Parlshoop is a suburb of

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 ...

, around 4 km west of City Hall. It borders Langlaagte to the north and Homestead Park to the northeast. The name comes from the village of Paarlshoop, the oldest private township on the

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 ...

History

Paarlshoop's name comes indirectly from the city of

Paarl Paarl (; Afrikaans: ; derived from ''Parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after ...

in the Boland but more directly from Paarlkamp, which along with Ferreiraskamp (on

Turffontein Turffontein is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History Prior to the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, the suburb lay on land on one of the orig ...

Farm) and Meyerskamp (later called Natalkamp, on

Doornfontein Doornfontein is an Suburbs of Johannesburg, inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre, Region 8 (Johannesburg), Region 8. History The area, whose name means "thorn fountain", was originally the southe ...

Farm) was one of the three first miners' camps on the Rand. Paarlkamp was also called Afrikanerkamp due to the large number of

Afrikaners Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: ...

in the Paarl area, home to the organization known as the

Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Afrikaans for "Society of True Afrikaners") was formed on 14 August 1875 in the town of Paarl by a group of Afrikaans speakers from the current Western Cape region. From 15 January 1876 the society published a ...

. Paarlkamp was built on Langlaagte farm, where the main gold vein was found in June 1886. During the resulting

Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of B ...

, several people from Paarl, including

Stephanus Jacobus du Toit The Reverend Stephanus Jacobus du Toit (9 October 1847 – 29 May 1911) was a controversial South African nationalist, theologian, journalist and failed politician. In his younger years Du Toit did much to promote the Afrikaans language as a s ...

, formed the Paarl-Pretoria Gold Mining Association. On October 23, 1886, D.F. du Toit and H.J. Schoeman got the Association's permission to build a town on Langlaagte, which had been purchased by G.C. Oosthuizen for 5,000 on September 26 of that year. Since the land was part of the agriculturally zoned area - under article 20 of Law no. 8, 1885 - it was not earmarked for mining. The application letter made it clear that the sites were already in use before W.H. Auret Pritchard surveyed them on October 23. The

State Secretary of the South African Republic The State Secretary of the South African Republic (Transvaal) was the principal administrative officer of that republic, officially known as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbrevia ...

confirmed that this was not the government's concern, since the land was private. On January 16, 1887, the

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

house of H.J. Morkel and W.M. du Toit put the homesteads for sale. Paarlshoop - literally "Paarl's hope" - thus became a heavily Afrikaner town, the first city built on the Rand, since the sites were surveyed in front of Randjeslaagte. By the end of September 1886, the camp had already swollen to a population of 100, and in October it housed a

butcher A butcher is a person who may Animal slaughter, slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesal ...

bakery A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who ...

, smithy, and a general store. Most citizens lived in tents and wagons. The Rev. Abraham Kriel built the Langlaagte orphanage on a campus alongside today's church to house war orphans immediately after the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. Today it is known as the Abraham Kriel Kinderhuis in his honor. The area was officially proclaimed a suburb on October 5, 1938, when it represented No. 38 on Langlaagte.

Sources

* Potgieter, D.J. (ed.) (1972). ''

Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa The ''Standard Encyclopædia of Southern Africa'' (''SESA'') is a 12-volume encyclopaedia that is principally about the Republic of South Africa and nearby countries. About 1400 people contributed to the encyclopaedia. The first two volumes we ...

''. Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou). * Raper, Peter Edmund (2004). ''New Dictionary of South African Place Names''. Johannesburg/Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. * Stals, Prof. Dr. E.L.P (ed.) (1978). ''Afrikaners in die Goudstad, vol. 1: 1886 - 1924''. Cape Town/Pretoria: HAUM.

References

{{Greater Johannesburg, communities Suburbs of Johannesburg