Brakpan 100: Early years

Originally the area which was later to become Brakpan fell under the control of the magistrate in Potchefstroom.

In 1864 the South African Republic (later Transvaal) decided to bring some sort of order to the widely spread and poorly marked farms.

An inspector, Mr JD Marais, who was based in Heidelberg, was given the task of measuring out the area into suitably sized farms.

Records show that on November 12, 1864, he laid out a farm which he called Weltevreden, on which there were many pans of water in the numerous hollows.

This farm was about three hours’ ride on horseback northwest of Heidelberg.

In 1866 Heidelberg became a district in its own right and in January 1867 Mr JP Botha became the very first owner of the Weltevreden farm.

He did not keep it very long and in April of the same year he sold it to Mr A Broderick.

In April 1869, at the request of Broderick, a qualified surveyor, George Moodie, checked the landmarks laid out by Marais and erected beacons.

The farm was then officially proclaimed at the office of the magistrate in Heidelberg and Broderick owned the farm for 19 years.

• Brakpan Colliery

Towards the end of 1887 a German prospector, Johan Gauf, started work in the east of Johannesburg in search of coal.

On the Reef (as it was later called) gold lay deep underground. Shafts had to be sunk and power was needed to bring the rock to the surface to crush it so that the gold would be extracted.

Steam power was the only means by which this could be accomplished.

Gauf found quality coal about 30 metres below the surface on the Weltevreden farm.

The Transvaal Coal and Trust Company was formed to purchase the farm.

They sank down a shaft on the grounds of what would become the State Mines Country Club and called it the Brakpan Colliery.

The colliery was soon operating and by the middle of 1895 boasted a supply of one million tons of coal to the Witwatersrand.

The naming of the Brakpan Colliery was the first time that the name Brakpan appeared officially on any record.

• What’s in a name?

The name Brakpan is an Afrikaans word describing a pan or pool of brackish water.

There were no less than 10 pans in the area, but only the largest of these where the Brakpan Dam is now situated fitted this description.

In winter the dried-up area of this pan would turn white (brackish).

This pan, however, is a long way from the colliery and there appears to be little to tie up the one with the other.

A copy of the original plan of the Brakpan township as drawn by Mr Ewan Currey, the government land surveyor, in April 1911 states that the township is on “the farm Weltevreden, alias Brakpan”.