Benoni Bygones: Coughs and sneezes spread disease in 1918
Government closed all bioscopes, schools and churches and public meetings were prohibited.
The City Times is proud to revive a monthly history piece compiled by local history enthusiast
Glynis Cox Millett-Clay, which she has named Benoni Bygones.
In September 1918, after four years of war and suffering, Benoni’s prayers for peace were met with one of the worst influenza epidemics that held memories of pain, suffering, sickness and death.
This influenza, which was widely reported in Spain before other countries, was called the Spanish Flu.
It raised its head among the Bantu miners and by early October had spread rapidly to the town of Benoni.
The dreaded red flag, a symbol of fear, which hung outside the houses of those families stricken with the disease, helpless and bedridden, was their small plea for help.
The sight of corpse wagons riding up and down the streets, leaving with the dead, was a daily sight.
Steps were immediately taken to combat the disease and the town council appointed a sub-committee, which consisted of medical officer of health Dr RA Ross, councillors Goodman, Kuper and Lapping and the town clerk and the magistrate, with powers to act.
The government requested to close all bioscopes, schools and churches until further notice and that public meetings and gatherings be prohibited.
Disinfectants were supplied to the public free of charge.
ALSO READ: #BenoniBygones: The journey of the Mineworkers’ Hall
The only hospital at the time, Kleinfontein, was unable to cope with the epidemic so it was decided that the Central Government School in Howard Avenue would serve as a hospital for the growing numbers plagued with the disease.
Classrooms were emptied of the school desks and were replaced with beds.
Women volunteers were formed and soup and light meals were made in the domestic science kitchen.
The woodwork centre for the boys became a mortuary and a wood and iron shed was added to the boys’ bicycle shed for the storage of the bodies of the deceased for the undertaker to collect for burial.
More voluntary workers, including teachers and Boy Scouts stepped in to help.
The emergency hospital operated under the direction of Dr Ross and Mr JS van Heerden, principal of the Dutch Medium School, acted as superintendent and Mrs Mullineux became the matron.
Nearly 100 women, some of them trained nurses, volunteered to do the nursing and 22 men volunteered to act as male nurses during the night.
These volunteers went around to houses, serving soup and washing down patients, in a desperate effort to save lives. The servant’s rooms were checked and similarly treated.
It was not unusual to find mother, father and three or four children all lying helpless, too ill to help themselves.
The Benoni community at the time donated tremendously towards the wellbeing of the people – products like eggs, milk, fowls, oranges, toilet powders, tea, cake, beef, bread, lemons, fruit, soup meat, flowers, toys and books, and even a case of brandy and bottles of Eau de Cologne.
All were greatly received.
By mid-November 1918, the plague abated and schools were re-opened on November 18.
The government declared, on December 23, that the epidemic had officially ended.
In an article in the Benoni City Times dated October 13, 1967, a photo of all the volunteers was published with the caption: “Many a Benoni Pioneer was the proud recipient of this photograph which, suitably framed, was given as a token of appreciation by the Mayor, Councillors and Citizens to the Voluntary Helpers for the self-sacrificing labours during the Influenza Epidemic, Benoni 1918”.
ALSO READ: Benoni Bygones: How our city became know as a place ‘where strikes were born’
(Source: Benoni’s 75 Anniversary Benoni City Times, Past & Present by Deryck Humphriss/retyped and grammar by Glynis Cox Millett-Clay/date: July 16, 2017, updated October 12, 2024).
