WHA Pritchard
Full name: William Henry Auret (Ou Basie) Pritchard
Lifespan: 1861 Beaufort West - 1947 Johannesburg
Occupation: Land Surveyor, author
Pritchard on the cover of his book "Are the Jews God's chosen people?"
A portion of Pritchard's map of Johannesburg (1896)
Map of Johannesburg. c.1898.
Contextual Timeline
Biography
Pritchard (left) and Mr PJ Philip pegging out 'Sunshine Settlements'. Unindentified photographer. n.d.
W. H. Auret Pritchard was a prominent early land surveyor in South Africa, particularly associated with the development of Johannesburg during its founding and early growth period.
He was the twelfth son of Charles Pritchard (1814-1905), who served as a member of the Cape Parliament for 25 years. Charles came to the Cape in 1836 due to ill health and recovered in the Karoo. Charles practiced as a Law Agent.
His mother was Johanna Hermina de Villiers (1822-1909), who was a sister of Lord de Villiers, the first Chief Justice of the Union of South Africa.
Pritchard arrived in the Johannesburg area on August 25, 1886 - just before the official proclamation of the Witwatersrand goldfields - making him one of the pioneer figures in the region's surveying and town planning.
His key contributions include:
- He worked as a private and later government land surveyor.
- He surveyed and laid out the village of Paarlshoop in Langlaagte, one of the earliest suburbs or extensions of Johannesburg.
- In 1887, he was tasked with linking different sections of central Johannesburg, specifically connecting streets from Commissioner Street to President Street and from Bree Street to Noord Street. This helped shape the city's early grid and layout.
- He also laid out stands (plots) in other areas, such as parts that became Fordsburg (laid out in 1893 after earlier use as a nursery) and was involved in pegging out small holdings and other developments.
His work was significant enough that Pritchard Street in central Johannesburg was named after him - a lasting tribute to his role as a "Rand pioneer" and one of the first surveyors of the city.
He later lived in Johannesburg, including in Forest Hill, and was involved in various land-related matters, including legal cases.
He married Elisabeth Susan Roux, who predeceased him in 1938. He had two sons: Charles William and Percival Vivian.
He authored at least one religious booklet titled Are the Jews God's Chosen People?, reflecting interests beyond surveying. Pritchard was a devout Baptist and an elder in his church. He built a reputation as a faith healer and was also active in the YMCA and the Rand Pioneers organization.
Pritchard served on the first Executive Committee of the Town Planning Association of the Transvaal (noted in 1944).
The Law on Outspans (article, 1917)
Pritchard said the law forced landowners to surrender valuable land indiscriminately, regardless of actual need, leading to widespread waste. With farms increasingly subdivided into smaller holdings, the policy results in redundant outspans. He cites an example from a Johannesburg district farm divided into 13 portions: three subdivisions had already yielded outspans within one mile of each other, and further sales could create up to 13 outspans within a two-mile radius on land valued at least £10 per morgen.
He called for immediate reform, advocating a principle of "outspans where needed" rather than mandatory allocation per farm. He also briefly notes a related issue with "trek" roads, where owners had to provide grazing strips (50-200 yards wide) for trekking stock, suggesting this may underlie the outspan "anomaly" and should similarly be amended. Overall, he portrayed the law as absurd, burdensome, and detrimental to efficient land use amid growing subdivision and urbanization.
"This was quite an easy matter in days when the homesteads were still far apart and when the farms were three to four thousand morgen, but as the countryside became more thickly populated our friend the old Boer would have difficulty not in finding a suitable spot to outspan, but in getting the necessary permission from the ever-increasing number of owners of land resident along his line of route... Travelling by wagon or by cart with the outspan every 18 miles or so was very pleasant in the good old days. The karamanatje (/ karminaatjie - a gift of meat from a friend or neighbour who slaughtered an animal) on the gridiron with a cup of coffee whist the horses were having a feed was something that many look back upon with much pleasure.The advent of railways and motor cars has done away with much of this old order of things, but there is much of it still left. The traveller along the road by wagon arid by cart has still to be provided for (that is to say his draught beasts have to be) and our Provincial Government is evidently alive to the fact. The trouble, however, is that in order to make this provision, the Government has laid an unnecessary burden upon the landowner."... Ordinance' No. 5 of 1912 (Transvaal)
provides for public roads and outspans,
and it enacts that every farm over 100
morgen in extent shall give off a public
outspan equal to 1/75 of its area, with a
minimum area of five morgen... This Act is universally felt by owners of land to be unnecessarily burdensome." (Pritchard in AJSA, 1917)
Quotes about Pritchard
"Another very early comer with whom I went into the field was William Auret Pritchard, one of the two surveyors who laid out the future city of Johannesburg. He, too, had his office in Permanent Buildings and continued to practise as a surveyor until the end of his days." (Rosenthal, 1959).
"Ferreira’s Camp" Johannesburg was then laid out in two narrow strips, one from Commissioner to President Streets, and the other from Bree to Noord Street. In the centre was a mine owned by the Oranjeslaagte syndicate,' with its shaft where the Law Courts now stand. The central area of Johannesburg contained this mining property, and was laid out by Mr. W. Auret Pritchard, who found that the streets in the two sections already laid out did not synchronise; he subsequently laid out the centre strip to coincide with the southern side. The "kinks" in the streets running from north to south at their intersection with Bree Street, remain as a memorial to him. Mr. Pritchard was given the option of taking payment for his work in stands or in cash. Mr. Pritchard, however, had little faith in the future of the town at the time, and accepted cash. Although he did not acquire his first property until 1891, he changed his mind about the future of the Rand, and a few years ago he discounted stories that the Reef would be worked out, and the Rand would become deserted. He said that he believed that the Rand was good for another 100 years." (SAAR, 1948).
During the war, he commanded the concentration camp at Vryburg, and afterward, he was honoured with military decorations by the English. Following the war, he became a lay preacher in the Baptist Church and later led the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It seems probable that his pacifist beliefs influenced his decision not to engage in the war as a combatant. Whether his descendants later became Afrikaans-speaking is unclear.
RE the founding of the 'Sunshine Settlements' (an agricultural project in the East Rand): "The founding of the Settlements took place on Saturday, the 5th May, when Mr. WH Auret Pritchard, the well-known Government Land Surveyor, and Mr. PJ Philip commenced to peg out the latter’s small holding. As many are aware, Mr. Pritchard is one of the Pioneers of the Rand. In the early days her laid out what has since become the principal street of the Golden City, and which has ever since borne his name. Curiously enough, Mr. Pritchard, over thirty years ago, surveyed the adjoining farm to the Sunshine Settlements." (AJSA, May, 1917)
Pritchard third from right. Unidentified photographer. n.d.
He surveyed the 36 claims between President and Bree Streets which De Villiers could not include in the original survey of Randjeslaaagte because they were being mined, and the assumption is therefore that Pritchard named the streets in this area when he laid out the Stands. This was before 1 June 1887.
Florida largely shares its origin with the birth of Roodepoort in general, with the township first taking shape in about 1888 after prospecting for gold had begun in the area in 1884 and public diggings declared in 1886. The surveyor who originally surveyed the township of Roodepoort, William Pritchard, was so impressed by the profusion of flowers in one particular valley that he decided to name it Florida, Spanish for flowers. It was predominantly a dormitory town housing white employees of the mines, mainly the shift bosses and so forth, while the actual miners, workers, Africans and coloureds tended to live in surrounding areas such as Roodepoort and Maraisburg.
The spread of activity from Johannesburg to the West was very rapid. The Paarl Syndicate employed a young private surveyor named William Henry Auret Pritchard to lay out a town for them on their portion of Langlaagte. On the 16th of January 1887, they sold stands at this place, Paarl's Hoop, which had driven up from the Cape in August 1887.
Sources
- Shovel and Sieve. Rosenthal, E. c.1959. George Allen and Unwin: London.
- The Heritage Portal. Welham, S. 2022. Solving the riddle of the site of all the late 1938 to early 1940s burials in the Brixton Cemetery.
- South African Architectural Record, March 1948.
- De Villiers uncles and aunts
- Agricultural Journal of SA. May, 1917.
- The Heritage Portal. A Deeper Look at Johannesburg's New Street Names. Dec 6, 2015.
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