Delving into Namibia’s diamond history

Leandrea Louw - The coastline of Namibia is home to a number of archaeological sites. The area of Meob Bay, which is about 173 kilometres from Walvis Bay, also forms part of the early days of the diamond mining area.

Only operators who are concession holders are allowed to travel in these restricted areas.

This area between Meob Bay and Conception Bay (104 kilometres from Walvis Bay) area is Daimond area no. 2.

Meob Bay was used as a harbour to offload mining equipment and personnel during the diamond rush from 1908 to 1914. By 1928 various infrastructure improvements were made, a bakery was in operation by then, providing settlements with fresh bread on a weekly basis with an introduced mule express.

The only remaining hut, today at Meob Bay, served as an office and accommodation to the then transport manager of the Namaqua Diamond Company.

DIAMOND MINING

The official story of Namibia’s diamond history starts in April 1908, when young railway worker Zacharias Lewala picked up a large shiny diamond while on duty during the railway construction between Lüderitz and Kolmanskuppe. Little did he know that this ordinary act would set off a chain of events so large, it would change the course of history.

An avalanche of fortune hunters, whose eyes sparkled in awe of the world’s purest, most precious diamonds, descended upon this desert land.

This resulted in an uncontrollable diamond rush, forcing the secretary of the colonial administration, Dr Bernhard Dernbug, to proclaim a ‘Sperrgebiet’, between 26 degrees south latitude (Gibraltar/ Northern Rocks, 75 kilometres north of Lüderitz) and the Orange River stretching 100 kilometres inland.

This southern area covered 26 000 km². Existing claims were honoured, but mining rights for the rest of the land were given to the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwestafrika to control prospecting.

Prospectors then started to turn northwards and this resulted in the discovery of diamonds at Spencer Bay in December 1908 as well as between Meob Bay and Conception Bay area.

Transporting of supplies and mining equipment was mainly from Swakopmund by ship and the cutter vessels Viking via Sandwich Harbour, Conception Bay and Meob Bay. The mining settlements of Holstatia, Charlottenfelder and Grillenberger were established during the 1920s.

The biggest of the settlements, Grillenberger, was home to a large machine workshop, store, a small field hospital with 20 beds, a slaughter house, police office and post office with a switchboard for local telephone communication.

For senior employees, a hall was erected as well as storage facilities and stables. For the contract labourers, A-frame huts were erected, which can still be seen. About 12 contract labourers were housed in these A-frame huts.

North of Grillenberger, an ox wagon can be seen with special wide iron bands that made transportation possible in the sandy areas.

Also to be seen in the area is a railway line running from Conceptionwater to Conception Bay. The latter was used as a harbour, and at Conceptionwater boreholes provided fresh water to the surrounding areas. From Conceptionwater, an 80 km water pipeline was constructed to supply the three mining settlements with water.

In 1914, everyone in this area was requested to stop all diamond finding operations and to proceed to Swakopmund. This order came as a result of an unexpected invasion of allied troops.

During 1920, activities recommenced in this area and only four companies operated here until De Beers purchased the concession areas in 1929. From old mining records it is clear that the average diamonds found in this area were much smaller than those found at Lüderitz.

The great depression, which led to the crash of the New York stock exchange in October 1929, negatively affected the sales of diamonds from these diamond fields.

Consequently, Namaqua Diamonds ceased operations on 28 January 1931 and went into liquidation. Most of the concessions were then bought by Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM) of South West Africa. Since then the South West Africa administration closed these diamond fields for prospecting, and all 389 workers and European employees had to leave these fields within hours, leaving everything behind.

After the second World War a company Industrial Diamonds of South Africa (1945) did extensive prospecting in the area around Meob, but found no diamond and CDM abandoned Meob in the early 1960s.

RECOVERY METHODS

During the first weeks of the diamond rush, diamonds were picked up by hand from the surface of the desert. People crawled on the ground with jam tins to put in the diamonds.

To speed up the process, sieves were used to separate the fine sand from the larger grains, which contained the diamonds. Charlie Bannau, introduced a more sophisticated method, where he submerged the sieve with the coarser gravel in a trough filled with sea water, then rotated it. By doing this the diamonds moved to the centre of the sieve. He then placed the sieve upside down on the back of an empty beer crate from where the diamonds could be picked up. However, the problem was the use of too much water in the desert.

Shortly after, the Trommel sieves were introduced. They were hand operated and larger amounts of sediments could be sieved. Subsequent to the sieving, the diamond bearing gravel was hand or gravitated in smaller round sieves.

Today, only remnants of these activities are visible and are deteriorating at an alarming rate. These settlements give a rare insight into the harsh desert environment and the hardships endured by the indigenous people and early settlers of Namibia.

- Information courtesy of Sandwich Harbour tours, during their Shipwrecks & Diamonds excursion