SAHO global search

1918-2000

Ismail Chota Meer

… in Northern Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). His father was a trader. He was forced to go to work at an early age when his father’s business … helped found and run…

B-0008538

1946-2006

Strinivasa “Strini” Moodley

… the eldest child of Joyce Margaret and Narainsamy Moodley, a teacher and later Director of the Durban Indian Child … for Indians, Salisbury Island, Durban,…

B-0008636

1870-1947

Horatio (Bud) Isaiah Mbelle

… at the Wesleyan Methodist Primary School and from 1886 to 1888 at Healdtown Institution, a Methodist boarding school near Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape,…

B-0067925

1937

Adriaan Vlok

… was born on 11 December 1937 in Sutherland, Cape Province to Betty Oliver and Nicolaas Vlok. He grew up on a smallholding close to the Orange River,…

B-0009209

1947-2012

Heidi Holland

… 1947 in Johannesburg , South Africa, the daughter of a British father and a Swiss mother.  When she was three years old, the family moved to Southern…

B-0094630

1939-2022

Francis Wilson

… of the newly created Rhodes Livingstone Institute. Due to political pressure, in 1941 Godfrey Wilson was forced to … live with her aging parents in Lovedale,…

B-0123540

1879-1966

Alfred Assegai (Mkhonto) Kumalo

… Pietermaritzburg. At the age of four his parents moved to Amajuba in the southeast of the Transvaal Republic where … and then in 1895 to Johannesburg, where…

B-0008285

1928-2007

Lawrence Folley

… from four years of study in England.  She was able to broaden his musical horizons and encouraged him to focus … In 1957 he turned professional and after…

B-0008076

1917-2009

Helen Suzman

… South African mining town of Germiston on 7 November 1917 to Samuel and Frieda Gavronsky, both immigrants from Eastern … imposed on Jews by Russia. She was…

B-0009113

1922-2013

Vesta Smith

… (now Gauteng ) on 20 July 1922. Her father worked as a clerk at Robinson Deep Mine where she spent her early years with her four sisters. Her mother was a…

B-0096465

1916-2006

Anton Edward Rupert

… Karoo. He enrolled at the University of Pretoria for a medical degree, however, due to lack of funds, converted his studies to a chemistry degree at the same…

B-0121674

1934

Samson Ratshilumela Mudzunga

… Apartheid-era documents noted his year of birth as 1938, a date still recognised as correct in many publications. He began experimenting with moulding clay…

B-0099632

1930-2006

Mazisi Raymond Kunene

… McCord's Hospital. His mother Eva Kunene (nee Ngcobo) was a teacher and his father, Mdabuli Albert Kunene, a labourer.He grew up at Amahlongwa on the KwaZulu…

B-0008288

1952

Antjie Krog

… Antjie was born on 23 October 1952 on a farm in the Free State . She completed her BA degree with … University of the Orange Freestate and then she went on…

B-0008279

1950

Peter Jones

… active  at the University of the Western Cape . He helped to launch the campus branch of the South  African Students' … (SASO), in 1970. This biography is an…

B-0008211

1926-2004

Anthony Sampson

… served on the Royal Navy from 1944-7. In 1951, due in part to his connection with then editor Jim Bailey, Sampson became … Observer , where he worked from…

B-0008981

Vusi Mahlasela

… ka Zwane was born in Mamelodi in 1965. His grandmother ran a shebeen from behind their home. He grew up listening to people singing at the shebeen which…

B-0096899

1936-2011

Joseph Johannes Marks

… was born on 22 April 1936 in Mossel Bay, where his father, a fisherman, was also born.  He grew up in Pacaltsdorp near … the local school where he completed…

B-0071696

1926-1977

Viola Hashe

… Orange Free State (now Free State Province ). Hashe was a teacher by profession. Hashe became involved in the labour … Rand region of Congress. In 1956, she…

B-0080306

1915-2003

Abdul Khalek Mohamed Docrat

… of Kathor, India on 15 September 1915. His grandfather was a pioneering businessman who traded in Burma and South … his parents. He smuggled his way into the…

B-0008013

1831-1900

Piet Joubert

… territory was annexed in 1877, joined Kruger and Pretorius to take up arms against the British. He led the commando that … became commandant-general of the…

B-0008220

1937-2011

Fikile Charles Bam

… St. Peter’s Secondary School from 1956, and went on to study law at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1960. Bam was a member of the Yu Chi Chan Club …

B-0007820

1846-1921

James Smith Morland

… 1846, died Cape Town, 1921. Morland was descended from a family of British artists that includes the famous George Morland (1763 - 1804). He came to SA with…

B-0008646

1962-2013

Jacob “Baby Jake” Matlala

… Johannesburg. At the age of 10 he started going to the gymnasium with his father who was an aspiring boxer. … boxing that he decided to turn professional in…

B-0008489

1886-1973

Maria Laubser

… art briefly under Edward Roworth. Laubser was elected a member of the South African Society of Artists (SASA) in 1907, long before she became a noted…

B-0008300

1910-1974

Raymond Francis (Ray) Budd

… in Cape Town. He served his apprenticeship in Cape Town as a fitter at the Salt River Workshops of the South African … Alexander. From 1939, Budd was…

B-0007895

1917-1978

Dr Ansuyah Ratipul Singh

… Singh. Her parents sent all three of their daughters to the Durban Indian Girls’ School in Dartnell Crescent, … In 1954, she was the first Indian woman to…

B-0009065

1936

Bhekisisa Harold Nxasana

… 26 September 1936 at Ixopo in southern Natal. His father, a teacher who later worked as a mine clerk, was killed in the Zulu-Indian riots of 1946. … the…

B-0008833

1966-1986

Andrew Sibusiso Zondo

… He attended Ngazane Lower Primary School and went on to Phakama Higher Primary School in KwaMashu. After … his studies. He developed an interest in politics…

B-0085558

1949

Jeremy Patrick Cronin

… (now KwaZulu-Natal). He grew up in Cape Town, the son of a naval officer who died when Cronin was ten. He was raised as a Catholic. Cronin graduated in 1966…

B-0007963