Springfontein

Project photo with thanks to eGGSA at the following link:

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

People in this camp

2900?

People who died in this camp

704

Springfontein

Although it is not clear exactly when Springfontein camp was formed, in January 1901 the District Commissioner for Bloemfontein reported that he had visited the village because he had heard that the Dewetsdorp people were being sent to a refugee camp there. According to Dr Kendal Franks the camp was started on 22 February 1901 and shortly after William Gostling, who had been the Philippolis magistrate, was appointed superintendent. By the end of February 1901 Springfontein camp was fully established although it was tiny, with a total of 409 inmates including two blacks.1

When Emily Hobhouse visited Springfontein in early March 1901, she found a ‘queer little spot’, ringed by stony koppies in the treeless grasslands of the southern Free State. Gostling, whom Hobhouse described as ‘a really kind man’, had created an orderly place and the camp usually made a favourable impression on visitors. A ‘colonial lady’ who saw the camp in February 1902 commented that:

‘The even streets, the clean tents, the whitewashed stones placed to mark different squares and streets, made the impression on the stranger of order and prosperity. Now I can understand how a stranger coming for a peep at the camps can leave well satisfied with all that is done in such a place for its inmates. He naturally does not see behind the scenes, the heartache, the oppression, the indignities often heaped upon these patient, silent Boers’.2

However humane Gostling may have been, he was a stern disciplinarian and a vigorous supporter of the British cause. He protested against the transfer of Boers to their own districts.

‘Several families from Philippolis under my charge, I know to be particularly ill conditioned who, while being apparently loyal in the highest degree, are to my certain knowledge, absolutely disloyal and are only waiting for an opportunity to communicate with their friends our enemies, either directly or through the medium of the natives’.3

Gostling was also unwilling to allow people to join their relatives in the Cape Colony and had vetoed a number of applications. ‘There is sedition enough already’, he told the Ladies Committee, ‘in many parts of the Cape Colony, and to add more would increase the risk of a rising’. Later he asked the Deputy Administrator if he might write to the London Standard on the camps. The administration of the camps was grossly misrepresented, he believed and he felt that, with his knowledge of the Boers, he could offer a very different interpretation. But the authorities turned down this suggestion. ‘Obstreperous’ and dirty people were imprisoned in a separate enclosure. ‘If women cannot govern their tongues they are put in there’, the Ladies Committee explained.4

Gostling needed to keep his head, for the early months of Springfontein camp were difficult. As Hobhouse noted, the majority of the inmates were bywoners, many of them desperately impoverished. Early arrivals had little clothing. Some women had to make petticoats out of army blankets, one was sporting a man’s trousers while the girls often had nothing but the frocks they were wearing, with no underclothes. Many went barefoot. Emily Hobhouse helped where she could

http://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Springfontein/

Blue names Geni Profiles

Black names Not on Geni Yet

They survived

A

B

They died in Camp

A

B

• Elizabeth Francina Catharina Booyens 1901-1902
• Jacobus Johannes Botha (68) March 25, 1833 - July 25, 1901
• Pieter Stefanus Du Toit Brits (13 months) 30 Jul 1901

• From Farm Rooikraal dist. Bloemfontein
• Father Barend Johannes Marthinus Brits POW in Indie.
• Cause of Death: Measles

C

• Johanna Marthalina Maria Elizabeth Claasen 1899 - 1901

• Cause of death – Phneumonia

• Johannes David Claasen 1897 - 1901

• Cause of death – Phneumonia

• Master Baby Claasen 1901 - 1901

E

• Aletta Lavina Catharina Els 1899 - 1901

• Cause of death – Inflammation of the lungs

H

• Clasina Maria Sophia Herbst 1898 - 22 December 1901

• Cause of death – Phneumonia

• Jacoba Frederika Herbst 1887 - 1901

• Cause of death – Phneumonia

• Maria Elizabeth Herbst 1870 - 21 October 1901

• Cause of death – Phneumonia

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