title: 1897 in South Africa
text: # 1897 in South Africa
  
  The following lists events that happened during 1897 in South Africa.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  * Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa:Hercules Robinson then Alfred Milner.
  * Governor of the Colony of Natal: Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell.
  * State President of the Orange Free State: Martinus Theunis Steyn.
  * State President of the South African Republic: Paul Kruger.
  * Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Gordon Sprigg.
  * Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal:
     * until 14 February: John Robinson.
     * 15 February – 4 October: Harry Escombe.
     * starting 4 October: Henry Binns.
  
  ## Events
  
  ### April
  
  * 21 – Sir Alfred Milner becomes High Commissioner of South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony.
  
  ### May
  
  * 5 – Port Elizabeth is flooded.
  
  ### December
  
  * 30 – The Colony of Natal annexes Zululand.
  
  ### Unknown date
  
  * Bergville is established in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains in Natal.
  * "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ("God Bless Africa") is composed as a Xhosa hymn by South African teacher Enoch Sontonga.
  
  ## Births
  
  * 3 July – Ludwig Wybren Hiemstra, Afrikaans linguist and editor of the Bilingual Dictionary, is born in Lydenburg.
  * 26 October – James Leonard Brierley Smith, ichthyologist, is born in Graaff Reinet.
  
  ## Railways
  
  ### Railway lines opened
  
  * 13 March – Cape Western – Mafeking to Ramatlabama at the Bechuanaland border, 16 miles (25.7 kilometres).
  * 3 August – Transvaal – Frederikstad to Klerksdorp, 43 miles (69.2 kilometres).
  * 1 October – Cape Midland – Rosmead Junction to Middelburg, 7 miles 3 chains (11.3 kilometres).
  * 1 December – Natal – Isipingo to Park Rynie, 27 miles 48 chains (44.4 kilometres).
  * 3 December – Natal – Verulam to Tongaat, 12 miles (19.3 kilometres).
  * 15 December – Natal – Thornville Junction to Richmond, 17 miles 17 chains (27.7 kilometres).
  
  ### Locomotives
  
  **Cape**
  
  Two new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Cape Government Railways (CGR):
  
  * Six 4th Class 4-4-2 Atlantic type tender locomotives on the section from Kimberley southwards.
  * A third batch of fifty-five 6th Class 4-6-0 steam locomotives. In 1912 they would become Class 6B on the South African Railways.
  
  **Transvaal**
  
  * The independent Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal Republic) purchases a 4-6-0 35 Tonner tank locomotive named Portuguese from the Lourenco Marques, Delagoa Bay and East Africa Railway in Mozambique.
  * Arthur Koppel, acting as agent, imports a number of Dickson-built 0-4-2ST narrow gauge saddle tank steam locomotives to mines on the Witwatersrand.
  