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Anglo Boere Oorlog/Boer War (1899-1902) WENTWORTH Natal Kamp/Camp

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Profiles

  • Maria Catharina Botha (c.1889 - d.)
    Boer War: Klerksdorp & Wentworth Concentration Camps Name: Miss Maria Catherina Pieters Born in camp? No Age died: Died in camp? No Gender: female Race: white Marital status: single N...
  • Gerhardus Rudolf Pieters (1892 - 1967)
    Birth (01/03/1892) : "South Africa, Netherdutch Reformed Church Registers (Pretoria Archive), 1838-1991," database with images, FamilySearch ( : 2 August 2019), South Africa > Transvaal > Klerksdorp > ...
  • Margaretha Johanna van der Westhuizen (c.1896 - d.)
    Boer War: Klerksdorp & Wentworth Concentration Camps Name: Miss Mageritha Johanna Pieters Born in camp? No Age died: Died in camp? No Gender: female Race: white Marital status: single ...
  • Susara Johanna Cornelia Joubert (c.1887 - d.)
    Boer War: Klerksdorp & Wentworth Concentration Camps Name: Miss Susana Johanna Pieters Born in camp? No Age died: Died in camp? No Gender: female Race: white Marital status: single Na...
  • Gertruida Jurina Susanna Theunissen (1877 - d.)
    Boer War: Klerksdorp & Wentworth Concentration Camps Name: Miss Gertruida J Pieters Born in camp? No Age died: Died in camp? No Gender: female Race: white Marital status: single Natio...

WENTWORTH

http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php

  • Photo’s from the website of eGGSA link above

People in this camp

319

People who died in this camp

21

Wentworth camp was the third of the three Durban camps to be constructed. It was located just north of Jacobs Siding, on the Bluff railway siding. Although it was built on a healthier site, with sandy soil rather than marshland, it shared many of the discomforts of Merebank, with a humid summer climate and it was infested with fleas and mosquitoes. By the time that Wentworth was built, the importance of adequate housing and sanitation had been well established. Despite Natal’s careful economies, the cost of construction of the coastal camp was fairly considerable. By May 1902, when Wentworth’s population reached 2,962, building had reached the sizeable sum of£16,631. Wood and iron buildings replaced the bell tents and, although they had their disadvantages, with thin walls which provided little privacy and soil floors, they were infinitely preferable.1
The Natal camps were determinedly British in their staff. Frederick George Philip Peters was appointed superintendent at Wentworth, with William Nichols as headmaster of the school and other teachers recruited from England; Drs Martin and Monckton were in the hospital. Despite the fact that schooling was compulsory, and a considerable effort was put into education, a relatively small percentage of the children in Wentworth actually attended school. The regular numbers reached only about 180 out of some 1,200 children. This is fudged in the records which reported proudly that 82% of registered pupils attended regularly. But the British took care not to interfere with religious practice provided that the clergy were not preaching‘sedition’. Wentworth never had a resident clergyman so camp elders provided most of the services, helped out by occasional visiting predikants, while camp women ran the Sunday School.2
There is little information about the inmates of Wentworth camp although, like all the coastal camps, they included the families of men still on commando and some of the more recalcitrant women. Miss Otto, for instance, had been instrumental in getting fifty children from the government schools (presumably she had been teaching them in Dutch). http://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Wentworth/

Blue names Geni Profiles

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They survived

A

B

P

They died in this Camp

A

B

How to Participate

If you have an ancestor who was in the ABW WENTWORTH Concentration Camp:

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  4. Select the ABO Wentworth" project

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