Sol Plaatje University –
A New University in a Historic City
Why Kimberley Matters
Over the years, we have noticed that many of our guests—whether visiting Kimberley for business or leisure—have wondered why this remarkable city has played such an important role in South Africa's history over the past 160 years.
These pages invite you on a coffee-table journey through Kimberley's past, from the discovery of the Eureka Diamond in 1867 and the Great Diamond Rush, through wars, political change and the rise of the world's diamond industry, to the city we know today. They are not intended to be an academic history, but rather an enjoyable introduction to the people, places and events that shaped Kimberley.
So, make yourself comfortable, pour a cappuccino or a cup of chai, and enjoy exploring the remarkable story of one of South Africa's most fascinating cities.
SPU – A University for the Northern Cape
For much of its history, Kimberley possessed many of the institutions one might expect of an important regional capital—museums, libraries, schools, hospitals, courts and government offices—but it did not have its own public university. That changed in 2013 with the establishment of Sol Plaatje University (SPU).
It was a landmark moment not only for Kimberley but for the Northern Cape. Sol Plaatje University became the first public university established in the province and, together with the University of Mpumalanga, one of the first entirely new universities created in democratic South Africa.
The decision represented much more than the creation of another higher-education institution. From the outset, the new university was intended to become part of Kimberley's economic, cultural, and intellectual life. Rather than constructing an isolated suburban campus on the edge of the city, planners chose to establish a university within central Kimberley—a decision that has gradually transformed a substantial part of the city centre.
From an Idea to a University
The idea of establishing a university in the Northern Cape gained momentum in the early 2010s as the government sought to expand access to higher education in provinces that had previously lacked their own universities. Kimberley was selected as the seat of the new Northern Cape university, recognising both its position as the provincial capital and its unusually rich historical, cultural and scientific heritage.
The institution formally came into existence through Government Notice 630 under the Higher Education Act. The notice establishing Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley was dated 22 August 2013 and published in the Government Gazette on 23 August. Less than a month later, on 19 September 2013, the University was formally launched in Kimberley by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande.
At the launch, Nzimande described the new institution as a symbol of democratic South Africa's growth and inclusiveness and envisaged a university characterised by innovation and academic excellence. The doors opened to students the following year. According to the University's historical timeline, classes began on Monday, 17 February 2014, with 141 students enrolled in its first academic programmes in Education, Retail Management and Information Technology. From those modest beginnings, a completely new university began to take shape in the centre of Kimberley.
Heritage has particular relevance in Kimberley.
Few South African cities offer such an extraordinary concentration of archaeological, geological, historical, museum and archival resources. From the story of early human settlement and the San and Tswana peoples to the diamond discoveries, colonial expansion, war, industrialisation and the political history of modern South Africa, the Northern Cape provides an enormous living laboratory for research. The University's location allows students and researchers to engage with this heritage almost literally outside their lecture-room doors.
Kimberley gave birth to university-level mining education in South Africa
Ironically, Kimberley's relationship with university education actually predates SPU by more than a century. The South African School of Mines was established in Kimberley in 1896, with its classrooms in what is now the Hull Street Theatre. With the later discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand, the School moved to Johannesburg and became part of the institutional lineage that ultimately produced Wits. This is a wonderful historical symmetry. Kimberley gave birth to university-level mining education in South Africa in 1896, lost that institution to Johannesburg in 1904, and more than a century later finally gained a university of its own.
Why the Name Sol Plaatje?
Choosing the name of the new university carried particular significance. Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was one of Kimberley's most remarkable citizens—a writer, journalist, linguist, translator and political leader whose intellectual life was closely connected with the city. Plaatje became the first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress, later the African National Congress, while his books, journalism and translations established him as one of the most important Black intellectuals of his generation.
He also believed passionately in education, language and the ability of knowledge to transform society. Naming the Northern Cape's first university after him therefore linked a new institution of learning with one of the province's greatest intellectual figures. It also created an interesting geographical connection. Plaatje's former home in Angel Street, today the Sol Plaatje Museum & Library, lies only a short distance from the university that now carries his name.
A University Built Into Kimberley
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Sol Plaatje University is its relationship with the surrounding city. SPU was conceived as a city university rather than as a conventional enclosed campus separated from its surroundings. Its buildings occupy a combination of existing structures and purpose-built university buildings within Kimberley's urban fabric. The developing university precinct extends through parts of the central city, incorporating areas around the Civic Centre and Oppenheimer Gardens and extending towards its other campus facilities.
The intention was deliberate: students and academics would become part of everyday Kimberley rather than belonging to an institution physically removed from it. This approach also allowed existing buildings to take on new purposes while contemporary structures were inserted among Kimberley's older architecture. As the University grew, lecture theatres, laboratories, residences, offices, student facilities and public spaces began appearing across the precinct. The result is one of the most significant changes to central Kimberley's built environment in many decades.
Architecture for a New University
The creation of an entirely new university presented South African architects with an unusual opportunity. Rather than reproduce a traditional campus style, the new buildings were intended to develop their own architectural identity while responding to Kimberley's climate, landscape and history. In 2013, the Department of Higher Education and Training's New Universities Project Management Team initiated an architectural competition intended to encourage innovative approaches to the design of the new university precinct and its buildings.
The resulting campus architecture makes extensive use of natural light, shaded circulation areas, courtyards and flexible learning spaces, while artworks and architectural details connect many of the buildings with the history and culture of the Northern Cape. The contrast can be striking: Kimberley's late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings now stand within walking distance of some of South Africa's most contemporary university architecture. Many of SPU's buildings have subsequently received architectural recognition, making the campus itself an increasingly important part of Kimberley's architectural story.
The Library and Student Resources Building
One of the most recognisable buildings on the campus is the Library and Student Resources Building. Construction began in October 2015, and the building was conceived as a landmark at the southern end of the Central Campus square. Rather than functioning simply as a conventional library containing books, it was designed around the changing way students use information and university spaces.
Alongside physical and digital library resources, the six-storey building incorporates student work areas, classrooms, seminar rooms, a multipurpose auditorium, conference facilities and spaces for archives and exhibitions. Its distinctive contemporary architecture has helped give the young university a visual identity very different from the older institutional buildings traditionally associated with Kimberley.
Luka Jantjie House
Not every part of the university was newly constructed. One of its important existing buildings became Luka Jantjie House, named in honour of the nineteenth-century Batlhaping leader Luka Jantjie, remembered for resisting colonial rule in the Northern Cape.
The building had previously formed part of the Northern Cape Legislature complex and had also been associated with the National Institute for Higher Education before becoming part of Sol Plaatje University. Its renaming reflected an important characteristic of the emerging university: connecting new educational institutions with the people and history of the region in which they stand. Luka Jantjie House became an important administrative and academic component of the developing campus, while later refurbishment formed part of SPU's continuing infrastructure programme.
The Central Campus
At the heart of the university is the Central Campus, where some of its most distinctive modern buildings stand. The campus has developed as a collection of interconnected buildings and public spaces rather than a single monumental structure. Teaching facilities, residences, laboratories, student facilities and landscaped areas together form a new academic precinct within the existing city.
This integration is important to understanding SPU. The University was never intended simply to occupy land in Kimberley. Its planners envisaged a relationship in which the University and the city would influence one another—academically, economically, socially and physically. In effect, central Kimberley itself became part of the campus.
The Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens
The relationship between Sol Plaatje University and the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens has become an important part of the University's development. After lengthy discussions about the future of the historic gardens, an agreement to sell them was concluded in September 2023, and SPU took ownership in February 2024. The historic gardens have long been one of Kimberley's important public spaces. They contain several monuments associated with the city's history, including the Diamond Diggers Memorial, the bust of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer and, more recently, the statue of Sol Plaatje. SPU has embarked on an ambitious programme to rejuvenate the gardens, not simply as landscaping around a university building but as a botanical and educational space.
The University's plans include creating a Botanical Garden, intended to function as an open-air laboratory for teaching and research while showcasing plants suited to the Northern Cape and its predominantly arid environment. Infrastructure improvements have included irrigation, lighting, security cameras, Wi-Fi and associated services. This gives the gardens an unusual dual role. They remain an important part of Kimberley's public heritage, while becoming increasingly integrated into the academic and cultural life of the University. The rejuvenation also provides an opportunity to conserve and reinterpret the historical monuments within the gardens, placing Kimberley's older memorial landscape alongside a new generation of civic buildings.
The Great Hall
One of the most significant recent additions to the North Campus is the University's Great Hall, constructed alongside the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens and opposite Luka Jantjie House. The hall provides SPU with a major ceremonial and gathering space for academic events, examinations, conferences and university functions.
The new Great Hall quickly became one of the University's principal ceremonial spaces. SPU's tenth graduation ceremonies were held there in April 2025, when more than 1,200 graduands received qualifications in the University's largest graduating cohort to date. Since then, it has hosted major academic, institutional and public events. Rather than being hidden within an enclosed campus, the Great Hall stands beside one of Kimberley's best-known historic public gardens. In this way, a major twenty-first-century university building has become part of a landscape containing monuments to Kimberley's mining and civic past.
Harry Oppenheimer House – From Diamonds to Education
Perhaps no building illustrates Kimberley's changing identity more clearly than Harry Oppenheimer House. The distinctive 14-storey building was constructed for De Beers and came into use in 1974 as part of the company's diamond-sorting and sales operations. For decades it was closely associated with the process by which diamonds from Southern African mines were sorted and prepared for sale in Kimberley. That era ended when De Beers relocated its Sightholder Sales operation from Kimberley to Johannesburg in January 2023.
After De Beers relocated its Sightholder Sales operation to Johannesburg, the company donated Harry Oppenheimer House to Sol Plaatje University on 24 November 2023. SPU undertook to retain the building's historic name. The donation was symbolically significant. A building created for the industry that had dominated Kimberley's economy for more than a century was being transferred to the institution increasingly associated with the city's future.
SPU said Harry Oppenheimer House would accommodate senior university offices and other institutional functions, while one floor would be dedicated to a museum interpreting the building's diamond-sorting history. The University also identified the building as potentially important to the development of geology and mining-related teaching and research. The transformation of Harry Oppenheimer House therefore brings together three strands of Kimberley's story: its diamond-mining past, its remarkable industrial heritage and its emergence as a university city.
South Campus and the Growth of University Sport
SPU's development has not been confined to the central city. The South Campus at Hoffe Park has become the focus of the University's sporting facilities. The precinct combines student accommodation with sports infrastructure and has progressively developed into an important centre for university sport.
A multipurpose sporting facility was formally launched in 2023, followed in November 2024 by a High-Performance Sport Centre at the South Campus Sport Precinct. SPU now supports 17 sporting codes under its “Sports for All” approach.
Rugby has become particularly visible. SPU's rugby team, the Gemmies, competes in the FNB Varsity Shield and has used Kimberley's Suzuki Stadium for its home fixtures, linking university rugby with one of the city's established major sporting venues. This relationship allows the young university to make use of one of Kimberley's established major sporting venues while its own South Campus sports facilities continue to develop.
SPU and the William Humphreys Art Gallery
The William Humphreys Art Gallery (WHAG) stands immediately alongside the developing university precinct. Although it remains an independent public art museum rather than part of Sol Plaatje University, its proximity to SPU has encouraged a growing academic and cultural relationship. SPU's Faculty of Humanities has collaborated with WHAG on exhibitions, lectures and other public programmes. The proximity of a university with programmes in heritage and the humanities to one of South Africa's important public art collections creates obvious opportunities for teaching, research, exhibitions and public engagement.
Agriculture in an Arid Province
Agriculture has also moved from an early aspiration into an established part of SPU's academic programme. The University's Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences now includes a Department of Biological and Agricultural Sciences, with formal agricultural programmes that prepare graduates for work as agricultural technicians, farm managers, advisers, and entrepreneurs. The subject is particularly relevant to the Northern Cape.
Agriculture in the province must contend with extreme temperatures, limited rainfall and increasing pressure on scarce water resources. SPU has therefore identified agriculture under water-stressed conditions as an important area for future teaching and research. This creates another direct connection between the University's academic development and the environment in which it has been established. The Northern Cape is not merely where SPU happens to be located; its climate, industries, heritage and social needs increasingly help shape what the University studies.
Looking Towards Health Sciences
The University's growth may eventually extend into another field of particular importance to the Northern Cape: health sciences. Health-related programmes were considered during the early planning of the new university, and SPU has since developed closer relationships with the Northern Cape Department of Health and health professionals in the province.
The connection is not entirely new. Parts of today's South Campus at Hoffe Park were previously used to accommodate students of the Henrietta Stockdale Nursing College before the buildings were incorporated into SPU and refurbished for university residences. As of 2026, SPU identifies Therapeutic Health Sciences as one of its future academic programmes. If these plans come to fruition, health sciences could become another important way in which the University responds directly to the professional and healthcare needs of the Northern Cape.
A University Spreading Through the City
The long-term importance of SPU may ultimately extend far beyond the boundaries of individual university buildings. From its earliest planning, the University was conceived as an institution woven into Kimberley's existing urban structure. The North, Central and South campuses were deliberately distributed across the city rather than enclosed behind a single perimeter. Early campus planning therefore treated streets, pedestrian routes and public spaces as important connections between different parts of the University.
As SPU acquires and develops buildings such as Harry Oppenheimer House and rejuvenates public spaces such as the Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens, the distinction between “university” and “city” becomes increasingly fluid.
This has created the possibility of a more walkable academic and cultural precinct linking university buildings with Kimberley's museums, galleries, historic sites and public spaces.
The William Humphreys Art Gallery, Oppenheimer Gardens, Civic Centre and university buildings already form one such cluster. Beyond them lie the Africana Library, McGregor Museum sites, Sol Plaatje's home and, further west, the historic Big Hole precinct. Whether all these areas will ever become physically linked through a formal pedestrian university corridor remains a matter for future planning. But the underlying idea is already visible: rather than building a university alongside Kimberley, SPU is gradually becoming an integral part of the city.
A University Shaped by the Northern Cape
From its earliest planning, Sol Plaatje University was intended to develop teaching and research areas that reflected the Northern Cape's particular character and needs. Rather than simply reproducing the academic offerings of much larger established universities, SPU positioned itself as a niche institution.
Its developing academic strengths have included teacher education, information and communication technology, data science, heritage studies, biological and environmental sciences and subjects connected with the history and particular needs of the region. The University's present academic structure also includes biological and agricultural sciences alongside computer science, information technology and data science.
Growing From 141 Students
The contrast between the University's beginnings and the institution visible in Kimberley today is remarkable. When the first classes began in February 2014, only 141 students were enrolled. Within three years, enrolment had reached 1,039 students, and the growth of the student body was accompanied by an ambitious programme of new residences, teaching buildings, laboratories and student facilities.
The University has continued to expand its academic programmes and research activity. The contrast between the University's beginnings and the institution visible in Kimberley today is remarkable. When the first classes began in February 2014, only 141 students were enrolled. Within three years, enrolment had reached 1,039 students. By 2026, student enrolment had passed 9,000, illustrating the extraordinary speed with which the institution had developed from its pioneering first intake. For Kimberley, this growth has brought something the city had never previously experienced on this scale: thousands of students and academics living, studying and working within the urban centre.
Changing the Face of Kimberley
The establishment of Sol Plaatje University represents one of the most important chapters in Kimberley's recent history. For generations, many of the city's most prominent buildings reflected its nineteenth-century origins: diamond mining, colonial administration, churches, clubs, banks, railway development and the institutions that grew around the mining economy.
Its buildings represent a twenty-first-century investment in knowledge, education and research, while their location within the historic city centre creates a physical conversation between old and new Kimberley. A visitor can walk from Victorian and Edwardian buildings associated with the diamond era to contemporary lecture halls, residences and university buildings within minutes. Few developments illustrate more clearly that Kimberley's heritage is not simply about preserving the past. The city continues to acquire buildings and institutions that will themselves become part of its history.
A Living Memorial to Sol Plaatje
Several important places in Kimberley bear witness to the legacy of Sol Plaatje. His former home survives as the Sol Plaatje Museum & Library in Angel Street. His grave can be visited in West End Cemetery. A bronze monument to him stands in the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens. But perhaps the largest memorial of all is the university bearing his name.
Unlike a monument of stone or bronze, it is a living institution filled each year with new generations of students. For a man who devoted so much of his life to writing, language, education and the exchange of ideas, there could hardly be a more appropriate legacy.
Visitor Information
Location:
Central Campus: 24–26 Scanlan Street,
North Campus: 10 Jan Smuts Boulevard,
South Campus: 150 Reservoir Road.
What to look for: Contemporary university architecture, the Library and Student Resources Building, Luka Jantjie House, the Great Hall, Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens, Harry Oppenheimer House and the integration of the University's North and Central campuses into Kimberley's historic city centre.
Combine your visit with: The Sol Plaatje bronze statue, William Humphreys Art Gallery, Sol Plaatje Museum & Library, Africana Library, Kimberley Club, and other historic buildings in central Kimberley.
Website: www.spu.ac.za
Continue Exploring Kimberley
Whether your interests lie in history, culture, dining, shopping, entertainment, or simply discovering somewhere new, we hope these guides help you make the most of your time in Kimberley. If you're planning a visit to the City that Sparkles, Solomon Edwardian Guest House offers elegant accommodation in the historic suburb of Beaconsfield. Ideally situated for business and leisure travellers alike, The Solomon provides a comfortable base from which to explore.