Glencoe Mine Stores
- EvertBez
- Dec 12, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 12, 2019
According to Dr G.P. Theron the Mine Store "MS" monogram did not appear on that company's tokens until after 1927 when the switch from brass to celluloid tokens was made.
Probably the distinctive monogram was in use from the early days but not initially used on the tokens because of the cost of striking the elaborate pattern on metal.
The head office of “Mine Stores (Natal) Ltd." was located in Glencoe with branches in Burnside, Dannhauser, Dundee, Enyati, Grootvlei, Hlobane, Northfield, Vanwyksdrif
Glencoe also had its fair share of famous people , specifically Ghandi , yes that one !
His final clash with white rule in South Africa took place at the Glencoe mine.
It was here that Indian miners joined Mahatma Gandhi’s final non-violent protest march in 1913.This campaign finally defeated the government, winning sufficient concessions for Transvaal Indians for Gandhi to return to Indian in 1914.
Glencoe was one of the first mines to support the strike.Later it was used as a prison to hold the miners who refused to go back to work.
Some history of Glencoe
With coal discovered at Dundee not even 8 km from Biggarsberg an efficient way was needed to transport the coal to the factories other than ox wagons.
The railway from Durban to Johannesburg reached this point on 4 September 1889. A new village sprung up where a branch line was built from the Durban-Johannesburg line to the eastern Transvaal in 1903. The proper name was Biggarsberg Junction (after the local mountain range) but that changed later to Glencoe when Scottish settlers renamed it after a lookalike valley in Argyleshire/Lochaber, Scotland.
Glencoe Mine, Near Dundee, Natal early 1900’s .
With the railway line came businesses, the earliest a trading store and the Glencoe Hotel (today a home for seniors run by the Aryan Benevolent Society) both owned by Mr F. J. Payne whose farmhouse was to become a Russian hospital during the Anglo-Boer War. “Tents were pitched in the grounds of the house.
Over two months in 1900, 1007 typhoid or malaria-stricken patients were processed then sent to the main Russian hospital in Newcastle,”.
Glencoe also had a German hospital, fated, as was the Russian one, to fall to the British because of its proximity to the main rail line.
Voortrekker leader, Commandant Karel Landman was the second in charge at the Battle of Blood River. Like many Boer heroes, Karel was granted permission by the Volksraad to take up land. Attracted to the Wasbank Valley, he staked his claim the traditional way – riding for two hours from a central marker.
The farm, Uithoek, is just outside Glencoe and has remained in the family, its present owner, Carl Simpson, the commandant’s great-great-grandson.
Karel’s house, completed in 1852, is a national monument and the only Voortrekker Pioneer House in Northern KZN still standing.
The Tokens
There were about 30 different tokens issued by the Glencoe Mine Stores (Natal) Ltd.
Celluloid - 28,3mm - 1 shilling.
Celluloid - 23 mm - 6 pence.
Brass, about 30 mm. Reverse blank.
300
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