George Honeyball

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Full name: George Frederick Thomas Honeyball

Lifespan: c.1857 Worcester - 1949 Johannesburg

Family: His father Henry (c.1828-1902) was an English-born Anglican priest. George married twice and had at least 3 children.

Occupation: blacksmith, carpenter, handyman, transport rider, wagon maker

George Honeyball. Painting by W.H. Coetzer (1937).
Biography

Honeyball was a friend and fellow prospector of Harrison and Walker.

Some sources claim he was an "errant nephew" or simply an assistant to a wagon maker who decided to stay on his aunt's farm. He worked as a blacksmith, carpenter, and handyman. He was responsible for the woodwork on the cottages that George Harrison and George Walker were building for the Oosthuizens.

Honeyball was already living and working on Langlaagte (Portion D) as a blacksmith when Walker arrived at Confidence Mine and when Harrison started building the house. He never worked alongside them at the Struben operation.

"George Honeyball had a small Smithy on the Widow Petronella Oosthuizen's portion D. He called her 'Tante' or Aunt - but was in no way related to her. He had been living there for about 18 months prior to 1886, and being in poor circumstances, obtained free board and lodging from the generous widow." (Krause, 1947)

According to George Walker’s 1924 statement, Honeyball was the person who made the discovery of gold at Langlaagte public. While Walker was away trying to find financial backers, Honeyball allegedly found the spot where Walker had panned, took rock samples, and showed them to Godfray Lys and the Struben brothers at the Confidence Mine.


Honeyball did not receive a special claim (like Walker and Harrison did) as recognition, and is generally seen as a supportive figure in the trio rather than the primary discoverer.

In his later years, Honeyball gave statements or affidavits supporting George Walker's version of events (i.e., claiming Walker discovered it first and showed him the outcrop). Some historical analyses (e.g., a 1947 paper by F.E.T. Krause) note his accounts as part of the "three Georges" debate but describe them as unreliable, inconsistent, or contradictory - possibly influenced by personal dislike of Harrison.

After the goldfields were proclaimed, Honeyball disappeared from the Rand. He was "rediscovered" in March 1930 living in a mud dwelling in Pienaars River, where he ran a small blacksmith shop in abject poverty.

Historians often found his later accounts of the discovery to be unreliable and contradictory, as he frequently changed his version of events to emphasize his own importance or to support Walker over Harrison.

Sources

  • George Walker - Discoverer of the Main Reef. 1926. Macdonald, W. The Sun and Agricultural Journal of S.A.
  • George Frederick Thomas Honeyball
  • A Critical Examination of the Evidence Relating to the Discovery of the Main Reef Series of Auriferous Conglomerates on the Witwatersrand, on Portion of the Farm Langlaagte, Belonging to G. C. Oosthuizen, in 1886. 1947. Krause, F.E.T.

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