Annexation of Zululand to Natal.
1899–1902 Second Anglo–Boer War.
1899–1900 Sol Plaatje writes his diary recording events during the siege of Mafeking (eventually published as The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje in 1973).
1905 HCB born, 3 February, at Kuils River, near Cape Town, the first son of Elisa (née Malan), a teacher, and Jacobus Bosman, a mine labourer. A second son, Pierre, is born in 1906.
1907 J. Percy FitzPatrick’s Jock of the Bushveld published.
1910 Union of South Africa established.
1912 South African Native National Congress (SANNC) formed; Sol Plaatje is one of the founding members.
1913 Natives Land Act promulgated, in terms of which Africans are prohibited from owning land outside of designated reserves (7% of SA’s land area).
1914–18 First World War.
1916 The Bosman family moves to Potchefstroom, the Malan family’s home town. Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa published.
1918 Jacobus Bosman finds a job on the Witwatersrand mines, and the family moves to Johannesburg. HCB is enrolled at Jeppe Central School.
1920, 21 HCB begins his sketches for The Sunday Times, and also publishes some material in The Jeppe High School Magazine.
1922 Matriculates from Houghton College after moving there from Jeppe High, where he has a chequered academic and disciplinary record. White miners strike; Rand Revolt.
1923 Registers at Wits University and the Normal College for teachers.
1924 Sarah Gertrude Millin’s God’s Step-Children published.
1925 HCB contributes various pieces to The Umpa. Jacobus Bosman dies in a mining accident; Elisa Bosman marries William Russell. Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka published in Sesotho (published in English translation in 1931); Pauline Smith’s The Little Karoo published.
1926 Marries Vera Sawyer in January; is posted two days thereafter to a small farm school at Zwingli. Publishes a sketch describing this in The Umpa (“A Teacher in the Bushveld”). The first issue of the literary review Voorslag appears under the editorship of Roy Campbell, William Plomer and Laurens van der Post; Plomer’s Turbott Wolfe and Pauline Smith’s The Beadle published.
July: Returns to the family home in Johannesburg for mid-year holidays; is evidently very unhappy about the atmosphere in the home and the relations between the Russells and the Bosmans. On the eve of his return a scuffle breaks out between Pierre and David, and HCB fires a shot into David Russell’s bedroom; David is killed instantly. Is arrested and appears in court on 11 and 15 November; is sentenced to death by hanging and taken to Pretoria Central Prison, where he is placed on death row.
1927 Jan: Is reprieved and sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour; this sentence is later reduced by half. Begins writing poetry and sketches in prison; some are published.
1929 The satirical journal The Sjambok appears under Stephen Black’s editorship; Deneys Reitz’s Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War published. HCB’s poem “Perhaps Some Day” appears in The Sjambok, 5 July 1929.
1930 31 May: HCB’s sketch “In the Beginning” appears in The Sjambok. Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago, the first full-length novel by a black South African writer in English, and Roy Campbell’s Adamastor published.
Sept: HCB released from Pretoria Central Prison.
Dec: The literary magazine The Touleier appears under the editorship of HCB and Aegidius Jean Blignaut. It carries HCB’s first Schalk Lourens story, “Makapan’s Caves”.
1931 The Touleier carries HCB’s second Schalk Lourens story, “The Rooinek”, in two parts (Jan–Feb and Mar). HCB and Blignaut launch The New L. S. D. following the death of Stephen Black in Aug. The launching of The New Sjambok by the pair follows. Various HCB stories, including “In Church” (2 Jan) and “The Night-dress” (13 Feb), appear in its pages. HCB’s poetry pamphlet The Blue Princess appears.
1932 HCB’s second and third small poetry collections, Mara and Rust, appear. HCB marries Ella Manson in Oct.
1933 Jesus: An Ode appears. The year also sees the appearance of two short-lived Bosman–Blignaut publications – Mompara and The Ringhals, which carries HCB’s story “A Nun’s Passion: A Christmas Story”, and lands the pair in court on charges of blasphemy.
1934 HCB and Ella leave for England, where they spend most of the next six years, with some visits to the continent. “Veld Maiden”, the first of a set of classic OSL stories HCB sends back from London over the next few years, appears in The South African Opinion in Dec.
1935 The South African Opinion carries “The Music Maker” in July, and “Mafeking Road” in Aug.
1936 HCB begins work at The Sunday Critic, a short-lived four-page tabloid. It carries some of his reviews and essays, as well as the lurid series Leader of Gunmen, featuring the gangster Claude Satang, which HCB intends ultimately to publish in novel form (nothing comes of this in the end).
1937 The Sunday Critic ceases publication in Feb. HCB goes into a lengthy creative hiatus.
1939–45 Second World War; the Bosmans are repatriated to SA in 1940.
1941–42 HCB publishes a number of journalistic pieces in various SA periodicals.
1943 Mar–Oct: Takes job as editor of The Zoutpansberg Review and Mining Journal in Pietersburg; this provides the setting for the novels Jacaranda in the Night and Willemsdorp; meets Helena Stegmann and begins relationship with her; is fired from The Zoutpansberg Review following a court appearance in Oct on charges of procuring an abortion; is later released after Helena drops charges; the Bosmans return to Johannesburg late in the year.
1944 HCB divorces Ella in Feb and marries Helena in Mar; takes on job as literary editor of relaunched South African Opinion. HCB begins the most productive period of his writing life: from this point on until his death he produces dozens of Schalk Lourens stories and scores of journalistic pieces.
1946 Peter Abrahams’s Mine Boy and Es’kia Mphahlele’s first collection, Man Must Live and Other Stories, published.
1947 Jacaranda in the Night and, later, Mafeking Road published.
1948 Begins publishing numerous Bushveld stories in the bilingual periodical On Parade; several stories appear in Afrikaans versions, sometimes before their appearance in English (the notable example here is “Tot Stof”). The Herenigde Nasionale Party (later Nasionale Party) wins general election with its policy of apartheid; Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country published.
1949 Cold Stone Jug and Veld-trails and Pavements published. Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act promulgated; Nadine Gordimer’s Face to Face, her first collection of short stories, published.
1950 On 15 Apr begins the Voorkamer sequence with “The Budget”; the series will run to 80 pieces in all. Immorality Act amended; Population Registration Act; Group Areas Act; Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing published; the stage show King Kong, with music by Todd Matshikiza, first performed. HCB begins work as proofreader for The Sunday
