DURBAN  TO  JOHANNESBURG 
 via  CHARLESTOWN  -  SOUTH AFRICA

GEORGE BULLOUGH  -  WORLD TOUR 1892 – 1895

Time of visit: September 1893

Written and researched by George W. Randall, co-founder in July 1996 and former 

Vice Chairman Kinloch Castle Friends' Association.

Article 24 of 28  *  Published in the Lancashire (England) 

Accrington Gazette on the 31^st of October 1896.

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CHARLESTOWN
Album IX  *  Image 19  *  Above and below detail from original 7 x 5 inches.

The Railway Magazine - Natal Railways 1898

In the 1890’s a desperate race for trade began between the three major city ports of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth in order 
to complete a railway link to the 
newly discovered gold fields of Johannesburg. 
Despite difficult terrain and steep gradients requiring numerous reversing stations, the line from Durban reached the Transvaal border first, but President Paul Kruger refused permission to proceed until his line from Pretoria to Lourenco Marques (Delagoa Bay) in Mozambique was completed. 
The town that grew around the border impasse was named Charlestown in honour of 
Sir Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell, G.C.M.G., (1836-1899), from 1889 to 1893 seventh Governor of Natal. With the completion of the line to Johannesburg in 1895 Charlestown’s importance as a busy rail junction and customs post between Natal and Transvaal quickly faded.

Customs tariffs were finally abolished in 1910 when the Union of South Africa came into being.

Until the remaining 135 miles of line was opened in 1895 travellers completed their 

journey to Johannesburg by stage coach.

CHARLESTOWN
Album IX  *  Image 19  *  Detail from original.

REVERSING STATION EN-ROUTE FOR JOHANNESBURG, NATAL
Album IX  *  Image 15  *  Detail from original 7 x 5 inches.

The Durban to Johannesburg train would come into the Reversing Station via the top loop

and proceed along the straight at left. The points would be changed and it would reverse

onto the straight right. The points would be changed again and the train would proceed to Johannesburg along the track right.

The system alleviated the need for a curve on a severe incline thus minimising gradient.

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Article twenty-four continues the recollections of the 1892-1895 world tour made by

George Bullough, (later Sir George, Baronet, Kinloch Castle, Isle of Rum, Scotland)

and his travelling companion, Robert Mitchell, in a series of twenty-eight articles 
by Mitchell published in the local Lancashire newspaper the Accrington Gazette in 1896.

Explanatory notes written from first-hand research by George W. Randall.

In 1893 the Durban to Johannesburg rail line terminated at Charlestown,

321 miles from Durban. Following much political wrangling construction

of the Charlestown to Johannesburg section commenced on the first day of

June 1894 and opened for business in December 1895.

Previously, and at the time of George Bullough and Robert Mitchell’s visit,  the

135 miles from Charlestown to Johannesburg had to be completed by stage coach.

VAN REENAN’S PASS DRAKENSBURG - EN-ROUTE TO JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 28  *  Detail from original 7 x 4 inches.

The Pass, its summit at 5,800 feet above sea level, was was used as a migratory route for herds of wild animals from the Orange Free State to KwaZulu in winter and back again in summer.

Frans van Reenan, after whom the Pass is named, farmed nearby and trekked his cattle inland

using the paths used by the migrating animals. Van Reenan assisted the transport riders surveying a route for wagons carrying supplies to the mines and crushing mills around Johannesburg following discovery of gold at Witwatersand by Jan Bantjes in 1884.

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Kinloch Castle, Isle of Rum, Scotland, the late Victorian Highland home of 
Sir George Bullough, Baronet, 1870-1939.

Built between 1896 and 1900 its halcyon days abruptly ended with the outbreak of World War I.
Saved from demolition due to its remote island location, the fate of so many of its mainland contemporaries; it remains a unique and fully furnished time capsule of the Edwardian Era.

  
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Illustrated with a selection of images from the twenty volume photographic record

of the three year-long tour in the library at Kinloch Castle,
 copies of which are in the George W. Randall Archive.

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MAIN LINE NATAL RAILWAY

Album IX  *  Image 16  *  Detail from original 7 x 5 inches.

  
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AMAJUBA HILL
Album IX  *  Image 17  *  Size 7 x 5 inches.

Original photograph by Benjamin William Caney, West Street, Durban.

Amajuba Hill, Zulu for “the hill of doves”, is a mountain in Northern Natal, part of the Drakensberg range which rise to 7,000 feet (2,150 metres) above sea level. The hill itself stands about 2,000 feet above its immediate surroundings making it a strategic point overlooking Laing’s Nek, the pass through the mountains, eight miles south of the Transvaal border.

At a varying elevation of 5,400 to 6,000 feet Laing’s Nek is the lowest part of the ridge and

prior to the opening of the railway in 1891, which  required a 2,213 foot long tunnel*

to be driven below the Nek, was the main route between Pretoria and Johannesburg.

When the Boers rose in revolt in December 1880 they occupied Laing’s Nek Pass in order to 
prevent the entry of British reinforcements into Transvaal. On the 28^th of January 1881 a

British force numbering 1,216 officers and men, led by Major-General George Pomeroy Colley endeavoured to clear the route but was forced to withdraw.

Led by fifty year old Commandant-General Petrus Jacobus Joubert the Boers had 2,000 men 

in the area, with some four hundred fortifying the heights around Laing’s Nek.

Colley tried to force his way through the pass around 9.30am. Battle immediately 

ensued with heavy bombardment upon the British, particularly from a line of entrenched 

Boers who inflicted heavy losses. By noon the battle was over. 

The Boers reported losses of 14 killed and 27 wounded, while the British counted 84 killed 

(including many of General Colley’s staff), 113 wounded and two captured.

The Laing’s Nek battle was the last occasion a British regiment took its colours into action.  

* The tunnel was dug by drilling from both ends,  each end with two teams,
when they met their alignment was less than two inches out.

ALSO SEE NOTES 4 and 5.

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COMMISSIONER STREET JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 30  *  Size 7 x 5 inches
Original photograph by: James Bros., Photo. Johannesburg.

Johannesburg owes its existence to the discovery of gold in the local bed of conglomerate
 in 1886 and is named after Johannes Rissik, at the time surveyor-general of the Transvaal.
The 950 mile rail link with the Cape ports opened in 1892, and, after much political squabbling, 
with Durban three years later, a distance of 482 miles. 
  

Johannesburg once had so many galvanized iron houses and stores that it was called the 

“tin town with a golden cellar.” By the early 1900’s it was the largest African city south of Cairo, 

its public buildings comparing favourably with any on the continent.

PALACE BUILDINGS JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 4  *  Size 8 x 6 inches  *  Detail below.

Palace Building, an ornate, gabled corner property facing Rissick Street (left) and Pritchard Street (right), was the first three storey development in Johannesburg, 

its ninety-three foot high tower, earning it the nickname the 

Rand Eiffel Tower.

Commissioned by real estate developer, William Gwynne Evans, it bears the date 1889 above the third window from the left facing Pritchard Street and above the first floor window of the tower.

Construction was overseen by architects John Stanislaus Donaldson, born in Bloemfontein,
 a pioneer architect in Johannesburg, and Johannes Victor Lindhorst, born in Berlin, who arrived in the city in 1883 aged twenty-three.

Three properties are  identifiable in Rissik Street,
 (L-R) Hugh Pollack & Co.; Handel House Music Warehouse; and B. Danziger. 
The far right business facing Pritchard Street belongs to the Singer Sewing Machine Company, 
next door the sign reads: Palace Building Room - the first and top floor used for accommodation. 
R. G. Wehrley ran the first shop (with sun blinds) selling jewellry and fancy goods.

To modern day regret of many, Palace Buildings was demolished circa 1957.

Of all the 600 or so photographs in the twenty albums this is the only one to depict a bicycle!  

PALACE BUILDINGS JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 4  *  Size 8 x 6 inches  *  Detail.

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PALACE BUILDINGS JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 4  *  Detail Rissik Street from full size 8 x 6 inches

Three properties are  identifiable in Rissik Street,

 (L-R) Hugh Pollack & Co.; Handel House Music Warehouse; and B. Danziger. 

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POST OFFICE JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 3  *  Detail from original - size 8 x 5½ inches 

THE MARKET SQUARE JOHANNESBURG

Album IX  *  Image 2  *  Detail from original - size 8 x 6 inches 

The premises in the background: Southern Auction Mart;

 P. Henwood Son & Co., vendors of farm supplies and equipment; and,

bordering the square (right) was the substantial stone built premises of 

Hudson, Scott, Guthrie & Co. 

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REFERENCES:

Golden South Africa or The Gold Fields Revisited ... Edward P. Mathers 1888
Impressions of South Africa – James Bryce 1899
The Railway Engineer - Volume XVI - February 1895
The First Railway in South Africa - Facts About Durban
Debates of the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Natal - Vol. XXIII  1895

         Natal: An Illustrated Official Railway Guide and Handbook of  General Information -

                                                                                 Edited by C. W. Francis Harrison 1903
Colony of Natal - Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council - Volume IV 1896
George W. Randall Research and Photographic Archive 1992-2018
The Railway Magazine - The Railway System of Natal Volume II 1898
Encyclopædia Britannica 11^th Edition


POSTED BY GEORGE W. RANDALL ON THIS 
VERY SPECIAL DAY - THURSDAY 17^th  MAY 2018