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Book On Chatsworth Pioneers

Book On Chatsworth Pioneers

Date: 2012-05-16
Glimpses of Rural Chatsworth, a book that took almost a decade to compile, has been published at last.

The coffee-table volume was launched at the Kharwastan Temple Hall on Sunday 13 May 2012 by the Judge President of KwaZulu-Natal, Judge Chimanlal Patel.

The book is a tribute to the vision of the well-known community leader and educationist, the late PI Devan, who planted the seed for a book recording the history of Chatsworth when it was a farm. He gathered like-minded people around him who saw the need to preserve the stories about Chatsworth and its families for future generations to read and absorb.

This valuable tome of the history of pastoral Chatsworth from the early 1900s until 1960 is the work of a committed group of pioneer residents and their descendants.

It is a legacy to the memory of men and women of the soil who led uncomplicated, down-to-earth lives whilst placing high value on education, religious and cultural pursuits and welfare work.

For more than six decades, the close-knit humble Chatsworth farming community flourished so remarkably that it produced the largest quantity of bananas in South Africa whilst many of its children rose to great heights.

When this highly productive agricultural area, approximately 8000 acres in extent, was expropriated by the Durban City Council to resettle Indians displaced in other parts of Durban demarcated exclusively for the white group, more than 15 000 Indians and 2 000 Africans who primarily lived off the land lost their livelihoods.

Using rare photographs and many first-hand accounts, Glimpses of Rural Chatsworth serves to perpetuate the remembrance of those who occupied the land between the Umhlatuzana and Umlaas Rivers and from Stainbank Estate up to Welbedacht, an area which was to eventually become the Chatsworth housing scheme.

Apart from tracing the lives of the early farmers and their families, the book also contains information about the generations that were to follow.

Glimpses of Rural Chatsworth is sure to be cherished not only by those whose forebears are chronicled herein but also by those who believe the future can only be better appreciated by having a thorough understanding of the past.

Copies at R250 each are available from Yogin Devan (031-2671323) and Logan Naicker (031-4012526).