title: 1888 in South Africa
text: # 1888 in South Africa
  
  The following lists events that happened during 1888 in South Africa.
  
  ## Incumbents
  
  * Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Hercules Robinson.
  * Governor of the Colony of Natal: Arthur Elibank Havelock.
  * State President of the Orange Free State: Jan Brand (until 14 July), Pieter Jeremias Blignaut (starting 14 July).
  * State President of the South African Republic: Paul Kruger.
  * Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Gordon Sprigg.
  
  ## Events
  
  ### March
  
  * 13 – De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. is founded in Kimberley.
  
  ### October
  
  * 30 – Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company obtains Matabeleland from Lobengula in the Rudd Concession, named after Charles Rudd.
  
  ### Unknown date
  
  * The Eastern Province Rugby Union is founded.
  * The town of Amersfoort is established around a Dutch Reformed Church built in 1876.
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * 26 April – William Wellington Gqoba, author, dies at Lovedale near Alice.
  * 9 July – Sir Jan Brand, 4th president of the Orange Free State. (b. 1823)
  
  ## Railways
  
  ### Locomotives
  
  Two new 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Natal Government Railways (NGR):
  
  * The locomotive named Havelock, built in the Durban workshops and known as Hairy Mary during the Second Boer War, is the first locomotive to be designed and built in South $Africa.^{:90–91}$
  * The first five of 100 Class D 4-8-2 tank locomotives, the first in the world to have the Mountain type wheel $arrangement.^{:90–93}$
  