Modern History relating to Melville Koppies
Two names are entwined with the history of Melville Koppies-Braamfontein and
Geldenhuys.
Stand on the ridge at the Lecture Hut and look north. There is a wonderful view of
Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. To the east is Westcliff, behind it Parktown.
Northeast are the large white buildings of commercial Rosebank. Beyond Emmarentia
Dam in the middle ground is Parkhurst. Northwest the rectangular streets and avenues
of Linden stand out. A little further left is the large open space of Alberts Farm sloping
up to Aasvoel Kop. To complete the picture, west behind the trees is a tall building,
the police married quarters, and due south over the ridge is Melville. They roughly
mark the boundaries of what was Braamfontein farm.
Pre-1900
Origin of Braamfontein Farm
The early missionaries, hunters and traders exploring the country across the Vaal used
the Missionaries Road some distance west of the Witwatersrand where going was
easier. Even those who turned east closely followed the southern side of the
Magaliesberg to the Hartebeespoort. After 1827 Msilikatzi was a further deterrent.
Fleeing Shaka’s wrath, he had eventually settled on the northern slopes of the
Magaliesberg. His impis cleared the country of people down to and across the Vaal.
They attacked trekker hunting parties and checked the main body of trekkers at
Vegkop in 1836 until in the following year Potgieter’s commando drove Msilikatzi into
the Western Transvaal and then across the Limpopo. Even then the country remained
very sparsely settled until the British annexation of Natal in1843 and Transorangia in
1848 sent a further wave of trekkers across the Vaal. Among them was Gerrit
Bezuidenhout (1822-1876), originally from Beaufort, who in 1851 applied for and in
1858 was granted title of the farm Braamfontein. The name is derived from a spring
(the Braamfontein Spruit?) that flowed out from a dense patch of brambles (indigenous
Rubus rigudus). It was a very large farm (1500 morgen or 3500ha) on the northwestern
Witwatersrand incorporating Melville Koppies. On receiving title he immediately
transferred it to his brother F.J. Bezuidenhout. In 1862 F.J. Bezuidenhout subdivided
the farm into three parts of about 500 morgen each.
Subsequent History
The southern portion was returned to G.P. Bezuidenhout who sold it in 1871 and after
passing through several hands was in 1887 bought by the Z.A.R. Government for 4000
Pounds. The ground was eventually used for the hospital, fort, market, tramsheds,
power station, the brickfields (later the railway yards), the Brixton and Braamfontein
Cemeteries, the university, showground, gasworks and, most recently, the Civic
Centre.
The eastern part, again after several owners, was in 1886 bought by Dirk Geldenhuys
for about 4000 Pounds. He leased part to Edward Lippert, who planted the
Sachsenwald - anglicised during the 1914/18 War to Saxonwold - for pit props. The rest
was leased to the Braamfontein Estate Company that later donated the Zoo and Zoo
Lake to Johannesburg in memory of Hermann Ekstein, a former director, for his
services to Johannesburg. A few years later Louw Geldenhuys, Dirk’s brother, (the sons
appear to have acted as agents for their father, Lourens) sold the eastern portion to
the Braamfontein Estate Company for 300 000 Pounds. The buyer was Lippert, who had
paid for a share of the company with his Sachsenwald. The wheeling and dealing in
property and its escalation in value was typical of gold rush growth. Johannesburg’s
population grew from about 2000 in 1885 to 100 000 in1895.
When further prospecting was unsuccessful, the company sold the ground for
townships. At this early stage of Johannesburg, the social stratification found in most
cities appeared. For the wealthy, Rosebank, Westcliff, Parktown and Forest Town
were laid out on the high ground in large stands, where no shops were allowed. On the
lower ground were Parktown North, Parkview and later Parkwood with smaller stands
and shops for the middle class, while the working class lived in the south in
Turffontein and Rosettenville in the smallest stands among the mines and factories. A
pattern that was to become common for most South African towns also appeared. In
contrast with Europe where the poorest lived in the oldest buildings in the centre of
towns, the poorest, mainly non-white, people lived beyond the brickfields on the
outskirts of the town.
The western portion passed to C.W. Bezuidenhout F.J.’s son and was then bought in
1886 by Lourens for 4500Pounds. The further history of this portion is described below.
The Farm Boundaries
The extent of the original farm can be traced from the boundaries of the townships
formed from it. The northern boundaries of Victory Park (Road No. 5), Parkhurst
(22nd.Street), Parktown North (Sutherland Avenue), and Rosebank (Rosebank Road)
mark its northern limits.
From Rosebank Road the eastern boundary continues down Oxford Road, along the
western boundaries of Killarney and the Wilds to the beacon marking the northern tip
of the ‘Uitvalgrond’. (The ‘Uitvalgrond’ was a triangular piece of unclaimed land
between adjacent farms and in which were laid out the first streets of Johannesburg
that now form the city centre). The eastern boundary continues down the western side
of the Uitvalgrond (Clarendon Place and Diagonal Street to Commissioner Street).
The southern boundary follows the northern boundaries of Fordsburg, Mayfair, Mayfair
West and Crosby (Queens, Bartlett and High Streets), Coronationville and into
Westbury.
From here the western boundary cuts north along the Westdene/Sophiatown boundary,
the eastern side of St. Josephs Orphanage, across the ridge and Westpark Cemetery,
through a corner of Linden (13th. Street) to the western boundary of Victory Park
(Leighton Road).
Subdivision Boundaries
It is more difficult to trace the boundaries of the subdivisions. Township boundaries
are generally along streets, but in some cases a neighbouring stream would seem to be
more appropriate.
The northern boundary of the southern portion appears to run from Clarendon Place
westwards along Empire Road (roughly following the Braamfontein Spruit), the
southern boundary of Melville (St. Swithins Road to Perth Road), the eastern boundary
of Westdene (Perth Road) and the western boundary of Hurst Hill (Harmony Street) to
meet the farm’s southern boundary.
The boundary between the eastern and western parts runs down 1st.Avenue West
between Parkhurst and Parktown North to where it meets the Braamfontein Spruit
then down the Spruit to Empire road.
The further subdivision of the western portion between the brothers Frans and Louw
Geldenhuys in 1891 starts at the northern boundary of Melville, which had been sold
by then. It continues northwards along the eastern boundary of the nature reserve,
Orange Road, then across Emmarentia Dam, possibly along the Braamfontein Spruit
between Parkhurst and Victory Park to the farm’s northern boundary.
The Search for Gold
Davis had found gold at Paardekraal as early as 1852, Pieter Marais in the Jukskei
River in 1853 and others thereafter from Heidelberg to Sterkfontein, but all in small
alluvial pockets or small lenses in quartz veins, none payable The Z.A.R. government
itself, very conscious of the difficulties experienced at Barberton, banned all
prospecting on the Witwatersrand. (This did not seem to apply to farms north of the
ridge like Braamfontein). However realising the difference the discovery of gold could
make to its depleted treasury, it appointed Peter Marais as the official prospector, but
nothing came of it. The government also passed a series of laws regularising the
purchase of farms and mining rights to provide some protection to landowners.
Nevertheless there was a growing conviction among prospectors and some landowners
that there were rich deposits of gold somewhere on the Witwatersrand. On the other
hand judging from the low prices for which landowners sold their farms or mining
rights, many were sceptical or did not appreciate the immense wealth the discovery of
a gold reef would bring or were uninterested. When gold was discovered and fortunes
made it heightened the general resentment of ‘Uitlanders’, which would bedevil South
African politics for a century to come.
An exception was Lourens Dirk Cornelius Geldenhuys (1836-1891) from Swellendam (his
family originally came to the Cape from Germany in 1650) who with his sons, Frans
(1856-1934), Dirk (1858- ) and Louw (1864-1929) settled at Kliprivier near Heidelberg
in 1853. Although a landowner and a member of the strict and conservative Dopper
Church, he actively sought the rich gold deposits he believed were somewhere on the
Witwatersrand and he appeared to have a feel for its geology.
Lourens had visited Barberton and would have become acquainted with the current
theory on gold, namely that it would be found associated with quartz intrusions. In
1875 he bought half the southern part of Wilgespruit on the West Rand. Gold was
found there in 1876 and in 1882 he formed the General Prospecting and Mining
Company of Burgers of the Z.A.R., but it came to nothing. When in 1884 he learnt Fred
Struben was prospecting the area he took him on a tour of the western Witwatersrand,
including Kromdraai, (later opened as a public digging) and Sterkfontein. They found
gold, but nowhere in payable deposits, until they returned to Wilgespruit. Here.
Struben found promising values in a quartz band, which he named the Confidence
Reef. He bought the farm from Lourens and, with a loan from the Z.A.R. government,
set up a stamp battery the following year, but the values petered out and the mine
was closed after a year.
Lourens, expecting the Confidence Reef to extend eastwards, bought a ‘mynpacht’ for
4500 Pounds on the western portion of Braamfontein, whose many white quartz
outcrops looked promising. The ‘mynpacht’ gave him the right to prospect and mine
for minerals and buy as much of the farm as was needed for mining operations.
Lourens exercised his option and the traces of his three sons’ prospecting- adits (clefts
in the rocks), broken rock with blast marks and a platform, on which stood a
blacksmith’s forge for sharpening tools- are still visible in the nature reserve.
Not finding payable gold, the Geldenhuys brothers went further east to the farms
Elandsfontein Nos.1and 2.
In 1886 Kruger, petitioned by landowners and prospectors to lift the ban on
prospecting, set up a commission to report on the matter. Frans attended as the
owner of Elandsfontein and Braamfontein and Dirk as a lessee of part of Langlaagte.
On the commission’s recommendation Kruger declared seven Witwatersrand farms
(among which was Elandsfontein) public diggings. Shortly after Harrison discovered the
Main Reef, the Geldenhuys’ located it on Elandsfontein and floated the Geldenhuys
Estates Gold Mining Company, which was later sold to the Corner House Group.
Emmarentia and Braamfontein
The family then separated. Lourens remained on his estate on Elandsfontein, now
Bedfordview, from time to time selling portions at great profit. His sons fulfilled the
ambition of young Afrikaners of the period. Dirk went farming at Ermelo and Frans and
Louw took over the western part of Braamfontein.
Although on the outskirts of rapidly growing Johannesburg, profitable farming was not
easy. Apart from booms and busts in the share market, which influenced spending and
droughts, there was no established market, which meant hawking produce from door
to door or camping several days beside a popular thoroughfare.
Louw married Emmarentia Botha in 1887 and named his farm after her and built her a
palatial farmhouse from the wealth provided by the Elandsfontein mine. The house
still exists as a National Heritage Site at 14 Greenhill Road as does the family
cemetery in Hill Road behind Louw’s house. The number of children’s graves is a
poignant reminder of the level of medical knowledge and hygiene that time (The
Geldenhuys’ were wealthy yet of Emmarentia’s 15 children only 8 survived to
adulthood).
In 1886 Lourens sold the most southern valleys and ridges to the Auckland Park Estate
Company. After Lourens’ estate was distributed in 1891, Frans and Louw registered
the subdivision of their farm, each having about 228 morgen, the boundary being the
present Orange Road. Servitudes were written into the Title Deeds, which guaranteed
each a half of the water that still flows perennially from the Westdene Dam. The
stream enters the reserve at the head of the Frans Geldenhuys Kloof and, after being
joined by another stream from Melville, flows under Beyers Naude Drive. It leaves the
reserve again under Judith Road and continues down to Emmarentia Dam. It was
probably at this time that the water pipes just above the Old Muldersdrift Road were
laid.
In 1895 both Frans and Louw added to their farms by buying parts of the neighbouring
farm, Waterval possibly to safeguard springs, which irrigated their farms. The
following year they sold the ground on which Melville and Richmond are built as small
holdings. In 1898 Louw, possibly forseeing the time he would sell Emmarentia to
developers, bought the farm Honingklip of 3000 morgen near Krugersdorp for 4012
Pounds. His descendants still farm there and have renamed it Laurent.
Little is known about Frans, but Louw, eight years his junior, was soon a public figure,
highly respected for his knowledge of mining and mining law and business acumen. In
1895 he was elected to represent the Witwatersrand in the Tweede Volksraad which
dealt with finance and mines. He was defeated in the 1899 election before the war
because he opposed the sale of liquor to non-whites, but nevertheless was brought
into the committee that discussed the ultimatum to the British. This is remarkable for
a young man in his early thirties in a conservative society where experience garnered
with age carries most weight.
Louw and Frans went to the Natal Front with the Krugersdorp Commando, but
surrendered when the British took Pretoria in 1900 and Kruger went into exile.
1900-1960
Although the war was to continue for another two years, when the British took over
Johannesburg their aim was to bring the town and the mines back to life as quickly as
possible. One of their first acts was to issue certificates of title to landowners. Frans
and Louw obtained theirs in 1901, which allowed them to undertake transactions in
land. Frans and van der Linde laid out Linden the same year. In 1903 Frans sold the
Western Ridge and the ground for Westdene for 30 000 Pounds and Louw the ground
for Parkhurst. Louw had his farm laid out as a township, excluding the koppie behind
his house, which he loved. But then he changed his mind. This was the time that Frans
built his farmhouse for his wife Judith Grobbelaar and which is now the Marks Park
clubhouse.
Like all who have experienced war, Louw was profoundly affected by it. Unlike many
others he did not become bitter, but instead acquired a deep compassion for those
who had suffered from it. He and his wife became a byword for their generosity to
individuals and institutions.
In 1902 he founded and thereafter supported the Langlaagte Kindertehuis, and the
Braamfontein Government School, which held classes in a barn behind his house until
some years later when it was transferred to Linden and became the Louw Geldenhuys
School.
His greatest work was to build Emmarentia Dam to give work to young Afrikaner
farmers who had lost their farms and then to put 100 of them to make a living on small
holdings where Emmarentia and Greenside now stand. He did not charge them rent,
but applied the “metayer” system whereby they paid him a third of their profits. The
farm was transformed into stately avenues between orchards and fields of vegetables
and pasture. They were never short of water as they were irrigated from Emmarentia
Dam or from another dam higher up the ridge to where water was pumped by a steam
pump. It was possibly the beauty of this scene that held Louw back from selling his
farm.
Louw entered politics probably for the same motive-to better people’s lives. As a
politician he was polite and quiet-spoken even in a heated debate and he had a wider
vision than most. He was concerned about the sale of liquor, particularly to nonwhites, supported the franchise for women and strongly championed General Botha’s
policy of reconciling the Afrikaans and English-speaking sections.
He was a member of the City Council for many years. In 1910 he was elected to
Parliament as the member for Vrededorp, from 1915 to 1929 as member for
Johannesburg North. He even held his seat in 1924 during the landslide against General
Smuts following the 1922 Miners’ Strike.
Louw died in 1929 and his family sold the farm to developers. Greenside was laid out
in 1931, Emmarentia in 1937 and Emmarentia Extension which took houses to the very
top of Louw’s part of Melville Koppies in1945.
In 1932/3 Frans donated the kloof through which the stream from Westdene Dam
flows, the poort through which Beyers Naude Drive runs and a wetland, now RAU
sports fields, to the City Council for a park to be named the Frans Geldenhuys Park He
died in 1934.
In1943/4 the City Council bought most of the ground that had been Frans’ farm from
his heirs and others to whom portions had been sold. This included the western part of
Melville Koppies and the Western Ridge above Westdene. This large open space was
used for Westpark Cemetery, Marks Park and van Riebeeck Park (later the
Johannesburg Botanic Garden).
The Koppies itself was completely neglected. It was used as a dumping ground, plants,
rocks and soil were stolen, vagrants camped there cutting down trees for firewood and
bringing in litter and alien plants invaded it.
In 1947 Councillor H.J.M. van Rensburg, alarmed by the building of houses on the
eastern end of the Koppies (in Emmarentia Extension), started a campaign to turn was
left of the Koppies into a nature reserve.
In 1950 the Director of Parks, Mr. J.C. van Balen, drew up plans for a botanic garden in
van Riebeeck Park. The idea was to include Melville Koppies across Judith Road as it
was recognised that despite the damage done to it, it still had a rich indigenous flora,
well worth preserving. When Mr. Van Balen retired in 1953, plans were shelved and
Johannesburg missed a splendid opportunity. During 1957 it became increasingly clear
that the Melville Koppies were in great danger and that something had to be done
quickly to stop its destruction.
Because of the tremendous educational potential of the area the campaign to preserve
the Koppies was intensified and broadened. Full support was secured from the South
African Association for the Advancement of Science, Wildlife Protection Society,
Witwatersrand Bird Club, Geological Society, National Botanic Gardens of South Africa,
Botanical Society, Transvaal Department of Nature Conservation, University of the
Witwatersrand, Transvaal Horticultural Society, Tree society, Division of Botany in
Pretoria and the Johannesburg Publicity Association and a campaign was waged in the
press.
A delegation from these bodies headed Professor Badenhuizen met the Public
Amenities Committee of the Johannesburg City Council on 9/1/1958.
As a result of this pressure the City Council resolved on 25/2/58 to approach the
Administrator for the proclamation of the area as a Native Flora Reserve in terms of
the Native Flora Protection Ordinance of 1940. A provision for an amount of 1000
Pounds for fencing and 900 Pounds for supervision was to be considered in the 1958/59
Estimates. There were further delays and continuing degradation, but eventually the
provisional fencing was completed, notices erected and the area proclaimed a Nature
Reserve in February 1959.
The Johannesburg Council for Natural History was inaugurated at the request of the
City Council to advise the Council on the maintenance and use of nature reserves in
the Johannesburg area. Councillor H.J.M. van Rensburg was elected Honorary
President in appreciation of his active interest in Melville Koppies, dating back to 1947
and his commitment in 1957 when representing the Melville/Emmarentia ward in the
City Council to getting the area proclaimed a nature reserve.
Sources:
Alkis Doucakis, (1997) The Origins of Doornfontein and Adjoining Farms, Historia 42(2),
November
(1957) J. Gray, Payable Gold, CNA
J. D. Omer-Cooper, (1994) History of Southern Africa, 2nd. Edition, David Phillip
Publishers (Pty), Cape Town.
J.R.Shorten, (1979) The Johannesburg Saga, J.R.Shorten (Pty), Ltd.
Bulletin of S.A.Party, June 1929.
Eric Rosenthal, Other Men’s Millions
Master Plan for the Conservation and Utilisation of the Melville Koppies Nature
Reserve, Johannesburg, 28/6/1994, updated January 1998.