SAHO global search

1919-1987

James Madhlope Phillips

James Philips was born in Sophiatown into a working class family on 11 December 1919. His father died while he was still young and this had negative socio…

B-0068220

1908-1981

Eli Weinberg

Eli Weinberg was born in 1908 in the port of Libau, in Latvia on the Baltic Sea. He experienced the First World War and the October Revolution of 1917 as a…

B-0009221

Nicholaas Frederic de Waal

Born in Rotterdam in 1853, De Waal was the son of a banker who received a commercial education in Brussels and studied law. He travelled to Europe and America…

B-0123406

1955-2017

Peter McKenzie

Peter Michael McKenzie was born on 10 February 1955, in Durban, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). He was the youngest child of Duggie and Hilda McKenzie. He attended…

B-0008529

1924-2021

Kenneth Kaunda

Kenneth Kaunda was the first president of Zambia. He was born on 28 April 1924 at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali. (In what was then Northern Rhodesia.) He was the…

B-0008233

1922-1988

Dr Ahmed Ismail Limbada

Dr Ahmed Ismail Limbada grew up in Dundee, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal).  He studied at Sastri College in Durban, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) and Witwatersrand…

B-0080477

2013

Ronald (Ronnie) Britten

At a young age, while a student at the University of Cape Town, Ronald (Ronnie) Britten was an active member of the then Non-European Unity Movement, later to…

B-0125716

1916-1987

Margaret Mary Smith

Margaret Smith was born Margaret Mary MacDonald on 26 September 1916 in Indwe, a small village in the former Transkei. [i] Her father, Chisholm MacDonald,…

B-0100307

1916-1965

Dr Arthur Elias Letele

Arthur Elias Letele was born on 2nd October 1915 in Maseru, Lesotho. His father, Elias Letele, was a school inspector. His mother, Catherine, was of Xhosa…

B-0008321

1938-1979

David Sibeko

David Maphgumzana Sibeko was born on 26 August 1938 in Sophiatown, Johannesburg. He received his schooling at the St Cyprian's Anglican School in Sophiatown,…

B-0068453

Poonoosamy Ruthnam Pather

Poonoosamy Ruthnam Pather (PR) was born in Mauritius in 1895.  His grandfather settled in that country after emigrating from Tanjore in India in the 1840s. PR…

B-0068301

1866-1935

Henry Burton

Early Life Henry Burton was born on 2 June 1866 in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa and went to school at St Andrews in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. He…

B-0007902

1929-2014

Peter Clarke

Born in Cardiff Road, Simon’s Town in 1929, as the third born child in a family of six, there was much that his domestic worker mother and Dockyard handyman…

B-0007945

1888-1956

Sonja Schlesin

Sonja Schlesin was born in Moscow on 6 June 1888 to Isidor Schlesin and his wife Helena Dorothy (nee Schloss). The Schlesin family later immigrated to South…

B-0068392

1948

Hemant Kumar Waghmarae

Hemant Kumar Waghmarae was born on 24 October 1948 in Mumbai, India to Vishnu Maroothi Waghmarae and Indumati Bane Waghmarae. He is one of seven children. …

B-0073822

1885-1970

Kerr Alexander

Early Life: Alexander Kerr was the first of six children born to William and Elizabeth Findlay Kerr. When he was six years old the Kerr family moved to…

B-0007781

1881-1971

Reverend Zaccheus Richard Mahabane

Zaccheus Richard Mahabane was born in Thaba Nchu, Orange Free State (now Free Stae Province), on 15 August 1881. His parents were Christians and prosperous…

B-0008376

1921-1980

President Seretse Khama

Seretse Khama was born on 1 July 1921 at Serowe, Bechuanaland (now Botswana). His grandfather was Kgosi (King) Khama III, known as Khama the Good, the ruler of…

B-0008250

1895-1983

Rev. James Arthur Calata

James Arthur Calata was born into a poor farming family at Debe Nek near King Williamstown. His father James Calata was a Presbyterian and his mother Eliza, an…

B-0007914

1879-1935

Tielman Johannes de Villiers Roos

Tielman Roos was born in Cape Town on 8 May 1879. He was educated at the South African College qualified as an advocate when he was only 23 years old. He…

B-0067328

1933-1986

Florence Barbara Ribeiro

Born on the 3rd November 1933, community worker Florence Barbara Ribeiro was the fourth of five children. Her father, Henry Mathe, was a labourer in a Coal…

B-0008954

1906-1983

Victor Sidney Norton

Victor Sidney Norton was the elder son of Sidney (Peter) Norton, a Johannesburg journalist, and his wife. His father's descent was English and his mother was…

B-0008815

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

1911-1999

Harry Snitcher

Harry Snitcher was born on 10 May 1911 in Uniondale. His early schooling was in Uniondale and then in Gouda. After the premature death of his father in 1924,…

B-0086255

1619-1677

Jan van Riebeeck

Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (Jan van Riebeeck) was born on 21 April 1619 in Culemborg, Netherlands to a surgeon. He spent his youth in Schiedam,…

B-0068654

1868-1928

Enoch Mgijima

When government police ordered Mgijima's followers to remove their settlement from crown lands, they resisted and police opened fire, killing approximately 200…

B-0064903

1965

Tracy Payne

Tracy Payne’s hyper real paintings evoke a sense of sublime sexuality in the art of constraint, even if she is painting a flower. She was born in 1965 in…

B-0121773

1853-1917

Dr. Leander Starr Jameson

Leander Starr Jameson was the son of Robert William Jameson and Christian Pringle. After his parents moved to London, he went to school at Goldolphin in…

B-0008195

1953

Nandisile Thoko Mpumlwana

Nandisile Thoko Mpumlwana (nèe Mbanjwa) was born in Melmoth, Zululand, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). A co-founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM…

B-0080909

1951

Frank Chikane

Frank Chikane, the son of James and Erenia Chikane, was born on 3 January 1951 in Johannesburg. His father was  a preacher in the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM)…

B-0007939