This page is a stub.
You can help improve it.
Douglas is a mine in Nkangala District
Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa
• The first recorded
coal sale in the Transvaal dates back to the Natal colony in 1842. This
coal was mined and transported by wagon to markets in Pietermaritzburg.
By the 1850s,
prospectors had gravitated to the Highveld, following
reports of “considerable quantities”
of coal in the Middelburg
district.43 By 1868, Transvaal coal was described by the
explorer,
Thomas Baines, as looking “tolerably well – black, with a moderate
gloss, and
clean fracture.”
On one of his treks from the Transvaal
to Natal in 1872, Baines witnessed shallow
digging on the farm of
Daniel Kruyger, situated along the banks of the Steenkoolspruit.
Despite ready access to water, energy resources were scarce. Baines
reported that “the
family was using coal as its only fuel.”
This
fossil fuel was cheap, readily available –
and a useful alternative
to dried dung or firewood.
Local trade, where it existed, was
small-scale and subsistence-oriented. First-hand
accounts reported
that wagons were backed into coal seams nine metres thick. The
wagons
were loaded with high grade coal with “the same ease that a wagon might
be
filled with rock from an ordinary mountain.”48 This coal would be
transported and sold to
the dispersed rural community for
approximately fifteen shillings per ton.
The first few mines in the
Middelburg District included the Crown Douglas and Maggies
Mine
By the mid-1930s, geology, along with chemistry, had become crucial
for industrial
development. A geological study of the Witbank
Coalfield was published, entitled Coals
of the Witbank District. ...
He boasted that “the collieries working in this area alone (were)
capable of producing all the coal required to fulfil the entire demands
of the coal
trade.” Thirteen active collieries were recorded,
including the Witbank Southern Area,
Witbank Central Area, Transvaal
& Delagoa Bay, Landau, Anglo-French Navigation,
Schoongezicht,
Middelburg Steam, Douglas (Witbank), Coronation (Kromdraai),
Clydesdale, Tweefontein & Waterpan, Minnaar and Kendal
By the
early 1940s, both collieries of the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay Investment
Company, including the
Transvaal and Delagoa Bay Colliery and the
Douglas Colliery, were worked to their
maximum capacity.186 Increased
demand for coal related to the war-time economic
conditions did not
always result in accumulated profits for the coal companies.
• Mine workers from Lesotho were against the move to improve
the
compounds and allow women in the hostels as they feared
that as
foreigners who could not bring along their wives, they
would be
separated from their families. Their fears were
justified by
periodic prostitution by women from the
neighbouring farms.
Nonetheless, the fears were overcome and a new settlement system was
introduced. Douglas colliery pioneered the move from compounds into
houses. The
move from compounds was hastened by the new
democratically elected government,
showing that hostels were no
longer a viable option for mineworkers. These changes
also affected
the miners in Witbank. Mawa Zulu, a recent former MCHRA president
and the organisation’s most prominent executive member aged 41,
explained the
changes thus: ‘Then, there was a situation whereby
these hostels changed into
community-based houses after 1994
elections
In other mining communities, there are almost similar
facilities to those that Matimba
has. Other villages visited include
Bank Colliery, Douglas Colliery, Greenside
Colliery, Navigation
Colliery, three Goedehoop Collieries, Sasol Colliery, and
Wolvekrans
Colliery. In all the villages there are shops that are either owned by
operating companies or rented out to private individuals. Public
recreation clubs are
also available. In these communities, there are
also schools in the villages, and buses
ferry those who prefer to
attend school in other parts of Witbank. Youth organisations,
more
specifically LoveLife, have offices in these villages as well. Perhaps
the
difference is with Bank Colliery, which has health facilities in
the form of a clinic in
the village. Another difference is the fact
that in these villages, public recreation clubs
are not duplicated
as is the case in Matimba.
|
