The Sunday News
Bulawayo @120
The day was the 3rd of July 1953.
“After the royal car had passed round the circuit of Queen’s Ground which was packed with 20 000 people including many European and African schoolchildren, Africans in all kinds of colourful dress stood in the stands and waved flags or clapped with their hands raised above their heads.”
The venue was the Queen’s Ground in Bulawayo on the occasion of the royal visit by the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, her daughter Princess Margaret and her small entourage. Her daughter, the reigning Queen Elizabeth, was not part of the royal group.
The visit had come soon after an earlier visit in 1947 to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. In that particular visit Princess Elizabeth was present. This time she remained behind because she had a small baby, Prince Charles. Her mother, the Queen Mother thus came to stand in her place. The purpose of the royal visit was to participate in the centenary celebrations of Cecil Rhodes’ birth in 1853.
However, the thrust of this article is on the African children who were part of the Rhodes Centenary Celebrations whose centre piece was the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition held within the precincts of Queen’s Ground. By pressing a button, the Queen Mother was to officially open the Exhibition and read Queen Elizabeth’s speech.
“I have happy memories of my visit to Southern Rhodesia in 1947 that gave me real pleasure to become the patron of this exhibition which my mother is to open today. I wish all success to it and continued prosperity to the three territories.”
The Queen Mother and her entourage had arrived in Bulawayo aboard a train from Salisbury. The African children from various African schools were issued with mini flags and commemorative coins. The Queen Mother’s itinerary included a courtesy call on Government House (State House). The African schoolchildren lined up the route from Government House into town. The schoolchildren were smart in their school uniforms, most of the boys in khakis.
Some of the girls were in blue uniforms. They came from several schools in the Location and Mzilikazi Township. The other townships, Nguboyenja and Barbourfields had not been built then. Along this part of the route white children were not part of the flag-waving schoolchildren.
As part of racial discrimination the white schoolchildren lined up the route leading to Queen’s Ground. For example, the Queen Mother was welcomed by Margaret Plathen from the Convent High School. She presented the Queen Mother with roses, sweet peas and two boxes of chocolates. The then Bulawayo Mayor Colonel CM Newman was in attendance.
It should be noted that white schools were established soon after occupation in 1893. Schools such as Milton Junior, Milton Secondary School, Eveline High and Coghlan Primary were already in existence. The British South Africa Company (BSACo) did not bother to provide education for Blacks. That role was left to the various Christian church denominations.
Various churches had been allocated stands south of Lobengula Street; between town and the Bulawayo Municipal Compound (BMC) and the Location (Makokoba). The churches were part of the cordon sanitaire to separate black settlement from white settlement. The churches which had separate church buildings to service the white population in the town were expected to civilise the Africans by not only converting them to Christianity but also providing some education to them.
The Anglican Church ran a school, St Columba’s, for Africans. The Catholics established St Patrick’s which also catered for the Africans. White girls were attending the Convent School in town. The churches did not challenge the BSACo policy of racial segregation in the education system.
The one person who was among the school children waving flags at the Queen Mother being driven from Government House was David Ngwenya. He came to Bulawayo in 1949 at the time when there were only two townships for Africans, the Location and Mzilikazi. He was one of the schoolchildren who attended the church schools.
While the Anglican and the Roman Catholic churches set up their own separate schools, the other church denominations made collaborative efforts and established the United School. Its administration was located within the grounds of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Mrs Lewis was the principal. The various classes attended lessons within the church buildings of the various collaborating churches. One church building could, for example, house Sub-Standard A classes and another take care of another standard.
The collaborating church denominations were the following: Salvation Army, London Missionary Society (LMS), Presbyterian Church (iHabe), African Methodist Episcopal (AME, iTopiya). The LMS and the Presbyterian churches then were located where the youth clubs in Makokoba are found today, west of the Stanley Square. Then the clubs were offering basketball, boxing and weightlifting. However, over the weekends boxing took place at the Stanley Square.
The United School offered classes up to Standard 1. After that the pupils, who included both boys and girls, proceeded to Mzilikazi Primary School which was the first primary school to be built in Mzilikazi Township, a settlement established in 1945. The school offered education up to Standard 6. Mzilikazi Primary School thus became the first primary school to be built by government for Blacks in Bulawayo. Later, Mzilikazi Primary School offered classes lower than Standard 2. At the time the Black primary schools were run by white school heads.
In 1953, the pupils who were attending United School relocated to Lobengula Primary School. Mrs Lewis became the founding school head of the new school. When the pupils went to Lobengula Primary School it meant the church buildings then had room to accommodate more pupils. The same arrangement as before started. Church buildings played host to a new government primary school in Makokoba. That school was Lotshe Primary School.
Ultimately, Lotshe Primary School became a stand-alone educational facility in 1955. Some pupils then left Lobengula Primary School to attend Lotshe Primary School, a move which shortened travelling distances for pupils living in Makokoba.
Once gain, the church buildings had room to take on more pupils. Meanwhile, more townships were established in the post-World War II period as a result of the industrial boom that visited Bulawayo. Iminyela (No 1), Mabutweni (No 2), Njube (No 3) and Mpopoma (No 4) were built to house the workers who flocked to Bulawayo in search of employment opportunities.
The church buildings once again acted as incubators for the next school that was being built in Mpopoma. The school was Gampu where a Mr Webb was the school head. Next week we shall give a fuller rendition of the 1953 royal visit to Bulawayo.
