Ngcobo

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On 1 November 1859, a day known in the Christian calender as All Saints Day, Chief Fubu of the amaQwathi met with Archdeacon Waters and the Rev John Gordon of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). As a result they were granted a stretch of land in the Xuka valley, and soon thereafter the All Saints mission station was founded on the site under the leadership of the Rev Gordon. In 1876 Walter Stanford arrived at the station to take up his appointment as Resident Magistrate to the amaQwathi. He established the seat of his magistracy some some 8km from the station on a site known locally as Engcobo, a Xhosa term meaning "a green place next to a stream". In 1879 the amaQwathi rose in rebellion and, during the ensuing hostilities, both the mission and the magistracy were burnt to the ground, forcing their residents to flee. Following the surrender of the amaQwathi, the magistracy was re-established at Ngcobo in 1881.

Ngcobo Local Municipality is an administrative area in the Chris Hani District of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Ngcobo is an isiXhosa name for a sweet grass found in the area.
Nelson Mandela received an excellent education by the standards for Xhosa boys of his time,here. His conscience was prickled early by the imperial attitudes embedded in his missionary education.
Intending to gain skills needed to become a privy councillor for the Thembu royal house, Mandela began his secondary education at Clarkebury Boarding Institute in Engcobo, a Western-style institution that was the largest school for black Africans in Thembuland. Made to socialise with other students on an equal basis, he claimed that he lost his uptight attitude, becoming best-friends with a girl for the first time; he began playing sports and developed his lifelong love of gardening.