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Paper short abstract:

There is a city built on diamonds in southern Africa. The city is invariably described in one of two ways; Kimberley is hot and dusty, or Kimberley is cold and dusty. The paper will describe the socially skewed long-term impact of toxic mining dust upon the inhabitants of Kimberley.

Paper long abstract:

There is a city built on diamonds in southern Africa. The city is invariably described by visitors not in terms of glitter and glamour, but in one of the two following ways; Kimberley is hot and dusty, or Kimberley is cold and dusty.

The city of Kimberley, provincial capital of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, is built upon the detritus of diamond mines that were in operation between 1871 and 2020. Beginning in 1870 this deep level mining came at an enormous environmental cost, associated with extensive deforestation. In addition diamond mining was coupled with the establishment of enormous barren mine dumps of waste across which the harsh winds of the highveld move at will.

Writing in 1872, Czech traveller Emil Holub, struggled to describe the impact on man and beast of the dust that enveloped the mining settlement, “A dull, dense fog … dense clouds of dust, … [we] shared the fate of all new-comers, in feeling much distressed and really ill". Throughout the years that followed visitors to the city have invariably described similarly distressing scenes.

The paper to be presented will seek to describe the socially skewed long-term impact of toxic mining dust upon the inhabitants of Kimberley, and the business and political policy responses to this public health hazard between 1870 and 1920. The paper is based upon wide-ranging literary and archival research, coupled with extensive fieldwork visits to Kimberley and its mining sites in the past four decades.