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
Hi all! With all the kind responses, I could probably do that! Thank you to everyone- now we just have to place them! For me it is very relevant as I do not know JHB very well at all- and very little about the mining- my mom immigrated to Durban in the late 1930's and although the TVL family used to come down on holiday- we very rarely went up to see them [for obvious reasons!] I lived in Sandton for 10 years and only went into JHB proper twice!!!! Bev -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dennis Pretorius Sent: 18 February 2014 09:06 PM 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
Bev, I'd love a copy of the photograph you mention. I have a photograph entitled 'Witwatersrand miners - second from left Alfred Gibb'.....I have no idea who he was or who sent me the photograph. I would recon it was taken in the early 1900's. I have several other old photographs of Johannesburg should anyone like copies. Please contact me 'off list' should you be interested. Best wishes, Tombi Peck