Wild goose chase paid off
The history of the discovery of the Free
State Goldfields ~ the most fantastic mineral discovery in South Africa
this century ~ is essentially the history of Welkom for, without this world-shattering
event, Welkom would not have been.
The clock must be turned back to the latter
years of the nineteenth century when two men ~ a Mr Donaldson who was a
prospector, and a Mr Hinds, an engineer ~ investigated a portion of the
farm called Zoeten-Inval belonging to a Mr Barends Klopper near where the
small town of Allanridge is situated today. This was believed to have been
in 1896, and the pair were interested in a small outcrop of rock protruding
about a foot above the ground and about two feet in length which appeared
to be conglomerate pebble reef. A 60 feet pit was excavated and samples
collected. The men could raise no interest among mining companies in Johannesburg,
which all laughed off the idea of gold in the Free State.
Then came the first setback in the mineral
history of the future Free State goldfields. The men decided to return
to England to have their samples analysed and, if the results proved favorable,
to form a syndicate to raise capital for the continuation of the search.
Disaster struck. Gossip had it that Donaldson and Hinds sailed on the ill-fated
Drummond Castle which, on that trip, sank in the Bay of Biscay off the
coast of France with the loss of all aboard.
The hot mealie lands surrounding the peaceful
hamlet of Odendaalsrust (as it was then called) lay almost untouched by
a rock-pick until a persistent old prospector, Arthur Megson by name, heard
of the venture and decided to investigate for himself. The farm had been
divided up by this time, and the section on which the outcrop was situated
was now called Aandenk and was owned by Hendrik Petrus Klopper.
Megson arrived in 1904 and widened and deepened
the original pit to about 100 feet. He took samples of the exposed strata
away with him as they seemed to indicate some promising values. But he
in turn could not obtain any financial interest and was compelled to close
down the shaft. He is said to have filled it with dynamite "to prevent
other from interfering with the work".
For many years Megson did the rounds of the
mining companies, his samples carried in a canvas bag. No one was interested
until in October 1932, when he presented himself at the office of Allan
Roberts, a prospector, and Minnie Jacobs, a young attorney. Megson had
come to the right place at last, for Roberts had recently set himself up
sufficiently by September of that year to turn his attention to his pet
theory "that the Witwatersrand system of rock formation tapers down
to beyond the Orange Free State, resembling the rim of a lake with Johannesburg
lying in the center of the northern section of that rim".
The reef formation dips gradually to the
Klerksdorp mines in the south west and to Nigel about 40 miles to the south
east. The southern section of the lake ~ being submerged in the Free State.
At about this time Mr Roberts had said to his wife, Gladys, "Now I
am ready to test my theory if it takes all the money I have and more".
Megson's samples and his information gave Roberts, who had been called
the man who "never turns anything down", a starting point. He
and the old prospector left for Odendaalsrus the following day. After a
few days spent in the area investigating the old pit, the pair returned
to Johannesburg to have the new samples analysed. This job was done by
a friend of Robert's, Dave Milne, an analytical chemist at the University
of the Witwatersrand.
Roberts was so excited when he heard the results that he decided to enlarge
the small pit in the middle of the North West Free State.
A Cornishman named King was enlisted, and
Roberts set out on another trip to Odendaalsrus. He was convinced that
there was "gold, nothing but gold - nothing more nor less".
It soon became apparent that the values of the shaft and along the reef
were barren and that the area would have to be tested by drilling. The
Transvaal mining houses were too busy with the Rand and its extensions
to spare any thought, much less time and money, for any development in
the Free State, and Roberts went it alone.
On 5 May 1933 the first borehole was started.
As Roberts wrote in a letter, it was "the first borehole ever put
down in the Free State in the search for gold. I feel very proud to determine
the original site (it was about 200 yards from the pit) for the first borehole.
"Work progressed, and in Johannesburg, Mannie Jacobs managed to interest
one or two business men in the Roberts venture. They were Fritz Marx, a
stockbroker, and Peter Woolf, a medical practitioner.
Roberts became known as the "klipdokter"
in the area and farmers were consistently bringing him chips of rock and
stone for inspection, hoping that he would have good news for them. At
a depth of 2721 feet, the borehole penetrated lava formations into what
was recognised as the Witwatersrand system and penetrated a number of gold
reefs, one of which contained fairgold values ~ the first gold reefs ever
discovered in the Free State.
On the strength of these findings, the men
who had been interested in the work Roberts, Jacobs, Marx and Woolf ~ formed
Wit Extensions Company Limited in 1933, and in August of that year the
pioneer company of the as yet unheralded Free State Goldfields was formed
to carry on boring operations. Soon money started running out, and at 85
shillings a foot boring would not be able to continue for much longer.
All efforts to raise capital were unsuccessful, and Roberts put every last
penny into his scheme. The drill kept going, In spite of the fact that
the bore struck values of 120 in. dwt., the borderline of payability, this
news was still not incentive enough to attract financial assistance. The
drill, through determination and back-breaking work, had reached 4 046
feet, when the company was reluctantly compelled to stop the drill ~ finances
were finally exhausted.
Standing near the door of the only hotel
in Odendaalsrus that evening, Allan Roberts was heard to say: "Someday,
someone will believe and have faith and come forward, and the drill will
again start on its downward trend, eating deep into the earth, and eventually
give up its treasure. I am convinced. I will never give in, "I have
unshaken belief that gold is to be found in these Free State fields, payable
gold, a new goldfields". At that time Roberts did not know how prophetic
his words were. He did not realise that only 400 feet beneath the now silent
drill-bit, payable gold lay ready to sweep the world's stock markets into
a frenzy of excitement, the excitement caused by the striking of basal
reef, which was struck 11 years later when this borehole was deepened to
4 446 feet. A sample from this borehole assayed at 37,7 dwts over 6 inch
per ton. However, that was a story still to come.
Meanwhile, early in 1933, the Anglo American
Corporation secured options in the Klerksdorp area, and deep boreholes
soon proved the existence of gold-bearing reef and led to the opening of
western Reefs Mine. The fact that gold had been found in payable quantities
in this area induced geologists and others with vision to look beyond the
Vaal River into the Free State. At last steps were being taken to vindicate
Roberts' theory. Borehole prospecting was intensified over a wide area
in the vicinity of Odendaalsrus and it was early in 1939 that the first
high values were found in borehole No 5, sunk on what has since become
the St Helena Mining Lease. By 1940 sufficient work had been done to show
that a potential goldfield did in fact exist where Roberts had predicted.
While other boreholes had given stimulating
results the potentials of the new goldfield became recognised throughout
the world when, in April 1946 the borehole known as Geduld 697 yielded
gold assaying 1 252 dwts over 18,4 inch equal to 23,037 inch-dwts. The
phenomenal result of Geduld No 1 borehole was followed nine months later
by the Geduld No 2 borehole, yielding 1 904dwts over 6,58 inch equal to
12528 inch-dwts. In the region of R 6 000 000 was spent in diamond drill
boreholes to "prove" the new goldfield.
Thirteen separate mining properties were
delimited within the area of the new goldfield which gave rise to the town
of Welkom around which six of these mines are situated. They are St Helena,
the first mine on the new field to come into production when the first
bars of gold from the Free State goldfields were poured by Mr P M Anderson,
chairman of Union Corporation, on 26 October 1951, Western Holdings, Free
State Geduld, Welkom Mine, President Brand and President Steyn. The resulting
development of Welkom ~ and its neighboring towns ~ over the past 50 years
was the spectacular climax to the arduous, prolonged and often disappointing
work of exploration that was carried out in the early days.
It was a triumph of scientific knowledge
and of personal courage; the years of planning and investigations, the
appalling dangers to overcome, and the discomforts and hardships endured.
These all led to the great discovery that was splashed over the front pages
of newspapers all over the world, the story of discovery and the establishment
of a massive mining complex.
For Allan Roberts, his "wild goose chase"
had been successful. The Free State Gold-fields is a fitting tribute to
his belief and perseverance. His memorial still stands in the Free State
- the town of Allanridge named after the true pioneer of the gold mining
industry in the Free State.
(Thanks are due to Mrs Gladys Roberts for a number
or quotations in this story which were taken from an unpublished manuscript).
From The Friend, 14 February 1968).
Article obteined from VISTA's special Anniversary edition April 1997.
