rities decided to establish a fort at Newcastle. Major Amiel and some 200 men of the 80th Staffordshire Regiment arrived in Newcastle and built the Fort now known as Fort Amiel on the high ground overlooking the drift. The fort has been rebuilt and serves as a museum. It was from Fort Amiel that Shepstone accompanied by 14 men of the Natal Mounted police set out for Pretoria and the annexation of the Transvaal in early 1877 and the fort became an important commissariat for the troops operating in the Transvaal.
By 1878 Cetshwayo had recreated the amaButho system of Shaka and could raise an army of 50 000 men. Many of whom who had never had an opportunity to “wash their spears in the blood of their enemies” and claim wives. The potential threat to the colony was great and the colonial authorities felt the only answer was to get Cetshwayo to disband his army or be disarmed.
On the 12th January three British columns crossed into Zululand. The Central Column led by General Lord Chelmsford crossed at Rorke’s Drift. With him were the men of the Newcastle Mounted Rifles. Then came Isandlwana. Wednesday 22nd January the Zulu Army defending their country, wiped out the British camp at Isandlwana slaughtering some 1400 Imperial troops and native levies. In that fatal hour and half “half the women of Newcastle became widows”. Chelmsford was forced to retreat to Natal. Panic spread through the colony and towns were rapidly fortified. In Newcastle the present armoury became the central laager of the townsfolk. The British were able to regroup and with reinforcements from the UK soon overcame the Zulu Army.
Then in 1880 the Burghers of the Transvaal, dissatisfied with British occupation of their country and the lack of response by the British to their appeals for the return of their country, finally took matters into their own hands. A British column moving from Lydenburg to Pretoria was stopped in its tracks at Bronkhorst Spruit and the British garrisons in the Transvaal were invested. General Sir George Pomeroy Colley Governor of Natal and commander of British Forces in South Africa scrambled a scratch force of some 2500 men and marched to Newcastle then on to the Transvaal but on 28th January 188,at Laing’s Nek, he was confronted by a force of Burghers under Commandant General Piet Joubert. Colley’s force was repulsed with heavy losses. He was to suffer another rebuff at Schuinshoogte on the 8th of February and finally on Sunday 27th February 1881at Majuba, his force was to be driven off their “impregnable” position on top of the mountain suffering some 256 casualties to the Burghers
Newcastle was the military and hospital base for the British; and after hostilities had ceased, the Peace Convention was signed at O’Neill’s Cottage at the foot of Amajuba on 23rd March 1881 by Boer and British leaders including Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert, and Sir Evelyn Wood. Later the Retrocession of the Transvaal was negotiated and signed in June 1881 at Hilldrop Farm on the outskirts of Newcastle, home of the famous author Rider Haagard.
IMPACT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD AND COAL
The discovery of gold at Barbeton in the eastern Transvaal and later on the Reef along with coal in Northern Natal brought large amounts of goods and travellers through the town and it soon became an important rest and repair centre.
Wagon builders, wheelwrights and other artificers prospered and were soon followed by millers and weavers. A tailor, haberdasher and a jeweller opened shop. The hotels flourished and the first churches were built, the Dutch Reformed in 1869 and the Anglican in 1881.
The increase in traffic and demand for improved transport soon brought the railway, and on 15th May 1890 the first passenger train arrived in Newcastle to be followed some 2 months latter by goods trains. By 7th April 1891 the railway had been extended through Laing’s Nek to Charlestown. The construction of the 640m long tunnel being considered a something of an engineering feat in its time.
PROCLAMATION OF A BOROUGH
In 1891 the Town was declared a Borough. The discovery of coal had b