

Kimberley camp was located in the Cape Colony on the Cape-ORC border but formed part of the ORC system. As one of the besieged towns, Kimberley had suffered severely from the war and there was little sympathy in the town for the camp inmates, especially the families of the Cape rebels who were housed there. Kimberley was a flat, hot town, always short of water and notoriously unhealthy. The camp itself, located on de Beers property in Newton, on the outskirts of the town, was inches deep in loose, sandy soil.1
Some kind of camp probably came into being in the early stages of the war for relief had to be found for destitute Boers from Griqualand West as early as December 1899.2 The formal camp, however, was set up by the town commandant on 4 January 1901 and run by Major Wright and the men of the Kimberley Regiment. Emily Hobhouse was contemptuous of Wright, a colonial volunteer rather than a regular soldier, whom she described as a ‘coarse, lazy, indifferent old man’ who did no work and left his son to run the camp. The result was a dirty, smelly camp where whooping cough and measles were rife and there was almost no medical attention.3 ‘Undesirable’ Cape rebel families, who were ‘not refugees in the true acceptance of the term’, were mixed with people from the Free State, the Transvaal and Bechuanaland.
Under military management disorder prevailed in Kimberley. In the beginning the Free State families were rationed differently from the Cape rebels and appear to have been subject to different regulations. A weak superintendent usually meant arbitrary treatment of the people with the result that the Kimberley women were amongst the most bitter that Emily Hobhouse encountered. As early as February 1901 the women petitioned the British government: ‘On account of carelessness, bad management, and ill-treatment, it is now the second time that we are drenched through and through by rain, which caused our children, already sick with measles, whooping cough, and fever, to become dangerously ill’, they wrote and urged that they be allowed to return to their homes.4
By February 1901, when the civilian camp administration was formed in the ORC, it was clear that all was not well in Kimberley. Finally Sydney Schutte, who subsequently became the first civilian superintendent, was sent by the ORC chief superintendent, Captain Trollope, to find out what was going on. Schutte’s brief, at this stage, was to concern himself only with the ORC people. Emily Hobhouse thought this absurd. She wrote to her brother, ‘Isn’t it ridiculous to split the camp in that way? They urge economy, won’t give soap or mattresses, then go and pay two Superintendents and two doctors and so forth and £500 for a barbed-wire fence, which anybody determined to escape could easily cut through’
http://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/
- With Brother Siebert.
- Camp History: 21/4/1902 -15/12/1902
- Farm History: Koopmansfontein,Barkley Wes.
- With brother Albertus B
- Camp History: 24/4/1902 -4/12/1902
- Farm History:Koopmansfontein,Barkley Wes
- With wife and two children
- Camp history: 12/7/1901-31/7/1902
- Farm History: De Kuil, Jacobsdal
- Camp history: 12/7/1901-31/7/1902 With husband and 2 children.
- Farm History:De Kuil, Jacobsdal
- Camp history: 12/7/1901-31/7/1902 With parents and brother.
- Farm History:De Kuil, Jacobsdal
- Camp history: 12/7/1901-31/7/1902 With parents and sister
- Farm History:De Kuil, Jacobsdal
- Mother and 5 Children 1 Son died,
- Status of Husband, Christoffel Jacobus Botha: On Commando
- Camp History: 14/7/1901 - 21/6/1902
- Fram History: Zwartlaagte, Bloemhof, Transvaal
- Unique ID: 77095 Tent 3118
- Camp History:14/7/1901 - 21/6/1902
- Fram History: Zwartlaagte, Bloemhof, Transvaal
- Unique ID: 77092 Tent 3118
- Camp History:14/7/1901 - 21/6/1902
- Fram History: Zwartlaagte, Bloemhof, Transvaal
- S.o. Botha family from Bloemhof and Christiana
- Unique ID: 77093 Tent 3118
- Camp History:14/7/1901 - 3/1/1902 Reason for departure: Death
- Fram History: Zwartlaagte, Bloemhof, Transvaal
- Cause of death Phneumonia
- Daughter of Petrus Lodewickus and Hendrina Johanna du Toit.
- Unique ID: 74242 Tent 421 With mother and 2 sisters
- Camp History: 23/4/1901-1/9/19001 Reson for departure Death
- Farm History: Leeuhoogte, Boshof OVS
- Cause of death – Enteritis
- Cause of death – Asthma
- Cause of death – Measles and Pneumonia
- Cause of death – Enteric
- Cause of death – Diptheria
- S.o. Pieter Abraham Theron and Johanna Geezina Verwey
- Farm History: Zoutpan Bloemhof
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