Prince Alfred Hamlet is a small town in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province of

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. It was founded by Johannes Cornelis Goosen, who was born in the Klein Drakenstein and came to the Warm Bokkeveld as a young farmer. In March 1851 Goosen bought the farm Wagenbooms Rivier from George Sebastiaan Wolfaardt at the “fantastic” price of £6 000. Ten years later he measured out first 80 and then another 10 plots and sold them for £6 000 each. These plots had water rights and each owner also received one

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or of land to cultivate in the Bakoven River to grow feed for their animals. While Goosen was busy measuring out his plots,

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

's son Prince Alfred visited the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...

. Goosen decided to name the new town after the Prince and so the name Prince Alfred Hamlet was born. In 1861 the first school was established with 42 pupils under the tutorship of Master Strobos. The building, a temporary construction, was known as the “House on Sticks”. In 1871 the “House on Sticks” was demolished when a permanent building became available. It was also used as the church. In 1906 the Prince Alfred Hamlet members of the Ceres

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 ...

decided to build their own church. D.G. Roux laid the cornerstone on 5 May 1906. Each member had to help by donating a delivery of the stones and each family bought its own pew. In 1926 a parsonage was built so that a full-time minister could be appointed to serve this congregation. On 5 November 1954 they broke away from Ceres “Mother” Church and Rev. I.B. Fourie took up the position of minister of the independent parish. On 25 April 1964 Fourie laid the cornerstone of the new church. The new building was opened on 14 and 15 November and the old building was converted into a hall. A Dutch Reformed Mission Church, i.e. a separate church for

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, was established in 1965 and a church was built. The first minister was J. Marais. This church, as well as many other old houses, did not survive the earthquake of 1969. On 10 April 1929 Prince Alfred Hamlet got its own train station.''Statement Showing, in Chronological Order, the Date of Opening and the Mileage of Each Section of Railway'', Statement No. 19, p. 189, ref. no. 200954-13 The Minister of Railways, W.C. Malan, applied the last bolt to the line before the train, filled with school children, left Ceres for the ceremony at Hamlet. A Town Council was inaugurated on 8 December 1874 and on 28 December 1910 the town was given the status of Municipality under the Municipality Law of 1882. In 1926 a Town Hall was built and in 1979 the offices next to it were added. The Hamlet Country Hotel is the oldest business still in operation. Part of the building was constructed in the 19th century and since 1940 the Kahn family has run it.

References

* * {{Cape Winelands District Municipality Populated places in the Witzenberg Local Municipality 1861 establishments in the Cape Colony