History of Aberdeen

The earliest known history of Aberdeen dates back to the late seventeenth century when Ensign Shriver was sent by Governor Simon van der Stel to barter trade goods for the sheep and cattle of the Inqua Khoisan under the leadership of Heykon. The first meeting between the Inqua and Ensign Shriver took place some 30-kilometres north west of Aberdeen in the lee of the Onder Sneeuberge in January 1689.

 In 1777 Captain Robert Jacob Gordon, an employee of the Dutch East India Company, travelled along the Kraai River in the vicinity of Aberdeen and with the assistance of a draughtsman drew a panoramic view of the Camdeboo Mountains from the crest of a small koppie or hillock some seven kilometres from Aberdeen. This koppie later became known as Gordon’s koppie and is situated close to the N9 highway towards Graaff-Reinet.

The original title deeds for the land on which Aberdeen is situated were signed by the British Governor Lord Charles Somerset in 1817.

Aberdeen began as one of six Dutch Reformed Church congregations* established in 1855 in what was then the Cape Colony. On 10 September 1855, the church council of the NG congregation of Graaff-Reinet, the oldest congregation in the  Eastern Cape, considered a request for the separation of a new congregation in the vicinity of where Aberdeen would later be established. Like many towns in the former Cape Colony, Aberdeen was founded as a church town. On 16 October, the Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet, the so-called third precinct (after Cape Town and Swellendam) formally separated the congregation. The Brakkefontein farm was selected as the location for the town and church.

Brakkefontein was sold by its owner Jan Vorster to the Dutch Reformed Church in 1855. The new settlement was named Aberdeen in honour of the birthplace of the Reverend Andrew Murray (senior). Many of the title deeds for property in Aberdeen date back to 1857 when the Dutch Reformed Church Council began to sell land to early residents in the precinct surrounding the church.

The 2nd Anglo Boer War caused tremendous dissension between Dutch and English residents of Aberdeen in line with many of the smaller towns scattered across the hinterland of the Cape Colony. During the war, 139 residents of Aberdeen rebelled against the Colonial Administration and joined up with the Boers fighting on behalf of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. By so doing they were technically traitors as all residents of the Cape Colony irrespective of whether they spoke Dutch or English were British citizens. 

One of the famous historical figures who saw action in the Aberdeen district during the 2nd Anglo Boer War was Lawrence Edward Grace Oates. Serving in the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, he suffered a gunshot wound to his left thigh in March 1901, which shattered his leg and left it an inch shorter than his right leg when it eventually healed. In that skirmish, he was twice called upon to surrender, and replied: “We came to fight, not to surrender.” He was recommended for the Victoria Cross for his actions. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1902 and Captain in 1906.

He later served in Ireland, Egypt, and India. He was nursed by the Harvey family of 16 Brand Street in Aberdeen, where he celebrated his 21st birthday. The wound caused him a lifelong limp. Oates accompanied Captain Robert Falcon Scott on the British Polar Expedition to the South Pole in 1910. He was in charge of 19 Siberian ponies, the care of which consumed his health. After the horses were destroyed, Oates and the men hauled their own equipment. His old war wound became gangrenous and he was unable to pull his sledge. Bearing unendurable pain, he deliberately walked out into a blizzard and the bitter cold and was never seen again. It was on the day of his 32nd birthday that he made the supreme sacrifice. The whole party perished, but the following year, when a relief party found Scott’s diaries, they found that he had written: “Oates slept through the night hoping not to wake, but he awoke in the morning. It was blowing a blizzard. Oates said: ‘I am just going outside, and may be some time.’ He went outside and we have not seen him since. We knew that Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it to be the act of a brave man and an English Gentleman.”

* Jansenville was first on 4 February, Ceres was second on 21 March, Sutherland third, then Aberdeen, Heidelberg fifth and Simon’s Town sixth.