Balmoral

Source: http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/

Balmoral camp was established relatively late, on 25 July 1901, coming into use a week later – a remarkably short time in which to set up a camp. It was created to take the overflow from the Middelburg and Belfast camps and was divided into the districts from which most of the inmates came – Balmoral, Lydenburg and, later, Ermelo. The move from Middelburg had been precipitated by the poor health in that very large camp and the people arrived unwell. Later arrivals included fugitives from the Bronkhorstspruit district, who were starving and exhausted. By November 1901 they were coming in from the Lydenburg and Barberton districts, in a very bedraggled state, it was noted, because they had been out on the veld for some time. Although by the end of 1901 Kitchener had ordered that no more families should be sent to the camps, his instructions were often ignored and some continued to trickle in. On 27 April 1902 125 people arrived, half of them men, in a pitiful state. ‘They were literally in rags and it was hard to discern the original material of the men’s clothing. When compared with the inmates of the camp they looked a very unkempt lot’, the superintendent noted.¹

The original site was an old military camp, just south of the railway station, and was strewn with refuse. E.R Harvey, the first superintendent, had hard work getting the area into a reasonable condition, as he was limited by lack of transport. This was often a problem for the camps when the military requisitioned all the available animals. The camp was unfenced as the entire area was protected by blockhouses. Within this vicinity camp inmates were allowed to wander freely. Because Balmoral was established so late, it was easy to pitch the camp with the mathematical tidiness favoured by the British officials. The tents had dung floors.²

Although both Harvey and the Ladies’ Commission were satisfied with the site, when the Military Governor of the Transvaal, General Maxwell, visited the camp on 14 January 1902, he ordered it to be moved to rising ground, almost a mile away. This was a huge labour, especially as the water supply now had to be piped from a considerable distance. In spite of these instructions from the top, it was months before the camp moved. One problem was the lack of transport because, even before the end of the war, the Boer men in the camp were allowed to go into the ‘low country’ with their stock and wagons to winter. As winter approached the lack of grazing also reduced the quality of the oxen. (In June 1902 the camp superintendent reported bitterly that he only had 22 mules, 11 oxen, 3 Scotch carts and 1 wagon to do all the camp work. ‘All the oxen belonging to the burghers have been sent out to the farms, and there are no waggons or oxen obtainable in the vicinity of Balmoral’.) Although the hospital moved in May, the main camp was only transferred in June 1902.³

Harvey considered the climate to be healthy but it was harsh. Towards the end of winter and the dry season the region was often ravaged by severe sandstorms. In September 1901 the camp was lashed by heavy rain storms, when water poured through the tents until a drain was dug to divert the flow. October was worse, with rain throughout the month, contributing to a variety of chest complaints. This was the result, Dr Lee considered, of the ‘weakly and strumous’ condition of the people, but superintendent Harvey was waist-deep in water on one occasion, when ten tents blew down. Recent arrivals were especially vulnerable to sickness. On 18 September 1901, during one such storm, one of the hospital marquees caught fire in the absence of the night nurse, Hester Vermeulen. The unfortunate woman was responsible for two marquees and was attending to the children in the second tent at the time. The fire was only spotted when the third hospital marquee blew down and Nurse Margaret Adank went in search of someone to help her put it up again. Tragically, four children died. To their credit, the British published the full details of the inquiry into the incident. (The Ladies’ Commission had a different version of the story, that Nurse Vermeulen, a Boer probationer, ran out of the tent in a panic when it caught fire. She was subsequently dismissed, they said.).⁴

The event confirmed the existing reluctance of the Boers to send their children to hospital and the camp authorities were, under the circumstances, unwilling to insist that they should do so. As the hospital expanded however, to ten marquees by November 1901, and better staff and equipment was introduced, this concession was abandoned. By January 1902 resistance was decreasing, the authorities believed, because everything was done to make the patients comfortable. The young Boer ‘probationers’ were settling down well to their work and would soon become really useful. By this time there were eighteen employed and they were provided with their own quarters in the hospital complex. The upbeat tone of the reports can, however, be confusing for the new camp superintendent, Captain Ross Garner, who arrived on 15 February 1902, confessed at the end of February 1902 that people were not willing to go into hospital since there was no visiting day. This was to be remedied.⁵

Even so, conditions were not comfortable. The new hospital was eventually occupied in April 1902. Despite all the work, it remained fairly primitive, with antheap floors, although these were supposed to be tarred. The marquees were not warm enough for chest cases, the MO complained, and a brick and iron ward of twelve beds was finally erected for such cases. Africans were regularly treated in the hospital, at least in 1902. In July 1902 a black man was brought in from a neighbouring farm with diphtheria and a tracheotomy was administered; in the same month another black man from outside died in the hospital of pneumonia. The following month two more men were admitted from the Repatriation Department, one with jaundice and the other with injuries after he had been run over by an ox wagon; two more were hurt by ox wagons in September while another outsider also died in the hospital