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70 unusual facts about Bulawayo


1910 British Lions tour to South Africa

As well as South Africa, the tour included a game in Bulawayo in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

4-8-2

It was designated the RR 10th Class and was used on the long section south of Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) through Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) to Mafeking in the Cape Province.

Alan Butcher

They then nearly defeated the same opponents in the one-off Test, chasing 366 at Bulawayo, but a spectacular collapse, in which they lost six wixckets for 44 runs made them end up with a 34-run loss.

Albert Lutuli

The third son of Seventh-day Adventist missionary John Bunyan Lutuli and Mtonya Gumede, Albert Lutuli was born near Bulawayo in what was then called Rhodesia, around 1898.

Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin

He documented holidays to the Cape, Johannesburg and Bulawayo in the period 1906 to 1914, also compiling albums from trips in Europe.

Alfred Mulock Bentley

Alfred Mulock Bentley (1878–1956) was a British-born financier who founded the Rhodesian Stock Exchange in Bulawayo in 1946.

Andy McMillan

McMillan was born in Bloemfontein and lived in South Africa until he was 12 when his family moved to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, living there for six years and playing junior international football for Zimbabwe.

Arthur F. H. Newton

In Rhodesia he founded the Bulawayo Harriers and set amateur records for 60 and 100 miles.

Arunan

Arunan (born Arunan Arulampalam on September 15, 1985 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, of Sri Lankan heritage) is a singer-songwriter.

Brendon Dawson

Brendon Neil Dawson (born Bulawayo, 2 September 1967) is a former Zimbabwean rugby union footballer and a current coach.

Brian Loader

Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in 1958 Brian grew up in the UK in Surrey before studying at Southampton University between 1978 and 1981 where he obtained a BSc (Joint Hons.) in Politics and Sociology.

British South Africa Police

The BSAP operated originally in conjunction with the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary (SRC), the town police force for Salisbury (now Harare) and Bulawayo, but amalgamated with the SRC in 1909.

Cricket pitch

Conditions at the Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo tend to aid batsmen, with spin coming into the game in a big way in the latter stages.

Daisy de Melker

When she was twelve, she went to Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to live with her father and two of her brothers.

Dennis Neilson-Terry

He died in Bulawayo, Rhodesia on 14 July 1932 at the age of 36 and buried next to his parents in Hampstead Cemetery.

Dumisani Maraire

He began learning music from family members, and later at the college of music in Bulawayo.

Elinor Burkett

She divides her time between New York and her home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe where she trains journalists, writes and makes films.

Elliot Pinhey

Pinhey was invited in 1955 to take up the position of Keeper of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Museum in Bulawayo.

First Matabele War

During this year there was great activity in exploiting Matabeleland, " Stands " or plots were sold at extraordinary prices in Bulawayo.

Forbes' combined column moved on the Matabele king's capital at Bulawayo, to the south-west.

First white child

Nada Burnham (May 1894 – May 19, 1896), daughter of the celebrated American scout Frederick Russell Burnham, was the first white child born in Bulawayo and died of fever and starvation during the Siege of Bulawayo in the Second Matabele War.

Giovanni Matteo Konings

In 1926 he was appointed Prefect of the then Mission "Sui Iuris" of Bulawayo.

Goffal

Specifically suburbs mainly in Bulawayo (Thorngrove nicknamed Groove, Barham Green nicknamed B.G., Forrest Vale, Queens Park, Morningside) and Harare (Arcadia, Braeside,St. Martins) began to grow and gain a significant population but in recent years many have gone in diaspora with large groups in London, Milton Keynes, Dublin, Canada in cities and towns like St.Catharines/Hamilton/Burlington/Toronto and New Zealand.

Graham Manou

He made his first-class debut on 22 March 1999 playing for the Australian Cricket Academy against a Matabeleland Invitational XI at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.

Harold Soref

Harold Soref had an early interest in colonial affairs, and was an elected delegate, in 1937, to the first All-British Africa Conference at Bulawayo, in Southern Rhodesia, held with the intention of forming the Africa Defence Federation.

Henry Everard

In 1953 Everard moved to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia to become General Manager of Rhodesia Railways, which he remained for five years before retiring.

Hugh Marshall Hole

Marshall Hole is best known for issuing "Marshall Hole currency" in Bulawayo in 1900.

Ian Buckett

He had made his first try scoring appearance for a Wales XV in Swakopmund in Namibia in 1990, his second at altitude in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in 1993 and his last appearance against Ontario in 1997.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit agricultural research organization headquartered in Patancheru (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India) with several regional centres (Niamey (Niger), Nairobi (Kenya)) and research stations Bamako (Mali), Bulawayo (Zimbabwe).

Jairos Jiri Association

A philanthropic organisation set up in 1950 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) to support and train disadvantaged people.

James Rochfort Maguire

In 1888, Rhodes sent him with Charles Rudd and Frank Thompson to negotiate a concession of land and mineral rights in Matabeleland from Chief Lobengula at Bulawayo.

Joseph Ngwenya

Ngwenya attended the Mzilikazi High School in Bulawayo, leading them to the 1999 Zimbabwe National High School Championship, before moving to the United States in 2000 to attend and play college soccer at Coastal Carolina University.

Logan Cup

Within the next ten years, matches were played with more regularity and the most significant match was competed between Salisbury and Bulawayo.

Lovemore Majaivana

From then, he progressed away from his former Western influences, and his popularity steadily grew especially in Ndebele speaking Matebeleland and Bulawayo in particular.

Lovemore "Majaivana" Tshuma (born 1954), commonly known as Lovemore Majaivana is a Zimbabwean musician, arguably the most popular Ndebele singer, and by far the most prominent to have come out of Bulawayo.

MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier

ZNA's 'Seven Fives' were thrown into action in November 1980 against ZIPRA troops at the battle of Entumbane (near Bulawayo, Matabeleland), and later again after February 1982 by helping to put down the super-ZAPU insurgency in Matabeleland.

Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai

Felix Magalela Mafa Sibanda, MDC Provincial Spokesperson and Member of Parliament for Magwegwe Bulawayo

Mubarike Chisoni

Mubarike "Mamba" Chisoni (born May 10, 1981 in Bulawayo) is a Zimbabwean footballer who last played for Indiana Invaders in the USL Premier Development League.

Mzilikazi High School

The School is in the City of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, located along the Old Falls Road (i.e. road that used to link the city of Bulawayo with the Victoria Falls.

Naison Ndlovu

He was the first mayor of Bulawayo, the second largest city in the country, to be elected after Zimbabwe's independence, a post he held until 1985.

National Gallery of Zimbabwe

The National Gallery in Bulawayo is a branch of the NGZ in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

Obadiah Tarumbwa

Obadiah Tarumbwa Moyo (born 25 November 1985 in Bulawayo) is a Zimbabwean football player who plays for University of Pretoria F.C. in the Premier Soccer League as an attacking midfielder.

Orange Free State

Reprisals followed, and in November 1837 the Boers decisively defeated Mzilikazi, who thereupon fled northward and eventually established himself on the site of the future Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.

Owen Maseko

In March 2010, he was arrested "less than 24 hours after his new exhibition opened" at the National Gallery in Bulawayo.

Pakistani cricket team in Zimbabwe in 2013

The second Test match was originally scheduled to take place at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo but was moved to Harare as a cost saving measure.

Patrick William Forbes

After reaching Bulawayo, Forbes received a tip about the whereabouts of the Ndebele King.

Paul Strang

Paul Andrew Strang (born 28 July 1970 in Bulawayo) is a Zimbabwean cricket coach and former international player.

Peter Greer

He also served as a technical adviser for Self-Help Development Foundation (CARE Zimbabwe) in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Petroc Trelawny

In May 2012 Trelawny featured in the international news after being arrested in Zimbabwe while hosting a charity music festival in Bulawayo.

Quintin Brand

In this second aircraft, the pair continued to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia where the aircraft was badly damaged when it crashed on takeoff.

Ramatlabama

It is also the location where the Cape TownBulawayo railway line enters Botswana; north of Ramatlabama the railway is the main line of Botswana Railways, while to the south it is part of the network of Transnet Freight Rail.

Regis Chakabva

Following the readmission of Zimbabwe to Test cricket in 2011, he made his Test debut against New Zealand at Bulawayo in November that year, keeping wicket and scoring 37 and 5 batting at number seven.

Rugby union in Zimbabwe

From 1952, Rhodesian/Zimbabwean rugby was split into two subregions, centred around the two main cities, Harare (formerly "Salisbury" in the north) and Bulawayo in the south.

Siyaya

Siyaya (sometimes known as Siyaya Arts) are a music, dance and theatre group from Makokoba, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Sotho–Tswana peoples

He killed many of the Batswana, before finally settling down in the southwestern part of what is modern Zimbabwe, where he built his capital Bulawayo.

South African Class 19D 4-8-2

On occasion South African Class 19D locomotives worked through from Mafikeng in South Africa via Botswana all the way to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.

South African Class 34-200

The Beitbridge Bulawayo Railway (BBR), commissioned on 1 September 1999, operates the Beit Bridge to Bulawayo line in Zimbabwe.

South African Class 4A 4-8-2

It became the RR 10th Class and was used on the long section south of Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) through Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) to Mafeking in the Cape Province.

South African Class 7A 4-8-0

Four originally began their service lives on the BR between Vryburg in the Cape Colony and Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia and were eventually returned to the CGR and renumbered 347 to 350 for the Cape Midland.

South African Class NG6 4-4-0

Known users were, amongst others, Premier Portland Cement in Bulawayo, the Rhodesian Native Timber Concessions at Gwaai, the Cam and Motor Mine at Gatooma, the Selukwe Peak Light Railway of the Selukwe Chrome Mine, the Lupane Forest Estates, the Igusi Saw Mills and the Arcturus Mine east of Salisbury, all these in Rhodesia.

Thamsanqa Dube

In November 2003, in Bulawayo, Dube beat Arigoma Chiponda with a technical knockout taking the heavyweight national championship belt.

Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa

In 1896 the first Presbyterian congregation was founded in Rhodesia at Bulawayo, and later in 1903 in Salisbury (now Harare).

Vuza Nyoni

Vusumuzi "Vuza" Nyoni (born 21 April 1984, in Bulawayo) is a Zimbabwean professional football player currently playing for Mons.

Yvonne Vera

In 1995, Vera returned to Zimbabwe and in 1997 became director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, a gallery that showcases local talent ranging from that of professional artists to school children.

Zambezi River Authority

In the early 1990s, Zimbabwe proposed to build a pipeline to carry water south to supply the city of Bulawayo.

Zambia national cricket team

With the formation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1954, cricket was fully integrated with Southern Rhodesia but investment was concentrated around Harare and Bulawayo, meaning that cricket began to decline in the country.

Zimbabwe at the 2008 Summer Paralympics

In the days leading up to the games, the pair trained at the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo under coach Remigio Mumbire, however a lack of money threatened to cut the training camp short.

Zimbabwe national rugby union team

The opening game of the Lions tour saw the visitors win in Bulawayo, beating Rhodesia 38 to 9 on 26 May.

A British Lions team played a side called Southern Rhodesia on 30 July in 1910 in Bulawayo, the British saw victory, beating the team 24 points to 11.

Zimbabwe Rugby Union

The oldest clubs in the country were formed in 1894 in Bulawayo and the Rhodesia Rugby Football Union was founded one year later in 1895.


John Nkomo

In July 2006, he was in court fighting for a farm situated in Lupane, 200 km from Bulawayo.

Joseph Msika

Msika dismissed Mugabe's past apology for the 1987 Gukurahundi killings, which was condemned internationally for the violence it unleashed on mainly rural Ndebele, at a rally in October 2006 in Bulawayo.

Mugabe's Zimbabwe

Joseph Msika, the second Vice-president of Zimbabwe, Ms. Clare Short (British Secretary of State for International Development (1997–2003), Professor Arthur Mutambara (Deputy prime Minister of Zimbabwe (2009-present) and Leader of the Opposition Party Movement for Democratic Change and Archbishop Pius Ncube (Former Archbishop of Bulawayo Zimbabwe), a political refugee.

Zimbabwe national rugby union team

The first tour by a Rhodesian team to South Africa took place in 1898, and was composed of players from the five biggest clubs in the two major settlements of Bulawayo and Salisbury (today called Harare).