Kroonstad

Kroonstad was surely one of the most unattractive camps in the entire system. When Lucy Deane of the Ladies Committee visited the town in October 1901, she thought it a hideous place. In fact, she added, it wasn’t a ‘place’, merely a railway centre and storage depot for military supplies, with ‘acres of bags of meal etc. covered with sail-cloth’. ‘The rest is wide dusty tracks with spotty Camps of various “Corps” of sorts, a tent Hospital, tin shanties, a few seedy Bungalows and Wesleyan-Church-looking place, a Native location built entirely out of tin biscuit boxes flattened out and rivetted together, the whole enveloped in a permanent cloud of dust made worse by the incessant galloping to and fro of men on horse-back’. She was not the only one to form such an unfavourable impression of the town, for a reporter from the Bloemfontein Post admitted that the dust was unbearable and the native location was the most extraordinary he had seen, constructed largely of paraffin tins.¹ But the position of Kroonstad as a railway and supply centre was to have a major impact on the camp, for such distribution points have always been important for the dissemination of disease. The troops, who lingered in Kroonstad for some time between the fall of Bloemfontein and the march on Pretoria, brought typhoid with them, while their followers, ranging from labourers to prostitutes, probably harboured other infectious diseases.

Kroonstad camp was most likely formed fairly early since General Kelly-Kenny suggested on 7 September 1900 that a camp be created there, to protect loyal farmers from the Boers. Already in 1900 a number of farms had been burnt, leading to a substantial influx of homeless families into the town. By 24 November 1900 it is clear that a camp had been formed. The village of Reitz was evacuated on 20 January 1901 and Lindley was probably emptied about the same date. By the end of March 1901 Kroonstad camp was already fairly large, with over 2,500 inmates.²

Kroonstad camp provides a case study of the early administration of the camps for a number of the reports have survived. Economy was the watchword of head office and the unsympathetic authorities repeatedly laid down regulations which the bitter experience of rising mortality forced them to modify later.

The first superintendent was a military man, as was usually the case, on this occasion Lieutenant W. Robinson of the 4^th Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, a man with a remarkably low rank for the responsibility he was expected to exercise. When the civilian administration took over, the camp authorities looked around urgently for a ‘first-rate organiser’, at a salary of £500 a year. They lighted upon Mr J.N. Webb, who had been the manager of the National Bank in the Free State for eight years and spoke Dutch. He was now a refugee and finding it difficult to make ends meet. Emily Hobhouse remarked that he was a friend of Mrs Fichardt of Bloemfontein. ‘He says he means to be very kind to the people and I think he is most kindly disposed’, she noted but she thought he had no idea how to organise.³ Hobhouse could be a shrewd judge of ability and she may have been right about Webb for, although there was no major criticism of his work, Kroonstad was an unsatisfactory camp.

In fairness to Webb, he inherited a muddle. When he arrived he found that the military had kept no records and he did not even know the number of inmates. The camp was divided into two parts, with 365 people from the Lindley district on the south side of the Valsch River and the remaining 1,200 on the north side. Flooding cut off the Lindley people completely, making it impossible to feed them. Inspector Daller visited Kroonstad camp in April 1901 and he thought the Lindley camp was ‘prettily placed’; it was an ideal spot for a ‘pleasure vamp’. He was not surprised that the families did not want to move, for they had put in hard floor, and built themselves kitchens and ovens. They were, he considered, a ‘better class’ than the people on the north bank. Breaking up their homes would only cause unhappiness. But the situation was impossible and the Lindley people were transferred across the river. They were, the superintendent claimed, ‘in no way dissatisfied’ and he suspected that the objections had come from some people who ‘desired to evade a closer observation of their actions’.⁴ The Lindley people were threatened with another removal in August 1901, when Dr Pratt Yule suggested the transfer of the older part of the camp to higher ground. On this occasion Webb objected, for it seemed unfair to uproot the families yet again.⁵ Webb also found some people living in Kroonstad town but drawing camp rations. None of the camp authorities liked this, for it made management extremely difficult but it was some time before everyone could be taken into the camp.

Webb was also responsible for a black camp, which grew up at the same time as the white camp, for the fate of black and white on the farms was closely tied. The black camp consisted of a number of separate ‘stads’ or ‘kraals’, spread over an area of two square miles and housing about 1,000 people. In the early months they were little supervised and, apparently, not rationed, since they possessed some grain and livestock. If health was bad in the Boer camp, it was worse in the black camp but the doctors were inclined to wash their hands of them ‘There is much illness and a considerable mortality amongst the native refugees’, one noted, ‘but I am of the opinion that it is useless to go and visit them and give advice (to which they pay no attention) and a bottle of medicine’. Instead, he recommended the erection of a ‘native’ hospital. Inspector Daller confirmed the high rate of disease and recommended that, though their site was an ‘excellent camping ground’, they should be concentrated and supervised, since their presence was likely to endanger the health of the town. Superintendent Webb, however, dismissed the claims of exceptional ill health. He had personally inspected, the camp, he declared, and was convinced that the statements were untrue.⁶

Despite Webb’s assertions, the reports of high mortality amongst the black refugees was almost certainly valid for it was unlikely, given their abysmal living conditions, that the blacks were healthier than the whites. In May 1901 General Knox wired the Deputy Administrator, Major Goold Adams, asking for the appointment of a superintendent of native refugees immediately, because of the numbers suffering from sickness and starvation. P.H. Gresson was appointed. He was forced to battle against sickness without a doctor until August 1901, when someone was finally put in place. He also found himself at odds with the military authorities, who repeatedly commandeered the men for labour. Without them he could not complete the huts which the men had been building for the women and children. The chief superintendent agreed that enough men should be left to do the basic camp work, including the digging of graves (a comment which surely indicates high mortality). The black camp at Kroonstad remained part of the Free State system until August 1901, when it was handed over to Major de Lotbinière. The Kroonstad camp was closed down and the inmates transferred to Honingspruit and Serfontein.⁷

We have very little information about life in the black camps, or their relationship with the white camps but, in the case of Kroonstad there are a few brief glimpses. The Molope family, who had been farming on the Vereeniging Estates, were in Kroonstad camp. There, several of the children died ‘of natural causes’.⁸ In July 1901, F. Hill wrote to the chief superintendent in Bloemfontein to the effect that his client, D.H. Botha of Kroonstad, had requested that some black families, then in the Bloemfontein black camp, be transferred to the Kroonstad camp. The families concerned had worked for Mr Botha, who had left them to care for his farm and stock when he had come into Kroonstad for protection against the Boer commandos. In February 1901, however, the military had sent them to Bloemfontein. There they were unable to put in claims for compensation for their own losses, nor was Botha able to do so either, since these ‘boys’ were his only witnesses. The Bloemfontein superintendent admitted that Manel and Malgas and their families were in his camp, but Jan had gone to the No 6 Transport Depot, leaving his family in Bloemfontein, while Adam was working for the South African Constabulary. In any case, there was no railway transport for such moves (although white camp inmates were moved at their own cost).⁹

From the first Kroonstad lacked accommodation as Boer families poured in. As early as February 1901, the superintendent was urgently cabling for more tents for ninety people had arrived from Viljoen’s Drift the day before and another sixty had been brought in that day. He was informed by head office that the tents were expected to house fifteen people each, the same rule as applied to the troops. 100 tents were not needed for 943 people, Webb was told in March 1901.¹⁰ This ruling, which was partly the product of the failure of the military to plan for the number of families they had to house, was one of the most fatal decisions in the early months of the camps, for disease spread like wildfire in these cramped conditions.

Nutrition was also critical and it was months before the camp authorities admitted that the ration scale, based on military rations and scaled down for women, children and men who were not performing hard labour, was inadequate. In March 1901 the camp inmates petitioned the superintendent. They only received ½ lb of meat a day, they complained, much of which was bone. They received no fat and, given the lack of meat, ¾ lb flour a day was also insufficient. Worse still, the very old and the very young suffered from the monotonous diet, with no vegetables or rice. They received no candles nor soap and could not keep clean. Only twelve passes a day were issued so people could not get into town to buy food, clothing or do business. The superintendent was not inclined to stir himself. He assured the chief superintendent that he was satisfied that there were no grounds for complaint. The meat contractor added extra if the meat was bony and he did not think it necessary to vary the scale of rations. Concessions would only give rise to further demands. Although he was unsympathetic, Webb was not responsible for the passes, which was the province of the military and, over time, he came to agree that the lack of passes, reduced to only six a day by June 1901, caused considerable hardship. The length of stay in Kroonstad camp also took its toll. By August 1901 the MO was reporting cases of scurvy and it was decided to issue lime juice to inmates who had been in the camp for more than six months.¹¹

Mrs Penton’s correspondence with the Kroonstad resident magistrate explains why the passes were so valuable. She was desperate enough to bypass the superintendent and go directly to the magistrate for help. In a ‘very excited state’ she told Mr W. Robertson that superintendent Webb had refused her a pass to go into town to buy clothing for her children. He had also refused her a blanket although they were ‘almost perishing with cold’, because she was shortly to be transferred to Potchefstroom and didn’t need one for such a short time. This was not the first time such a complaint had occurred, Robertson explained, and he would continue to forward them to Bloemfontein if Mr Webb refused to work amicably. The sole response of head office was to inquire whether Mrs Penton was a Transvaal burgher; otherwise she must remain in Kroonstad.¹²

All these conditions ensured that infectious diseases would spread rapidly and hit hard. And epidemics struck early for many of the first arrivals were in a bad way. When Reitz was evacuated in January 1901, the British left behind ten families seriously affected by typhoid. Amongst them was Johanna Rousseau, who noted that one of her family was extremely bad with fever. The party, when they were finally removed, included a brother with heart disease, an old man who died before they reached the camp, a child with diphtheria, a Miss van Wijk who was suffering from ‘inflammation of the lungs’ and a Mrs Potgieter who had acute rheumatism’.¹³

By the end of February 1901 there were already forty patients in the camp hospital, twenty-seven of whom had enteric and the first medical report makes it clear that this was initially the major health hazard. Already widespread in the local villages, typhoid was almost certainly spread by the British army as well, brought from typhoid-ridden Bloemfontein. It was not only the whites who suffered for the doctor found several cases of typhoid amongst black servants brought in by the Boers. But measles had also struck as early as March 1901 and diphtheria was common as well. In that month there were eighteen deaths, well above the average for that date.¹⁴

At first a civilian doctor, Dr Symonds, cared for the camp but he had no trained nurses When one was appointed, she turned out to be a disappointment for she was rapidly dismissed for drinking. The medical situation was partly relieved, however, when Dr van der Wall arrived. Dr Symonds was able to turn his attention to the arrivals living in the town rather than the camp.¹⁵

The two doctors spelt out the problems very clearly but their warnings fell largely on deaf ears in these early months. They were particularly concerned about the food provided for the sick children, which was unsuitable for those suffering from digestive difficulties, arising from typhoid, measles and diarrhoea. They asked that the bread be replaced by mealie meal and a larger ration of milk and sugar be allowed. At this stage economy was the watchword and the chief superintendent refused. ‘The scale of rations as already laid down cannot be altered’, he stated. Sick children must go into hospital where they could receive medical comforts. Food was not the only problem. In his report for March 1901 Dr van der Wall commented on the overcrowding in the tents. Exposed to excessive heat during the day, and excessive cold at night, not to mention the fact that many of the tents were not waterproof, it was not surprising that the young and the old suffered. Nor was it only the Boers who fell ill. Three of his nurses had enteric and one had measles (these may have been Boer ‘probationers’). He was not pleased about the summary dismissal of the drunken Sister Turner, whatever her deficiencies, for the cases of diphtheria and measles needed special nursing in isolation. If the children were in a better state of health before they fell ill, they would not suffers so badly, Dr Symonds believed.¹⁶

Nursing improved when Sister Lizzie Strachan was recruited from Durban. Like superintendent Webb, she was a British refugee and she seems to have been a good appointment for she remained at Kroonstad throughout, eventually rising to hospital matron. Her anguished request to bring her children to the camp gives a glimpse of the hardships of the Uitlander refugees, a counterpoint to the suffering of the Boers. Her daughter, she wrote, was fretting without her mother.

‘I do not know whether you have a wee girl of your own or not but if you have I am sure that you will grant my request viz. that you grant me a pass for the child to join me here. I may state that we have lost money, home and everything, have five children, three of whom are in Scotland at school, the other two in Durban. During our enforced stay in Durban the climate tried the girl most severely, but the boy is a hardier type and was able to resist it. We are British refugees from Johannesburg, and surely our own Government will grant my request to save the health of a little British subject, when it does so much for the Boers. . . . If you grant me my request, you need not fear that I will neglect my duties.’.¹⁷

It seems that her plea was not heard, but she turned her care to the Boer children, asking Emily Hobhouse for toys for the convalescents.

‘Your generosity gives me courage to apply to you for “dolls”. You may think my request a strange one, but to me it is heartbreaking to hear a wee dying girlie craving for a doll and not have one to give her. I have girlies of my own and have to keep them at school, or I could myself supply, but under circumstances, and being a war refugee myself, I cannot afford to buy, much as I would like to. I think I will manage to dress, if you can manage to supply the artificial baby. Poor wee girlies! lots of them have lost father and mother too; to me it is hard to bear the cry for a “poppie”. If you can send something to amuse my wee boys, I shall be doubly grateful. You yourself must think of what would be best for them.’.¹⁸

Gradually the number of trained nurses was increased, most recruited from England, and more young Boer ‘probationers’ were also employed. Their conditions were abysmal for they received only the ordinary camp rations and their quarters were cheerless. The Ladies Committee recommended that the nurses should receive more food and that they should have somewhere decent to eat. Their advice was not, apparently, immediately followed for, in January 1902, Elizabeth Strachan wrote to Dr van der Wall, pointing out that the nurses from England were used to better food and were all suffering because of the inadequate nutrition. Dr van der Wall supported her complaint, agreeing that his nurses were constantly ill, averaging two a day off sick. The correspondence which followed suggests that the problem lay with poor management rather than the supply of food, which was now much better. But the nurses continued to fall ill all through January.¹⁹

Although the first epidemic was partially contained, as the death rate chart shows, by July 1901 a second wave was attacking the camp. Dr van der Wall wrote desperately, asking for more doctors. At least 10% of the camp inmates, black as well as white, he said, were seriously ill. Pneumonia, measles, whooping cough and diphtheria were all rife and the hospital was overflowing, with two children to a bed. If he could not get help, his nervous system would not stand the strain, he declared. After he had visited the camp in early August, Goold Adams reported to Lord Kitchener that the epidemic had been fuelled by 800 people, brought in from Graspan, near Reitz, six weeks ago. They were already suffering from measles which ‘spread like wildfire’. General Knox also took an interest in the problem, recommending a convalescent camp, since the children often died after they had been discharged from hospital.²⁰ It was during this crisis that a number of families, with members suffering from measles, were transferred to nearby Heilbron camp. The matter created a furore, reaching the House of Commons, and Dr van der Wall was much criticised although, in fact, the removal seems to have taken place either at the order of the military or that of superintendent Webb.²¹

Although the graphs suggest that the worst of the epidemic occurred in July 1901, the continued influx of people still fuelled disease. As late as January 1902 the MO was complaining the new arrivals kept the disease going – despite Kitchener’s orders that no more people should be taken into the camps. The whole camp was still infected, he explained and he doubted whether more than twenty tents were free of measles.²²

The death rate indicates the relatively high mortality amongst adults as well as children in Kroonstad camp. This was often the product of typhoid, especially in the summer months.

Superintendent Webb clearly felt that he was beset from all sides. In May he clashed with the Kroonstad board of health who tried to make him isolate prisoners of war returning from Green Point camp in Cape Town (Cape Town was suffering from an epidemic of plague at the time). Webb considered that it was none of their business and they did not help to keep the camp clean. He feared that a ‘pitched battle’ was imminent. The squabble went on inconclusively for some time.²³ The prisoners were also a source of trouble since many were not with their families as they had expected, while those who owned houses in the town were not allowed to leave the camp. The lack of passes was causing discontent. In addition he kept losing staff.

‘Whilst writing confidentially I might say you have dealt hardly with me, first you lop off my left hand by taking away old Brink [who had gone to Vredefort Road camp], then you cut off my right hand by taking away Jacobs [who was promoted to Brandfort camp], not that I would have stood in the way of the deserved promotion of both of them, but it is hard on me to run this extensive camp with inexperienced material’.²⁴

Then the Assistant Provost Marshall ordered the closing of stores run by Southwood Bros, because they had brought liquor into the camp. This matter was taken up by no less a person than the Deputy Administrator, Goold Adams, who wrote to General Knox that the decision be reconsidered. Pointing out that the care of the Boer families had recently been discussed in the House of Commons (as a result of Emily Hobhouse’s report), the condition of the people should be ameliorated as far as possible.

‘The presence of stores in these camps is not only a boon to those residing therein, enabling the residents to acquire by purchase articles of clothing and little necessaries required by them, and also lessens the necessity of the same being supplied by us at a heavy cost. I am therefore desirous of affording facilities wherever possible for decent traders to open stores, and unless there is any very grave [charge] against them of dishonesty or of a political or criminal nature, I do not think they should be removed’.

This was a very different attitude from the harsh thriftiness of the early days of the camp and marks the slow transition to a more generous management of the camp inmates. General Knox was not helpful, however, for there were five other stores in the camp.²⁵

The Ladies Committee visited the camp at the end of October 1901. By that time superintendent Webb had been replaced by Mr W.E. Thompson, who had arrived about six weeks before. In some respects the Ladies were critical of the camp. The water, drawn from the Valsch River and an ongoing problem, was muddy and inadequate, with each inmate allowed a gallon a day. Analysis confirmed that the water was muddy but not necessarily dangerous but problems continued for some months despite a considerable investment in pumps and pipes. The latrine pails were filthy and the seats were too high for the children, of which they had ‘ocular proof’. On the other hand the terrible overcrowding of the early days had disappeared and the bell tents now averaged three people to a tent. The shops, of which there were seven, were reasonably well stocked, with accordions having a ready sale at £1 5s each. Passes were still issued reluctantly, 10 a day for women but those whose men were on commando were not allowed passes. Nor were they allowed to buy food in the town, partly because there was so little available for the townspeople.²⁶

The most interesting feature of the camp, the Ladies considered, was a dressmaking school established by two young women who had been trained as dressmakers. They had taken on 21 pupils and got a good deal of work. Just before the Committee arrived, they had held a sale which brought in £5 6s 9d, which was used for buying more fabric. In September 1901 Kroonstad camp had been moved to a new site, ‘high on downlike land’. The Ladies Committee noted that there was more grass than in any other camp they had visited, a great boon since it kept down the eternal dust.²⁷ Although the camp was changing before the Committee arrived, Mrs Johanna Rousseau attributed the improvements to their visit. The water supply was better, bread ovens were built and morale, generally, lifted with the start of a Choral and Self-Improvement Society.²⁸

The reporter from the Bloemfontein Post commented on the variety of entertainments available. A weekly series of concerts was planned because the camp had an organ, a piano, a violin and other musical instruments, while some could sing. When he arrived, a military band was performing and he was told that they played every Wednesday afternoon. This must have been a bright spot in the in the monotonous lives of the camp inmates, he thought, although one little boy remembered the performance as tedious, with a surfeit of patriotic British music.²⁹

By 1902, then, life in Kroonstad camp had improved considerably, although there were always some problems running a camp in wartime. When Inspector Tonkin visited the camp in February 1902 he recommended that more bedsteads be made for 1,500 people were still sleeping on the ground. The chief superintendent was not pleased. Why were so many still without beds, he asked, ‘when I have given strict instructions that this is not to be’. The superintendent explained that the people did not like being separated at night and that the tents were too small to hold six or seven bedsteads.³⁰

In the winter of 1902 the problems of meat supply recurred in all the camps, including Kroonstad. It was poor, tough and inferior to the frozen meat they had been getting, the superintendent complained, and he feared that the result would be debilitation contributing to a rise in mortality. Part of the difficulty, he explained, was cultural. ‘Most of the refugees refuse to eat this meat as it is useless for roasting, and can only be used for soup, or after mincing, both ways of preparing meat which the refugees do not understand’.³¹

At the end of the war, when the families had to be repatriated, Kroonstad became the holding camp for the area, taking in people from Vredefort Road when that camp was closed. Relief works were set up at Strydfontein nearby to provide for destitute families with no home or work to return to. Widows and orphans were sent onto Brandfort. Nevertheless, the camp was still in existence in January 1902, possibly because two people were still in hospital. The last patient was eventually sent onto Brandfort but the relief works refused to receive the family of Mrs Pieters as the children were suffering from ‘purulent conjunctivitis’. The last people were finally moved out on 4 February 1903, although the formal report stated that Kroonstad camp was closed on 12 January.³²

Sources

E.H. Hobhouse, The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell (London, Methuen, 1902).

E.H. Hobhouse, War Without Glamour (Bloemfontein, Nasionale Pers, 1924).

E.H. Hobhouse, Emily Hobhouse. Boer War Letters, ed by R. van Reenen (Cape Town, Human & Rousseau, 1984).

D. Serfontein, Keurskrif vir Kroonstad. 'n Kronike van die Onstaaan, Groei en Vooruitsigte van 'n Vrystaatse Plattelandse Dorp (Kroonstad, Perskor, 1990).

S.B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics January 1900-May 1902 (Cape Town, Human & Rousseau, 1977).

S. Trapido, 'Putting a plough to the ground: a history of tenant production on the Vereeniging Estates, 1896-1920' in W. Beinart et al, (eds), Putting a Plough to the Ground. Accumulation and Dispossession in Rural South Africa, 1850-1930 (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1986).

Lucy Deane papers, (Streatfield Collection, LSE 2/11).

CO and SRC files in the Free State Archives Repository [FSAR], including SRC 133, Pratt Yule report, 1901.

Ladies Committee report: Cd 893, pp. 93-99.

FK and GOV files in the National Archives, Pretoria [NASA].

CO files in the National Archives, United Kingdom [NAUK].