WHITESANDS CENTENARY
1908 – 2008

Whitesands was part of the farm Westfield that was granted to Captain Benjamin Moodie by the British Colonial Government on 10 October 18311. 

In the late 1800s farmers from the district and villagers from Heidelberg were eager to spend their holidays in Whitesands with the permission of the Moodies.  The first little building erected in Whitesands was the small sandstone dwelling of Rev Daneel, the first dominee of the church in Heidelberg.  The people consequently called the house the “Old Rectory”.  In that era, around 1880, there was no talk of a township, the holiday makers merely camped around the Old Rectory in tents and in dwellings made of thatching-reed 2.

Later, the Moodies also gave permission to commercial fishermen to erect little houses, and since more and more people wanted to build their own holiday homes in Whitesands, the brothers Benjamin and Daniel Moodie, the owners of Westfield at the time, appointed a surveyor in 1908 to deduct a part of the farm, and to lay out plots.

On 30 December 1908, 65 morgen were cut off from Westfield and registered as a separate title deed in the name of Ben and Dan Moodie as the Whitesands subdivision of their farm 3.   

The first 118 plots were surveyed in Whitesands in 1908 by government surveyor Wilson Greathead, and the first 16 or 17 owners received deeds of registered title for their plots on the same date, 30 December 1908 4.  In subsequent years several plots were sold to other owners and within only a few years Whitesands had twenty to thirty new houses.

I have discussed the dates of transfer and the earliest maps of Whitesands with Mr Spencer Wiggins in the office of the Surveyor-General, Cape Town, and he concurred that there is no earlier date that can be seen as the date of origin of the township.  Incidentally, the date 30 December 1908 is the same date on which Whitesands was deducted from Westfield as well as the date on which the first plots officially came into possession of the new owners.  Whitesands can therefore celebrate its centenary on 30 December 2008.  The proclamation of Whitesands as a “Local Area” however only happened in 19515, but then it has already been an established little township in its own right for many years.

Port Beaufort, of course, boasts a considerably earlier founding date, since it has been placed in the hands of a trust by the Colonial Government as far back as 31 January 1831, with the mandate to establish a harbour in that place 6.  Port Beaufort is 177 years old this year and we can therefore celebrate its bicentenary in 2031!

References:

1. Swellendam quitrent, folio AF 307 (10 October 1831)
2. HC Hopkins. 1955. Eeufeesgedenkboek vd Ned Geref Kerk Heidelberg. (p 18 - 19)
3. Title Deed 9432 of 1908
4. Title Deeds 9434 to 9450 of 1908
5. Proclamation 21/1951
6. Title Deed dated 31 Jan 1831

Information compiled by:                                     Contact Office for Festive Programme:
Dr Jan Langenhoven                                                Cara Carr                              
PO Box 71                                                                 Witsand Tourism Bureau
Witsand                                                                      Tel 028 537 1010
6666                                                                           wact@telkomsa.net