;April • The
Transvaal government orders Asiatics to move into Locations specified by the government before 1 July. ;May • 4 –
Cape Town based food packaging company
Imperial Cold Storage and Supply Company is founded in London. • 5 – Sir
Alfred Milner, High Commissioner of South Africa and
Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, sends a
telegram to
Joseph Chamberlain urging him to intervene in the
South African Republic. ;October • 1 – Jan Gysbert Hugo Bosman, aka
Bosman di Ravelli, a concert pianist and composer, leaves South Africa for London. • 4 – The South African Republic issues an order to "all White inhabitants" within the
Kingdom of Swaziland, to evacuate, with the exception of property owners eligible for active military service. British subjects inside Swaziland are evicted and escorted to the border with
Mozambique. • 5 – The 7,000
Zulu mineworkers in the Witwatersrand are assembled by mine recruiter John Sidney Marwick at
Johannesburg so that they can be transported home before war breaks out with Britain. • 11 – The
South African Republic declares war on Britain and launches the
Second Boer War which will only end in 1902. • 13 – The
Siege of Mafeking begins. • 14 – The
Siege of Kimberley begins. • 20 – In the
Battle of Talana Hill, the first major clash of the conflict near
Dundee, Natal, the
British Army drives the Boers from a hilltop position, but with heavy casualties, including their Commanding General Sir
Penn Symons. • 28 – The
Swaziland Commando unit of the
South African Republic Army attacks and burns the British police post at Kwaliweni. Warned by Swaziland's King
Ngwane V, the 20 policemen are able to evacuate the post office and flee to
Ingwavuma, which the Commandos attack next. ; November • 2 – The
Siege of Ladysmith begins. • 9 – The first British transport of supplemental troops arrives at Cape Town to enter the
Second Boer War. • 16 – A British Army train carrying troops is wrecked in South Africa near
Estcourt by the Boers, and 56 men are taken prisoner, including
Winston Churchill. • 19 – The Boers redeploy 4,000 of the 8,000 troops assigned to the
Siege of Mafeking, because of the heavy resistance by the British defenders. • 20 – Lieutenant-General
John French arrives at the
Colesberg in the Cape Colony front to co-ordinate the defense of the British colonies in South Africa against the Boer attack and conducts a series of distracting maneuvers that succeed in preventing the South African Republic from attempting an invasion of the Cape Colony. • 21 – The Boers cut off all telegraph lines and seize the railway connecting
Estcourt to the rest of the
Cape Colony. ==Births==