History
The Witwatersrand is in the Transvaal, formerly an independent state settled by the Boers after the Great Trek. J. H. Davis, an Englishman, was reported to have found gold "in considerable quantities" in July 1852 at Paardekraal near Krugersdorp, which was the earliest discovery on the Rand. Davis had sold £600 worth of gold (£457,000 in 2010 Pounds to the Transvaal Treasury and had shortly thereafter been ordered out of the country in accordance with the prevailing policy of secrecy. In October 1853 Pieter Jacob Marais, born in Cape Town on 31 July 1826, discovered gold on the banks of the Jukskei River, this find too was hushed up. The first mining concern (the Nil Desperandum Co-operative Gold Company) was formed at Blaauwbank in 1874. Gold was mined at various places on the Rand up to 1886, when the discovery of the Witwatersrand Main Reef set off the historic Witwatersrand Gold Rush.
The subsequent discovery of other rich and profitable veins of gold, as well as uranium, eventually led to the creation of the largest urban conglomeration in sub-Saharan Africa.
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