Britstown is a small farming town situated in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, in the

Pixley ka Seme District Municipality Pixley ka Seme is one of the five districts of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The seat of Pixley ka Seme is De Aar. The majority (77%) of its 186,351 people speak Afrikaans as first language (2011 Census). The district code is DC ...

Emthanjeni Local Municipality Emthanjeni Local Municipality is a local municipality in the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality district of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Emthanjeni is a Xhosa name meaning a "vein", symbolising the importance of an underground wa ...

. The town is named after Hans Brits who settled here after he accompanied

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...

on a venture into the interior. Britstown lies in the heart of the Central

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

and is located exactly halfway between

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

(via Three Sisters) and

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

(via Kimberley) on the N12 national route, and thus is about 700 km from both cities. The N10 national route crosses the N12 500m outside the town.

De Aar De Aar is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It has a population of around 42,000 inhabitants. It is the second-most important railway junction in the country, situated on the line between Cape Town and Kimberley. The junctio ...

is the closest big town and lies 50 km East from Britstown on the N10.

History

In 1877 a community centre and a church was built on a section of Brits's farm. A private irrigation scheme was started by the Smartt Syndicate in 1885 and liquidated in 1954. The concern built two dams, planted

lucerne Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...

and

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

. They grazed karakul

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

and

Clydesdale horse The Clydesdale is a Scottish breed of draught horse. It is named for its area of origin, the Clydesdale or valley of the River Clyde, much of which is within the county of Lanarkshire. The origins of the breed lie in the eighteenth century, ...

s. In 1961, floods destroyed the Smartt Irrigation Board Dam and it was rebuilt by the government in 1964.

Railway

The railway line from De Aar to Upington and

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

passes through the town.

Notable people

Fritz Loots Major General Frederich ('Fritz') Wilhelm Loots (19172008) was a general in the South African Defence Force (SADF). He was founder of the South African Special Forces The South African Special Forces Brigade, colloquially known as the Re ...

– Army general, founder of the South African Special Forces *

Louis Luyt Louis Luyt (18 June 1932 – 1 February 2013) was a South African business tycoon and politician, and one-time rugby administrator. Having been a rugby player as a young man, Luyt went on to become a businessman. He founded Triomf Fertiliser a ...

– president of the

South African Rugby Union The South African Rugby Union (SARU) is the governing body for rugby union in South Africa and is affiliated to World Rugby. It was established in 1992 as the South African Rugby Football Union, from the merger of the South African Rugby Board ...

, politician, businessman; founder of the

Federal Alliance (South Africa) The Federal Alliance (Afrikaans: ''Federale Alliansie'') was a small South African political party that contested the South African general election in 1999. The party was led by business magnate Louis Luyt, and founded in 1998. They later joine ...

and

The Citizen (South Africa) ''The Citizen'' is a South African daily newspaper published in Johannesburg, South Africa. The newspaper is distributed nationally in South Africa. It has long been considered a newspaper of record in South Africa. While its core readership is ...

. *

Thomas Smartt Sir William Thomas Smartt (Ireland, 22 February 1858 - Cape Town, 17 April 1929) was a South African politician, and founder and leader of the Unionist Party. He graduated in medicine at Trinity College Dublin in 1880 and left for South Afr ...

- politician

References

External links

{{Authority control Populated places established in 1877 Populated places in the Emthanjeni Local Municipality Karoo 1877 establishments in the Cape Colony