Part 26 in our series on William Hills: Hills returns to ‘civilisation’ in Pretoria
The year was 1898, and Hills had left the Krugersdorp Advertiser to take up a position at the fledgling Pretoria News.
Looking back on the early days on the West Rand, William Hills doubted any town in South Africa would ever witness the like again.
“In the eyes of my mind, I still see those wonderful sunsets due to the amount of dust in the air; the long teams of oxen dragging heavy wagons, the streets crowded with miners, the vigorous and cosmopolitan life of the place; the scraps and shootings and hold-ups.
“But I also remember that Krugersdorp showed how Boer and Uitlander (British expatriate) could live happily together and that differences of tongue and political opinion need not mean personal differences,” Hills recalled in a story about his life as a journalist.
ALSO READ: Part 23 in our series on William Hills: staking claims during the Rand gold rush
“I remember happy home gatherings in which both races (Afrikaner and English) united, the children playing together and the many kindly acts shown to me, a young stranger in a strange land, by people of the older population.”
But, after Krugersdorp’s “perpetual dust and turmoil and rough and ready methods”, Pretoria was like “a return to civilisation”, Hills wrote.
The year was 1898, and Hills had left the Krugersdorp Advertiser to take up a position at the fledgling Pretoria News, at the invitation of its founder by Leo Weinthal.
“A more fascinating town than Pretoria, from a journalistic standpoint, in the years, immediately preceding the Anglo-Boer War (the South African War) it would have been difficult to find.”
His new chief, Weinthal, was one of the best-known men in Pretoria and was a close friend of South African Republic (Transvaal) President Paul Kruger.
“(Weinthal) carried much more weight in the affairs of the Transvaal than most people imagined, for when Oom Paul desired to get inside knowledge of any affair of public importance, it was a coincidence that Mr Weinthal would soon be speeding down Church Street (now Stanza Bopape Street) to the president’s house opposite the Dopper Church (Gereformeerde Kerk).”
Hills was employed on the Pretoria News and was also on the Pretoria staff of the Rand government morning daily The Standard and Diggers News, also controlled by Weinthal.
(Article: Carol Stier).
Next time: Hills helps to start a newspaper
ALSO READ: Part 22 in our series on William Hills: when fortunes were made in a day
