Clanwilliam is a town in the
Olifants River valley in the
Western Cape,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, about north of
Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
. It is located in, and the seat of, the
Cederberg Local Municipality. Clanwilliam had a population of 7,674.
Geography
John Cradock, the Governor of the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), 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. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
(1811–1814), named the town after his father-in-law,
The 1st Earl of Clanwilliam, an
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
nobleman.
Clanwilliam is situated at an elevation of , between the western slopes of the
Cederberg mountains and the east bank of the
Olifants River, which is impounded there by the
Clanwilliam Dam. It lies just off the
N7 national road, which runs from Cape Town to the
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
n border, and on the
R364 road, which runs from
Lamberts Bay to
Calvinia
Calvinia is a regional town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa named after the French people, French religious reformer Jean Calvin. The town falls under the Hantam Local Municipality which forms part of the Namakwa District Municipalit ...
. Clanwilliam is from Cape Town by road.
The Dutch Reform Church has been a scheduled national monument since 1973. The mission there used to run a school where
Harold Cressy once taught whilst studying to become the first
coloured man to gain a degree in Cape Town.
History
In 1930, District Surgeon and botanist Dr Pieter Le Fras Nortier, a former
Rhodes scholar
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international Postgraduate education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Esta ...
,
began conducting experiments with the cultivation of the
rooibos plant. Dr Nortier also saw the vast commercial potential the tea held for the region. Dr Nortier cultivated the first plants at Clanwilliam on his farm Eastside and on the farm Klein Kliphuis.
Since 2001, Clanwilliam has been the site of the ''Clanwilliam Arts Festival'', run by Cape Town-based
Magnet Theatre. During the annual one-week arts festival, workshops in fine arts, dance, music, theatre, and performance are offered to children and youth from Clanwilliam.
Clanwilliam is the birthplace of
ZP Theart, former lead vocalist, and founding member of the British power metal band
DragonForce, and lead vocalist of the American hard rock band,
Skid Row.
Coats of arms
Municipality — The municipal council assumed a coat of arms on 13 February 1964
[Western Cape Archives : Clanwilliam Municipal Minutes (13 february 1964).] and registered them with the Cape Provincial Administration in August 1964.
[Cape of Good Hope ''Official Gazette'' 3251 (7 August 1964).]
The arms, designed by
Cornelis Pama, were : ''Or, a fess wavy Azure charged with a bar wavy Argent between in chief an elephant's head caboshed the trunk surmounting the fess proper and in base a trefoil Vert; a bordure embattled Ermine.'' In layman's terms : a golden shield with a blue wavy stripe across the centre and a narrower white wavy stripe on top of that, in the upper half of the shield is an elephant's head with the trunk hanging over the wavy stripes, and at the bottom of the shield is green trefoil, the whole design surrounded by an ermine border with an embattled edge.
The crest was an orange tree, and the motto ''Toujours pret'' ("always prepared"). Both the motto and the ermine on the shield were derived from the Earl of Clanwilliam's arms.
[Clanwilliam Feeskomitee (1964). ''Clanwilliam 150 Jaar 1814-1964''.]
Divisional council — The Clanwilliam divisional council (the local authority for the rural areas outside the town) registered a coat of arms at the
Bureau of Heraldry in May 1976.
[National Archives of South Africa : Data of the Bureau of Heraldry]
/ref>
The arms were : ''Or, on a pale wavy Azure, between two oranges stalked proper, four wavy endorses Argent; a pointe ente Gules charged with a cluster of three cones of the Clanwilliam cedar Or''.
In layman's terms : a golden shield displaying two oranges on either side of a blue wavy vertical stripe bearing four narrow white wavy lines, at the bottom of the shield three golden Clanwilliam cedar cones on a red triangle.
The crest was a bunch of grapes between two elephant trunks, and the motto ''Fide labora''.
See also
* !Kora Wars
References
External links
Clanwilliam website
Clanwilliam Dam
{{Authority control
Populated places in the Cederberg Local Municipality
Populated places established in 1806