Beaufort West Reformed Church

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The Beaufort West Reformed Church, founded on May 16, 1820, is the ninth-oldest church of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) Western and Southern Cape Synod and the 12th-oldest in the entire NGK. As the mother church of all NGK churches in the Western Cape and Northern Cape Karoo, its daughter churches include: Prince Albert Reformed Church (1842), Victoria West Reformed Church (1843), Fraserburg Reformed Church (1851), Carnarvon Reformed Church (1871); parts of Vosburg Reformed Church, Loxton Reformed Church, and Brandvlei Reformed Church; and finally on June 22, 1949, Gamka Valley Reformed Church and Gamka East Reformed Church.

Background

The first Trekboers arrived in the area of the Koup and the Nuweveld Mountains in 1760, founding the first farms in what was later the district of Beaufort West, South Africa. That year, Hooivlakte in the Carro was founded by field commandant Abraham de Klerk where the town would later lie, but the area remained sparsely populated for many years. Even in 1804 his nearest neighbor lived 100 km away. At the end of the 18th century, several farmers began grazing cattle on pastures north of the Nuweveld Mountains, giving rise to what would become Beaufort 15 years later (since 1869 Beaufort West).

In 1805, De Klerk lost 3,000 sheep to a cloudburst, but was convinced that he could recoup his losses in two years. Though loosely populated and distant from markets, to say nothing of persistent San attacks and animal predation, the climate and land were ideal for sheep farming.

The Slachter’s Nek Rebellion of 1815 grew the population of the Beaufort West area overnight since the seven conspirators saved from execution of the other five were banished there. Willem Krugel, Adriaan Engelbrecht, Andries Meyer, Nicolaas Prinsloo, David Malan, Pieter Prinsloo, and Maria Faber thus settled in the area. Faber was the widow of Jan Bezuidenhout, a casualty of the rebellion whom she and her 12-year-old son helped load rifles until a bullet from a Khoikhoi soldier felled him. The families and friends of the exiles helped found the town and congregation as well, eventually supplying many of the Beaufort Voortrekkers (1836-1838).

In the mid-18th century, there were only three districts in the NGK: Cape, Stellenbosch, and Swellendam. In 1769, the area north of the Swartberg was declared the Stellenbosch district. The Graaff-Reinet district, founded in 1798, had its western border at the Gamka River. The areas south and west of the Gamka were placed under Stellenbosch until 1805, when a new district was founded in Tulbagh. By the time Cape Colony came under British control in 1814, there were seven districts, the above five as well as Uitenhage (1804) and George (1811), within which sat the first 11 congregations of the NGK: Cape Town (1665), Stellenbosch (1686), Paarl (1691), Tulbagh (1743), Swartland (1745), Graaff-Reinet (1792), Swellendam (1798), Caledon (1811), George (1813), Uitenhage (1817), and Cradock (1818).

It was difficult to govern the Koup and Nuweveld from Graaff-Reinet, Stellenbosch, and Tulbagh, leading to widespread banditry as unscrupulous merchants sold firearms and gunpowder to the native Khoikhoi, San, and Basters. All involved parties could easily flee north of the Orange to escape colonial jurisdiction.

Founding of the district and town

To bring an end to the chaos, Governor Lord Charles Somerset issued a proclamation on November 27, 1818, founding the Beaufort district, named after his father, the Duke of Beaufort, like Port Beaufort and Fort Beaufort. The district included the eastern portion of Tulbagh, the western one of Graaff-Reinet, and the strip of land across the Sak River; it was divided into ten field cornetcies. At 40,000 km², (a third of Western Cape Province or around the size of Switzerland, Denmark, or the Netherlands), Beaufort District includes the later ones in Prince Albert, Fraserburg, Willowmore, Aberdeen, Murraysburg, and Victoria West. The original congregation would be renamed Beaufort West in 1869 to distinguish it from Port Beaufort and Fort Beaufort. Travel writer George McCall Theal described Somerset as “the man who was rapidly covering the map of the Colony with the titles of his family.” The second son of Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort and brother of Henry Somerset, 6th Duke of Beaufort (the Marquees of Worcester), the Governor inspired the names of Cape Colony towns such as Somerset West, Somerset East, and Worcester.

Lords J.H. Fischer and Andries Stockenström, the respective magistrates of Tulbagh and Graaff-Reinet (the latter was also the father of Andries Stockenström, later lieutenant-governor of the Eastern Cape), set out to find a suitable site for a district seat. They purchased Hooivlakte and neighboring Bosjesmansberg from De Klerk for 13,333 Dutch rijksdaalders, around £1,025 11s, and laid out the new town there. The recently appointed assistant magistrate J. Baird was ordered to leave, and the governor bought the existing homesteads for 6,000 rijksdaalders as homes for the magistrate, clerk, and pastor, as well as a prison and other outbuildings and homes for colonial functionaries.

Founding of the congregation

The expansion of the NGK, until 1843 the State Church of South Africa, did not always keep up with population growth. The shortage of pastors prior to the foundation of the Teologiese Kweekskool (now Stellenbosch University) in 1859 and the difficulty of funding vast, sparsely populated inland congregations were factors, as was the poverty of the government itself. Therefore, there were only seven congregations in Cape Colony by 1800. The first circuit courts in 1811 bore witness to the transient conditions and low rates of church and school attendance. A committee found that out of around 34,000 children in Graaff-Reinet district (in which a portion of the Koup and Nuweland fell), only around 0.3% had attended school, inspiring the foundation of the George, Uitenhage, and Cradock congregations within the decade.

At the time, there were no schools to speak of, and people could only go around once or twice a year the hundreds of km by oxcart to the nearest churches in Graaff-Reinet, Tulbagh, or Paarl (Worcester first built one in 1821). The first child in Beaufort’s oldest parish register (1818-1827) is recorded as “baptized February 2, 1819, in Paarl.” Children began to be regularly baptized in Beaufort in April 1819.

First pastor: Rev. John Taylor

Main achievements

Just then, two missionaries left the London Missionary Society for pastorates in the NGK. One of them was the Rev. John Taylor, earlier a pastor with the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Lord Somerset thought him well-suited to task of anglicizing the NGK, and thus declared him the district’s founding pastor. Taylor had already begun ministering in Beaufort West in early December 1818, not only to the white congregants but also to the Cape Coloureds settled at Kookfontein by the magistrate to try and convert natives from nomadism. Taylor was now charged with an area the size of the Netherlands.

The “decent dwelling” the government had promised him and his family did not materialize, and there was no church building. Sir John G. Fraser later recalled that his father Colin Fraser told him as a child: “Religious services were held at a poplar tree near where the present dam wall is; the church, a tent of wagon sails.” The first services were held in De Klerk’s home in 1820, and only became regular later that year. Mary Moffat Livingstone, daughter of the missionary Robert Moffat and later the wife of explorer David Livingstone, visited in February 1820 and recalled the service space as “as only a room in a farmhouse, with two beds in it. I have been in many odd-lookig places, but never saw one like that.” The church council’s repeated entreaties to “build a simple building for this one church” fell on deaf ears with the authorities, and when the Rev. Taylor left for Cradock in 1823, there was still no dedicated house of worship. The Governor found candidates for deacon and elder so unsuitable that the Rev. Taylor spent over half a year without a council, and was away several months of the year visiting various field cornetcies, since visiting them all would take at least 18 months.

The Rev. Taylor’s precedents =

Despite the difficulties, however, the Rev. Taylor laid the foundations for the later congregation, keeping careful registers (of baptisms, marriages, and members) carefully managing the congregation’s finances. On April 11, 1819, he baptized a child for the first time in Kookfontein, the second following shortly after “at home.” The first communion week was September 29–30, 1820, when the around 65 charter members were shriven. In June 1819, the Rev. Taylor held the first night services (known as bededstond, Afrikaans for “bedtime”), instituting the tradition of Monday evening services once a month.

Founding date of the congregation

For one and a half years, the Rev. Taylor went without a council. On May 16, 1820, however, the Governor approved the magistrate of Graaff-Reinet’s council nominees, who declared the Beaufort West congregation founded the same way. The first council included two elders (Christiaan Bothma and M.J. van Stade) and three deacons (Gysbert Janze, Dirk Wouter de Plooy, and Dapper Goerge Stefanus de Beer) who met on September 29, 1820; De Beer was the first deacon-treasurer and a Mr. Frylinck the first verger. By November 1820, the council oversaw four communion services a year on the third Sundays of January, April, July, and October. Friday services had also started, with the intention to have youth adopted then be proposed the Saturday after, with the communion service itself on Sunday and the council meeting Monday morning.

Second pastor: The Rev. Colin Fraser

Arrival

At the beginning of 1824, the Governor reassigned the Rev. Taylor to Cradock. His last church council was on January 5 of that year, and the congregation remained without a pastor until July, when the Council petitioned Lord Somerset once more. On December 18, 1824, the Rev. Fraser disembarked at Table Bay. A Scot like his predecessor, he would serve the congregation for a record 38 years, after British Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst urged his appointment and investiture by the Rev. Andrew Murray, Sr., the pastor of Graaff-Reinet, where the Rev. Fraser was confirmed on January 19, 1825.

Fight for first church building

At the Rev. Fraser’s first council meeting in February 1825, they resolved to petition the Governor for 10,000 rijksdaalders to build a church, given that the provisional one seating 80 was too small to allow free access during communion. Upon the Governor’s reply that this was too little given the shortage at the Orphan Chamber (a body overseeing estates), the council got magistrate Stockenström of Graaff-Reinet to agree to a fundraising drive. By that December, the circular sent to the field cornets had already collected 3,227 rijksdaalders, together with congregant collections yielding 7,522 rijksdaalders (around £578 12s.), enough to secure the Governor’s blessing. The council at first found this sufficient, but later discovered it to be inadequate for an appropriately sized building.

Unable to secure 5-8,000-rijksdaalder loans from the Cape Town and Tulbagh councils, a second funding drive was held in March 1826 for “livestock as well as cash.” Several male members contributed to the construction fund at the next congregation meeting. The Rev. Fraser estimated that the church would cost 13,150 rijksdaalders (around £1,011 10s.), and while that amount had yet to be secured, the council decided to start ordering masonry stone and brick in July 1826. C. Stritch drew up the blueprint, master mason Mr. Sandelands housed the project for £10/mo, and Gerhardus du Toit supervised on the council’s behalf.

Cornerstone laying and dedication

Magistrate Stockenström laid the cornerstone on October 16, 1826, praising the change in members’ morals in a speech preserved in the September–October edition of Het Nederduitsch Zuid-Afrikaansch Tydschrift. The Rev. Murray, attending on his way to Cape Town, preached a sermon and led a rendition of Psalm 132:3-7:

I will not enter my house or go to my bed,

I will allow no sleep to my eyesor slumber to my eyelids, ‘till I find a place for the LORD,a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob. We heard it in Ephrathah, we came upon it in the fields of Jaar:

Let us go to his dwelling place, let us worship at his footstool

A plan to decorate the doors and windows in Gothic style fell through due to a lack of suitable carpenters, so W. Strümpher completed it the usual way, with three wings. As money ran out, the council was obliged to ask the Governor for funding once more in December 1827. At first refusing, he ultimately agreed to a 2,000-rijksdaalder loan the following October, allowing construction to finish in 1830. There is no record of the dedication. The Good Friday hailstorm of 1831 hit no less than 210 of the new church’s windows, leading the Council to invest in shutters, and five years later curtains and a new pulpit costing 1,000 rijksdaalders were installed. Stritch gifted three lights to the church in 1838.

The council seriously considered adding a tower, but the cost of 11,000 rijksdaalders on which the coffers could hardly even pay the interest nixed the idea in March 1839. In 1843, new pews were installed and the thatch replaced with zinc tiles for the roof. The following year, a stone and wooden floor was mooted but once again scotched over financial concerns, leaving a bare floor for the time being.

First cemetery

The council had asked the magistrate for a cemetery grounds as early as 1821, and they decided shortly after that it should be on the grounds of the new church rather than that of the “provisional” one. These gravestones, on the site of the two later church buildings, were leveled in the late 1850’s and a new cemetery established at the end of Bird Street (near today’s town shopping center and alongside the Gamka-East NGK complex), which remained in use until around the 1950’s. The town hadn’t yet expanded southward in 1857 and the area was deemed “at a distance from the village.” Hearses cost £75 in Cape Town at the time, and therefore the council had to settle for “Lord Du Toit’s Mol Wagon as a provisional substitute.”

First organ and organist

At first, it was not customary for the council members to gather in the meeting room prior to services, but in May 1858, they decided member should arrive a quarter of an hour before the last bell to supervise the reader. Shortly before the third bell, the reader had to enter to make the usual proclamations and read the scripture on which the pastor would sermonize. In many cases, he also led the first hymn, and in some congregations even read the law and the creed, filled in for absent pastors with a sermon from a book, and led the singing prior to the installation of organs.

Until 1849, the Beaufort church used the usual reader-singing arrangement, but the congregation’s singing left something to be desired and that October, the council bought a seraphine (a type of organ) and hired Mr. M. van der Burgh as organist for five years at £30/yr paid for through a shilling from each member. The town council approved a clock for the western door of the church in 1850, and the following year a small gallery was built above the door of the church’s southern wing to house the seraphine. Though a talented musician, Mr. Van der Burgh was dismissed over his behavior in September 1852, to be replaced several months later by local watchmaker Tobias Johannes Myburgh, who would serve until 1868 and be buried after his death in May 1898 in the old cemetery, where the grave remains.

Congregation growth

Until the Swartberg district seceded as the Prince Albert congregation in 1843, the congregation covered 52,000 km², around 40% of the size of today’s Western Cape Province. The Rev. Fraser had to serve worshipers from as far west as what is now Prieska and as far north as the Orange River, though so sparsely populated as to only include 800 confirmed members and 3,000 people total. There were no roads, footpaths, or wagon tracks, and so the Rev. Fraser and an elder usually toured on horseback with a squire hand-pulling a horse loaded with bedding, clothes, robes, communion kits, and provisions. The congregation included ten districts (field-cornetcies), through which the touring minister held services in major population centers, baptized children, read and examined catechisms, blessed marriages, and otherwise served remote families. The Rev. Fraser was chased off by those who had never seen a pastor before and threatened by floods and wild animals. Oxcarts and carriages only became an option once roads were built.

Each Sunday, the Rev. Fraser held a morning and an afternoon service, along with evening “exercises” for the unbaptized (slaves and other Cape Coloureds); the afternoon service was more heavily based on the Heidelberg Catechism. The oldest extant report from the local Ring (sub-Synod) in 1838 attest the spread of the Gospel as proceeding at a “very encouraging” pace, with two monthly prayer meetings (one in the Swartberg and one in the Nuweveld) in the countryside as well as the weekly services in Beaufort West proper. Drought, measles, and the loss of population to the Great Trek slowed growth in 1839, but by the mid-1840’s, there were five prayer hours congregation-wide, each under a church councilor’s supervision, and attendance had recovered. The first Sunday school was established in 1844, only a few months after the first in the NGK in Cape Town, and the 1850 report showed it has held in the church for white children and in the Gesticht (oldest mission hall) for Cape Coloured ones.

The revival (1860-1861)

The 1860 denomination report on spiritual decline urged a revival, and shortly afterwards NGK congregations began introducing annual Pentecostal prayers in Paarl, Wellington, Montagu, Calvinia, and other cities. Beaufort West was no exception, and the Rev. Fraser’s 1861 report to the Ring reported:

“Our congregation appears to have shared in the revival with its fellows…not only in the city and neighboring areas, but in the Koup, the Nuweveld, from Skilpadkop to the Dwyka River we find traces of the work of the Holy Spirit…Prayer hours are observed in town and elsewhere, in some places daily and in others four times a week but always on Sundays.”

The Rev. Fraser’s retirement

The Rev. Fraser retired due to illnesses beginning in 1862, leaving a two-year vacancy until the Rev. Albert Zinn replaced him, prompting a backsliding reported in the 1865 denomination report as “carelessness about the Lord’s service and conformity to this world.” As the Rev. Fraser announced his resignation on January 12, 1863 in the presence of the full council in the parsonage, the consulent, the Rev. Willem Adolph Krige of Victoria West wished him well.

He spent eight years of his retirement in Beaufort West, occasionally appearing before the congregation in the meantime. After several strokes, he died at 74 in town on Sunday, September 25, 1870. Two days later, he was buried in the graveyard of the church he had served. The congregation’s fourth pastor, the Rev. Willem Petrus de Villiers, gave the eulogy, and the Rev. Guy Gething of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa made some remarks at the gravesite. A memorial stone from the church’s then ring wall was placed on the grave, stating: “Installed as a manifestation of the esteem and love to their former friend and shepherd by the members of this congregations and others in whose midst he served the Gospel for 38 years.”

Third pastor : the Rev. Albert Zinn

Arrival

Since the Ordinance of 1843 ended gubernatorial appointment of pastors, the NGK had the freedom to elect council members and select pastors at combined council meetings. The first such meeting in Beaufort West was chaired by consulent Krige in the old church on January 12, 1863.

There was still confusion, however, as to whether such appointments needed final gubernatorial approval. After voting on the matter, the council adjourned but returned on March 9, 1863 and settled on the Rev. Colin McKenzie Fraser, his predecessor’s son with a candidate (degree) of theology, who turned the job down and later served in Philippolis. He had called for a £400 salary, but the government only granted £200, and state grants would only cease in 1875.

No less than four more interviews were held without success, including the Rev. Murray, but the at the sixth, the young candidate Zinn was hired on April 4, 1864, ending a long period of services held by the Rev. Paul Teske of the local missionary society. Zinn bid his farewell address to Groote Kerk in Cape Town in July 1864 and traveled several weeks later to Beaufort West, where he was ordained on August 20, 1864. The next day, he delivered his first sermon on the text, “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17, 1933 translation); Monday morning, he sat for his first council meeting.

Death and burial

The demands of the mission proved too much for the frail but hard-working pastor, who died two years after taking office on November 15, 1866, at the age of 28, from several months of acute laryngitis. His last council meeting was on July 2 of that year, shortly after which he fell ill leaving his seat next to elder C. Smith empty at the October Ring meeting in Beaufort West. Apparently, the worst was not yet expected, since he was elected a member of the Ring Commission in absentia and called to Bethulie in the southern Orange Free State shortly before his death, but his illness took an unexpected turn.

The Kerkbode wrote of his funeral and burial:

His funeral was well-attended and the parishioners were unprecedentedly cordial. The council carried the body from the house to the church, followed by the widow and the Reverend’s friendly doctor, the district surgeon S. Treadwell; they were followed by Mr. and Miss MacConachie [a brother-in-law of the deceased pastor who taught in Beaufort West] and the Revs. Fraser, John Turnbull (also a Scottish pastor), and W. Bramley and Mrs. Bramley, among the large crowd.

The black-veiled coffin was placed in front of the pulpit in the crowded church. The Rev. Rossouw of Clanwilliam led the proceedings, while his friend the Rev. Turnbull gave a striking speech in English paying tribute to the deceased as a Christian and minister. The Revs. Fraser and Teske also gave speeches. The Rev. Zinn remains buried in the churchyard to this day with a tombstone put up by his friends two years later inscribed:

“This tomb was set up by the public as proof of the love and esteem in which the deceased was held at Beaufort during his brief and faithful ministry by all those who mourn his death. He still speaks in death.”

Fourth pastor: the Rev. W.P. de Villiers

Arrival

The Rev. de Villiers was one of the first students at Paarl Gimnasium and at the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, after which he studied at the New College in Edinburgh. On December 27, 1867, he entered the ministry, but he’d been offered the Beaufort West post by the council on December 9 at had turned it down only to accept on January 13, 1868 for a salary of £350, £50 more than the Rev. Zinn, ending the one-and-a-half-year vacancy following the latter’s death.

The weekend of his investiture was a red-letter day, since a new organ was brought into use that Friday night, April 17, 1868. As the seraphine lost its luster, elder Nicolaas Burgert van der Westhuizen agreed to donate the instrument, which had sat opposite the pulpit starting in July 1867, on the sole condition that the congregation keep it if it stays “as it now exists with the same church constitution and doctrine” as opposed to allowing liberal ministers to innovate as was happening in the NGK at the time.

The Rev. Krige, the consulent, consecrated the new pastor in front of a packed church with a reading of Psalm 100:2. The Rev. De Villiers’s brother J.S. de Villiers, organist in Paarl (1857-1875), came to Beaufort West to play the new organ and lead the choice.

The following Saturday morning at half past nine, the Rev. De Villiers was invested with a speech given by Kweekskool Prof. Nicolaas Hofmeyr on the theme of 2 Corinthians 5:19-20:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

The Revs. Krige, Fraser (emeritus), and E. du Toit (Jacobsdal), and Prof. Hofmeyr all participated in the laying on of hands. At 3:00 in the afternoon, the newly invested pastor gave his inaugural sermon on the words of Romans 1:16, namely “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” That evening, Prof. Hofmeyr led the preparation service, and the following day, the congregation came out in great numbers to the communion table to hear out the Rev. Du Toit, a close friend of the Rev. De Villiers. Prof Hofmeyr gave one final admonition on to the congregation as they left Monday morning, and the Kerkbode concluded its report with wishes that the festivities would bear continued fruit and that the Lord would bless the “good seed sprinkled over those days.”

The Rev. De Villiers’ accomplishments

The inexperienced 25-year-old set about pioneering education in the district, for which he set out to balance the books by paying off the church’s debt as recorded in annual January reports through fundraising sales and concerts. By July 1870, debt was less than £300 and falling, and the church could afford to refurbish the church, re-thatch the parsonage, and buy a hearse. Faced with the church’s own debtors who had accumulated several pounds of liability, the Rev. De Villiers forbade multi-year laggards pew usage. This left bookkeeper C.G. Smith frustrated with the pushback to the point of resigning, after which verger G. Davidtz took over the books.

Departure

In 1875, the Rev. De Villiers’s work building the church, parsonage, congregation, and town of Carnarvon on Schietfontein Farm led to the formal inauguration of the latter two with him slated to be its first pastor. His resignation was approved by the council on July 5 of that year and formally tendered on Monday, August 16, a day after his final farewell to the congregation which was reported in the September 4 Kerkbode:

On Sunday, August 15, the Rev. W.P. de Villiers bid adieu to this congregation; in which he has worked with blessings and fruit for over seven years. Turnout was large. The Rev. chose for his moving sermon 2 Corinthians 13:11, “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace be with you.” When the pastor left the pulpit, he was given a warm seeing-off by former elder P.J. Weeber, who handed him a £64 scholarship, to which the Rev. gave his thanks and noted his calling to the greater works in his new town.

The Sunday school children gave him a beautiful writing box as their parting gift that afternoon, followed by a set of “nice tableware” from the Rev. Teske that he got at the mission church that evening. On Monday morning, he said goodbye to the school he had founded, and at noon he was sent on his way by a multitude of residents of all races on carriages, carts, and on foot. As he parted ways with them out on the plains, the Kerkbode reported “the pastor’s tears mixed with those of the congregation.”

Fifth pastor: the rev. Louis Hugo

Arrival

During the eight-month-long vacancy following the Rev. De Villiers’s resignation in August 1875, the congregation was served by the Rev. Andreas Adriaan Louw of Murraysburg, who had replaced the Rev. Krige as consulent. The third applicant, interviewed on November 29 of that year, was the Rev. Louis Hugo of Ladybrand. Taking the job on the promise of the old parsonage becoming “a well-furnished dwelling built on a well-planted oasis,” he arrived the following April.

The council had to arrange his passage from the Orange Free State to the heart of the Great Karoo across hundreds of km. There was still no train (which wouldn’t arrive in Beaufort West until 1880), a team of asses were driven to pick up the pastor and his family in Ladybrand at a cost of £100 (when the Rev. Hugo and elder J.F. Pienaar were dispatched to Cape Town several months later for the Synod conference, the council spent £50 on six asses). On the afternoon of Saturday, April 8, 1876, the congregation rode out in wagon ruts to meet the new leader outside of town, since flooded rivers blocked him from immediate arrival. At 4:00, he was welcomed to the parsonage, where elder Weeber welcomed him on behalf of the parsonage and Sunday school children sang him a welcoming air. That night, he was ordained with only one pastor other than the Rev. Louw in attendance, namely the Rev. George Murray, one of Andrew’s five pastor sons, from the neighboring congregation in Willowmore; the rest of the pastors in the Ring were blocked by the flood waters. The newly ordained pastor preached his first sermon the next day.

Pay

Although the Ordinance of 1843 made the NGK self-governing, congregations relied for al ong time thereafter on government funding to pay part of pastors’ salaries, though readers, vergers, and organists ceased to be paid from the public till in 1845. The congregation thus paid only £50 to the Colony’s £200 toward the pastor’s living. In 1875, however, both houses of the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope passed the “Voluntary Bill” phasing out such subsidies, overcoming ecclesiastical objections only by allowing currently serving ministers to keep their salaries until retirement or death. Thereafter, congregations managed their own finances, breaking the last tie between church and state.

The Beaufort West congregation had already begun paying toward the Rev. Fraser’s salary in 1862, raising it by £100 to £350/yr. Collections were so fruitful that it was raised a further £50. From 1875 onwards, the funds were known as the Clergy Sustenance Funds, already up to £3,000 by then. The Rev. Hugo campaigned to raise it to £4,000 by 1880, and by 1945, it had reached £7,000.

Collections and pulpit

In April 1879, during the Rev. Hugo’s tenure, deacon (and later elder and Member of Parliament) Weeber’s suggestion to switch the traditional black velvet bags out in favor of after-service collection plates by the door was adopted by the council. In April 1892, however, the council decided to move the offerings to the pews before the final hymn. Another old tradition, Christmas Day communion, ended in December 1877.

The old chalice-shaped pulpit that had served the congregation had fallen out of favor as well. Van der Westhuizen, the donor of the 1868 organ, once again contributed with a new pulpit. The stately furniture would survive the old church and was dedicated to the memory of its donor’s recently deceased wife.

Use of English

Many Scottish pastors and English-speaking teachers had immigrated to South Africa since the days of Lord Somerset, including the first two pastors of Beaufort West and most of its teachers. The old public schools made the Dutch language anathema, and the lack of Anglican and Presbyterian congregations until 1850 filled the NGK pews with Anglophone worshipers who the Rev. Fraser accommodated with English services once a month (later more often), usually in the evenings when Afrikaners didn’t worship. As early as April 1836, the English residents of the town had their own reader and verger and expected the council to abide by their rules. Apparently, these services were held outside the church building (though it is unclear where), since the Rev. Fraser’s May 1858 request to use it for them was denied by the council. The Cape NGK Synod approved Anglophone preaching in 1834 if done without prejudice to Dutch worshipers with council permission to use the building.

Even after Beaufort West got an Anglican church in 1848 and a Presbyterian one in 1862, English continued to be frequently be used heavily in the NGK church there, prompting heavy disagreements from around 1868. The First Boer War, the Afrikaans Language Movement, and the formation of the Afrikaner Bond all pointed to increased national consciousness among speakers of Cape Dutch. By 1886, there were no more services in English, but some students were taught and even catechized in the language for Sunday school. In that year’s report to the council, elder M.F. Erasmus, catechism teacher since 1877, objected strongly to the use of English as creating a rift in the congregation and threatened to resign unless the congregation changed its language policy. After a heated council debate, the council decided in June 1886 that services could still be held in English, but only after the pastor and two councilors had inquired as to the justification. Erasmus resigned in protest shortly afterward, leading the Rev. Hugo to teach the classes in his stead, no small feat given the population growth that had expanded the town and district membership despite the secession of Prince Albert, Victoria West, Fraserburg, and Carnarvon reducing the area.

Afrikaans grew to be the congregation’s lingua franca. The January 1889 council meeting notes show a decision to phase out English classes in Sunday school, leaving only one for very young children within a year. The Beaufort West church was far ahead of the Boland and Cape coast churches in abolishing English services. An October 1900 council meeting (during the Second Boer War) debated reintroducing them without resolution. Multiple petitions up to 1907, some with up to 150 signatures, advocated for bringing the language back, each refused as “raising unnecessary tension.” The Rev. Gen. Paul Hendrik Roux was later willing to offer services in English for non-Afrikaans-speakers, but they never materialized.

Church building renovation

In 1877, the parsonage was repaired and renovated, prompting similar steps to be taken with the church building. The congregation used special collections and successful church sales to fund the work in 1880. An iron frame was considered along with improved lighting for some parts and general enlargement to fit community needs as early as 1879.

All the plans came to naught due to droughts and other more pressing concerns in the mid-1880s. For a time, even the verger, organist, and sheet music procurer went unpaid, though the Rev. Hugo gave away part of his salary to support the verger. In October 1886, the secretary reported “no money in the church coffers.” In these dire circumstances, the council set up a construction fund in 1887. Complains on the finances continue to be heard at the beginning of 1889, but the following year, finances improved enough to begin saving for a new church building.

Beaufort West’s new church

Council meeting notes do not record when construction began on the present church. Notes from February 29, 1892 show it already under way, and the cornerstone was laid that October. A photo of the occasion shows the foundations of the new church in the foreground with two gables and part of the thatch of the old roof from the original 63-year-old edifice in the background. Shortly after the cornerstone was laid, most of the building was broken down save for two galleries (including the organ gallery), which would be part of the current building. Services continued in the local missionary church, except for larger communion ones held in the local Methodist Church of Southern Africa building. On January 15, 1894, as completion neared, the council invited the Rev. Hugo and Dr. Andrew Murray from Wellington to deliver the dedication speech. Three months later, the £8,000 project was done, and on September 22 of that year the building was dedicated, described by the Kerkbode of September 28 as follows:

Today, September 22, the new church was dedicated here. The Rev. A. Murray had already arrived Tuesday to give a Wednesday service, followed soon by pastors from Victoria West, Murraysburg, and Prince Albert. Yesterday was the big day when members of congregations from further afield and even other denominations arrived. At half past nine today, the crowd marched from the parsonage to the church, whose 150-foot high tower makes a sterling impression as the village’s crown jewel. The Rev. Murray unlocked the door and gave the dedication speech. According to the Building Commission report, the church paid off over £5,000 of the £13,500, leaving just £8,000 in debt when factoring in the £800 the sisters contributed. The pulpit and organ, donated not long ago to the congregation, fit very nicely in the new building. Though seating around 1,000, there were not much less than 2,000 there that day. The Rev. Hugo led the choir in a performance that included some pieces by Prof. J. de Villiers.

The Rev. Murray’s sermonized on Leviticus 10:2-3: “2 So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Moses then said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord spoke of when he said: “Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.”’ Aaron remained silent.” During and after the service, the congregation contributed £736 to the till. A preparation service was held that afternoon, along with communion the next morning. A year later, there remained £7,500 in construction debt. The council meanwhile raised £5,500 from Susanna Maria Johanna Hertzog in Cape Town, who had funded the building of a massive complex of housing, schools, and a women’s old age home on the corners of Boom and Buitenkant Streets in her hometown that were completed in 1895, centered on an ornate church. The Tamboerskloof Reformed Church housed an independent congregation but was required by Mrs. Hertzog to have Masonic badges on the cornerstone and hold all services in English, conditions that were not applied to the Beaufort West church.

Complaints against the Rev. Hugo

At the beginning of 1896, the congregation was rocked by charges against its minister. At the end of that March, the Ring Commission investigated the leading men’s complaints, prompting the Rev. Hugo to resign on March 30. The Commission, after a nine-day investigation, suspended him pending the ring’s verdict. Tensions ran high and the congregation threatened to split in half as £7,000 of debt remained on the church.

Under these circumstances, the Rev. and Mrs. Hugo left Beaufort West on June 30, 1896. The magistrate addressed a few words to the couple at the train station, and the Reverend received parting a gift of £300 from supporters. The Kerkbode correspondent reported that “his work over 20 years would not be forgotten.” By mid-July, the controversy had subsided as special services held by the Rev. Johannes Rudolph Albertyn of Wellington calmed the congregation, but the Beaufort West Ring’s October meeting in Fraserburg found the Rev. Hugo guilty of “ineptitude” and upheld the suspension as a nine-month interdict.

The Rev. Hugo redeemed himself professionally through mission work for about 10 years, until his death on August 21, 1907, working with lepers on Robben Island. The Kerkbode remarked upon his death that “he was a man of great gifts, which made many appearances in his ministry.

Sixth pastor: the Rev. Pieter van der Merwe

The Rev. Pieter van der Merwe enrolled with five other students at the Kweekskool in 1882, graduating in 1886 and later marrying a daughter of his mentor, Prof. John Murray (one of the Rev. Andrew’s sons and the Rev. George’s brother). After a few months as curate at the Wellington Reformed Church, the Rev. Van der Merwe took a job in 1887 at the then ten-year-old congregation in Britstown, helping them build their church in 1892. In his fourth year preaching in that building, he accepted the post in Beaufort West.

A long, turbulent vacancy had followed the Rev. Hugo’s departure, as the consulent (now the Rev. Gustave Adolph Maeder) chaired a council that first interviewed the Rev. Albertyn in May 1896, after which he declined but held the aforementioned reconciliation services. A second failed interview with the Rev. J.A. Louw of Heidelberg, Transvaal, led to the August 24 hiring of the Rev. Van der Merwe, who would take the post that November.

The first pastor to arrive by train, the Rev. Van der Merwe and his wife reached the station on the afternoon of Friday, November 6, and was welcomed to the parsonage shortly after. The investiture the following morning was attended by the Revs. Albertyn, Maeder, De Villiers still of Carnarvon, Johannes van Heerden of Richmond, G.A. Scholz of Colesberg, L. Pienaar of Richmond, Gething of Beaufort West Anglican, and Gathercole of Beaufort West Methodist. At the request of the organist, Mrs. Johanna Hermans, she and the pastor led the choir and congregation in singing “Hoe lieflik zijn op de Bergen” (a hymn based on Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’). A packed church heard the Rev. Van der Merwe’s inaugural sermon on the text of Romans 1:14-15, “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.” He held a meet-and-greet with the congregation later that night. Several months later, on December 24, the Kerkbode wrote: “Temporally the congregation is blessed. The fields are lined with greenery. On the spiritual side, we also have reason to be grateful.” Prospects remained promising up until the Second Boer War three years later.

First thanksgiving festivals and curate

The Rev. Van der Merwe set out immediately to reduce the congregation’s £7,000 debt load, starting with a September 1896 dinner and sale, including a cattle auction. These were presented as thanksgiving offerings for the first time, a practice continued by him and his successor, the Rev. Paul Roux. In July 1902, the council made the annual October fundraising drives official, pioneering what would only later become a staple of the NGK. In April 1897, the congregation first joined the pastors’ pension fund.

At the April 1898 council meeting, according to the notes, a curate was first proposed to help serve the large, widespread congregation, which approved it in a conference shortly thereafter. The first curate was the Rev. S.P. Helm, originally from the NGK’s Soutpansberg mission and one of the first “outland” missionaries of the Cape Church, but he left the post due to ill health in February 1899. He was hard to replace, but the Rev. Van der Merwe’s workload did lessen with the secession of the Loxton Reformed Church (1899) (seceded from Victoria West but including some farms in the Beaufort West territory) and the Merweville Reformed Church (1904).

In April 1899, the council gave the Rev. Van der Merwe leave to go on sabbatical to Europe. The emeritus pastor, the Rev. C.S. Morgan, was suggested to serve in his stead but the idea was declined and no replacement was hired. At the June council meeting, the pastor’s letter from Paris was read, and he would be heartily welcomed with his wife to the congregation in October to attend the October 25 council meeting. The local missionary, the Rev. P. Pienaar, had helped with services during the absence, while the elder J.A.S. de Wet chaired the council.

The Second Boer War

Shortly after the Rev. Van der Merwe’s return, Britain and the Boer Republics went to war. Martial law was proclaimed on December 20, 1900, in the Beaufort West area. Congregation meetings and services declined precipitously, and no council meetings were held over the two-year span from October 1900 to July 1902. The Peace of Vereeniging in May 1902 thus was met with great relief despite the poor outcome for the Afrikaners. The July council meeting thus was filled with expressions of gratitude.

The tragic figure of Commandant Gideon Scheepers was linked in his final illness to the community. Seriously ill and physically exhausted by fever, he surrendered to the British on October 11, 1901, near Prince Albert. Brought to Beaufort West a week later, he convalesced in a tent hospital from October 19 to November 14, by the river on the current grounds of the Hoërskool Sentraal, writing several times to his widowed mother in Middelburg, Transvaal. In his later diary entries he writes of his stay there:

Here they brought me into a tent alone, treated me very well as a patient, gave me all I asked for. Dr. Capt. Evans and Dr. Carren did everything to make it easy for me, and the nurses such as Matron Johnson were goodness itself…My attention was drawn here by the great unrest about me; a thorn wire fence of twenty-four barbs stretched around my tent, with an officer standing with a bayonet in the tent, ones behind and in front of the tent, and one against the trees. Another officer stood on duty by the guards.

Apparently, the British forces feared he would flee. Just two months after Scheepers took the train out, he was shot near Graaff-Reinet, as lamented by Olive Schreiner.

New parsonage

The large parsonage on Donkin Street was built shortly after the war. The old parsonage, used by the Rev. Taylor, was on 107 Bird Street, where a Mr. Du Toit still lived at the time of the congregation’s 125th anniversary. During its first occupant’s time there, there was already a pair of large mulberry trees in front of the porch, and the pastor, according to the elderly residents interviewed by 91-year-old Flippie Swarts writing in the commemorative Beaufort West Gedenkboek in 1945, shot more than one red-winged starling to eat during mulberry season. After the Rev. Fraser spent his first four years there, the council bought an alternate parsonage on 102 Donkin Street. The building was heavily renovated from 1846 onward, but in the mid-20th century was known as the “Old Parsonage” and leased out as such. By 2012, it housed a supermarket, but it housed the pastor for three-quarters of a century.

In January 1903, the council chose to build a new parsonage alongside the old one. Along with the chairman, the following brothers served on the building commission: J. Fourie, A. de Villiers, J. de Villiers, J.P. Verster, P.D. de Villiers, J.F. Pienaar, and P.J. Weeber. The deacons collected shilling contributions from individual members for the purpose, only bringing in £175 toward the £2,390 of the winning bid. The council then had to borrow £2,000, and by the beginning of 1904, the Rev. and Mrs. Van der Merwe moved into their spacious home. The council secured the £2,000 without delay, a fair amount considering that the Molteno church building opened on April 20, 1906, at a cost of £7,000.

End of communion services

Communion was commonly held during the first 250 years of the NGK. Men and women separately left their pews for the communion table before returning. Combined with the “table speech” the minister offered, communion services could drag on for three hours, but this was replaced by simultaneous communion in the pews. The Rev. Albertyn introduced the change to the NGK in Riversdal in January 1888. Sharply attacked as “unbiblical and uninformed,” At the 1890 Cape Synod, a majority decided after a hotly debated session: “Each congregation can serve communion in its own way, provided the outward ceremonies, prescribed in God’s Word, are not changed and all superstitions are avoided.”

Not until the 20th century would group communion in the pews become the norm. The council first authorized such communion reluctantly in July 1904, but waited for confirmation of the congregations’ sentiments. The Rev. Van der Merwe prevailed in pushing for communion en banc. Kerkbode reports in 1905, shortly after the Rev. Van der Merwe, that “it is currently arranged so that the entire congregation, men and women together, take communion at the first and only table. The whole congregation is pleased with the change, spearheaded by their pastor, the Rev. Van der Merwe.”

Special services

Visiting pastors often came to lead special services with the congregation. Dr. Andrew Murray and the Rev. Albertyn came in 1894 and 1896, respectively, though they were there for conferences afterwards. Around 1888 or 1889, the Rev. Stephanus Hofmeyr of Soutpansberg, a convert from a farm near Prince Albert, held a conversion service there, followed thereafter by one of the first foreign evangelists, William Spencer Walton. In March 1904, the Rev. Kloppers and his wife Maria Kloppers of Fordsburg “collected a delicious harvest among the youth” (of prospective missionaries), encouraging the Rev. Van der Merwe to invite the Rev. Koch from Loxton for similar services. In November 1905, the Rev. Van der Merwe won permission from the council for a visit by three foreign evangelists from the Keswick Convention in October 1906, setting the stage for a strong missionary legacy in the congregation.

The Rev. Van der Merwe’s farewell

After an eventful eight years, the Rev. Van der Merwe left for a post in Boshof, Free State. The mood in the congregation around his December 11, 1904 departure is recorded in the Kerkbode of that December 15:

The Rev. van der Merwe’s final sermon on Sunday, the 11th, was a striking one on Jehovah-jireh! At the end of the morning service, he was offered warm greetings and parting donations…On Monday afternoon, many sisters came to the church to give the pastor’s wife a beautiful silverware set. Today, Tuesday, they leave the place where they both worked so faithfully and with such gifts, amidst many tears and well-wishes. The Beaufort Ring will greatly miss this humble yet watchful servant of the Lord...

The council chose the Rev. P.J. Conradie to hold services during the vacancy left by the Rev. Van der Merwe, who went on to serve the large Boshof congregation for eight years and in 1912 was promoted to General Missionary Secretary of the Free State NGK Synod. His fundraising placed the mission on a firm footing. In 1925, he retired due to ill health, continuing special missionary work in the Cape Church, which he had helped pioneer. In 1929, he took another post in the Nuwekerk, Graaff-Reinet, which he had to leave for his health’s sake in 1931. He and his wife then moved to Somerset West, where they lived for nine years until his death on June 17, 1940.

The Rev. A.P. Smit wrote in the Beaufort West Gedenkeboek of 1945 that the Rev. Van der Merwe “took a special place in the church and social life of this town. He had an appealing, strong character, was cheerful and loving, witty and lively, intimate and sincere – there you have the essence of the man.” The Rev. John Daniel Kestell called him a “down-to-earth person” who could sympathize easily with his fellows. At his death, the Kerkbode wrote: “With deep earnestness and effort he combined friendliness, philanthropy, and good humor. He was a genuine, guileless person, and thus won the adoration of his brethren in the ministry as well those whom he served in the Gospel.” Smit continued:

His organizing talent was excellent. He was a true soul-hunter and a great friend to children and youth. The Sunday school was his baby, and as pastor of Boshof, he introduced Bible studies to the children of the Orange Free State. He founded the first branch of the Strewers Movement in Beaufort West (1897). On his watch, Boshof became the first congregation in the Free State to send missionaries abroad. He had the gift of engaging people and putting them to work, and he was able to share his unique work ethic with all. Wherever he worked, the life of the congregation flourished.

Seventh pastor: Gen. the Rev. Paul H. Roux

After the Rev. Van der Merwe’s departure, the council interviewed no fewer than seven candidates, finally settling on September 7, 1905, on the Rev. Roux from Senekal, Free State, several months after he had initially turned the offer down. During the vacancy of a year, the council benefited from the services of the Rev. Conradie of Gideon in Mariental, South West Africa. The Rev. Roux and his family were welcomed to town on November 3, whence he was given a dedication speech by the Rev. H.J.L. Du Toit of Richmond. Among the area pastors in attendance were the Revs. Maeder of Victoria West (the consulent who would retire in 1907), P.A. Roux, Johannes Wynand Lou Hofmeyr, H.D. Kretzen, and L. Pienaar as well as the Revs. Lock and Pegram from the local Anglican congregation. The Rev. Roux’s first sermon was on Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dreams (Genesis 41:15), focusing on three main themes: the faith of Joseph, the powerlessness of the Pharaoh, and God’s denouement. The new pastor had become famous during the Second Boer War and made a favorable impression on the congregation.

First thanksgiving offering tickets and printed programs

The Rev. Roux introduced a number of innovations. He held the first Children’s Festival in the congregation in April 1907. He also started printing congregation programs regularly at the beginning of that year and introduced a ticket system for the thanksgiving offerings at that time. The treasurer was first paid a salary (£20) then. The Rev. Roux put up the first chalkboards in the church in September 1906. That year, he also led the council to light the church with acetylene gas lamps, replacing the poor illumination provided by the old oil lamps. The debt of £5,385 was well on its way toward elimination upon his untimely death.

The Rev. Roux and the mission

The Rev. Roux, very concerned with education, tried to start a spinning and weaving school in Beaufort West based on Emily Hobhouse’s exemplar in the Free State. Six spinning wheels were purchased by the council and teachers hired, but only four missionaries signed up and it closed, a great disappointment to the Rev. Roux and Deacon P. Martin.

The Rev. Roux believed that “a congregation lives on the strength of its missionary work.” As a member of the General Missionary Committee (lang-af: Algemene Sendingkommissie), he promoted both national and foreign missionary work. For example, he was one of the first to support the 1907-1908 effort to put the mission on a firm financial footing, visiting congregations to raise money with the Rev. (later Prof.) John du Plessis, Dr. Andrew Murray, and others. Dr. Murray held a mission conference in 1908 in Beaufort West, collecting £100 by Sunday evening despite droughts that were chronic features of the region (the district was in drought 40% of the time from 1948 to 1964). At the Rev. Roux’s insistence, the council considered appointing a foreign missionary a few months later.

As early as 1907, he set up the council’s permanent missionary commission and worked with council and the local missionary association (founded around 1889) to minister to local sheep farmers in 1908. Two years later, J.J. van Noordwyk began visiting the same circuit on bicycles and later on motorcycles, funded by local missionary societies (the Missionary Society, Women’s Missionary Bond, and Men’s Missionary Bond) until Van Noordwyk moved away in April 1918.

Illness and death

The Rev. Roux was already struggling with health issues as he served a congregation so large that it would be split into three parts in 1949. However, ordained curates were scarce, and the council was fortunate to hire the missionary Mr. Eksteen, who assisted the pastor and ministered to the local Cape Coloureds from 1907 to October 1908. The council’s fruitless search after Eksteen’s exit ended only at the beginning of 1911, when they secured the services of the Rev. C.M. Hofmeyr of Nyasaland.

The Rev. Roux was sent on important missions by the Church more than once. During the 1907-1908 missionary push, the 44-year-old preacher also joined Beaufort Ring’s three-month-long pastoral visit to the German South West Africa, where there were only two NGK congregations at the time (Mariental and Moria, the latter later called the [[Otjiwarongo Reformed Church [NGK]]]).

He supported carrying the mission northward into Central Africa. To that end, he left with the council’s blessing and the companionship of the Rev. Albertyn of Graaff-Reinet on June 6, 1910 to evangelize in Nyasaland. Bitten by a tsetse fly there, he fell ill with sleeping sickness in August and had to be nursed back to health by several months by the Rev. Willie Hofmeyr and his staff in Mvera. Receiving his anguished letters, the council decided in October to send a doctor or friend to care for the Rev. Roux and bring him back if necessary. That month, Mrs. Roux opted to be that envoy, but couldn’t risk the trip until Christmas, bringing him back to Beaufort West to a warm welcome and a celebration at the parsonage. His condition worsened, however, and he ended all treatment, entrusting the “heavenly Physician” as he put it to one of his friends, stating “if I am fated to die, so I die.” After an agonizing ten months, he passed away on June 8, 1911.

The Rev. Roux’s funeral

The Rev. Roux’s burial took place on Sunday, June 11, 1911, at quarter past three in the afternoon, as described in the report by the local Courier. The procession left the parsonage at three o’clock, including the casket bearers and pallbearers, followed by relatives, NGK pastors and missionaries, church councilors, the magistrate, the member of Parliament, the divisional council, municipal leaders, medical faculty, school board, congregation members, Sunday school children, and other dignitaries. The church building was much too small for around 2,300 mourners, so the pulpit, gallery, and front pews were covered in protective crêpe, while his coffin lay in front of the pulpit. In the funeral and graveside service, colleagues such as the Revs. G.J. Hugo (then with Colesberg and later a well-known NGK official), R.D. MacDonald (chairman of the Beaufort Ring), and H.J.L. du Toit (Richmond) paid tribute to the departed as “a special gift of God to our Church and people.”

The council proclaimed the following at a special conference four days after the Rev. Roux’s death:

The church council wishes to record its high appreciation of the work for the congregation by its pastor, the Rev. Paul H. Roux, and expresses its deep sorrow over the deplorable death on Thursday, June 8, 1911, of this so dearly loved and honored servant of the Lord…We are stunned, but we will not open our mouths because the Lord has done so. A man of great power and determination and of much prayer. A good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. A man who lived – and died – for his church council and congregation. He was a gift from God to us. With broken hearts, we thank the Lord for his gift. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away: the Name of the Lord be praised. We will never forget him.

A few years later, his remains were buried on the church grounds. A needle monolith in his honor was unveiled by the gravestone by the Rev. Kestell in front of a large crowd. The city of Paul Roux, Free State, is named after him as well.

New organ

A September 1910 council meeting proposed specifications for a new organ to replace N.B. van der Westhuizen’s 1868 donation. Elder P.J. Swarts’s proposal to buy a new one was accepted at the January 1911 congregation meeting, setting up an organ committee with the Rev. C.M. Hofmeyr, Brothers C.G. Smith and P.D. de Villiers, and Secretary J.P. Verster. Verster ordered a £1,180 organ from Cooper & Gill, and the deacons’ organ list brought in nearly £380 toward the cost, but the Rev. Roux’s death and other circumstances delayed its first use to communion night on Friday night, January 26, 1912. Only eight months before the Rev. Johan George Steytler arrived, the Kerkbode published a report by the Rev. Maeder:

This congregation has spent some wonderful holidays. Already on Friday, the town was atwitter as a large number of outside members came for the Lord’s Supper. At eight o’clock in the evening, the church was crowded, including many who came to see the new organ, introduced by the consulent, Rev. J.G. Perold, of Victoria West...The organist, Mr. Van der Bent, powerfully and melodically performed several classical pieces, accompanied by a well-trained choir, on the instrument Mr. Cooper delivered and installed.

The final cost of the new instrument was £1,250, and if it is said that with its dedication another £100 was owed, the congregation came together to pay the cost, including the council selling the old organ for £100.

Eighth pastor: the Rev. J.G. Steytler

Background and investiture

After the Rev. Roux’s death, the Rev. C.M. Hofmeyr served for another six months until January 1912, when the council dismissed him and his wife amicably; he later served in congregations in Murraysburg and Standerton and died in March 1930. Fortunately, the proponent M.L. de Villiers was ordained on Saturday, January 27, 1912, continuing to serve until the arrival of Steytler in September. Already a co-pastor in Beaufort West, M.P. de Villiers would later be known for writing the music of Die Stem van Suid-Afrika. The council had gone through no less than nine interviews to fill the post, with the last securing the Rev. Steytler from Hopefield and the West Coast, appointed on July 15, 1912.

The 48-year-old pastor would serve for the next eight years. The Kerkbode wrote of his arrival on September 19, 1912 as follows:

September 4–5 were joyous days for the Beaufort West congregation. After all, they enjoyed a new shepherd in their midst. The Rev. Steytler and his family arrived on Wednesday, September 4. The consulent, the visiting pastors, and the council members all came to the station in cars to greet him. The congregation, who came in large numbers, awaited them at the parsonage. There, the Rev. Steytler read a warm welcome address on behalf of the Church Council and the Sunday school children, the latter of whom welcomed him with song. The pastor replied in kind. After the pastors enjoyed lunch at the parsonage, well-supplied by the sisters of the congregation, the congregation attended an afternoon reception to meet the pastor and his wife.

The following day, he was solemnly invested in a ceremony including the following pastors: Revs. J.G. Perold (consulent, Victoria West), Hugo (Colesberg), Hofmeyr (Murraysburg), Daneel (Fraserburg), Pienaar (Merweville), and the Revs. Barnard and Tyndale from the missionary and Methodist churches respectively. The Rev. Steytler gave his first sermon the following Sunday. This all gave the congregation great pleasure and “everyone went home with a grateful heart and with a very pleasant impression of the new pastor and his son.”

Church union

After the states of South Africa were incorporated into the Union of South Africa, interest grew in an analogous union of the Dutch Reformed Churches in the same four provinces. A bill was considered for it in the new Parliament of South Africa, but two-thirds of the church councils in the Southern Africa were against the idea and it failed. The Beaufort West council thus resolved in April 1912: “The church council recognizes the steps already taken to reunite our Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa and declares itself in favor of the proposed association.”

Church hall construction

After the foundation of the Missionary Society in 1889, they built a local Christian meeting hall, later also the location of the “Armen School,” which was known as the Old Mission Hall and first purchased by the council in the early 1940’s for £850. The building was on 114 Donkin Street and was the oldest Christian meeting hall of the Beaufort West NGK and served many Christian organizations, missionary and otherwise. In March 1909, the council decided to built a “Youth Room,” for which Gen. the Rev. Roux, Dr. A.M. Neethling, and other members of the then booming Christelike Jongeliedevereniging (CJV) strongly advocated. This was tabled until September 1912, when the new Rev. Steytler started a building committee including himself and Brothers P.D. de Villiers, J.A. Louw, A.T. Theron, and C.G. Smith. The committee pledged £3,500 toward construction, but again demurred over ongoing drought. However, the following year the committee borrowed money to finish the center in December 1913 for £3,857, including £6,600 worth of debt on the furniture.

One of the first occasions celebrated in the hall was the silver wedding anniversary of the Steytlers that same month. A flower exhibition was held the following October, when an iron trellis was built around the hall, which remains in use today.

Electrical lighting and church tower construction

In 1918, the local railway station was lighted electrically, sparking talk of connecting it to the town post office and prompting the Rev. Steytler to advocate for continuing the line on to the church. World War I rationing kept the post office disconnected for the time being, let alone the church. In 1921, the town was finally electrified, and that April, Elder J.P. Pienaar and Brothers A.C. Koch and J.H.E. Vivier convinced the council to order electric lights for the church, hall, hostel, parsonage, and verger’s house for £400, a project completed in June. In October 1922, the organ was also outfitted with a state-of-the-art bellows and the organ printer eliminated.

The tower was showing wide, deep cracks, and the City Council informed the church council in May 1919 that it was becoming an unacceptable hazard. Therefore, on the advice of the architect Johannes Egbertus Vixseboxse and others, the church council seconded Brothers W. Scheun and H.P. Eybers’s motion to rebuild part of the tower. A tower committee managed the work and finished it by October, auctioning off the rubble. The repair cost £1,000, a considerable sum since the parsonage had been insured for £2,000 in 1904.

Adversity and debt

The Paul Roux monument was planned for an October 30, 1914 unveiling, but was delayed by the war to July 1915. The Rev. Steytler set aside the Day of the Vow in 1914 as a day of reflection and prayer. Unlike during World War II, there were no price controls, and the council notes record shortages of money and supplies, exacerbated by many applications for alms. The war also delayed the council’s plans for a hostel for indigent students. Many victims of the Spanish flu of October 1918 also had to be buried, as the Rev. Steytler and his wife collected about £400 for the congregation’s charity for its victims and their families.

When the Rev. Steytler took office, the congregation still carried several thousand pounds of debt, significantly exacerbated by the 1912 organ purchase (£1,180), the 1913 hall construction (£3,857), the 1919 tower renovation (£986), the 1921 electrification project (£400), and other outlays. By 1919, the debt exceeded £6,000, spurred by annual losses such as the more than £400 noted in 1916 that required church officials’ salaries to be cut by 10% that year. Besides taking 2,000 bus trips to hold communion and thus collect at distant farms, the Rev. Steytler traveled in a rented car with one or more ward councilors from house to house to fundraise in 1917, reducing the debt to £1,200. That year’s thanksgiving offerings raised £848 from 671 of the 1,171 members of the congregation. The minutes of November 30, 1918 reported: “Elder Smith spoke of the services rendered to the congregation by the pastor for debt collection and during the Spanish flu epidemic and proposed that the sum of £50 be given to him as a sign of appreciation for his services.”

However, the congregation’s finances would only improve under the Rev. Steytler’s successor, the Rev. Johannes Rabie. The Rev. Roux’s card system was replaced by tear-away collection booklets for the council in 1919 but restored two years later.

Improved community outreach

At the Rev. Steytler’s insistence a few months after his confirmation, the council decided on February 1913 to hold regular field services: annually in Juriesfontei (Nuweveld 3) and biennially in Hendrikskraal (Koup 4), Esterville (Nuweveld 2), Putfontein, and Vlakfontein (Koup 3). At the next meeting, the pastor reported good attendance, leading the council to consider buying transportation in May, either a horse and cart for around £100 or a “motor car.” The council opted for a horse-drawn carriage but would seriously consider replacing it with a chair in 1916 but for the war.

By then, it was clear that the congregation was beyond the scope of a single pastor. The council agreed to the Beaufort Ring’s urgent recommendation in July 1918 to hire a co-pastor but only hired proponent A.B. Wessels the next June. Proponent Wessels, later pastor or Merweville and consulent of Beaufort West, among other posts, left in November 1919.

The Rev. Steytler made it clear that another pastor needed to be hired, and advocated for this to the council and congregation. The congregation assembly in July 1920 argued for this, but a strong minority with outsized council influence voted against it, delaying such hiring for many years.

Foreign missionaries

As early as September 1913, the council under the Rev. Steytler’s leadership had sent the Rev. Colin Murray to Mlanda station in Nyasaland, eventually raising his salary to £285. The Rev. Steytler organized the first mission festival in July 1914, an annual tradition of sales and dinners raising money to pay the missionary’s wages. At the end of the fiscal year on July 30, 1915, £627 was raised, along with £295 for the “internal mission,” as the almshouse was called.

The Rev. Steytler’s departure

In mid-1920, the Rev. Steytler left for the congregation in Piketberg. He gave his last sermon Sunday, August 1, based on the words of Deuteronomy 33:27: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’” Two weeks later, the Kerkbode reported:

For eight years, the Rev. Steytler was pastor of the congregation. Many, many times he worked for us, and he spent hard times with us. To name but one, the dark October 1918, when we were stricken by the flu. How he and Mrs. Steytler visited and nursed our sick, buried the dead, comforted the grieving! They never thought of the danger to their own lives. Yes, truly, they were among us as servants and not masters. The parsonage was always an open house to us…In church council meetings, there was always love, even if there were minor differences. Not only were we blessed by the Rev. Steytler’s preaching but also by his life among us, which was a testimony to his Master.”

Daughter churches

Other than the two churches that seceded in Beaufort West proper in 1949, the congregation spawned four, namely Prince Albert, Victoria West, Fraserburg, and Carnarvon. Carnarvon in turn begot congregations in Prieska, Williston, Kenhardt, Upington (unofficial since it was outside Cape Colony and therefore, strictly speaking, was founded and not seceded), and parts of Vosburg, Loxton (including many farms originally in Beaufort West), and Brandvlei. The Merweville congregation was formed in 1904 from parts of Beaufort West, Laingsburg, Prince Albert, and Sutherland. Beaufort West also released 31 farms on the open Karoo toward Willowmore as the Rietbron Reformed Church, besides those farms which were bequeathed to Murraysburg. Hence the ten daughter churches of Prince Albert, Victoria West, Fraserburg, Carnarvon, Gamka East, Gamka Valley, and partially Loxton, Merweville, Rietbron, and Murraysburg.

Concurrent secessions

There have only been two occasions in which more than one congregation simultaneously seceded from the same one in the history of the NGK. The earliest was in 1906, when the Piketberg congregation’s growth split off ones in Aurora on April 25 and Redelinghuys the next day. Similarly, the Boksburg North Reformed Church spawned the Boksburg East Reformed Church on March 21 and the Boksburg West Reformed Church on March 23 of 1946; Boksburg East would ultimately absorb its parent around 2010.

The only triple secession was on June 22, 1950, when the 133-year-old Uitenhage congregation was split four ways, spinning off Uitenhage North, Uitenhage East, and Uitenhage-De Mist. All three pastors of the parent got their own daughter church, leaving the mother one vacant for five months until two co-pastors were appointed on February 24, 1951.

In Durban, the Durban Reformed Church (NGK) (by contrast only including 30 members by 2012) had a double secession as well. The mother congregation was founded in 1913, 78 years after the city itself, but the J.B.M. Hertzog coalition government’s push to resettle Afrikaners in Natal, especially railway workers, grew the congregation massively from the 1930’s onward. In 1940, a North Coast congregation seceded, followed by the Durban South Reformed Church in July 1941, the Durban West Reformed Church that December, and finally the Berea Reformed Church and Port Natal Reformed Church on July 18, 1945. Both of those twin congregations merged with Glenwood on March 15, 1992, though Berea re-seceded in 1997. Four years after the Berea-Port Natal secession, on November 2, 1949, there was also a double secession in Pietermaritzburg: one was Pietermaritzburg-South from parts of the old Pietermaritzburg Reformed Church (NGK) and parts of Pietermaritzburg-West Reformed Church; and the other was Pietermaritzburg-North Reformed Church, all from Pietermaritzburg-West

Gamka East

Gamka East included a parsonage and hall that could hardly accommodate a quarter of the congregation, but enthusiasm was high at the inaugural council meeting. J.P. Coetzee headed a strong executive committee including the consulent, J.C. du Plessis. Furthermore, the Rev. H.P. van der Merwe hired du Plessis and J.A.C. Weideman as co-pastors. On July 18 of that year, the council decided to grow the hall to accommodate 400 and set up a building fund.

The Rev. H.J. Strauss of Daniëlskuil arrived to become pastor on December 9, and within four months over £600 was raised and equipment purchased to build out the hall. During 1950, contributions flowed in and the new facility was built. Very soon, the church had its own Minshall organ. Hearing aids were provided for congregation members that needed them, and the choir performed under the leadership of Mrs. S. Wessels with A. Stals as the first full-time organist. The first secretary-treasurer, Mr. A du Preez, got his own office to manage around £400 worth of initial thanksgiving offerings. The congregation paid all its debts, grew the building fund, and used £150 to supplement the mission, leading the council to seriously consider a new church building.

The congregation continued to grow charity work and enjoy high attendance in 1951 as wool prices soared and farming community contributed more generously. Therefore, the council resolved at the April 27, 1951 meeting to build a modern red brick church, hiring the architect Wynand Louw of Paarl to design one of the last of his more than 80 NGK churches built between 1907 and 1959.

Gamka Valley

This congregation was named after the Gamka River that divides it from the mother church. Gamka means “lion” in Khoisan.

The council hired its first interviewee, the Rev. Weideman from the mother church, accompanied in the first council by Elders J.M.N. Breedt, E.A. Marais, J.H. Botha, J.P. van der Merwe, J.J. le Roux, J.A. Botes, C.W.A. van Zyl, and J.L. Pienaar; and Deacons G.A.V. Schreuder, J.P. du Preez, W.B. Brand, J.W. van Eck, A.I.P. van Rooyen, J.H.H. Vivier, L.D. Pienaar, C.J. Hattingh, A.G. Bedzuidenhout, H.P. Jooste, and A. Esterhuizen. The first verger was Elder Marais and the second was L.S. Koker, while the first secretary-treasurer was Deacon Schreuder and organists included Elsabe Schreuder, Nellie Olivier, Mrs. L. van der Merwe, Mrs. Louw, and Mrs. Van Niekerk.

The South African Railway Institute Hall rented out its hall for services for a small fee, while burials and weddings were held in the mother church. The council bought a central site in Hillside west of the station and railway from the railway company for a nominal sum to build a parsonage and church. The Rev. Weideman laid the cornerstone on June 22, 1951, on the congregation’s second anniversary. The modern tower church used weathered ornamental brick, and cost £24,000 when the organ and other amenities were factored in.

Shortly after Gamka Valley’s founding, five ward prayers began being regularly held by council members and others in the congregation, while regular outside services were held in Letjesbosch, Amospoortjie, Jagerskraal, Middelwater, Hottentotsrivier, Boesmanskop, and Brandewynsgat. The town members just came from the railroad community of Hillside, while the district included people from the entire area between Meiringspoort pass and the Nuweveld Mountains. Originally, there were two Sunday schools, one in town and one in Letjesbosch with 224 children and 22 teachers between them.

In its first year, the congregation began archiving personal birthday messages from members for its first anniversary, which were recorded on a cylinder buried with the cornerstone.

As a railway congregation, Gamka Valley’s lot was intertwined with that of the railway, and demographic changes in the Spoornet workforce after 1994 reduced the congregation from 660 confirmed and 472 baptized members to 188 and 60 respectively in 2012. Gamka East, by contrast, had outgrown its mother congregation (by 2012 514 confirmed and 119 baptized), becoming the largest daughter church remaining at 612 confirmed and 192 baptized members.

125-year jubilee

Mrs. Tibbie Steyn, widow of final Orange Free State President Martinus Theunis Steyn, wrote a message for the 125th anniversary of the congregation in its guestbook:

As grandchild of the Rev. Colin Fraser, Sr., and in memory of my pleasant childhood visits to the large family circle there, I am delighted that I can write a few works for the Festival Album of the municipality of Beaufort West. What a privilege to still be able to recall the ministry of God’s Word, which our Boer people called up to such striking festive days. Our Boer nation was great in its simplicity, hospitality, and piety.

I sincerely congratulate the Beaufort West Congregation on its 125th anniversary, and with the congregation I lift mine eyes unto the mountains whence our help cometh. We cannot help but watch the spirit of time with an anxious mood. It threatens to displace God’s Word and religion from people’s lives. May the faithful prayers also be powerful these days, so that “He will again give His laws in our minds and write them on our hearts.

Onze Rust, July 18, 1944

Mission congregation

Missionary work began in Beaufort West in 1818. The first members of the mission circle were adopted on September 20, 1820, and the first child was baptized by local missionaries on January 19, 1841. The council continued the work from the Rev. Taylor’s exit until 1860, when the Rev. Carel Matthy worked there for two years. On April 21, 1862, the Rev. Teske founded the local mission congregation with a council of one elder and two deacons as well as 87 members. On June 28, 1863, the Rev. Teske was ordained by the Rev. Krige, but the Rev. Zinn was ordained here. The Rev. Teske began his work in a small “sweat lodge” indebted by £200, which he immediately tried to expand, bringing said debt to £400.

In 1869, the local dam washed away and the mission church flooded, leaving nothing but the debt. In 1871, another piece of land was bought for £500 to house the parsonage and later the church, today a museum next to the mother church. The council notes do not record how much the church cost or when it was built, but the pulpit plastered by the pastor himself is housed in that museum today. The Rev. Teske died in 1894 after 32 years in office, and was succeeded in 1897 by the Rev. R.D. Kretzen, followed in turn in 1904 by the Rev. Adam H. Barnard, the father of heart transplant pioneer Christiaan Barnard. After his death, the Rev. Barnard was buried in the garden of the old mission parsonage, now a museum along with the adjacent old city hall on the corner of Donkin and Kerk Streets. His work among the Cape Coloureds diverted him enough to require a second pastor, the Rev. F.B. Bastian, to be appointed in 1922.

Eventually, the mission congregation grew to the point where it spawned its own daughter church, Beaufort West-East, in 1960. In 1995, that congregation had 2,500 members to the original mission church’s 904. In 1969, a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in Afrika (NGKA) was founded as well for black members. All three are part of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa today.

Church building restoration

In 2009, the council began raising money to restore the church in anticipation of its 2020 bicentennial. After R1.3 million was raised, work began in 2015, including repainting from top to bottom and repairs to the tower, building, and stained glass windows. As part of the fundraising, the congregation (which only had one minister as of 2015) sold the parsonage. Work was completed that October.

Pastors

1. John Taylor, 1818–1824
2. Colin Fraser, 1825–1862
3. Albert Zinn, 1864 – November 15, 1866 (died in office)
4. Willem Petrus de Villiers, 1868–1875 (afterwards first pastor of Carnarvon until his retirement in 1904)
5. Louis Hugo, 1876–1896
6. Pieter van der Merwe, 1896–1904
7. Gen. Paul Roux, 1905 – June 8, 1911 (died in office)
8. J.G. Steytler, 1912–1920
9. Johannes Rabie, 1921–1942
10. André Francois Malan, 1941–1944
11. Daniël Van Niekerk Theron, 1943–1944
12. Jan Christoffel du Plessis, 1945–1951
13. Lodewyk Petrus Spies, 1945–1948 (afterward first pastor of Herman Steyn Reformed Church in Vereeniging)
14. Jacob Andries Cornelius Weidemann, 1947–1949 (afterward until 1958 first pastor of Gamka Valley)
15. David Frederik van der Merwe, 1951–1961
16. Johannes Jacobus van As, 1962–1968
17. Charles Cumpries Bond, 1968–1972
18. Daniel Nicolaas van Zyl, 1970–1974
19. Bennie Meyer, October 6, 1972–1976
20. Adriaan Albertus (Riaan) Terblanche, 1980–1998
21. Japie van Straaten, 1998 – present

Sources

• Dreyer, Rev. A. (1924). Eeuwfeest-Album van de Nederduits Gereformeerde-Kerk in Zuid-Afrika 1824–1924. Cape Town: Publikatie-kommissie van de Z.A. Bijbelvereniging.
• Dreyer, Rev. A. (1932). Jaarboek van die Nederduits-Gereformeerde Kerke in Suid-Afrika vir die jaar 1933. Cape Town: Jaarboek-Kommissie van die Raad van die Kerke.
• Hanekom, T.J. (ed.) (1952). Ons Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk – gedenkboek by ons derde eeufees 1952. Cape Town: N.G. Kerk-uitgewers.
• Joubert, Rev. P.P. (1932). Na vyftig jaar. 'n Jubileum-Gedenkboek van die Ned. Geref. Sendingkerk in Suid-Afrika, bevattende gegewens van sy ontstaan en ontwikkeling. Paarl: Paarlse Drukpers Maatskappy, Bpk.
• Olivier, Rev. P.L. (compiler) (1952). Ons gemeentelike feesalbum. Cape Town/Pretoria: N.G. Kerk-uitgewers.
• Smit, Rev. A.P. (1945). Gedenkboek van die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Gemeente Beaufort-Wes (1820–1945). Beaufort West: N.G. Kerkraad.

External links

• Story of the Old Town Hall
• Photos of the church, hall, etc.

References

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