Turffontein Racecourse - Did you know?

 Do you remember "Chappies Bubblegum"?  Well before I started to write this post, I thought about the wrappers from Chappies, we always used to read out the print on it "Did you Know?"  Which gave me the title for this post!

Coming from the South of Johannesburg, Turffontein Race Course was one of the grand racing tracks of South Africa.   Every Saturday we would go down to the tattersalls so that my mother and father could place their bets on the races.  We never ever got to go into the Racecourse and I only did when I was in my 20's and it was a great day out to dress up and go to the Races. 

So while I have been discovering my Heritage, I found out that both my Grandparents on my mothers side were in concentration camps in the Anglo Boer War in 1901.   My Grandfather "Johanne Francois Marais" was 4 years old when he was taken prisoner along with his family and sent to a Concentration camp in Pietersburg, Transvaal.    His Mother died in this same camp just after she gave birth to another son, who died the day after her.   Luckily he was with his half-sisters who took care of him.   They were later transferred from Pietersburg to Howick in Natal, I am not sure why this was, but I am sure that winter in a Bell tent in Pietersburg could be very cold.  His Father was shipped to a concentration camp in India along with a lot of the other Boer Men who did not join the war. 

My Grandmother "Annie or Anna Johanna De Villiers" was 3 year old when her family were put into a concentration camp in Potchefstroom. 

Most of the Camps were disbanded in 1902.  

So where am I going with this, well while researching all this history about the ABW I looked to see if their were any camps in Johannesburg, and loan behold there it was "The Turffontein Racecourse" was the Main concentration camp in Johannesburg. 

This is an extract from website for "The British Concentration Camps of the South African War 1900-1902"

Johannesburg was an unusual camp in that it was the only urban camp in the entire system. Like Pretoria, from the start of the war Johannesburg had large numbers of refugees who needed help, and these increased when the British arrived. 

While many people were housed in the homes of the Uitlanders who had left for the coast, some kind of camp probably came into being fairly early, certainly by December 1900. 

At the end of December 1900, writing to Lady Hobhouse, Emily Hobhouse noted that there were rumor's of ‘some sort of prison camps’ in Johannesburg with 4,000 women and children. With its mines and compounds, the town appeared to have plenty of accommodation, and, in the early days, some women were housed in the men’s quarters at Robinson’s Deep and Village Deep.1 In the end, however, the camp was located at Turffontein – the Johannesburg racecourse – where the people lived in the grandstands. 

While they may have been relatively waterproof, the stands were not ideal, being dark and stuffy, and it was not long before the superintendent was recommending bell tents for the inmates. In the meantime, some sheds were built while other people were housed in nearby suburbs, making administration very difficult. Nevertheless, the Ladies Committee was pleasantly impressed by Johannesburg camp when they visited it in September 1901, describing it as being in a ‘charming situation’. 

They were particularly struck by the quality of the accommodation which they considered better than in any other camp they had visited, and they regarded the superintendent as thoughtful and efficient. Dr Franks, visiting earlier in July 1901, commented that ‘If every burgher camp be as well managed as this one there is very small ground for complaint’.

There is also mention of a Grave site where Boers who died in the "Johannesburg" concentration camp were buried. 

There were 115 white concentration camps around the country, most of which were in the Transvaal. The biggest in Johannesburg was at the Turffontein Race Course, which originally started as a camp at the Mayfair School, but it soon ran out of space. It housed around 5 000 people, of whom 700 died and were buried in Maluti Street, Winchester Hills, on a farm called Kliprivier Berg, belonging to Piet Meyer.

 This cemetery was vandalized by an anti-Ossewa Brandwag group during the second world war and was overhauled and re-opened in 1961 by then Minister of Justice BJ Vorster. It now consists of a number of coffin-shaped terraces, with a memorial structure listing the names of the dead. At the entrance there are a number of the old grave headstones cemented into the wall, indicating amongst others, the death of a baby of eight months.

Now how many of us who lived and grew up in the South of Johannesburg or who even lived in Turffontein knew of this? 

Some more information on this can be found on the website for Joburg.org

There is also a fascinating article on Facebook 

One thing that is on my bucket list for my next Trip to South Africa whenever that might be is to visit these sites where the concentration camps were, specifically in the South of Johannesburg and in Krugersdorp..