PROVISIONING JOHANNESBURG, 1886 – 1906 by ELIZABETH ANN CRIPPS submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: Professor E J Carruthers JOINT SUPERVISOR: Professor J Hyslop February 2012 (i) PROVISIONING JOHANNESBURG, 1886 – 1906 (ii) by Elizabeth Ann Cripps (iii) MA (iv) History (v) Professor E J Carruthers (vi) Professor J Hyslop (vii) The rapidity of Johannesburg’s growth after the discovery of payable gold in 1886 created a provisioning challenge. Lacking water transport it was dependent on animal-drawn transport until the railways arrived from coastal ports. The local near-subsistence agricultural economy was supplemented by imported foodstuffs, readily available following the industrialisation of food production, processing and distribution in the Atlantic world and the transformation of transport and communication systems by steam, steel and electricity. Improvements in food preservation techniques: canning, refrigeration and freezing also contributed. From 1895 natural disasters ˗ droughts, locust attacks, rinderpest, East Coast fever ˗ and the man-made disaster of the South African War, reduced local supplies and by the time the ZAR became a British colony in 1902 almost all food had to be imported. By 1906, though still an import economy, meat and grain supplies had recovered, and commercial agriculture was responding to the market. (viii) KEY WORDS: Johannesburg, ZAR, Food Supply, Railways, Market, Grains, Meat, Vegetables, Fruit, English-speakers, Africans, Distribution, Transvaal Colony CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION: SOURCES, BACKGROUND AND SCOPE 1 2. JOHANNESBURG FOOD SUPPLY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT 15 3. SOUTH AFRICAN PRODUCED FOOD: THE REPUBLICAN YEARS 36 4. JOHANNESBURG PEOPLE AND THEIR FOOD CULTURES 68 5. DISTRIBUTION 99 6. JOHANNESBURG IN A BRITISH COLONY 133 7. CONCLUSION 165 APPENDIX ONE 173 APPENDIX TWO 178 BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 - 1 - CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: SOURCES, BACKGROUND, AND SCOPE The discovery of payable gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 transformed South Africa economically, politically, demographically and socially. Johannesburg’s growth from mining camp to the largest city in southern Africa in its first decade created a market for commercial agriculture, the need for an effective transport network, and moved the South African centre of gravity from the coast to the interior. Its most striking features were the rapidity and permanence of this growth, the racial and cultural diversity of its new population and the extremes of wealth and poverty. Much has been written about the formative years of early Johannesburg. There are many biographies of the Randlords and their role in the Jameson Raid and the South African War.1 Imperialist,2 Afrikaans,3 liberal and left- wing historians4 have argued about the causes and consequences of the war. The origins and effects of the migrant labour system have been examined, 5 and social historians have sought information about working and living conditions.6 Urban geographers have studied how this period had lasting effects on the layout of the town and suburbs, its racial structure, transport facilities and utilities.7 But although the high cost of living was a constant complaint, it is surprising that little attention has been given to the basic question of how Johannesburg was fed. Although eating is a basic biological urge, in many of these studies nobody seemed to eat. This gives rise to a number of questions which have been touched on by economic, political, social and agricultural historians, but have not focussed on the city as an entity. Where and by whom was the food produced, how was it transported, how was it distributed, and how adequate was it? In what way did the nineteenth century developments in transport and communication, and in the technology and organisation of food production, processing and distribution affect the development of Johannesburg as a city and provide food for its diverse inhabitants? What was the relative role of food production in the Transvaal and the 1 Such as GeoffreyWheatcroft, The Randlords: The Men who made South Africa, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985; Robert I Rotberg, The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power, Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg, 1988. 2 Such as W Basil Worsfold, The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner, Keegan Paul, London, 1913. 3 Such as Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, Tafelberg Publishers, Cape Town, 2003 4 Such as C W de Kiewiet, A History of South Africa: Social & Economic, Oxford University Press, London, 1941; Shula Marks & Stanley Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop, 8, 1979, pp.50-80. 5 Such as Colin Bundy, The Rise & Fall of the South African Peasantry, David Philip, Cape Town, 1988; William Beinart, Political Economy of Pondoland 1860-1930, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1982; Kevin Shillington, The Colonisation of the Southern Tswana 1870-1900, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1985. 6 Such as Elaine Katz, The White Death: Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines 1886-1910, Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1994. 7 Such as Beavon, Keith, Johannesburg: The Making and Shaping of the City, University of South Africa Press, Pretoria, 2004 - 2 - neighbouring colonies in provisioning the city? What was the relationship between the food cultures of the different ethnic groups and the food eaten in Johannesburg? This study is an attempt to answer these questions. SOURCES In what appears to be the only recent historical study of the food supply of a single city,8 Roger Scola discussed how it was necessary to focus on how the needs of Manchester were met rather than production figures of the suppliers, that is, to go beyond agricultural history, because the growth of the city led to an ever-widening chain of supply, from the immediate hinterland of the city, to the rest of Britain and then to foreign countries. This led him to a concern with the effect of transport innovations, and how the lengthening of the food chain led to the growth of intermediaries between producer and consumer. These concerns are very relevant to Johannesburg’s food supply. For the supply side, Scola was able to draw on a wide range of evidence: contemporary commentators on the changing rural scene combined with the mass of descriptive and statistical material contained in parliamentary papers and commissions of enquiry of the time; records of toll roads, canals and railways (though these rarely deal with what was actually carried); and weekly market reports in local newspapers. On the distribution side he found market records (slanted towards the official rather than actual trade); directories and rate books; and the trade press. However, records for the distribution side were rarer. Most food traders operated on a small scale and, when their businesses disappeared, they vanished without a trace. Otherwise, Scola had a multiplicity of sources to draw on in comparison with what can be discovered for Johannesburg. Official statistics are sparse, especially for the Republican period. Because the Republic was so dependent on customs revenue, annual import and export statistics are available in the late 1890s, but these lack detail. There is a similar problem with the Chamber of Mines annual reports on ‘Stores’ which do not tell much about how individual miners were fed, or how the mining companies obtained their supplies. The 1897 Industrial Commission9 was set up to examine the mining industry’s complaints against the government, and some witnesses gave comparative budgets for the cost of living in Johannesburg and England, but these are obviously biased and limited. The Sanitary Board Census of 189610 gives invaluable overall information on place of birth, occupations and religion of the inhabitants, and it would be useful to be able to study the original census sheets as can be done in most other countries, but these were destroyed after the results were released. More information is available for the period after the South African War, when numerous official commissions were set up to find answers to questions that were important to the government. Food supply and prices are mentioned in these, but were not the major focus. The 1904 Census of the Transvaal as part of British South Africa11 distinguishes only between European and Coloured people and lacks the detail of the 1896 Census. Some agricultural production figures start to emerge in Department of Agriculture Annual 8 Roger Scola, Feeding the Victorian City: The Food Supply of Manchester, 1770-1870, University of Manchester Press, Manchester, 1992. 9 The Mining Industry: Report and Proceedings of the Industrial Commission of Enquiry, Compiled and Published by the Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines, Johannesburg, South African Republic, 1897. 10 Census, 15th July 1896, Report of the Director of Census, Johannesburg, A H Bleksley, Standard and Diggers’ News Press, Johannesburg, 1896. 11 Cd.2103, Census Returns of British South Africa, Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty, July 1904, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. - 3 - Reports, though there is nothing like the detailed records available for British food history in the nineteenth century, and the links in the food chain between farm and consumer are hazy. There is considerable information in contemporary newspapers and in accounts by visitors, and pioneer recollections, though those dealt mainly with only a section of the population. The market is well covered, but other distributors in the system – shops, stores, wholesalers, restaurants, eating houses, hawkers - seem to have largely gone unrecorded, or perhaps records were not kept. While the locations of some shops are to be found in trade directories, such as Longlands’12 and the Post Office Directory,13 no comparative series can be drawn up. L V Praagh’s The Transvaal and its Mines14 is basically a very detailed trade directory but it is extremely boosterish, with barely a hint of criticism. This information is mainly ‘top-down’, African voices are little heard and records of their experiences had been deemed unimportant.