SAHO global search

1905-1994

Advocate Israel “Isie” Aaron Maisels

Advocate Israel “Isie” Aaron Maisels was born on 19 November 1905 in Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng), South Africa. His father, Henry Maisels, had come…

B-0008386

1939

Allina Ndebele

Allina Ndebele (nee Khumalo) was born on 10 December 1939 in Ekuhlengeni mission, on the Swart Mfolozi near Vryheid, Natal. Ndebele attended school in the…

B-0008755

1857-1919

William Philip Schreiner

William Philip Schreiner, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, anti-British imperialist, and a proponent for the integration of all ‘civilised men' including …

B-0068394

1892-1973

John Ronald Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State on 3 January 1892. After his father died, Tolkien and his mother went to England…

B-0009152

1959

Andrew Michael Boraine

Andrew Michael Boraine was born in Pietermaritzburg on 18 February 1959.He is the eldest of four children of Alex and Jenny Boraine.His father was the…

B-0007872

1932-2009

Aidan Walsh

Aiden Walsh was born in Durban in 1932. He studied at the Natal Technical College from 1948 to 1950, and at the Hammersmith School of Art, London, from 1956 to…

B-0009217

1929-2010

Vincent Joseph Gaobakwe Matthews

Vincent Joseph Gaobakwe Matthews born in Durban, on 17 June 1929, Matthews was one of five children of Frieda and ZK Matthews, a professor, academic lawyer and…

B-0008499

2012

Bongani Mdze

Bongani Mdze (28) was from Jabavu, Mataliele in the Eastern Cape. He began working for Lonmin in 2005. He was the first person in his family to work at the…

B-0121615

Reverend Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile

Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile, the son of Simon Stofile and Miriam Ngcongcobela, was born on 27 December 1944, in the Winterberg District of Adelaide, Eastern Cape…

B-0068486

1905-1988

Bishop Alphaeus Hamilton Zulu

Alphaeus Hamilton Zulu was the only son of Johannes and Miriam Kolo Zulu (nee Hlabisa). His father was a policeman and a farmer. His father died when he was a…

B-0009262

Nontsizi (Cizama, Imbongikazi yakwaCizama) Mgqwetho

Virtually nothing is known about the life of the first and only major female poet to write in Xhosa, apart from what is revealed in her writings, almost all of…

B-0008554

1931-2000

Hendrik Jacobus (Kobie) Coetsee

Kobie Coetsee was born on 19 April 1931 in Ladybrand in the Orange Free State. His father, Johannes, was a printer, and had only one child with is wife,…

B-0007948

1946-2006

Strinivasa “Strini” Moodley

Strinivasa "Strini" Moodley was born on 29 October 1946 in Durban, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). He was the eldest child of Joyce Margaret and Narainsamy Moodley,…

B-0008636

1870-1947

Horatio (Bud) Isaiah Mbelle

Horatio Isaiah Budlwana (Bud) Mbelle was born in Burgersdorp, Cape Colony on 24 June 1870. He grew up in the Herschel district in the Eastern Cape where Sotho…

B-0067925

1937

Adriaan Vlok

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…

B-0009209

1947-2012

Heidi Holland

Heidi Holland was born on 6 October 1947 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the daughter of a British father and a Swiss mother.  When she was three years old, the…

B-0094630

1939-2022

Francis Wilson

Francis Aylmer Hunter Wilson is the oldest son of the anthropologists, Monica and Godfrey Wilson. He was born in May 1939 in Livingstone, Zambia. During this…

B-0123540

1879-1966

Alfred Assegai (Mkhonto) Kumalo

Alfred Assegai (Mkhonto) Kumalo was born on 4 January 1879 in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg. At the age of four his parents moved to Amajuba in the southeast of…

B-0008285

1928-2007

Lawrence Folley

Born in Benoni in 1928, Lawrence started voice training with Alan Webster and music theory with Gillian Davies who trained the Benoni Orpheus Choir.  Lawrence…

B-0008076

1917-2009

Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman (nee Govronsky) was born in the South African mining town of Germiston on 7 November 1917 to Samuel and Frieda Gavronsky, both immigrants from…

B-0009113

1922-2013

Vesta Smith

Vesta Smith (affectionately known as Ma Vee) was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng) on 20 July 1922. Her father worked as a clerk at…

B-0096465

1934

Samson Ratshilumela Mudzunga

Samson Ratshilumela Mudzunga was born in 1934 in the Nzhelele district of the former Venda ‘homeland’, now Limpopo province. However, Apartheid-era documents…

B-0099632

1930-2006

Mazisi Raymond Kunene

Mazisi Raymond Kunene was born in Durban on May 12, 1930, at McCord's Hospital. His mother Eva Kunene (nee Ngcobo) was a teacher and his father, Mdabuli Albert…

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 Afrikaans (cum laude), Philosophy (cum laude) and English at…

B-0008279

1950

Peter Jones

Peter Cyril Jones was born in 1950 on 7th of December in Somerset West in Western Cape. Jones after completing High School in 1976, he became politically…

B-0008211

1926-2004

Anthony Sampson

Anthony Sampson was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church in Oxford, and served on the Royal Navy from 1944-7. In 1951, due in part to his…

B-0008981

Vusi Mahlasela

Vusimuzi Sidney 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…

B-0096899

1936-2011

Joseph Johannes Marks

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 George in the…

B-0071696

1915-2003

Abdul Khalek Mohamed Docrat

Docrat was born in the village of Kathor, India on 15 September 1915. His grandfather was a pioneering businessman who traded in Burma and South Africa. Upon…

B-0008013