title: 1901 in South Africa
text: # 1901 in South Africa
  
  The following lists events that happened during 1901 in South Africa.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  ### Cape Colony
  
  * Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa:Alfred Milner then Walter Hely-Hutchinson (governor from 6 March but not high commissioner).
  * Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Gordon Sprigg.
  
  ### Natal
  
  * Governor of the Colony of Natal: Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell (until 6 May), Henry Edward McCallum (starting 6 May).
  * Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal: Albert Henry Hime.
  
  ### Orange Free State
  
  * State President of the Orange Free State: Martinus Theunis Steyn.
  * Administrator of British-occupied Orange River Colony and UK High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner.
  
  ### South African Republic
  
  * State President of the South African Republic: Paul Kruger (in exile); Schalk Willem Burger (acting).
  * Administrator of British-occupied Transvaal and UK High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner.
  
  ## Events
  
  ### January
  
  * 9 – Herbert Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot a British peace envoy and flogged two more who had gone to his commando to ask the Burghers to halt fighting.
  * 15 – HMS Sybille, a 3,400-ton Apollo-class cruiser, strikes a reef about 5 km (3.1 mi) south of Lamberts Bay.
  * 31 – General Jan Smuts and his commandos capture Modderfontein.
  
  ### February
  
  * 1 – Bubonic plague breaks out in Cape Town.
  * 26 – The Middelburg peace conference fails as Boers continue to demand autonomy.
  
  ### May
  
  * 31 – Officially unrecognized Zulu king Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo refuses British instructions to take up arms against the Boers.
  
  ### June
  
  * 18 – Emily Hobhouse reports on the high mortality and cruel conditions in the Second Boer War concentration camps
  * 25 – Boer armies invaded the Cape Colony and attacked the British settlement of Richmond for a day, then retreated as British forces approached.
  
  ### July
  
  * 2–6 – Nine Boer prisoners-of-war are murdered by Australian members of the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Spelonken area near Louis Trichardt.
  * 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 destroys 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.
  
  ### 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 – On Peace Sunday Charles Frederic Aked (1864–1941), 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
  
  * 24 January – Harry Calder, South African cricketer. (d. 1995)
  * 9 September – Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa. (assassinated 1966) (born in the Netherlands)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * 19 May – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first president of the South African Republic and founder of Pretoria, at age 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).
     * 21 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 $SAR.^{:11}$
     * 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 $Pioneer.^{:35–39}$
  
  **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. In 1912 it would be designated Class C1 on the SAR.
  * 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.
  
  **Transvaal**
  
  * The Imperial Military Railways places 35 tank locomotives in service, built to the design of the Reid Tenwheeler of the NGR.
  