Fairview is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

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 ...

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 ...

. It is a small suburb found on the eastern edge of the Johannesburg

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

(CBD), with the suburb of

Troyeville Troyeville is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a small suburb found on the eastern edge of the Johannesburg central business district (CBD), with the suburbs of New Doornfontein, Bertrams and Lorentzville to the north, Fairview to ...

to the north, Jeppestown to the south and

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

to its east. Commissioner Street, the main street in the CBD, has its eastern end in the suburb. It is located in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.

History

The suburb is situated on part of an old

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

farm called ''Doornfontein''. This small suburb has it origin in the year of 1895 or early 1896 and was known either as Fairview or Fawcus Township. The land was owned by a man called George E. Fawcus who was married to a

coloured Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...

woman and sometime after 1903, had made enough money off the land and so retired to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. He would sell the suburb to J.G. van Boeschoten and J. Lorenz. In the Johannesburg newspaper, ''

The Star ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', stands were being advertised for sale during November 1896 for an average price of £300 but some were priced as high as £450. On the return of Fawcus' wife from the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

in 1912 after her husband's death, she attempted to have the suburb renamed to Fawcus Township but was not successful.

Heritage

There are several heritage sites in the suburb. In Commissioner Street, Fairview is the modern fire station in front of which stands the original fire station tower whose foundation stone was laid in 1906 by Julius Jeppe. Another heritage site is a

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

in Op de Bergen Street and further down the same street, examples of early miners residences.

References

{{Greater Johannesburg, communities Johannesburg Region F