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Charles Abercrombie Smith
Sir Charles Abercrombie Smith (12 May 1834 – 1 May 1919) was a Cape Colony scientist, politician and civil servant. Early life Charles Abercrombie Smith was born on 12 May 1834 in St Cyrus, Kincardineshire, Scotland, and studied physics and mathematics at the University of Glasgow. In the 1850s he worked as an assistant to Lord Kelvin on experiments with thermo-electricity but, after a serious health breakdown, he emigrated and settled in the Cape Colony in 1860. He initially working as a land surveyor in the Eastern Cape (near Kat River) for a few years, where he became somewhat acquainted with the Xhosa people, language and culture, as well as with the pressures on their communities. He developed an interest in systems of land tenure that might better enable the Xhosa to combat white settler encroachment, and in the development of Xhosa farming settlements using new crops and livestock. His 1864 proposal, with Charles Pacalt Brownlee, for individual land ownership to replace ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Williams Town
Qonce, formerly known as King William's Town, is a city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The city is about northwest of the Indian Ocean port of East London. Qonce, with a population of around 35,000 inhabitants, forms part of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. Qonce lies above sea level at the foot of the Amathole Mountains in an area known for its agriculture. The city has one of the oldest post offices in the country developed by missionaries led by Charles Brownlee. History For thousands of years, the area was roamed by Bushman bands, and then was used as grazing by the nomadic Khoikhoi, who called the Buffalo River ''Qonce''. Xhosa people first settled in the area during the mid- to late- 17th century. King William's Town was founded by Sir Benjamin d’Urban in May 1835 during the Xhosa War of that year. The town stands on the site of the kraal of the minor chief Dyani Tyatyu and was named after William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saul Solomon
Saul Solomon (25 May 1817 – 16 October 1892) was an influential liberal politician of the Cape Colony, a British colony in what is now South Africa. Solomon was an important member of the movement for responsible government and an opponent of Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme. Early life and background Saul Solomon was born on the island of St Helena on 25 May 1817. Although his family were St Helenan, they had close links to Cape Town. Saul spent his first years at a Jewish children's home in England, where he suffered from the malnutrition and rickets that physically affected him for the rest of his life. He then had a rudimentary formal education in South Africa before beginning work as an apprentice in a printing business. He later acquired the business and built it into the largest printing business in the country, founding the ''Cape Argus'' newspaper. He was also one of the founders of Old Mutual, today one of the largest insurance firms in South Africa. As repr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Colony People
A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. They have had periodic returns to fashion - for example, in nineteenth-century Europe. Roman Catholic clergy wear a type of cape known as a ferraiolo, which is worn for formal events outside a ritualistic context. The cope is a liturgical vestment in the form of a cape. Capes are often highly decorated with elaborate embroidery. Capes remain in regular use as rainwear in various military units and police forces, in France for example. A gas cape was a voluminous military garment designed to give rain protection to someone wearing the bulky gas masks used in twentieth-century wars. Rich noblemen and elite warriors of the Aztec Empire would wear a tilmàtli; a Mesoamerican cloak/cape used as a symbol of their upper status. Cloth and clothing wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fynbos
Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate and rainy winters. The fynbos ecoregion is within the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. In fields related to biogeography, fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% (8,500 fynbos) species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic. This land continues to face severe human-caused threats, but due to the many economic uses of the fynbos, conservation efforts are being made to help restore it. Overview and history The word fynbos is often confusingly said to mean "fine bush" in Afrikaans, as "bos" means "bush". Typical fynbos foliage is ericoid rather than fine. The term, in its pre-Afrikaans, Dutch form, ''fynbosch'', was recorded by Nob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society Of South Africa
The Royal Society of South Africa is a learned society composed of eminent South African scientists and academics. The society was granted its royal charter by King Edward VII in 1908, nearly a century after Capetonians first began to conceive of a national scholarly society. The 1877 founder and first president of the society was Sir Bartle Frere (1815–1884). Fellows are entitled to the post-nominal letters FRSSAf. History The society has its origins in the South African Institution, dating from 1825. The museum of the South African Institution eventually formed the present South African Museum in Cape Town. In 1877, the South African Philosophical Society was founded. In 1908 the society was granted a royal charter along the lines of that of the Royal Society of London and with the title of the Royal Society of South Africa. In the same year, the ''Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa'' began to appear, immediately succeeding those of the South African Philosophic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diocesan College
The Diocesan College (commonly known as Bishops) is a private, English medium, boarding and day high school for boys situated in the suburb of Rondebosch in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The school was established on 2 October 1849 by the Bishop of Cape Town. History The college was founded by Robert Gray, the first Anglican bishop of Cape Town. Robert Gray along with his wife Sophy Gray, founded a number of other schools including the sister school, St. Cyprian's School, Cape Town. The school's scholarship system was proposed by Lewis Michell, a South African banker, who wanted to represent the British culture in the country and create Anglican church schools based on the English public school system. The school's staff were British and came from an Oxbridge background. In 1901, in ill health, Cecil Rhodes was persuaded to establish a scholarship system at the school, where successful graduates could progress to Oxford or Cambridge. More than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of The Cape Of Good Hope
The University of the Cape of Good Hope, renamed the University of South Africa in 1916, was created when the Molteno government passed Act 16 of 1873 in the Cape of Good Hope Parliament. Modelled on the University of London, it offered examinations but not tuition, and had the power to confer degrees upon successful examination candidates. Today, this function still exists within the Department of Music where, for over 100 years, music pupils have been examined. List of chancellors *1874-1876: *1876–1880: William Porter *1880–1884: Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere *1884–1890: The Earl of Carnarvon *1890–1898: Sir Langham Dale *1898–1901: Justice Charles Thomas Smith *1901–1912: the Duke of Cornwall and York (the future George V) *1912-1918: Field-Marshal Duke of Connaught and Strathearn Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom that was granted on 24 May 1874 by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Of South Africa
The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River colonies. It included the territories that were formerly a part of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. Following World War I, the Union of South Africa was a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles and became one of the founding members of the League of Nations. It was conferred the administration of South West Africa (now known as Namibia) as a League of Nations mandate. It became treated in most respects as another province of the Union, but it never was formally annexed. Like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Union of South Africa was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. Its full sovereignty was confirmed with the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster 1931. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil servant, also known as a public servant, is a person employed in the public sector by a government department or agency for public sector undertakings. Civil servants work for central and state governments, and answer to the government, not a political party. The extent of civil servants of a state as part of the "civil service" varies from country to country. In the United Kingdom (UK), for instance, only Crown (national government) employees are referred to as "civil servants" whereas employees of local authorities (counties, cities and similar administrations) are generally referred to as "local government civil service officers", who are considered public servants but not civil servants. Thus, in the UK, a civil servant is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auditor-General (Cape Colony)
A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executive who acts as the head of accounting, and oversees the preparation of financial reports, such as balance sheets and income statements. In most Commonwealth countries, the comptroller general, auditor general, or comptroller and auditor general is the external auditor of the budget execution of the government and of government-owned companies. Typically, the independent institution headed by the comptroller general is a member of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. In American government, the comptroller is effectively the chief financial officer of a public body. In business management, the comptroller is closer to a chief audit executive, holding a senior role in internal audit functions. Generally, the tit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Charles Molteno
Sir John Charles Molteno (5 June 1814 – 1 September 1886) was a soldier, businessman, champion of responsible government and the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Early life Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molteno emigrated to the Cape in 1831 at the age of 17, where he found work as an assistant to the public librarian in Cape Town. At the age of 23 he founded his first company, ''Molteno & Co.'', a trading company that exported wine, wool and aloes to Mauritius and the West Indies, and opened branches around the Cape. In 1841, he undertook Southern Africa's first experimental export of fruit, loading a ship with a range of fruits (necessarily dried, as no refrigeration existed yet) and sending it to Australia to test foreign markets. The experiment ended in disaster when his ship was wrecked in a storm – pushing Molteno close to bankruptcy. Disposing of the remains of his mercantile businesses, he immediately bought some land in the arid Bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of river systems; the Zambezi River being the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, the Zambezi River flows over the mighty Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist attraction for the region. Southern Africa includes both subtropical and temperate climates, with the Tropic of Capricorn running through the middle of the region, dividing it into its subtropical and temperate halves. Countries commonly included in Southern Africa include Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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