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23 unusual facts about Kimberley


All Souls Umhlali

Kit wood-and-iron utility buildings, which were popular in the diamond rush to Kimberley and the gold rush to the Witwatersrand, came back into their own for military use.

Battle of Modder River

When the war broke out, one of the Boers' early targets was the diamond-mining centre of Kimberley, which stood not far from the point where the borders of the Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and the British-controlled Cape Colony met.

Cape Domett

Cape Domett is at the eastern side of the mouth of the Cambridge Gulf in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Cape Dussejour

Cape Dussejour is located at the western side of the entrance to the Cambridge Gulf in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Cape Police Memorial

The Cape Police Memorial is a South African national heritage site located in Kimberley in the Northern Cape province.

Crater of Diamonds State Park

Supposedly these aspiring diamond miners formed a tent city near the mine which was named "Kimberly" in honor of the famous Kimberley diamond district in South Africa.

Excelsior Diamond

The Excelsior Diamond was found on June 30, 1893 at the Jagersfontein Mine in South Africa, 130 km or 80 miles south east of Kimberley whose fame as a diamond mining center always overshadowed that of Jagersfontein.

Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava

He served with the 9th Lancers during the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1901 and was present at the engagements at Belmont, Enslin, Modder River, Magersfonstein, the relief of Kimberley, the advance to Bloemfontein and Pretoria and the subsequent fighting in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony and Cape Colony, where he was badly wounded on Christmas Eve 1900.

Henrietta Stockdale

A stained glass window at St Cyprian’s Cathedral, installed in the nave soon after her death, was given in memory of Sr Henrietta.

Kimberley Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Kimberley Seventh-day Adventist Church is a provincial heritage site in Kimberley in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

Kimberley, Nottinghamshire

Ralph de Greasley's land passed by inheritance and marriage to Nicholas de Cantelupe who took part in Edward III of England's Scottish campaigns and also the Battle of Crécy.

Kymber

An early person named Cynemaer gave his name to a 'lea' (a wood, grove, clearing, hill, lea or meadow) which them named a town in Nottinghamshire Kimberley.

Another Cynemaer named his town in Norfolk Chineburlai, which is Kimberley today.

Malay Camp, Kimberley

The Malay Camp in Kimberley, South Africa, with a history similar to Cape Town's District Six, Johannesburg's Sophiatown and Port Elizabeth's South End, was a cosmopolitan suburb originating in the early days of Kimberley's existence but subject to forced 'slums clearance' after the owner of the land (De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd) donated the area to the Kimberley Municipality in 1939.

Michael Windisch

Michael Windisch (born August 9, 1976 in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa) is a retired Austrian swimmer, who specialized in butterfly and in individual medley events.

Old School of Mines, Kimberley

The Old School of Mines building in Hull Street, Kimberley, is where the South African School of Mines was established in 1896, later evolving into the Transvaal University College, and eventually into both the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria.

Oswald Swartz

Swartz was born in Kimberley, Northern Cape and educated at St Paul's Theological College in Grahamstown.

Phakamile Mabija

Phakamile Mabija was an African anti-Apartheid activist, and member of the Anglican Nomads Educational Group, who was detained by the South African Police on 27 June 1977 for alleged involvement in an incident when African and Coloured commuters stoned public transport during a bus boycott in Galeshewe, Kimberley, South Africa.

Port Elizabeth railway station

You can also get to Cape Town, Kimberley, Pietermaritzburg and Durban (by changing trains in Bloemfontein), to East London (by changing trains in Noupoort, Colesburg or Bloemfontein), to Mthatha (by changing trains in Noupoort and Amabele) or to Grahamstown (by changing trains in Alicedale)

Thomas Ragland

By 1551, he had married Ann Woodhouse, daughter of Sir Roger Woodhouse of Kimberley, Norfolk.

Trams in Kimberley, Northern Cape

The Kimberley tramway network formed part of the public transport system in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, for roughly 60 years until the late 1940s.

Tshilenge District

This is the largest accumulation of diamonds in the world, more concentrated than those at Kimberley, South Africa.

Walter Jesse Jackson

It is unknown if Jackson joined the tour party late, was unwell or just not chosen to play, but he missed the first four matches of the tour, not playing until the team faced Griqualand West at Kimberley on 20 July.


2011–12 Australian bushfire season

During the Kimberley Ultramarathon on 2 September, a bushfire raced through the course, engulfing a group of four participants at El Questro Station.

Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin

Duggan-Cronin was born on 17 May 1874 in Innishannon, County Cork, Ireland, and died on 25 August 1954 in Kimberley, South Africa.

Archibald Geikie

Dorsa Geikie, a wrinkle ridge system on the Moon, and the mineral geikielite, a magnesium-titanium oxide, are both named after him, as is Geikie Gorge in the Napier Range in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.

B1108 road

The road crosses the Mid-Norfolk Railway on a wooden-gated level crossing at Kimberley, one of the last such crossings on a classified road in the county.

Barkly West

The Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavements, upstream along the Vaal River between Barkly West and Kimberley, with evidence of the Dwyka glaciation some 300 million years ago.

Canteen Kopje is the site of early diamond diggings which also exposed a major archaeological occurrence of stratified Acheulean facies, subject to a current collaborative research venture by the University of Southampton, the University of the Witwatersrand and the McGregor Museum in Kimberley.

Barnett River gudgeon

Hypseleotris kimberleyensis, the Barnett River gudgeon, is a species of sleeper goby endemic to Australia where it is only known from the Barnett River system of Kimberley, Western Australia.

Cape Province

It was by far the largest of South Africa's four provinces, as it contained regions it had previously annexed, such as British Bechuanaland (not to be confused with the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana), Griqualand East (the area around Kokstad) and Griqualand West (area around Kimberley).

Carinotrachia admirale

The type locality of Carinotrachia admirale is Middle Osborn Island, Bonaparte Archipelago in north-western Kimberley, Western Australia.

Diamond Trading Company

Sorters in London, Kimberley, Windhoek and Gaborone sort these diamonds into approximately 12,000 different categories based on size, shape, quality and colour.

Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman

It is presided over by the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, currently the Rt Revd Oswald Swartz.

Dunham River

The river was named in 1882 by explorer and Kimberley pioneer Michael Durack after the clergyman, Reverend Father Dunham of Brisbane, who in 1871 was the first Reverend to visit Cooper Creek in outback Queensland.

Edward Hardman

Hardman immediately joined Alexander Forrest's survey expedition to the Kimberley, but the party was confined to the western part of the Kimberley, and no indications of gold were found.

Emil Holub

Inspired to visit Africa by the diaries of David Livingstone, Holub travelled to Cape Town, South Africa shortly after graduation and eventually settled near Kimberley to practise medicine.

Galeshewe Stadium

Galeshewe Stadium, formerly known as King George Sports Ground, is a multi-use stadium in the Galeshewe suburb of Kimberley, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

Headingly Station

In 1953 the property was owned by the Peel River Land and mineral Company which took 200 bulls and transferred them by road train to Auvergne Station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Henrietta Stockdale

The Henrietta Stockdale Training College for nurses in Kimberley was named in recognition of this pioneer nurse who initiated training courses for nurses at Kimberley Hospital and was instrumental in obtaining state registration for nurses and midwives in the Cape Colony in 1891.

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley

John Wodehouse, 4th Earl of Kimberley (12 May 1924 – 26 May 2002), styled Lord Wodehouse between 1932 and 1941, was an active British peer, and also a bobsled racer and Cresta member.

Ju Ju Wilson

Mother of six, Ju Ju comes from the Miriwung-Gajerrong group of the Kimberley region and was educated at Beagle Bay.

Kimberley Crossman

In 2010 Kimberley travelled to Los Angeles to host a half-hour special for New Zealand audiences about the 2010 Teen Choice Awards.

Kimberleydiscus fasciatus

The type locality of Kimberleydiscus fasciatus is the Bigge Island, Bonaparte Archipelago in north-western Kimberley, Western Australia.

Luman

Luman Land District, land district (cadastral division) of Western Australia, located within the Kimberley Division of the state

Marion Downs

Marion Downs Sanctuary, a nature reserve in the Kimberley region of north-west Western Australia

Martu people

A Royal Commission in 1908 exonerated Canning, after an appearance by Kimberley explorer John Forrest who claimed that all explorers had acted in such a fashion.

Maureen Muggeridge

In 1979, Maureen married Towie's son John, she became pregnant and she discovered diamond samples in the flood plains surrounding Smoke Creek, a small stream in East Kimberley that drained into Lake Argyle.

Mount Hart Station

The APT company Kimberley Wilderness Adventures was selected by the state government to operate the wilderness lodge in late 2011.

Northern Cape Division

The Northern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa (formerly named the Northern Cape High Court and the Northern Cape Provincial Division, and commonly known as the Kimberley High Court) is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

This car once belonged to Woolf Barnato, Kimberley diamond heir and three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Philip Bawcombe

H.F. Oppenheimer hailed Philip Bawcombe’s Kimberley (1976) as capturing “the spirit and portraying the fabric of old Kimberley,” announcing that De Beers had acquired the original collection for permanent display.

Richard Liversidge

Richard Liversidge, naturalist, ornithologist and museum director, was born on 17 September 1926 in Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi), and died on 15 September 2003 in Kimberley, South Africa.

Robin Roy Snyman

Snyman was Warden to the Sisters of the Community of St Michael and All Angels in Bloemfontein (the Community had strong historical ties with Kimberley, through, inter alia, Sister Henrietta Stockdale), from 1986.

Scaly-tailed possum

The possum has a limited range and is found in high rainfall coastal regions of the north Kimberley between Yampi Sound and Kalumburu, populations also inhabit Bigge Island and Boongaree Island.

South African Archaeological Society

Branches of the Society were established and currently exist in Gauteng, Cape Town, Durban/Pietermaritzburg and Bloemfontein/Kimberley.

St Boniface Church Germiston

Past well-known rectors of the parish have included Fr Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, who later became Dean of Johannesburg and was subsequently deported by the apartheid government in 1972, Fr Robin Roy Snyman who became Dean of Kimberley and later Vice-Provost of Port Elizabeth and Bishop David Albert Beetge who became the first bishop of The Highveld.

The Gerry Ryan Show

These included the scenery, Guinness, potatoes, the seas and coastline, whiskey, Barry's and Lyon's tea, Kimberley and Mikado biscuits, the smell of turf, red hair, homemade brown bread, oysters, Baileys coffee, hurling, Irish comedians, Irish history, the River Shannon, Podge and Rodge, Irish literature, bacon and cabbage, Irish stew and the GAA.

Wangga

Wangga (sometimes spelt as Wongga) is an indigenous Australian genre of traditional music and ceremony which originated in northern areas of the country from South Alligator River south east towards Ngukurr, south to the Katherine region of Northern Territory and west into the Kimberley of Western Australia.

Wknd@stv

The programme was presented by two Scottish teenagers, Kimberley Neill ('Kim') and Jonathon Pender ('Johnny').