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Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as the municipal seat of Ekurhuleni, hosting the municipal council and administration.


History

Germiston was established in the early days of the gold rush when two prospectors, John Jack from the farm of Germiston near Glasgow and August Simmer from Vacha in Germany, struck paydirt on the farm of ''Elandsfontein''. In August 1887, the pair were on their way to the Eastern Transvaal when they ''outspanned'' (rested their pack animals) on the farm ''Elandsfontein'' and decided to stay and buy the land. Both men made fortunes and the town sprang up 2 km from the Simmer and Jack mine named after Jack's fathers farm. In 1921, the world's largest gold refinery, the Rand Refinery, was established at Germiston. Seventy percent of the western world's gold passes through this refinery. Although gold mining gradually wound down in Germiston, to the point that by the end of the 20th century it was no longer a mining centre, the Rand Refinery remains as busy as ever.


Geography


Architecture

The city has a number of historic buildings. Among these are the St Andrew's Presbyterian Church which was built in 1905, and St Boniface Church designed by Sir Herbert Baker, which was built in 1910 (this is the second church on the site, as the Anglican Parish was founded in 1897). The church also houses the historic 1910 English Romantic Norman and Beard Organ. The Alexander Hotel was also partly designed by Baker, using his traditional stone appearance. This building has recently been completely renovated and now houses a well-known law firm. The builder of the hotel, Alexander Stuart, some of whose descendants still live in Germiston, died when the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed in the First World War on 7 May 1915. The hotel thus remains a memorial to his pioneer work in the city over a hundred years ago.


Demographics

According to the 2001 census, the population of Germiston consisted of 139,719 people living in 49,062 households, and its land area was . Of this population, 49.8% described themselves as " White", 46.8% as " Black African", 1.9% as "
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 ...
", and 1.5% as " Indian or
Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
". No language was predominant, with the breakdown of first languages being as follows:


Economy

South African Airways South African Airways (SAA) is the flag carrier airline of South Africa. Founded in 1934, the airline is headquartered in Airways Park at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and operated a hub-and-spoke network, serving ten destin ...
moved its head office from Durban to
Rand Airport , nativename-a = , nativename-r = , image = Rand Airport Control Tower landside.JPG , image-width = 220 , caption = Rand Airport Control Tower from landside , IATA = QRA , ICAO = FAGM , type = Publ ...
in Germiston on 1 July 1935. It later moved the offices first to Johannesburg, then to Kempton Park. The city is an industrial centre with steel manufacture and distribution being the largest industries. It has large railway workshops, a large glassworks, engineering companies, gas distribution firms, and many other heavy and light industries.


Sports

Victoria Lake is better known today simply as Germiston Lake, however, the famous Sailing and Rowing Club retains the name of the Victoria Lake Club. The club is home to some of the best canoeists and rowing crews in the country, including the twenty-time South African School Champions, St Benedict's College. The lake is very popular at weekends for water-skiing and regattas. The lake grounds have recently been re-landscaped and the braai areas and shelters rebuilt. The
WesBank Raceway WesBank Raceway was a motorsport facility situated at Germiston in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It was built on the site of a former horse racing track (Gosforth Park) opened in 2003. The facility featured an oval track, dragstrip, roa ...
motorsports facility was located in the city, but it was sold to industrial estate developers in November 2007. The Raceway was formerly the Gosforth Park Race Club, one of the major horse racing facilities in Gauteng.
Germiston Stadium Germiston Stadium (formerly the Herman Immelman Stadium) is a multi-purpose stadium in Germiston, South Africa. It is currently used mostly for rugby matches and is the home stadium of Germiston Simmer Rugby Club . It is also used for inter-scho ...
(formerly the Herman Immelman Stadium) is also located in the city. This is also the home ground for the Germiston Simmer Rugby Club and has a
tartan track Tartan Track is a trademarked all-weather synthetic track surfacing made of polyurethane used for track and field competitions, manufactured by 3M. It lets athletes compete in bad weather without serious performance loss and improves their resu ...
for athletics.


Law and government


Government


Coats of arms

* Municipal (1) By 1931, the Germiston municipality had assumed a pseudo-heraldic coat of arms, depicting (1) buck in the veld, (2) a scene showing mineshafts, (3) a railway train in a landscape, and (4) a half-tented ox-wagon in a landscape, the quarters separated by a red cross. The motto was ''Salus populi suprema lex''.The arms were depicted on
cigarette card
issued in 1931.
* Municipal (2) A proper coat of arms was granted by the College of Arms in August 1935. It was registered with the Transvaal Provincial Administration in August 1963Transvaal ''Official Gazette'' 2400 (19 August 1963). and at the Bureau of Heraldry in February 1968.http://www.national.archsrch.gov.za The arms were: ''Gules, within two bendlets Or between two ox wagons Argent, three bezants'' (i.e. a red shield displaying three gold coins between two diagonal gold lines between two ox-wagons). The crest was a rising falcon (representing Rand Airport); the supporters were two eland, each resting a foot on an heraldic fountain (a white and blue striped disc); the motto was ''Salus populi suprema lex''.


Infrastructure


Transportation


Roads

Germiston is well-connected to five major freeways or motorways that service the Greater Johannesburg region. These include to the west of Germiston, the M2 motorway that connects to the southern Johannesburg CBD, the N3 Eastern Bypass and the N12 South; On the southern side, the N17 and N3 and in the north, the N12 East and the R24 service the city.


Railways

Being a mining and industrial city, Germiston is serviced by passenger rail and the CBD has several stations, the main one being Germiston Station. The industrial areas are serviced by rail spurs and stations and the Transnet has a large depot north of the CBD in Keswick Road.


Airports

Germiston is also the location of
Rand Airport , nativename-a = , nativename-r = , image = Rand Airport Control Tower landside.JPG , image-width = 220 , caption = Rand Airport Control Tower from landside , IATA = QRA , ICAO = FAGM , type = Publ ...
, at one time one of the busiest in Africa and the southern hemisphere. Today it caters largely for light aircraft and flying schools, but is also home to the South African Airways Museum. As a result of this, two of the earlier Boeing 747 Jumbo aircraft used by
SAA Saa or SAA may refer to: Languages * Saa language, a language of Vanuatu * Saba language (ISO 639 code: saa) Law * Space Act Agreement, a type of legal agreement with NASA * Stabilisation and Association Process, for countries seeking to join t ...
now reside there on permanent display.


Health systems

Germiston is served by the Bertha Gxowa Hospital, a public state hospital. Other private hospitals include Life Roseacres Hospital in Primrose.


Education

The oldest high school in the city is part of the
combined Combined may refer to: * Alpine combined (skiing), the combination of slalom and downhill skiing as a single event ** Super combined (skiing) * Nordic combined (skiing), the combination of cross country skiing and ski jumping as a single event * T ...
St Catherine's School, an independent Catholic school which was founded by the Dominican Sisters under the leadership of Mother Rose Nyland in the city centre in 1908. The school then relocated to Piercy Avenue in the suburb of Parkhill Gardens in the 1940s. Today it is considered to be one of the leading private schools in Gauteng. Germiston High School was founded in 1917 alongside Victoria Lake; from the 1940s to 1963, the girls were based in Fourth Avenue in Lambton, at what was known as Germiston Girls' High School, whilst the boys remained at the 1917 campus as Germiston Boys' High School. In 1964, due to the need to relocate the Afrikaans Delville Primary School, the girls were moved back to combine with the boys in the original historic buildings. The school celebrated its centenary in 2017. Famous past pupils include Dr Sydney Brenner, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize. The Germiston Boys' High School cadet band was known throughout South Africa as one of the greatest school cadet bands ever to compete and parade in South Africa. This cadet band's record of achievement is unparalleled in the history of South African school cadet bands. The band started its success from the year 1952, running up to and including 1964. Often the band would record an average mark of 99 percent overall. (Music performance, drumming, bugle and trumpet ensemble, along with drill, dress and discipline). The school boasted a very large and active music centre for a number of years, which grew largely due to the work of the late George Burgess. The various jazz and concert bands that were the product of the music centre recorded various long playing records, won awards in various Eisteddfods and national competitions and appeared on television. Sadly, due to education department budget restructuring, the music centre was closed. The school still enjoys the singing of an excellent choir. The rowing club, which won the South African National Championships in 1980, is still flourishing, and the oarsmen and women compete at all the school regattas.


Notable people

Notable people to come from Germiston include: * Dr Sydney Brenner, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine *
Hestrie Cloete Hestrie Cloete OIS (née Storbeck; born on 26 August 1978) is a former South African professional high jumper. Her foremost achievements were winning two world championships and two silver medals at the Olympic Games. Career Cloete was disc ...
, world champion in high jump *
Neville Colman Neville Colman (July 30, 1945 – February 11, 2003) was a hematologist and forensic DNA expert who made ground-breaking discoveries about folate and nutrition. He also founded the West Side Soccer League, the largest all-volunteer sports organiz ...
, hematologist and DNA expert *
John Cundill John Cundill (1936–2016) was a South African born television scriptwriter, playwright, journalist and actor. He is best known in South Africa as the television scriptwriter for ''The Villagers'' and ''Westgate'' series. He would later write se ...
, journalist and playwright *
Jeannie de Gouveia Jeannie may refer to: * Jeannie (given name), a given name and a list of people with the name * Jeannie (''I Dream of Jeannie''), a main character of ''I Dream of Jeannie'' ** ''Jeannie'' (TV series), an animated series based on ''I Dream of Jean ...
(better known as Jeannie D), TV presenter, media personality and founder of Finery Gin. * Trevor Denman, an American sportscaster and public-address announcer specialising in thoroughbred horse racing *
Arlene Dickinson Arlene Dickinson (born October 8, 1956) is a South African Canadian businesswoman, investor, author, and television personality. She is the general partner of District Ventures Capital and CEO of Venturepark. Dickinson joined the cast of the C ...
, South African-Canadian entrepreneur *
Mike dos Santos Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and document ...
, strategist, dancer and writer * Ernie Els, golfer who attended Delville Primary School and Jan de Klerk High School. * Malcolm Marx, South African rugby player (2019 Rugby World Cup winner) * Ted Grant, Trotskyist politician and theorist *
Bertha Gxowa Bertha Gxowa (née Mashaba November 26, 1934 - November 19, 2010) was an anti-apartheid and women's rights activist and trade unionist in South Africa. Biography Gxowa was born in Germiston. She first started working as an office assistant in th ...
, anti-apartheid and women's rights activist and trade unionist *
Pierre Issa Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...
, Lebanese South African former footballer * Albert Johanneson, professional footballer and first black player to play in the FA Cup * Bobby Locke, professional golfer, winner of four Open Championships *
André Nel André Nel (born 15 July 1977) is a former South African cricketer who played all formats as a fast bowler. Since retired from international arena, he played county cricket for Surrey. He announced his retirement from international cricket on ...
, South African cricket fast bowler *
Sir Hugh Saunders Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh William Lumsden Saunders, (24 August 1894 – 8 May 1987) was a South African aviator who rose through the ranks to become a senior Royal Air Force commander. RAF career Saunders enlisted with the Witwatersrand Rif ...
, air chief marshal *
Stanley Skewes Stanley Skewes (; 1899–1988) was a South African mathematician, best known for his discovery of the Skewes's number in 1933. He was one of John Edensor Littlewood's students at Cambridge University. Skewes's numbers contributed to the refine ...
, mathematician * Helen Suzman, anti-apartheid activist and politician *
Marie Warder Marie Warder (born Marie van Zyl, 30 April 1927 – 20 October 2014) was a South African-born Canadian journalist, novelist and activist best known for her activities raising awareness about hemochromatosis. Warder founded the Hemochromatosis So ...
, journalist who went on to champion the cause of hemochromatosis


References


External links

* {{Authority control East Rand Populated places in Ekurhuleni Populated places established in 1886