John Hunter Maclea

Lifespan: Unknown

Occupation: Accountant / auditor, 'Rand Pioneer'

We could find no further information about Mr Maclea other than what Rosenthal mentioned in his book 'Shovel and Sieve' (1959).

"The tenant of these rooms was my father, the late Richard Rosenthal, an early settler in Johannesburg. Upstairs in the building was John Hunter Maclea, who fought a lonely battle to keep the title of “Rand Pioneer” for those who came here before 1889. My father fell just within the definition, having arrived in that very year (the gold was discovered in ’86), but as time went on the number of survivors went down and the qualifications were widened. To Mr. Maclea and a few of his friends anybody of later vintage was an upstart and an interloper. So he founded the “Pioneers of the Transvaal Goldfields” as a rival to the “Rand Pioneers”. “Pioneers of the Transvaal Goldfields” would only accept people who had come before ’87, which made the circle a very narrow one, even though veterans of Barberton (1884), Pilgrim’s Rest (1873) and a few others were welcomed. I liked Mr. Maclea. He had the slow speech and democratic friendliness of the real old-timer. Nominally he was an accountant and auditor, but in practice he filled his office chiefly with old photographs and dusty affidavits as to who really discovered the gold. There was also a unique drawing, inartistic but accurate, showing the situation and ownership of every tent in Ferreira’s Camp in 1886."

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Sources

• Shovel and Sieve. Rosenthal, E. c.1959. George Allen and Unwin: London.