Pietermaritzburg

• 1. Introduction

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  Pietermaritzburg sits in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, roughly 160 kilometres from the site of one of the bloodiest confrontations in southern African history. On the 1st of June 1893, a young lawyer named Mahatma Gandhi boarded a train in this city, holding a valid first-class ticket. A white passenger objected to his presence. A conductor ordered Gandhi to move to the van compartment at the rear of the train. Gandhi refused. He was put off the train at Pietermaritzburg and spent the winter night alone in the station's waiting room.

  What happened in that waiting room would shape the twentieth century. Gandhi decided to stay in South Africa and resist racial discrimination. Out of that resolve came Satyagraha, his doctrine of nonviolent resistance. Today a bronze statue of Gandhi stands in Church Street in the city centre, a few hundred metres from a city hall built in the same decade as that train journey.

  But Gandhi's night in Pietermaritzburg is only one thread in a city dense with competing histories. The city carries two names at once: a Voortrekker name memorialising leaders who never actually reached it, and a Zulu name tied to a royal homestead and an elephant legend far older than any settler. How did a place with such layered and violent origins become the provincial capital, an industrial hub, and a cradle for some of the most celebrated athletes in South Africa? Those questions run through everything that follows.

• 2. A Name with Two Histories

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  Gerrit Maritz died on the 23rd of September 1838, near the present-day town of Estcourt, roughly eighty kilometres northwest of the city that would bear part of his name. He never saw Pietermaritzburg. Neither did Piet Retief, the other Voortrekker leader whose name anchors the city's title. Retief was killed by Dingane, successor to Shaka, king of the Zulus, before the town was even established.

  The naming dispute itself has two versions. One holds that the name honours both Piet Retief, whose full name was Pieter Mauritz Retief, and Gerrit Maritz, whose formal name was Gerhardus Marthinus Maritz. The other holds that the name derives from Retief's full name alone, the original form being Pieter Mauritz' Burg. The city did not settle the question officially until 1938, when it declared that the second element, Maritz, should also honour Gert Maritz.

  The Zulu name, uMgungundlovu, carries its own ambiguity. It is popularly translated as "Place of the Elephant," but it can also mean "The elephant wins." The elephant in Zulu royal tradition is a name taken by the monarch himself, so the site was understood to mark some victory of a Zulu king. Legend says Shaka sent warriors to hunt elephants at this location to sell ivory to English traders at what was then called Port Natal. When the city formally registered its coat of arms, an elephant was placed at the centre of the shield, though early renditions notoriously depicted an Asian elephant rather than an African one. More recent versions corrected that detail. The final version of the arms was granted by the College of Arms in May 1961 and registered at the Bureau of Heraldry in May 1973.

• 3. Vow, Blood, and Colonial Transfer

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  Voortrekkers occupied the site of Pietermaritzburg in April 1838, in the aftermath of a massacre. On the 6th of February 1838, Piet Retief and a party of around seventy men had been killed at the Zulu capital, Mgungundlovu, while attempting to negotiate a land treaty around Port Natal. The reprisal campaign, called the Wenkommando, departed in November 1838.

  Before the decisive engagement, on the 9th of December 1838, a vow was taken among the Boer fighters: if they were granted victory over the Zulu, they would build a sacred church. They won the Battle of Blood River on the 16th of December 1838. The church that fulfilled the vow, known as the Church of the Vow, still stands in Pietermaritzburg. It was Jan Gerritze Bantjes, Secretary General to Andries Pretorius who commanded the campaign, who arranged for the Boer townspeople to finance the church's construction.

  The town grew into the capital of the Natalia Republic, a short-lived Boer state. Britain took control in 1843. The first lieutenant-governor of the Natal Colony, Martin West, made Pietermaritzburg his seat. Fort Napier was built to house a British garrison; it was named for Sir George Thomas Napier, governor of the Cape Colony at the time. When Natal received responsibility for its own government in 1893, the city gained both an assembly building and a city hall, the same year Gandhi's train journey took place.

• 4. Capital Under Dispute

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  Pietermaritzburg served as capital of the Colony of Natal until 1910, when the Union of South Africa was formed and Natal became a province. After the first post-apartheid elections, a new argument over the capital opened. The Inkatha Freedom Party, which won a majority in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government, wanted Ulundi as the capital. Ulundi held deep meaning for the IFP: it had been the capital of the Zulu Kingdom at the time of its fall to the British in the Anglo-Zulu War, and it had served as the capital of the bantustan KwaZulu before 1994.

  The compromise reached gave Pietermaritzburg the role of legislative capital while Ulundi became the administrative capital. The ANC and the Democratic Party pushed for Pietermaritzburg alone, arguing that Ulundi lacked the infrastructure needed to function as an effective seat of government. When the ANC won the province in 2004, it ended the arrangement and named Pietermaritzburg the sole capital of KwaZulu-Natal.

  The consolidation brought practical consequences. Government offices relocated to Pietermaritzburg, and investment followed from both public and private sectors. Modernisation of buildings in the city centre and a proliferation of retail and housing developments in the suburbs date from that period. The University of KwaZulu-Natal, which had been the University of Natal since its founding in 1910, also officially became its current institution on the 1st of January 2004, the same year the capital debate concluded.

• 5. Industry, Sport, and the Oval

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  Debonairs Pizza, one of South Africa's major pizza franchises, was founded in Pietermaritzburg in 1991. That single fact is a clue to something the city does not always advertise: it has been a place where things originate. The region built its economy on textiles, clothing, and footwear until the late 1990s, when lower production costs in Asia drew those industries away. Doc Marten shoes were among the footwear once made here.

  The city shifted its industrial base. Hulett's Aluminium and Willowton cooking oil now contribute substantially to regional output, alongside timber plantations and citrus farms that surround the city. The Liberty Group began investing in the region in 2002, developing the Liberty Midlands Mall, described as the largest shopping centre by gross lettable area in the area, along with a Stay Easy hotel.

  Sport has given the city an outsized place in the national imagination. Savages FC PMB, founded in 1882, is the oldest football club in South Africa and on the African continent. The Comrades Marathon, run annually between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, has taken place since 1921. The Pietermaritzburg Oval hosted two matches during the 2003 Cricket World Cup and is considered one of the most picturesque cricket grounds in South Africa. It shares an unusual distinction with the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, Kent: it is one of only two grounds used regularly for first-class cricket that have a tree inside the boundary.

  Between 1948 and 1953, road races were held at the 3.4-mile Alexandra Park Street Circuit within the town itself. Then between December 1953 and November 1981, the Roy Hesketh Circuit, measuring 1.803 miles and named after South African driver Roy Hesketh, hosted rounds of the South African National Drivers Championship, the Springbok Series, and national Formula Atlantic races. The circuit was described as a second home to Mike Hailwood. Racing ceased at the end of 1981, and the site was redeveloped for residential and business use, though the section from Henry's Knee to the top of Beacon still exists and is under protection.

• 6. Notable Lives

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  Maritzburg College, the city's well-known secondary school, appears repeatedly in the backgrounds of South African sporting figures. Joel Stransky, born in Pietermaritzburg on the 16th of July 1967, matriculated from Maritzburg College and went on to play for the Springboks, winning the Rugby World Cup. Jonty Rhodes, born in Pietermaritzburg in 1969, attended Merchiston Prep School and also matriculated from Maritzburg College before becoming one of South Africa's most celebrated cricketers. Kevin Pietersen, born in Pietermaritzburg in 1980, later represented England's national cricket team. David Miller, born in the city in 1989, played cricket for South Africa.

  The city produced writers as well. Alan Paton, author of Cry the Beloved Country, was both born and schooled in Pietermaritzburg, also attending Maritzburg College. Bessie Head, the writer, was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1937. Tom Sharpe, the novelist, described the city as "half the size of a New York cemetery and twice as dead."

  Kork Ballington, a World 250cc and 350cc Motorcycle Champion, came from Pietermaritzburg, as did Jon Ekerold, the world 350cc motorcycle champion. The composer Kevin Volans was born in the city on the 26th of July 1949. Thuso Mbedu, the actress born in 1991, attended Pietermaritzburg Girls' High School. Shaun Morgan, lead singer of the band Seether, attended both Merchiston Preparatory School and Maritzburg College. Charlie Llewellyn, born in 1876, became the first non-White Test cricketer for South Africa, another distinction that traces to this city.