Chas Everitt International - Property in Benoni

Benoni Suburbs

Benoni contains numerous attractive and tree-lined suburbs, and has a strong suburban character, quite unlike many other East Rand towns, which tend to be more industrialised. The main suburbs are:

• Actonville
• Airfield
• Alphen Park
• Brentwood Park
• Crystal Park
• Cloverdene
• Fairleads
• Farrarmere
• Lakefield
• Lakeside
• Mackenzie Park
• Morehill
• Norton Estates
• Northmead
• Northvilla
• Rynfield
• The Stewards
• Wattville
• Westdene
• Western Extension
• Mackenzie park

Benoni - History

The first inhabitants of this area were Stone Age hunter-gatherers who roamed here some 50 000 years ago. Remnants of their Stone Age weapons were found in the Rynfield area and near Cranbourne Station many years ago.

The city of Benoni began as a mining camp after the discovery of gold in 1887. Four groups, worlds apart in language, custom and background, formed the greater part of Benoni's early population-the /Afrikaners, mainly as farmers; the Blacks, mostly as labourers on the mines and the farms; the British, mostly Cornishmen from the coal or tin mines in SW England, as miners; and the Jews, mainly from Russia, Poland and Lithuania, generally as tradesmen. The first Indians, mostly descendants of the workers brought from India as cheap labour for the sugar plantations in Natal, came to the gold mining areas as traders.

Before and during World War II the town was surrounded by seven of the world's richest gold mines. The last of these gold mines ceased operation in 1964. For many decades the 92m high Kleinfontein mine dump was the highest man-made place in Benoni.

Our "City of Lakes" as it is now known, was proclaimed a municipality in 1907, and achieved city status in October 1992.

Benoni

Benoni is a Hebrew word of biblical origin. Johan Rissik who was the surveyor-general in the days of Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic, had great difficulty in surveying a very irregularly-shaped piece of land. He recalled the passage in Genesis telling how Rachel had died after bearing her son Benjamin 'and he was named Benoni, Son of my Sorrow'. Johan decided it was appropriate to call this odd-shaped farm Benoni.

During the 1910 elections and the mining strikes of the early 1900s, the wild behaviour of Benonians gave the town such a bad reputation that people seriously suggested its name be changed! Our city's motto is a Latin phrase, Auspicium Melioris Aevi, which means "a pledge for better times*. Benoni achieved city status in October 1992.

Gold

Fabulous wealth was contained in the reefs around the farm Benoni, and by the early 1900s it was surrounded by seven of the richest gold mines in the world. The gold-bearing Witwatersrand rocks, consisting of quartzites, conglomerates and shales, show at the surface largely along the bottom of the valley in which our line of lakes lies, and it was here that our first mines were worked at very shallow levels along inclined shafts.

The New Modderfontein Mine showed a profit of over R4 million in 1926 - a vast amount in those days. This mine was unique in the area, in that it also produced diamonds. Benoni's last mines closed down in 1964.

Coat of Arms

This was drawn up by the College of Heralds in England in 1937. The castle which appears in it represents the town of Bedford in England, from where George Farrar, our city's founder originated. Benoni's gold-mining history is represented by gold circles (or bezants, as they are known in heraldic terms), on the collars of the springbok. The arm wielding the hammer in the crest represents industry and the rising sun behind it the bright and rising future of the Benoni municipality. The four fountains within our municipal borders are represented by the four blue and silver circles, which are called "fountains" in heraldry.