History
The roots of Fort Beaufort is a mission station that the Reverend Joseph Williams of the London Missionary Society established in 1816. In 1822, Colonel Maurice Scott of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment constructed a blockhouse about three miles from the mission station as a military frontier post and stronghold against raids by the Xhosa under their chief, Maqoma. The British named it Fort Beaufort to honour the Duke of Beaufort, father of Lord Charles Henry Somerset, first British governor of the Cape Colony (1814 to 1826). After the 6th Xhosa War (1834–1835), Governor Sir Benjamin d’Urban authorised construction of a fort at the site of the original blockhouse. The new buildings included a military hospital, guard houses, infantry barracks, and officers' quarters.
In 1839, the British commenced work on what is probably the world's only inland Martello tower, a small, circular Napoleonic era design hitherto used only in coastal defences. The tower was completed in 1846. Today, the original howitzer remains mounted on the roof on a traversing carriage that gives it a 360 degree field of fire. The tower has been restored after having served for some time as a public latrine.
In 1840 Fort Beaufort became a town. Around this time Andrew Geddes Bain built the first road, from Grahamstown, to Fort Beaufort.
During the 8th Xhosa War (1850–53), also known as the War of Mlanjeni, anti-British forces unsuccessfully attacked the town. Harmanus Matroos, alias Ngxukumeshe, was a half-Khoikhoi and half-Xhosa. He started the war on 30 December 1850 by capturing a small outpost near Fort Beaufort. Matroos had served the British in the 7th Xhosa War (1846–47), also known as the War of the Axe. Matroos fell on 8 January 1851 during his third attack on Fort Beaufort.
British troops occupied the tower until 1870.
In 1949 the first congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church seceded from Alice due to demographic changes.
Read more about this topic: Fort Beaufort
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)