Whittlesea is a semi-rural town situated in the Hewu district, 37 km south of
Queenstown (now called Komani),
Eastern Cape Province
The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha.
The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in 199 ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
. 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, C ...
s Ekuphumleni, Bhede, Extension 4, Extension 5 and Sada. The town falls under the
Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality which is under the
Chris Hani District Municipality. 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 of 1850–1853. The town was named after
Whittlesea in
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a 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 Northamptonshire to the ...
, birthplace of
Sir Harry Smith
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet, GCB (28 June 1787 – 12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander in the British Army of the early 19th century. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, he is a ...
(1787-1860), Governor of 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 ...
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
Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality 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 (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 ...
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
*Nkwankwankwa
*Muswa
*
Mthwakazi
Mthwakazi is the traditional name of the proto-Ndebele people and Ndebele kingdom and is in the area of today's Zimbabwe. Mthwakazi is widely used to refer to inhabitants of Matebeleland Province in Zimbabwe.
Etymology
The word ''Matabele'' i ...
*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 CouncilFani ( Bradloof)
References
{{Authority control
Populated places in the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality