1875 in South Africa
# 1875 in South Africa

The following lists events that happened during 1875 in South Africa.

## Incumbents

* Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Henry Barkly.
* Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal: Henry Ernest Gascoyne Bulwer.
* State President of the Orange Free State: Jan Brand.
* State President of the South African Republic: Thomas François Burgers.
* Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West: Richard Southey (until 3 August) William Owen Lanyon (until 3 August).
* Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Charles Molteno.

## Events

### May

* John Garlick started his first store on 3 May 1875, on the corner Bree and Strand Streets, in the central business district of Cape Town. This would later become Garlicks, a nationwide chain of department stores.

### August

* 14 – The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Association of True Afrikaners) is formed at the home of Gideon Malherbe in Paarl.

### Unknown date

* The Black Flag Rebellion is staged by white diamond diggers at Kimberley.
* The Molteno Government begins construction of two Midland railway lines from Swartkops in Port Elizabeth and from Uitenhage.
* The Verlatenskloof pass in the Roggeveld Mountains, begun the previous year, is completed.

## Births

* July 7 – Vincent Tancred, cricketer (d. 1904)

## Deaths

* 19 May - Christoffel Brand, politician, (b. 1797)

## Railways

### New lines

* Construction begins on the Swartkops-Alicedale line.

### Railway lines opened

* 11 May – Cape Western – Cape Town Docks to junction with mainline, 7 miles 1 chain (11.3 kilometres).
* 26 July – Cape Midland – Port Elizabeth to Addo, 31 miles 55 chains (51.0 kilometres).
* 22 September – Cape Midland – Swartkops to Uitenhage, 13 miles 46 chains (21.8 kilometres).
* 3 November – Cape Western – Wellington to Ceres Road, 39 miles 50 chains (63.8 kilometres).

### Locomotives

Three new 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Cape Government Railways (CGR):

* The first eight of twenty-seven 2nd Class 2-6-2 tank-and-tender locomotives on all three newly established regional systems, the Eastern System from East London, the Midland System from Port Elizabeth and the Western System from Cape $Town.^{:23–25}$
* Three 1st Class 0-4-0 saddle-tank locomotives on the Midland and Eastern $Systems.^{:118–119}$
* The first seven of eleven 1st Class 4-4-0 tank locomotives on the Western and Midland $systems.^{:25–26,76–77}$
