Whittlesea is a semi-rural town situated in the Hewu district, 37 km south of Queenstown (now called Komani), Eastern Cape Province,

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 ...

. The town is made up of the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

s Ekuphumleni, Bhede, Extension 4, Extension 5 and Sada. The town falls under the

Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality is a local municipality of South Africa. It was established after the August 2016 local elections by the merging of Tsolwana, Inkwanca, Lukhanji local municipalities. Politics The municipal council consists o ...

which is under the

Chris Hani District Municipality Chris Hani is a landlocked district situated in the centre of the Eastern Cape and is made up of eight local municipalities. Most of the communities live in rural areas. The landscape ranges from moist uplands and grassland hills to the arid Ka ...

. Surrounding Whittlesea are 36 villages which make up the Hewu (meaning "flat land' in Xhosa) district.

History

Founded in 1849, Whittlesea was as a military outpost created to protect white settlers during the

Frontier War Frontier war may refer to: * The Xhosa Wars, (1779–1879) also known as the Cape Frontier Wars; * The Australian frontier wars, (1788–1934) * The Western theater of the American Revolutionary War The Western theater of the American Revolu ...

of 1850–1853. The town was named after Whittlesea in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, birthplace of Sir Harry Smith (1787-1860), Governor of the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, 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 i ...

from 1847 to 1852. A British officer fortified five houses during the War of Mlanjeni (1850 to 1853), when the Xhosas besieged the settlement. One of these, which now forms part of the Post Office Complex,is still standing. Between 1948- 1994, at the height of the apartheid regime in South Africa, Whittlesea belonged to the former Ciskei, a bantustan/ homeland established in 1961 under the Promotion of Self-Government Act of 1959. Until 1994, there was no formal political organisation in Whittlesea. The Department of Internal Affairs facilitated decisions around land use, services and rates in the townships through township managers. After South Africa's first democratic election, Whittlesea became governed by a council. Nowadays the town is under the

which covers areas such as

Tarkastad Tarkastad is a Karoo semi-urban settlement situated on the banks Tarka River in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Tarkastad is on a plain to the north of the Winterberg mountain range on the R61 between Cradock and Queenstown and only ...

& Queenstown

Landmarks

Hewu Hospital Hewu Hospital is a Provincial government funded hospital in Whittlesea, Eastern Cape in South Africa. The hospital departments include Emergency department, Paediatric ward, Maternity ward, Out Patients Department, Surgical Services, Medical ...

(formerly operated by ''Lifecare'', but provincialized since 2010) is to be found only 4 km on the road to Ekuphumleni Township. * Whittlesea Library. Located at the municipality offices, the library caters for the town and the surrounding villages. *

Walter Sisulu University Walter Sisulu University (WSU) is a university of technology and science located in Mthatha, East London (Buffalo City), Butterworth and Komani (Queenstown) in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, which came into existence on 1 July 2005 as a result o ...

Whittlesea campus * Whittlesea Police Station * Department of Home Affairs * Harrison Hope. Opened in 2009, the wine estate located on Harrison Farm outside of Whittlesea is the first wine estate in the Eastern Cape. * Inkosi Wine is housed at the Shiloh Irrigation Scheme and was launched on 19 April 2017.

Economy

Whittlesea functions as a central town, providing services and shopping facilities to the surrounding villages. The inhabitants of the town rely on the neighbouring town of Queenstown for their economic needs. Due to the failure of the factories built by the Taiwanese in Sada in the 1990s, the underutilisation of small business complexes, a lack of funding and a lack of natural resources, Whittlesea has become a source of migrant labour. However, projects started by The South African National Roads Agency Ltd (SANRAL) and Expanded Public Works Programmes have brought hope to the area.

Demographics

The following statistics describing Whittlesea are from the 2011 census. * Area: * Population: 14756 : * Households: 9,473:

Villages

Some of the villages surrounding Whittlesea include; *Oxton village *Nyana * Lower Didimana * Upper Didimana * Kamastone * Bulhoek (Ntabelanga, Qhwabhi, Stratweni) * Romanslaagte * Tsitsikama * KuzaNgqokwe * Phelandaba * McBright * Mcewula * KwaSemi * Ensaam * Thornhill * EZola * Lower Hukuwa * Upper Hukuwa * Ekuphumleni (Dongwe) * Sada * Tambo * Cimezile * Ngcamnga * Mtha * KuNdlambe *

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

*Nkwankwankwa *Muswa * Mthwakazi *Hekeni (Hackney) *Zweledinga *Yonda *Dyamala *eMabheleni *

Mbekweni Mbekweni is a township situated between Wellington and Paarl in the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2011 it had a population of 30,875 residents in 8,339 households. Paarl, Mbekweni and Wellington form a continuous urban area within t ...

*Gallawater *Long dry *Ngojini *Qawukeni *Upper Lahlangubo *eChibini * Sihlabeni *Zangqokhwe *Lower Lahlangubo

External links

Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council
Fani ( Bradloof)

References

{{Authority control Populated places in the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality