Watching this thread with interest. Where would State Mines Springs fit into the list? My grandmother, Jane Pemberton, having been widowed in 1927, ran the single quarters boarding house from (approximately) 1928 until the late 1930's early 1940's. Lyn -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: 19 February 2014 10:33 To: [email protected] Subject: SOUTH-AFRICA Digest, Vol 9, Issue 54 Today's Topics: 1. Re: Early Witwatersrand gold mines. (Nolene Lossau) 2. Re: Early Witwatersrand gold mines. (Bev) 3. Re: Early Witwatersrand gold mines. (Bev) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:42:15 +0200 From: "Nolene Lossau" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have a History Book about Johannesburg called "Like it Was - The Star 100 Years in Johannesburg" published by Argus in 1987 ISBN 0 620 09389 7 which is a mine (excuse the pun) of information about the gold mines of Johannesburg. The Star was one of the first newspapers published in Johannesburg - the first edition went out on Monday 117 Oct 1887. Gold had been discovered by George HARRION in February 1886. In the 6 July 1889 edition The Star published a list of gold yields from various mines. These mines were listed as follows: Aurora Chimes Crown Croesus City & Suburban Durban Roodepoort Henry Nourse Jubilee Langlaagte May Consolidated Mint New Primrose New Grahamstown Royal Simmer and Jack Steyn Estate Wemmer Worcester Wolhuter -----Original Message----- From: Keith Meintjes [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 19 February 2014 09:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Dennis, Yes, but: What are the associated genealogy resources? Are the Chamber of Mines or the Anglo-American personnel records available to researchers? I worked at Vaal Reefs in Stilfontein while I was an engineering student at Wits. Let me just stay that mining a half meter thick gold vein that angles at 45 degrees upwards more than a mile underground with oppressive heat and humidity is one of the most terrifying memories I have. On the radio here today (BBC on satellite in the USA) there are stories about "illegal" miners being trapped underground. Desperate people, it seems to me. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 02:32:07 PM EST From: "Dennis Pretorius" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Hallo All Maybe someone would like to record all the Gold Mines - and maybe diamond and coal mines as well - and store that somewhere on a website ? Any offers ? Kind regards. Dennis Pretorius Krugersdorp South Africa Tel - 011-762-8911 Cel - 083-679-8541 Fax - 086-609-8541 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Irene de Villiers Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. On Feb 18, 2014, at 1:37 AM, Bev wrote: > Is there a source which lists the names of the mines [not the mining > companies] and where exactly they were situated? Perhaps a map? > >> From what I can gather, [from death notices] although the men worked >> on the > mines, they did not necessarily live in mine houses? > > Thank you! Bev Bev I do not know how much I coud help, but I lived on a gold mine and my dad, and his dad were mine officials. The largest company of gold mines was Anglo American of South Africa and I know the names of the AASA GOLD mines of the 1900s if that helps? I grew up at Western Reefs mine, a new one which was started by my dad and 16 others, in 1953 in Orkney, on the Vaal river, about 100 miles SSW of Jo'burg. It had three shafts (one way to measure a mine's size is how many shafts took miners up and down). Then came Vaal Reefs, in a town of same name, a few miles away, and later those two were both called Vaal Reefs, a huge mining area with 11 shafts. Klerksdorp is about 8 miles north of Orkney and the largest town in that area. It was also a gold mine but was closed down, emptied, by the time Western Reefs was started. The underground mine workings went all over the place, under Stilfontein town, Westdriefontein, Orkney, Vaal Reefs, Vierfonteyn, and Klerksdorp, these all being towns that were developed above the extensive mining operations and eventually it was all called Vaalk reefs, but the original mines were these town names plus Western Reefs and minus Orkney. Orkney was never a mine name. Western Reefs mine was in Orkney. (Underground railways connected it all down there - so while there were all these discrete towns up top, it was all a big connected area of mining operations underground, and at several levels.) As for housing, that was a company policy matter. Anglo did offer its workers housing, and you got a house with a size and shape according to the job you did. You had to pay rent of two rand a month, just to make rental official that you did not own the house. BUT - when you retired or left, you had to leave the house and so it was smart to plan to buy one at retirement elsewhere. Black workers were housed in apartment style buildings, one for each tribal custom group, with vegetable gardens per culture, and entertainment ampitheatres per cultural group. Workers were made up in teams of ten who spoke the same language. There were an average of fifty languages spoken on one mine as workers came from all over Africa to work on mines. They did 2 weeks above ground training on arrival, including intensive safety and first aid training, while thery acclimatized to the altitude of 6000 feet or more. (I am convinced the apartheid idea was taken from the very effective mine system where workers had a choice of what language/culture group housing to use. But of course the govt made a total controlling mess of things with forced compliance instead of free choice and.......best I shall leave that subject....) Further south in Orange Free State, Welkom area, was a cluster of mines named: Freddies Free State Geduld President Brand Saaiplaas President Steyn Western Holdings Joel And further north circling Johannesburg (now Gauteng) the mines: Western Deep Levels (East Levels) Western Deep Levels (Levels West) Western Deep Levels (Levels South) Elandsrand Those were Anglo mines and there were others but those I rememeber less about. Carletonville mine of course was famous because of sinkholes there. East Rand Mine is at Boxburg. East of the western Deep Levels mines is East Rand mine and still more east, Evander mine. Earliest GOLD mines were at Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton, after which the Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered.......all those ANglo mines followed from the 1886 gold rush. DIAMOND MINES They started 1867 with diamonds on the Orange River bank, Kimberley developed as a centre where you can still see the "Big Hole" In the mid to late 1800s many people staked claims in the area, and each owned their little claim area. The van der Merwe joke about the later develpment of one giant digging at Kimberley, was that VdM won the local biggest carrot grown that year competition, but explained the carrot was too big to bring along to show people. However, they could go see the big hole it came out of.... Diamonds were also found near Johannesburg at Cullinan mine. OTHER MINES SA has uranium mines (esp at Western Reefs, now Vaal Reefs) coal mines (low sulphur which is low pollution coal), vanadium, platinum manganese zirconium rutile and the list goes on. Do you know what kind of mining names you need? I hope you find what you nede. I thought this might be a starting place. Namaste, Irene Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 12:25:10 +0200 From: "Bev" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think that you have a very valid point. I am working in the 1892-1920 period when things were still very " new", and I want to know where things actually were. >From Wiki- I got the following figures for JHB 1886 pop ? 1887 pop- 3000 1896 pop -100000 1904 pop -155642 My initial enthusiasm has been somewhat dampened and the only mine that the position is given is Robinson Deep- which was just off Eloff St. Langlaagte, as in the mine, will obviously be where Langlaagte is now. I know where Simmer and Jack is/was. Considering the huge economic impact these early settlers had, there is very little info on how/where they lived. Bev -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Meintjes Sent: 19 February 2014 09:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Dennis, Yes, but: What are the associated genealogy resources? Are the Chamber of Mines or the Anglo-American personnel records available to researchers? I worked at Vaal Reefs in Stilfontein while I was an engineering student at Wits. Let me just stay that mining a half meter thick gold vein that angles at 45 degrees upwards more than a mile underground with oppressive heat and humidity is one of the most terrifying memories I have. On the radio here today (BBC on satellite in the USA) there are stories about "illegal" miners being trapped underground. Desperate people, it seems to me. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 02:32:07 PM EST From: "Dennis Pretorius" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Hallo All Maybe someone would like to record all the Gold Mines - and maybe diamond and coal mines as well - and store that somewhere on a website ? Any offers ? Kind regards. Dennis Pretorius Krugersdorp South Africa Tel - 011-762-8911 Cel - 083-679-8541 Fax - 086-609-8541 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Irene de Villiers Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. On Feb 18, 2014, at 1:37 AM, Bev wrote: > Is there a source which lists the names of the mines [not the mining > companies] and where exactly they were situated? Perhaps a map? > >> From what I can gather, [from death notices] although the men worked >> on the > mines, they did not necessarily live in mine houses? > > Thank you! Bev Bev I do not know how much I coud help, but I lived on a gold mine and my dad, and his dad were mine officials. The largest company of gold mines was Anglo American of South Africa and I know the names of the AASA GOLD mines of the 1900s if that helps? I grew up at Western Reefs mine, a new one which was started by my dad and 16 others, in 1953 in Orkney, on the Vaal river, about 100 miles SSW of Jo'burg. It had three shafts (one way to measure a mine's size is how many shafts took miners up and down). Then came Vaal Reefs, in a town of same name, a few miles away, and later those two were both called Vaal Reefs, a huge mining area with 11 shafts. Klerksdorp is about 8 miles north of Orkney and the largest town in that area. It was also a gold mine but was closed down, emptied, by the time Western Reefs was started. The underground mine workings went all over the place, under Stilfontein town, Westdriefontein, Orkney, Vaal Reefs, Vierfonteyn, and Klerksdorp, these all being towns that were developed above the extensive mining operations and eventually it was all called Vaalk reefs, but the original mines were these town names plus Western Reefs and minus Orkney. Orkney was never a mine name. Western Reefs mine was in Orkney. (Underground railways connected it all down there - so while there were all these discrete towns up top, it was all a big connected area of mining operations underground, and at several levels.) As for housing, that was a company policy matter. Anglo did offer its workers housing, and you got a house with a size and shape according to the job you did. You had to pay rent of two rand a month, just to make rental official that you did not own the house. BUT - when you retired or left, you had to leave the house and so it was smart to plan to buy one at retirement elsewhere. Black workers were housed in apartment style buildings, one for each tribal custom group, with vegetable gardens per culture, and entertainment ampitheatres per cultural group. Workers were made up in teams of ten who spoke the same language. There were an average of fifty languages spoken on one mine as workers came from all over Africa to work on mines. They did 2 weeks above ground training on arrival, including intensive safety and first aid training, while thery acclimatized to the altitude of 6000 feet or more. (I am convinced the apartheid idea was taken from the very effective mine system where workers had a choice of what language/culture group housing to use. But of course the govt made a total controlling mess of things with forced compliance instead of free choice and.......best I shall leave that subject....) Further south in Orange Free State, Welkom area, was a cluster of mines named: Freddies Free State Geduld President Brand Saaiplaas President Steyn Western Holdings Joel And further north circling Johannesburg (now Gauteng) the mines: Western Deep Levels (East Levels) Western Deep Levels (Levels West) Western Deep Levels (Levels South) Elandsrand Those were Anglo mines and there were others but those I rememeber less about. Carletonville mine of course was famous because of sinkholes there. East Rand Mine is at Boxburg. East of the western Deep Levels mines is East Rand mine and still more east, Evander mine. Earliest GOLD mines were at Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton, after which the Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered.......all those ANglo mines followed from the 1886 gold rush. DIAMOND MINES They started 1867 with diamonds on the Orange River bank, Kimberley developed as a centre where you can still see the "Big Hole" In the mid to late 1800s many people staked claims in the area, and each owned their little claim area. The van der Merwe joke about the later develpment of one giant digging at Kimberley, was that VdM won the local biggest carrot grown that year competition, but explained the carrot was too big to bring along to show people. However, they could go see the big hole it came out of.... Diamonds were also found near Johannesburg at Cullinan mine. OTHER MINES SA has uranium mines (esp at Western Reefs, now Vaal Reefs) coal mines (low sulphur which is low pollution coal), vanadium, platinum manganese zirconium rutile and the list goes on. Do you know what kind of mining names you need? I hope you find what you nede. I thought this might be a starting place. Namaste, Irene Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 12:33:11 +0200 From: "Bev" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What a gem this book would be to people who are researching this period. When I went through the info that I got this morning, I realised that from my research [mainly death cert] there were other mines and also wondered what mine Gold Reef City original name was. The Primrose mine also rang a bell! Maybe a good indication for some genealogist to actually do a book! Thanks Noelene! Bev -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nolene Lossau Sent: 19 February 2014 11:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. I have a History Book about Johannesburg called "Like it Was - The Star 100 Years in Johannesburg" published by Argus in 1987 ISBN 0 620 09389 7 which is a mine (excuse the pun) of information about the gold mines of Johannesburg. The Star was one of the first newspapers published in Johannesburg - the first edition went out on Monday 117 Oct 1887. Gold had been discovered by George HARRION in February 1886. In the 6 July 1889 edition The Star published a list of gold yields from various mines. These mines were listed as follows: Aurora Chimes Crown Croesus City & Suburban Durban Roodepoort Henry Nourse Jubilee Langlaagte May Consolidated Mint New Primrose New Grahamstown Royal Simmer and Jack Steyn Estate Wemmer Worcester Wolhuter -----Original Message----- From: Keith Meintjes [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 19 February 2014 09:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Dennis, Yes, but: What are the associated genealogy resources? Are the Chamber of Mines or the Anglo-American personnel records available to researchers? I worked at Vaal Reefs in Stilfontein while I was an engineering student at Wits. Let me just stay that mining a half meter thick gold vein that angles at 45 degrees upwards more than a mile underground with oppressive heat and humidity is one of the most terrifying memories I have. On the radio here today (BBC on satellite in the USA) there are stories about "illegal" miners being trapped underground. Desperate people, it seems to me. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 02:32:07 PM EST From: "Dennis Pretorius" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. Hallo All Maybe someone would like to record all the Gold Mines - and maybe diamond and coal mines as well - and store that somewhere on a website ? Any offers ? Kind regards. Dennis Pretorius Krugersdorp South Africa Tel - 011-762-8911 Cel - 083-679-8541 Fax - 086-609-8541 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Irene de Villiers Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Early Witwatersrand gold mines. On Feb 18, 2014, at 1:37 AM, Bev wrote: > Is there a source which lists the names of the mines [not the mining > companies] and where exactly they were situated? Perhaps a map? > >> From what I can gather, [from death notices] although the men worked >> on the > mines, they did not necessarily live in mine houses? > > Thank you! Bev Bev I do not know how much I coud help, but I lived on a gold mine and my dad, and his dad were mine officials. The largest company of gold mines was Anglo American of South Africa and I know the names of the AASA GOLD mines of the 1900s if that helps? I grew up at Western Reefs mine, a new one which was started by my dad and 16 others, in 1953 in Orkney, on the Vaal river, about 100 miles SSW of Jo'burg. It had three shafts (one way to measure a mine's size is how many shafts took miners up and down). Then came Vaal Reefs, in a town of same name, a few miles away, and later those two were both called Vaal Reefs, a huge mining area with 11 shafts. Klerksdorp is about 8 miles north of Orkney and the largest town in that area. It was also a gold mine but was closed down, emptied, by the time Western Reefs was started. The underground mine workings went all over the place, under Stilfontein town, Westdriefontein, Orkney, Vaal Reefs, Vierfonteyn, and Klerksdorp, these all being towns that were developed above the extensive mining operations and eventually it was all called Vaalk reefs, but the original mines were these town names plus Western Reefs and minus Orkney. Orkney was never a mine name. Western Reefs mine was in Orkney. (Underground railways connected it all down there - so while there were all these discrete towns up top, it was all a big connected area of mining operations underground, and at several levels.) As for housing, that was a company policy matter. Anglo did offer its workers housing, and you got a house with a size and shape according to the job you did. You had to pay rent of two rand a month, just to make rental official that you did not own the house. BUT - when you retired or left, you had to leave the house and so it was smart to plan to buy one at retirement elsewhere. Black workers were housed in apartment style buildings, one for each tribal custom group, with vegetable gardens per culture, and entertainment ampitheatres per cultural group. Workers were made up in teams of ten who spoke the same language. There were an average of fifty languages spoken on one mine as workers came from all over Africa to work on mines. They did 2 weeks above ground training on arrival, including intensive safety and first aid training, while thery acclimatized to the altitude of 6000 feet or more. (I am convinced the apartheid idea was taken from the very effective mine system where workers had a choice of what language/culture group housing to use. But of course the govt made a total controlling mess of things with forced compliance instead of free choice and.......best I shall leave that subject....) Further south in Orange Free State, Welkom area, was a cluster of mines named: Freddies Free State Geduld President Brand Saaiplaas President Steyn Western Holdings Joel And further north circling Johannesburg (now Gauteng) the mines: Western Deep Levels (East Levels) Western Deep Levels (Levels West) Western Deep Levels (Levels South) Elandsrand Those were Anglo mines and there were others but those I rememeber less about. Carletonville mine of course was famous because of sinkholes there. East Rand Mine is at Boxburg. East of the western Deep Levels mines is East Rand mine and still more east, Evander mine. Earliest GOLD mines were at Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton, after which the Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered.......all those ANglo mines followed from the 1886 gold rush. DIAMOND MINES They started 1867 with diamonds on the Orange River bank, Kimberley developed as a centre where you can still see the "Big Hole" In the mid to late 1800s many people staked claims in the area, and each owned their little claim area. The van der Merwe joke about the later develpment of one giant digging at Kimberley, was that VdM won the local biggest carrot grown that year competition, but explained the carrot was too big to bring along to show people. However, they could go see the big hole it came out of.... Diamonds were also found near Johannesburg at Cullinan mine. OTHER MINES SA has uranium mines (esp at Western Reefs, now Vaal Reefs) coal mines (low sulphur which is low pollution coal), vanadium, platinum manganese zirconium rutile and the list goes on. Do you know what kind of mining names you need? I hope you find what you nede. I thought this might be a starting place. Namaste, Irene Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom. P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220. www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.) "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it." ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------ To contact the SOUTH-AFRICA list administrator, send an email to [email protected] To post a message to the SOUTH-AFRICA mailing list, send an email to [email protected] __________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body of the email with no additional text. End of SOUTH-AFRICA Digest, Vol 9, Issue 54 *******************************************