europe and fuel had to be found to power the machinery.^[7] The discovery of coal on the far east Rand at Springs and Boksburg, as well as the construction of the Rand Steam Tram from the colliery to the gold fields and into Johannesburg facilitated the growth of the industry in its early years.^[8] Soon, too, the railway arrived from the coast: in September 1892 the Cape railway reached the Rand. Two years later the line from Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) arrived in the Republic and a third route was opened from Durban the next year.^[9] In 1890 the MacArthur-Forrest cyanidation process successfully overcame the problems of treating the refractory ore from deeper levels.^[10]

It soon became apparent that individual diggers were not equal to the task of mining gold in Johannesburg. Wealth could only be recovered by means of deep-shaft working and by capital-intensive companies having the necessary technical skills.^[11] Individual claims were soon joined into small mining groups. The amalgamation of smaller mining groups became a common occurrence and by 1895 the scene was dominated by a limited number of large monopolistic companies. These companies were: the Wernher-Beit-Eckstein group, Consolidated Goldfields, the J B Robinson group, the S. Neumann group, the Albu group, the A Goerz group, the Anglo-French group and the Lewis-Marks group. Of these, Cecil John Rhodes's Consolidated Goldfields was the most important.^[12]

In 1893 Johannesburg's first stock exchange was opened. From then until today Johannesburg has been the seat of the South African stock exchange and the country's financial heartland. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is presently in Sandton, Johannesburg.

The Zuid-Afrikaansche Republic became the single biggest gold producer in the world, with a contribution of 27,5 percent in 1898.^[13]

Founding of a city

The fledgling town of Johannesburg was laid out on a triangular wedge of "uitvalgrond" (area excluded when the farms were surveyed) named Randjeslaagte, situated between the farms Doornfontein to the east, Braamfontein to the west and Turffontein to the south.^[5] The property belonged to the government. The Surveyor-General of the ZAR issued an instruction that the farm be surveyed as a township, consisting of 600 stands measuring fifty feet by fifty feet. The first auction of stands took place on 8 December 1886.^[14] The settlement was named after two officials of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR), Christiaan Johannes Joubert and Johannes Rissik,^{[citation needed]} who both worked in land surveying and mapping. The two men combined the name they shared, adding 'burg', the archaic Afrikaans word for 'fortified city'.

Early in 1887 the inhabitants started petitioning the government to proclaim a town council for the area. Eventually in November 1887 a proclamation was issued instituting a health committee. Its area was defined as "the place Johannesburg, including the stands known as Marshall Town and Ferreira's Town".^[15] The committee's authority extended for a radius of three miles from the market square.^[16] The mining commissioner and the district surgeon were to be ex-officio members of the committee. The area of the committee's jurisdiction was to be divided into five wards. Each ward could elect one committee member. All adult male inhabitants had the vote. In 1890 six wards were proclaimed, each ward being entitled to elect two committee members.^[17]

It was only in 1897 that the government approved, in terms of Act 9 of 1897, a town council for Johannesburg. In terms of the Act the area was divided into 12 wards. Each ward could elect two town councillors, one of which had to be a citizen of the ZAR.^[18] Johan Zulch de Villiers became the first mayor of Johannesburg in October 1897.^[19]

The Rissik Street Post Office was built in 1897, having been designed by the architect Sytze Wierda. The Post Office was at one time the tallest building in Johannesburg. The Post Office became a national monument in 1978, and it remained in operation until 1996 when the South African Post Office vacated the building. The monument was gutted by a fire in 2009. The old City Hall is opposite the Post Office in Rissik Street.

Gold rush

Within ten years of the discovery of gold in Johannesburg by Jan Gerrit Bantjes, 100 000 people flocked to this part of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republic in search of riches. Colonials, escaping the boredom of small-town life, joined Indians trekking from the sugar fields of Natal. Cape Coloureds and Chinese shopkeepers mixed with Africans, eager to experience the fast pace of urban life. Artisans and miners from the gold and silver fields of the Americas and Australia, from coal and tin mines of Europe, joined the wagon loads of men who had learnt their craft in the pits of Kimberley. Jews in search of freedom and employment, headed south to Africa from Eastern Europe and Russia. Mine managers and businessmen, solicitors and engineers, men with skills, education and contacts, confident of their expertise and frequently arrogant in their manner, took up positions in the burgeoning city of Johannesburg and in the new mines along the reef. In addition there were the pimps and adventurers, crooks and philanderers.^[20]

In January 1890 the Health Committee conducted its first census of the town. They found that Johannesburg had 26 303 inhabitants. There were 13 820 buildings, of which 772 were shops and stores and 261 hotels and bars. The following suburbs were recorded: Booysens, Fordsburg, Langlaagte, Braamfontein, Auckland Park, Marshall's Town, Ferreira's Town, Prospect and Jeppe's Town. There was also a Coolie Location and a Veldtschoendorp, the latter being a shanty town occupied by Dutch citizens of the ZAR.^[21]

Another census was conducted in January 1896. It was recorded that Johannesburg then had 102 078 inhabitants, of whom 61 292 lived within the three mile radius of Market Square and 40 786 outside. There were 50 907 Europeans or Whites, 952 Malays, 4 807 Asiatics, 2 879 mixed or other races and 42 533 Natives of whom 14 195 lived within the three mile radius and 28 838 outside. Of the 24 489 Whites born in Europe, 12 389 were from England and Wales, 997 from Ireland and 2 879 from Scotland. Of the 24 500 Europeans born in Africa, 6 205 were born in the Transvaal and 15 162 in the Cape Colony. New suburbs included: Klipfontein, Forest Town, Hillbrow, Berea, Yeoville, Bellevue, Houghton, Vrededorp, Paarl's Hoop, Robinson, Ophirton, La Rochelle, Rosettenville, Klipriviersberg, City & Suburban, Doornfontein, Bertrams, Lorentzville and Troyeville. It was also recorded that there was a Malay Camp, Brickfields, a Coolie Location and a Kafir Location.^[22] Kliptown is the oldest Black residential district of Johannesburg and was first laid out in 1891 on land which formed part of Klipspruit farm.

Society

From the start the city segregated itself spatially in terms of class and, to a lesser extent, race. Julius Jeppe and his partner, Lewis Peter Ford, bought a portion of the farm Turffontein. They had two townships surveyed and called them Fordsburg and Jeppestown. Both were next to the mines along the Main Reef. The stands in Fordsburg were auctioned is May 1887, but the prices were very low because the soil was marshy. The result was that white working-class families settled in Jeppestown and in Fordsburg factories, bars and "kafir-eating houses" sprang up.^[23]

Just north of Jeppestown is Doornfontein, then known as a 'classy' suburb, where professional and commercial men lived. Many Jews lived there as well.^[24] Their children attended school. The first English language school in Johannesburg was started by the Holy Family Sisters. In 1887 they opened a school in Fox Street, but it grew so fast that they had to move to bigger premises in End Street, next to Doornfontein.^[25]

To the west of Doornfontein was Braamfontein, where white wage earners with families and single white men lived.^[24]

In October 1887 the government of the ZAR bought the south-eastern portion of the farm Braamfontein. Quite a big stream flowed along the farm and they intended selling the water to the residents of Johannesburg. But there were also large quantities of clay, suitable for brickmaking, along the stream. The government decided that more money was to be made from issuing brick maker's licences at five shillings per month.^[26] The result was that many landless Dutch-speaking burghers (citizens) of the ZAR settled on the property and started making bricks. They also erected their shacks there. Soon the area was known either as Brickfields or Veldschoendorp.^[27] Soon other working poor, "Malays, Coolies and Kaffirs" also settled there. The government, who sought to differentiate the white working class from the black, laid out new suburbs for the Burghers, Indians, Coloureds and Africans, but the whole area simply stayed multiracial.^[24]

The railway line and goods yards were just north of these slum areas. On 19 February 1896 there was a great dynamite explosion in the railway goods yard at Braamfontein. 55 tons of dynamite had been left in the blazing sun and was detonated by the impact of a shunting engine. The explosion left a crater 250 feet long, 60 feet wide and 30 feet deep. At least 78 people were killed and 1500 injured.^[28] The government made another effort to separate the burghers from the non-whites by allowing them to become tenants in the newer suburb called Vrededorp. The suburbs was opened to white who could acquire the stands on leasehold for a mere two shillings and sixpence a month. Many whites took up the offer and then sublet the stands to Indians for five shillings a month.

On the mines living conditions were harsh and alienating, particularly for the Africans who lived in large compounds. They were placed in bunk houses, which were overcrowded and cold in winter, where food was tedious and not abundant and where pulmonary disease was rife. White miners lived differently, though not in overwhelming comfort.^[24]

Meanwhile, at the northern extremity of the town was Parktown, already known for its exclusivity and extreme wealth.^[24] Sir Lionel Phillips was the first Randlord to build a mansion in Parktown. "Hohenheim" was built in 1894 and demolished in 1972 to make way for the Johannesburg Academic Hospital. Sunny Side Park was designed by Frank Emley for Hennen Jennings and completed in 1896. Today it is part of the Sunny Side Park Hotel. "The View" was completed in 1897. It was built by Charles Aburrow as the residence of Sir Thomas Cullinan.

Franchise

The law of the land provided that every White (European) male who had resided in the Transvaal for five years, could be naturalized and become entitled to vote for a representative in the Volksraad (house of assembly).^[29] As more and more foreigners (called Uitlanders) arrived in the country to dig for gold, the government realized as early as 1890 that these Uitlanders could easily gain control of the country. The solution was to create a Second Volksraad. Uitlanders who had been naturalized for two years were granted the right to vote for candidates for the Second Volksraad.^[29] The Second Volksraad only had a say in regard to specific matters relating to Johannesburg and the mines. The bills of this body only became law after ratification by the First Volksraad. The residential qualification enabling Uitlanders to vote for the First Volksraad was extended from five to fourteen years and the voting age increased to forty years. Only a small number of Uitlanders took the trouble to register as voters for the Second Volksraad.^[29]

Uitlander dissatisfaction persisted. Some of their main complaints were nepotism and corruption of officials. What upset them most was that the prices and quality of essential goods for the mining industry were adversely affected by the government's system of concessions. These included the supply of water to Johannesburg, the manufacture and distribution of liquor and dynamite and the construction of railway lines.^[30] Then too the republican machinery of state was primarily geared to meeting the needs of a pastoral-agricultural community and it did not have the skills to administer a rapidly growing industrial state.^[31] The time was ripe for rebellion. In Johannesburg a Reform Committee was formed, while Cecil John Rhodes, the prime minister of the Cape Colony, arranged for Leander Starr Jameson to invade the republic from the west. The Jameson Raid was a failure and all the culprits were arrested.^[32] Rhodes had to resign as prime minister.

Afterwards the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, took up the cause of the Uitlanders in their fight for the franchise. He appointed fellow-imperialist, Alfred Milner, as British Commissioner in South Africa.^[33] No settlement could be reached and eventually, on 11 October 1899, war broke out between Great Britain and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek.^[34]

Up to 31 May 1900

After 31 May 1900

One of the first steps taken by Lord Roberts was to declare an Imperial Government Municipality for Johannesburg. Colonel Colin MacKenzie was an appointed as its Military Governor. He had to deal with thousands of previous employees wanting to return to the Rand.^[62] On 25 October 1900 the Transvaal was annexed.^[63] Lord Alfred Milner was appointed Administrator of the Transvaal in May 1901. He issued the Municipal Proclamation No.16 of 1901 whereby the town was granted a municipal council of 18 members, all nominated.^[64] In December 1903 they were replaced by a wholly elected town council consisting of 30 councilors. Municipal boundaries were extended to embrace, within a six-mile radius of the central area, mining properties and all vacant land of which the suburbs of the town were likely to develop.^[65] Proclamation 13 of 1902 extended the boundaries of the town's jurisdiction to 79 square miles.^[66]

Very little is known about the British concentration camp in Turffontein Johannesburg.^[67] It was apparently constructed on the site of the Turffontein Turf Club, which was started in 1887 and still exists at the same place. Those who died at the concentration camp were buried at a cemetery where the suburb Suideroord was laid out many years later. The location is 26°16.357'S, 28°01.638'E. The site still exists, but it is surrounded by palisade fencing and the gates are securely locked. The cemetery was vandalized at the beginning of the Second World War, with the result that the gravestones were replaced by a memorial. The memorial is in the shape of seven coffins. One marble slab, erected on 10 October 1957, records that it replaced a marble slab that had also been vandalized in March 1957. Another records that 716 persons who had died in the concentration camp, were buried in that cemetery.

In 1902 Lord Milner also issued a proclamation establishing two supreme courts in the Transvaal. The one intended to serve the Witwatersrand gold fields was initially called the Witwatersrand District Court.^[68] Later it was called the Transvaal High Court. Although the opening of the court was anticipated for 20 May 1902, the High Court building was only inaugurated in 1910.^[69] The stained glass window above the court entrance contains the only remaining coat of arms of the Transvaal Colony. The court is situated in Pritchard Street, opposite Kruis Street. After Union in 1910, the court was called the Witwatersrand Local Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa. At present (2016) it is called the High Court of South Africa - Gauteng Local Division, Johannesburg.

Pre-1948

1948 to 1961

In 1948 the National Party won the general election and this was set to change the face of South African history for ever. The support the National Party gained from the electorate was largely the result of white fears regarding the rapid urbanisation of blacks after the Second World War. The Nats campaigned vigorously for racially segregated cities under a policy they called "apartheid". They imposed stricter pass laws which made it more difficult for black workers to travel to town, cleared black freehold townships and other areas of black settlement in the inner city and built 7,000 new houses in Johannesburg.^[91] By 1956 the Johannesburg City Council had provided 26,134 black families with houses in the seven townships under its control. These were Orlando (14356 houses), Western Native Township (2,250), Eastern Native Township (617), Pimville (1,246), Jabavu (5,100), Dube (1,115) and Mofolo (1,450).^[92] But the housing backlog had climbed to 57,000.^[93]

The logjam was soon broken. The central government decided to rather let land to Africans so that they could erect their own houses on the Moroka Emergency Camp. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research designed a standard house for low cost housing. It was a 40-square-metre four roomed house. Then in 1951 it passed the Bantu^[94] Building Workers Act, permitting Blacks to be trained as artisans in the building industry. It also passed the Bantu Services Levy Act in 1952, which imposed a levy on the employers of Africans and used the proceeds to pay for infrastructure in their townships.^[95] The Johannesburg City Council provided 10,000 serviced sites by the end of 1955. The next year the townships of Tladi, Zondi, Dhlamini, Chiawelo and Senoane were laid out to provide 28,888 people with accommodation. In 1957 Jabulani, Phiri and Naledi followed. By 1958 Moroka and all shelters in Orlando had been cleared. But formal housing was lagging behind and by 1954 only 3,000 had been provided. Then Sir Ernest Oppenheimer was invited to visit Moroka. Sir Ernest was aghast and he arranged with other mining companies to join Anglo-American in providing the city with a loan of £3 million to be repaid over thirty years. Between 1954 and 1959 24,000 additional houses were built and 14,000 of them were financed by these loans.^[96]

The first Group Areas Act was promulgated on 7 July 1950, and it was implemented over a period of several years. The Act empowered the Governor-General to declare certain geographical areas to be for the exclusive occupation of specific racial groups. In particular the statute identified three such racial groups: whites, coloureds and natives. The Act permitted the removal of person from an area reserved for persons of a different racial group. This Act was repealed and re-enacted in consolidated form as the Group Areas Act, 1957. The townships of Meadowlands and Diepkloof were built by the central government. Between 1956 and the early 1960s 23,995 houses were built, particularly for those Blacks evicted from Sophiatown, Martindale, Newclare and Western Native Township in terms of the Group Areas Act.^[96] The Johannesburg City Council (controlled by the opposition United Party) would have nothing to do with the forced removals. So it was done by the government's Natives Resettlement Board. Subsequently, the Board administered those two townships.^[97]

Before 1948 the township of Dube was set aside as an area where wealthier Africans could obtain freehold title and build their own houses. The National Party put a stop to this and changed it to 30-year leaseholds. By 1954 African residents had built 2,500 houses from their own resources. The top-of-the-range houses cost around £1,500 compared to the £250 of the "matchbox" houses in other townships.^[98]

In 1959 Mr. Carr, the city council's manager of Non-European Affairs, launched a competition to find a new name for the council's showpiece of slum clearance. He offered a prize of £10. After four years of hot arguments the naming committee decided to call it Soweto, an abbreviated version of South-Western Townships.^[98]

The 1957 Alexandra bus boycott was a protest undertaken against the Public Utility Transport Corporation (PUTCO) by the people of Alexandra. The bus boycott lasted from January 1957 to June 1957. At its height, 70,000 township residents refused to ride the local buses to and from work. For many people this daily journey to downtown Johannesburg was a twenty-mile round trip.

In the 1950s the Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom) decided to move its headquarters from the centre of town to Braamfontein. ESCOM acquired a whole block fronting on Smit, Harrison, Loveday and Wolmarans Streets, a site formerly occupied by a dairy. The cost of the site was £261 220 and the building cost was £1 854 620. The building was completed in 1958 and was 17 storeys high. It was called Eskom Centre.^[99]

Randburg was founded in 1959 as a new municipality of 32 suburbs northwest of Johannesburg. Although economically linked to Johannesburg, residents chose to create their own town council. The name Randburg was chosen in a competition, and is derived from the South African Rand currency, which was introduced at around the same time that the new municipality was established. Randburg was a stronghold of the National Party during the apartheid era.

On 31 May 1961 the Union of South Africa became the Republic of South Africa.

1961 to 1969

The Albert Hertzog Tower in Brixton Johannesburg was completed in 1962. It is 237-metre-high (778 ft) high concrete radio and (now) television tower. The first transmission took place on 22 December 1961. Presently 18 FM programs and 7 TV stations are broadcast from there. When Albert Hertzog fell into disfavour with the government, it was called the Brixton Tower. At present it is called the Sentech Tower.

In 1964 the Johannesburg Botanical Garden was established in the suburb of Emmarentia. The Emmarentia Dam forms part of the Garden. The Garden is best known for its roses.

The Rand Afrikaans University was founded in 1966. Its first campus was on the erstwhile premises of South African Breweries in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Later it moved to its new campus in Auckland Park. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) and the Soweto and East Rand campuses of Vista University.

1970 to 1979

The Standard Bank Centre is in Fox and Simmond Streets in central Johannesburg. During the excavation, three stories below ground level, they came across an old stope. It was part of the workings of the old Ferreira Mine. The building's foundations were stabilised by backfilling the No. 1 level of the workings with concrete grout, but part of the stope was preserved as a museum.^[5] The building was completed in 1970. It was constructed by first building a central core and cantilever arms and then suspending the floors from the arms. The Centre houses a renowned art gallery.

The enormous Carlton Centre, built at a cost of R88 million, contained a fifty-storey office tower, the thirty-storey luxury Carlton Hotel, a five-storey Garlicks department store, three-and-a-half-acre public plaza with a two-story underground shopping centre beneath it and parking garages with space for 2000 cars. The Carlton Hotel (Johannesburg) opened for business on 1 October 1972.

Ponte City is a skyscraper in the Berea neighbourhood, just next to Hillbrow. It was built in 1975 to a height of 173 m (567.6 ft), making it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa.

In 1971 the South African Broadcasting Corporation was eventually allowed to introduce a television service. When television was finally introduced, there was only one channel with airtime divided evenly between English and Afrikaans, alternating between the two languages. Test transmissions in Johannesburg began on 5 May 1975, followed in July by ones in Cape Town and Durban. Nationwide services finally commenced on 5 January 1976.

In 1971 Parliament passed the Black Affairs Administration Act, No. 45 of 1971. In terms of this Act the central government appointed the West Rand Administration Board to take over the powers and obligations of the Johannesburg City Council in respect of Soweto.^[100] As chairman of the board it appointed Manie Mulder, a political appointment of a person who had no experience of the administration of native affairs.^[101]

The Soweto Uprising was a series of protests led by high school students in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools. It is estimated that 20,000 students took part in the protests. The number of protesters killed by police was officially given as 176, but estimates of up to 700 have been made. In remembrance of these events, 16 June is now a public holiday in South Africa. A thirteen year old Black boy, Hector Pieterson, is the iconic first victim of police brutality, but Dr Melville Edelstein, who had devoted his life to social welfare among blacks, was soon forgotten. He was stoned to death by the mob and left with a sign around his neck proclaiming "Beware Afrikaners".

Following the riots the government founded three community councils, namely Soweto proper, Dobsonville and Diepmeadow (the latter for the townships of Diepkloof and Meadowlands). When elections were held for their councils, only 16% of voters in Diepmeadow and 6% in Soweto went to the polls. In 1978 the government transferred local administrative powers to the three councils, but their decisions had to be ratified by the Minister of Plural Relations.^[102] In 1983 the community councils acquired full local government status in terms of the Black Local Authorities Act, No. 102 of 1982^[103]

Pursuant to the Group Areas Act, Pageview (previously a part of Vrededorp) was declared a white group area on 27 July 1956. The result was that all "non-whites" became "disqualified persons" in Pageview and were obliged to leave the area.^[104] Between 1964 and 1970 all non-white (mainly Indian) residents were issued ejectment orders. Some moved to the new Indian suburb of Lenasia, while others resisted the orders.^[105] The government tried to force the removal by closing all the Indian schools in the Pageview area.^[106] During the period 1974 to 1981 the government gradually removed all Indians from their homes and shops and dumped them in Lenasia.^[107] Bulldozers moved in and demolished most of the structures.^[108] One of the structures not demolished, was a shop belonging to the Surtees outfitters. It is now the Fietas Museum.

1980 to 1989

Midrand was established as a municipality in 1981 (in an area known as Halfway House, after its position between Pretoria and Johannesburg), but ceased to be an independent town in the restructuring of local government that followed the end of apartheid in 1994. It was incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in 2000.

In 1982 Parliament passed the Black Local Authorities Act, No. 102 of 1982. In terms of this Act the City Council of Soweto came into being.^[109]

1990 to 1994