Aberdeen, South Africa

Aberdeen is a small town in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. With its numerous examples of Victorian architecture, it is one of the architectural conservation areas of the Karoo.

The town is some 55 km south-west of Graaff-Reinet, 155 km east-south-east of Beaufort West and 32 km south of the Camdeboo Mountains. Laid out on the farm Brakkefontein as a settlement of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1856 (now the NGK), it became a municipality in 1858. It is named after Aberdeen in Scotland.

History

Aberdeen began as one of six congregations established in 1855 in what was then the Cape Colony, and the penultimate of the year.

On 10 September 1855, the church council of the NG congregation of Graaff-Reinet, the oldest congregation in the Eastern Cape, considered a request for the separation of a new congregation in the vicinity of where Aberdeen would later be established. Like many towns in the former Capeland, Aberdeen was founded as a church town. On 16 October, the Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet, the so-called third precinct (after Cape Town and Swellendam), formally separated the congregation during a session at Cradock. The Brakkefontein farm was selected as the location for the town and church. Reverend Andrew Murray Sr. was appointed as a consultant. The farm, owned by Jan Vorster, was purchased for £4,875, and on October 16, 1855, the Presbytery signed the congregation's establishment. The locality's name was changed from Brakkefontein to Aberdeen, after Murray’s birthplace in Scotland. (The following year, the town and congregation of Murraysburg were also named in his honor.) 

Lots were surveyed and sold, while the church council retained control over the town land and the right to levy the inheritance tax. Nearly a century after its founding, in 1949, as was the case with Steytlerville (another Eastern Cape church town), the church council transferred all its rights to the town council, which had been established in 1858. From this arose the later municipality.

A small church building was erected, but the town grew very slowly. On 21 January 1856 a man named Swarts was appointed as the first reader, sexton and schoolmaster of the town at a salary of £50 per year. After years of unsuccessful searches for a minister, the congregation's first minister, Reverend Thomas Menzies Gray, accepted his post on September 21, 1862.

Ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church in Aberdeen:
 Thomas Menzies Gray, 1862 - 1886 (emeritus; returned to Scotland)
 Daniël Hendrik Cilliers, 1887 - 1917 (emeritus; his only congregation; died on 21 January 1925)
 Abraham Faure Louw, 1917 - 1920
 Jacobus Joubert Krige, 1948 - 14 March 1970 (emeritus) 
 Frederik Simon Vivier, 1971 - 2003 (accepts his emeritus)
 Jury Hendrik Wessels, 2003 - 2007
 Abraham Jacobus Beyers, 2007 - 28 February 2022 (emeritus)

Education
Schools in Aberdeen are the Aberdeen Senior Secondary School, Luxolo intermediate School, Camdeboo Primary, and the Aberdeen Primary School

Healthcare
The Aberdeen Provincial Hospital is situated in Aberdeen.

Notable people
Oswald Pirow (1890–1959), lawyer and far-right politician
Conan Doyle (1917–1942), cricketer
Anaso Jobodwana

Notes

References

Bibliography
 Olivier, ds. P.L. (samesteller), Ons gemeentelike feesalbum. Kaapstad en Pretoria: N.G. Kerk-uitgewers, 1952.

External links
 Eastern Cape Tourism Board
 

Populated places in the Dr Beyers Naudé Local Municipality
Populated places established in 1856