1875 in South Africa

← 1874 1873 1872 1875 in South Africa → 1876 1877 1878
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	List of years in South Africa

The following lists events that happened during 1875 in South Africa.

• Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Henry Barkly.
• Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal: Henry Ernest Gascoyne Bulwer.
• State President of the Orange Free State: Jan Brand.
• State President of the South African Republic: Thomas François Burgers.
• Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West: Richard Southey (until 3 August) William Owen Lanyon (until 3 August).
• Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Charles Molteno.

May

• John Garlick started his first store on 3 May 1875, on the corner Bree and Strand Streets, in the central business district of Cape Town. This would later become Garlicks, a nationwide chain of department stores.^[1]

August

• 14 – The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Association of True Afrikaners) is formed at the home of Gideon Malherbe in Paarl.

Unknown date

• The Black Flag Rebellion is staged by white diamond diggers at Kimberley.
• The Molteno Government begins construction of two Midland railway lines from Swartkops in Port Elizabeth and from Uitenhage.^[2]
• The Verlatenskloof pass in the Roggeveld Mountains, begun the previous year, is completed.^[3]

• July 7 – Vincent Tancred, cricketer (d. 1904)

• 19 May - Christoffel Brand, politician, (b. 1797)

• Construction begins on the Swartkops-Alicedale line.^[2][4]

• 11 May – Cape Western – Cape Town Docks to junction with mainline, 7 miles 1 chain (11.3 kilometres).^[4]
• 26 July – Cape Midland – Port Elizabeth to Addo, 31 miles 55 chains (51.0 kilometres).^[5]
• 22 September – Cape Midland – Swartkops to Uitenhage, 13 miles 46 chains (21.8 kilometres).^[5]
• 3 November – Cape Western – Wellington to Ceres Road, 39 miles 50 chains (63.8 kilometres).^[5]

Three new 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Cape Government Railways (CGR):

• The first eight of twenty-seven 2nd Class 2-6-2 tank-and-tender locomotives on all three newly established regional systems, the Eastern System from East London, the Midland System from Port Elizabeth and the Western System from Cape Town.^{[2][6]: 23–25 [7]}
• Three 1st Class 0-4-0 saddle-tank locomotives on the Midland and Eastern Systems.^{[7][8]: 118–119 [9]}
• The first seven of eleven 1st Class 4-4-0 tank locomotives on the Western and Midland systems.^{[6]: 25–26, 76–77 [7]}