Boer shell passed through St Cyprian’s Church – 1899

Long before the familiar stone walls and tower of today’s St Cyprian’s Cathedral rose on Du Toitspan Road, Kimberley’s Anglican congregation worshipped in considerably more modest surroundings. The first Anglican services on the diamond fields were held in tents during the early 1870s. The congregation later used the Oddfellows Hall on Market Square before plans were made for a more permanent church.

A prefabricated wood-and-iron building was imported from England and, on 28 August 1879, Charles Warren, the British soldier and surveyor who would later become General Sir Charles Warren, laid its foundation stone. The new St Cyprian’s stood in Jones Street, now Phakamile Mabija Road. Its construction did not go according to plan. As the building neared completion late in 1879, a violent whirlwind blew the structure down.

Undeterred, the congregation rebuilt it, and Bishop Allan Webb dedicated the church on Low Sunday in 1880. For almost three decades this comparatively modest wood-and-iron church served Kimberley’s growing Anglican community. It survived fire, the upheavals of the diamond town and even the Siege of Kimberley. During the siege, a Boer shell passed through St Cyprian’s on 14 November 1899, causing damage but failing to destroy the building.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Kimberley’s Anglican community had outgrown what one former rector famously described as its “tin shanty”. Plans were drawn up for the far grander church on Du Toitspan Road that we know today as St Cyprian’s Cathedral. The nave of the present building was dedicated in 1908, ending almost 30 years of worship in the old Jones Street church.

Did You Know?

The present St Cyprian’s Cathedral was not yet a cathedral when it opened in 1908. It became the cathedral church following the creation of the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in 1911.

The old wood-and-iron St Cyprian’s building was subsequently dismantled and its materials sold by public auction.

Queen Victoria of Britain approves Rhodes’ Charter to create the British South Africa Company - 1889

The British Colonial Secretary addressed a dispatch that Queen Victoria has approved a Royal Charter creating the British South Africa Company (BSAC). This was the final step in the process of the formation of Zambesia (as it was then called); the first being the granting of the charter on 29 October 1889. The Charter granted almost sovereign-like powers to the BSAC, under Cecil John Rhodes.

On 30 October 1888 King Lobengula of the Matabele (Ndebele) had signed the famous Rudd concession with C.D. Rudd, a partner of Rhodes, by which, in return for a thousand Martini-Henry rifles, 100 000 rounds of ammunition, £1200 annually and a steamboat with guns, Lobengula had given Rhodes and his partners a monopoly of all the metals and minerals in his kingdom and the right to mining companies to do anything necessary to further their operations. When Lobengula later discovered what the concession really meant, he tried to renounce it, but the British Government paid no heed to him.

After 1894 the country was renamed Rhodesia in honour of Rhodes. After several name changes, Northern Rhodesia formed of Zambia by 1964, and Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe on achieving independence in 1980.

30 days since beginning of the Siege of Kimberley, 1899

​Extract from "The Diary of a Doctor's Wife – During the Siege of Kimberley October 1899 to February 1900" by Winifred Heberden.

Harry Gibbs, on duty at the Rockshaft Redoubt, stopped Mr Rhodes, who was passing, and demanded his pass; read it carefully to the end, (to the amusement of Mr Rhodes's companion), then said: 'Pass, friend, and all's well!' 

The Town Guard's men live up at the different forts, have their rations sent to them, and sleep in tents there. They are kept under military discipline, and occupied with sentry duty, look-out posts, and sometimes night patrols on the veld. The majority of men being much healthier with the outdoor life and regular discipline. 

A native brought in about 100 head of cattle. These natives get round the Boer cattle, throw stones at them, then lie in some hole till they can throw another handful, and so on, till the oxen have apparently strayed too near our pickets to be safely rescued. 

Between 1 and 2 p.m. a hot bombardment began, and shells fell again all round the hotel. One fell in the Market Square, and one in Hill and Paddon's Store yard, covering a native baby, asleep on a blanket, with dust. One went through St Cyprian's Church, making a tremendous noise; whilst another fell in the passage between the Queen's Hotel and the Bar, killing two cats of the name 'Norman' and 'Candle'. These latter and a cab horse being the only lives lost to-day. 

A curious escape was that of the driver of the cab horse; a splinter from the shell struck his leather belt and passed into his waistcoat pocket, there it found a box of lozenges - which it smashed up, but did no further mischief. About 60 shells were fired at us today.

During the afternoon we went to a very superior concert at the Veterans' Fort in Belgravia, where excellent refreshments were served in a flower-bedecked tent. A mystery to most people, these flowers, as owing to the Boers' occupation of the Waterworks, no gardens are allowed to be watered with the water pumped up out of Wesselton Mine. The veterans are well looked after, as their age entitles them to be. Their Commissariat is watched over by Tim Tyson of the Club - which speaks for itself. They have spring beds and many indulgences.

Inquest into the death of Steve Bantu Biko opens in Pretoria - 1977

Steve Biko died naked and unattended on the cement floor of a cell in a Pretoria prison hospital after it had been established that he had suffered some kind of head trauma. An inquest into his death was held two months later in Pretoria. The inquest received worldwide coverage, something that had never occurred before for a person who had died in detention. Police admitted to keeping Steve Biko shackled and naked for two days, but still dismissed allegations of assault. As it would later come to light, the inquest proved to be just one big conspiracy to conceal the real cause of Biko’s death, with all the witnesses and all court officials playing a part. The officials stood by the claim that Biko had committed suicide. It was later revealed that five police officers had, in fact, assaulted him, which led to his death.