White but poor: Essays on the History of Poor Whites in Southern Africa 1880-1940

1996

ISBN O 86981 729 9

Preface

This collection had its origins in the environment of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand. In the early 1980s social history was being encouraged through the History Workshop. Numerous studies, inspired by the pioneering work of Colin Bundy on African peasants, were beginning to appear. Many of these works made use of oral history and most attempted to bring to life the hidden lives of the African 'underclasses'. In contrast to the vigorous efforts made to uncover the history of the black poor, there was a
strange silence hanging over the history of the poor whites. South African history, at least in the liberal and radical traditions, has often
been written against a backdrop of intellectual and political opposition to apartheid. The tendency this induced was for writers to focus on the group which laboured under the worst excesses of the South African social order, the dispossessed and exploited blacks. Put bluntly, writers expressed their sympathy for, and political affinity with, the exploited and oppressed members of society via their research. Although things began to change during the second half of the 1980s, few English-speaking writers were inclined, in the climate of ongoing violence and repression, to write empathetically about white Afrikaners, even if historically this group had experienced the deprivations that the development of capitalism entailed. My own research work in the Eastern Transvaal drew me to examine the plight of unproductive, small-scale white farmers in the early twentieth century. Few other people were at that time focusing their research on this class. In 1985, as I became aware of the increase in research activity on poor whites, I began to collect the essays that appear in this collection. None has been published before. My chapter and that of Albert Grundlingh first saw the light as History Workshop conference papers in 1984 and 1987 respectively. John Bottomley gave a version of his chapter as a seminar paper to the African Studies Institute at Wits in 1982 and covered another angle of the subject in his 1987 History Workshop paper. At least three of the other contributions (Clynick, Parnell and Pirie) were affected by the climate of the History Workshop which pervaded Wits University's academic life in the 1980s. Unavoidably this collection suffers from omissions. Regionally, the Cape is under-represented. The absence of a piece on the Western Cape particularly, is regrettable. Although I tried to solicit work on Mozambique, Namibia and
Swaziland I was not successful and the comparative insights such work would have provided are thus denied us. I am very aware that the collection lacks a gender perspective. During the gestation period of this book it looked as though I would be able to include a piece on poor white women. but this was not to be. Poor whites in literature, poor white culture and the poor white experience (which could be reconstructed via exhaustive use of oral evidence) are all notable absentees. Despite these limitations, I like to think that collectively these essays offer a multi-dimensional and nuanced view of the poor whites. The production of White but poor was a painfully long process. Some of those who offered chapters were unable to complete their contributions. Others found that the demands of academic life interfered with writing and work was thus often produced haltingly. Many of the contributors were separated from me by vast distances and communication was not always easy and invariably slow. Various publishers held on to the completed manuscript for months before declining to publish. In one case the manuscript disappeared in the post and was never recovered! In preparing this publication I have incurred debts of gratitude to people who have encouraged me and shared their wisdom and level-headedness. Albert Grundlingh was a staunch supporter, and it is true to say that without him, this collection might never have appeared or at least would have appeared much later. Bill Freund never allowed my interest to flag, Mike Morris gave me courage in the initial phases, Vishnu Padayachee helped me to negotiate the middle passage, and Doug Hindson helped me to persevere towards the end. I have to thank the contributors for producing their work and having the patience to wait for the act of publication to be completed. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Department of Education, Natal University, Durban which assisted in a variety of ways when deadlines were very tight. The concept for the cover of this book was developed with the assistance of Costas Criticos and Alison Gillwald. The artwork was done by Jo Orsmond of the Audio Visual Centre, University of Natal, Durban. I would like to place on record my gratitude to them. The photographs come from the E. G. Malherbe Collection housed at the Killie Campbell Library, University of Natal, Durban. I thank the librarians for their help.
Robert Morrell

Contents

Preface ........................................................................................... xi

Introduction: The poor whites; a social force and a social problem in South Africa - Bill Freund .......... xiii

Chapter 1: The poor whites of Middelburg, Transvaal, 1900-1930: resistance, accommodation and class struggle - Robert Morrell ...... 1

Chapter 2: The Orange Free State and the Rebellion of 1914: the influence of industrialisation, poverty and poor whiteism - John

Bottomley ........29

Chapter 3: 'God het ons arm mense die houtjies gegee': poor white woodcutters in the southern Cape Forest area, c. 1900-1939 -

Albert Grundlingh ........ 40

Chapter 4: Time to trek: landless whites and poverty in the northern Natal countryside, 1902-1939 - Verne Harris .............57

Chapter 5: 'Digging a way into the working class': unemployment and consciousness amongst the Afrikaner poor on the Lichtenburg

alluvial diggings, 1926-1929 - Tim Clynick .......75

Chapter 6: White railway labour in South Africa, 1873-1924 - Gordon Pirie .......101

Chapter 7: Slums, segregation and poor whites in Johannesburg, 1920-1934 - Susan Parnell .......115

Chapter 8: Minute substance versus substantial fear: white destitution and the shaping of policy in Rhodesia in the 1890s -

Philip Stigger .............. 130

Chapter 9: Education and Southern Rhodesia's poor whites, 1890-1930 - Bob Challiss .......... 151

Notes ............ 171