Albert Grundlingh

'Gone to the Dogs': The Cultural Politics of Gambling - The Rise and Fall of British Greyhound Racing on the Witwatersrand, 1932-1949.

Gambling in various forms followed in the wake of the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 and remained a persistent feature of the way in which the urban proletariat sought to spend their leisure time. This paper explores one form of leisure pursuit, organised dog racing, which held sway on the Rand between 1932 and 1949. Betting on the dogs had its own internal dynamics, but the industry was also vulnerable to pressures emanating from wider society. Debates about dog racing cast new light on Afrikaner initiatives to fashion a particular form of cultural nationalism in Johannesburg. Moreover, working-class reactions to such overtures raise the question whether the adaptation of these Afrikaners to urbanisation, usually portrayed in the literature as extremely dysfunctional, has not been oversimplified. Ultimately it was a combined set of societal pressures that ensured the termination of dog racing and that changed the landscape of popular culture on the Witwatersrand. The pastime was not resurrected, and even with the current relaxation of gambling regulations in South Africa dog racing tracks have failed to make their appearance in a society which has otherwise embraced gambling with gusto. Partly because it left so few traces in the present, the vanished culture of dog racing has not registered with historians. In addition, the general dearth of academic studies on the history of leisure in South Africa contributes to a lack of understanding of the wider significance of popular pursuits.‘

Mutating Memories and the Making of a Myth: Remembering The SS Mendi Disaster, 1917–2007

Abstract The SS Mendi, carrying the last detachment of the South African Native Labour Contingent to work as non-combatants in France during the First World War, sank just off the Isle of Wight on 21 February 1917. The death toll was high: of the 882 men on board, 615 died and 267 were saved. The grim details are easily verifiable; the subsequent afterlife of the incident is more complex. This article addresses the way in which the Mendi disaster has been recalled over decades and contextualised in terms of public memory at different historical junctures, and how a heroic narrative was constructed with certain elements more pertinently being foregrounded recently to serve a useful purpose in the present.

History on the hill: Aspects of scholarship and scholarly life at the Unisa History Department, 1968–2000

Given the nature o f the historical profession and its interest in change over time, it is perhaps not surprising that historians should be imbued with a more keenly felt sense of a personal past than may otherwise be the case. This probably spurs them on to recount their own histories or those o f institutions with which they have been involved. In South Africa as well as abroad several examples come to mind. l

Rebuffing Royals? Afrikaners and the Royal Visit to South Africa in 1947

ABSTRACT This article traces the responses of Afrikaners to the symbolism and political purposes of the 1947 royal visit to Southern Africa, the first post-war royal tour and the first visit of a reigning sovereign to the Union of South Africa. Taking place in the aftermath of a war that had caused bitter political divisions within Afrikaner ranks and stimulated radical populist nationalism, a royal tour intended to express the crowns gratitude for South Africas participation in that war was bound to be contentious. Drawing on press accounts, biographies, autobiographies and archival sources, this article argues that the layered reactions of Afrikaners demonstrate that, even on the eve of the National Partys electoral victory on a republican and apartheid platform, attitudes towards monarchy and the British connection were more fluid and ambiguous than either contemporary propaganda or recent accounts have allowed. The diverse meanings attributed to this iconic royal tour reveal a process of intense contestation and reflection about South Africas place in an empire that was in the throes of post-war redefinition and transformation, and confirm recent characterisations of the 1940s as one of manifold possibilities such that outcomes, like the electoral victory of the National Party in the following year, was far from predetermined.

Diffusion and Depiction: How Afrikaners Came to Play Cricket in Twentieth-Century South Africa

A cursory survey pertaining to the literature on South African cricket will reveal that a surprising omission, when one considers the crucial role of Afrikanerdom in shaping the contours of twentieth-century South African history, is that the changing Afrikaner interest in the game has not been subjected to a sustained analysis. This chapter attempts to address this shortcoming by focusing on the trajectory of Afrikaner involvement in cricket, trying to account for initial reticence to embrace the game as enthusiastically as rugby. Afrikaner interest though grew apace during the 1960s and conditions which facilitated such a turnabout are explored. Equally, the intricacies of the way in which prominent cricketers from an Afrikaans background have been portrayed and represented in terms of identity politics are outlined.

‘Poor South Africa! Will No Nice English People Ever Come Out Here?’ The South African Constabulary of the Anglo-Boer War

ABSTRACT Using newly digitised and transcribed attestation records, we provide a detailed description of the composition of the South African Constabulary, a volunteer force of mostly English recruits during and after the Second South African War. These records contain personal particulars such as age, country of origin, occupation and religion for 10,399 service terms. We also match these attestation records to the discharge records for each recruit, providing evidence about cause of exit and length of service. The records not only provide a wealth of genealogical data, they also enable us to compare living standards in the various colonies.

From J.J. ‘Boerjong’ Kotze to Hansie Cronje: Afrikaners and cricket in twentieth-century South Africa – diffusion and representation

This essay briefly traces the trajectory of late-nineteenth-century Afrikaner involvement in cricket. It then examines in greater depth the circumstances which during the first half of the twentieth century militated against the game developing a mass appeal among Afrikaners. The situation changed gradually with Afrikaner ascent to political power in 1948, and especially markedly different socio-economic prosperity during the 1960s, which contributed to cultural shifts and facilitated greater Afrikaner involvement in the game. The essay concludes with an assessment of the complex ways in which presumed Afrikaner identities played themselves out in the post-apartheid international sporting arena.