Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

7 before they had laid down a pattern of streets in long rectangular blocks: there were eight long thoroughfares running east-west crossed by five subsidiary lanes, directed north to south. This grid system still exists today. The central area of what became a garrison town under the British contained plenty of open space; out of town flourished a wide variety of flora and fauna. A rustle in the undergrowth could indicate the presence of a mouse – or a python. The hollow can be a place of great humidity; temperatures between 2 and a terrific 44 degrees Celsius have been measured. By 1880 the city contained a great racial diversity; to the west, black residential areas stretched up the valley, while the habitations of Indians and coloureds were also detached from the city centre and the white suburbs in turn were edged by strips of open space and/or industrial areas. By this time the division of population in the city was whites 6,008, Asians 750, and Africans 3,309, making a total of 10,067. Separate figures were not kept for coloured people, who were explicitly included under the heading of ‘whites’. This was only for official purposes of enumeration – whites, it has been said, defined themselves as different from everyone else and then categorised the others as a problem, to be treated with a mixture of patronisation, fear and contempt. To the recipients, this looked like arrogance. Blacks seem to have played no part in this white colonial capital. Early in young Buck’s lifetime, white supremacy was threatened by the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879; the first engagement at Isandlwana resulted in the catastrophic defeat of the British Army; in the second, a British garrison of 150 men held 3,000 Zulu warriors at bay for 12 hours. The award of 11 Victoria Crosses demonstrated the gallantry of the garrison. The reputation of the Empire was saved and the war ultimately won. After Isandlwana, there was a real likelihood that Natal might be lost to the Zulus. The following year saw hostilities between the British and the Boers of the Transvaal Republic led by Paul Kruger, who skilfully resisted a British attempt at annexation, resulting in a series of British defeats, a treaty and eighteen years of peace. By 1878, the Llewellyn family was living at 16 and 17 Berg Street, properties which no longer exist, but still extant are 170 Boom Street, their home in 1893, and number 230 to which they had moved by 1897. Also still standing today is 5 Stranack Street, which was the family home at the date of Thomas Llewellyn’s A Need for Friends