1875 in South Africa

Incumbents

• Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Henry Barkly.
• Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal: Henry Ernest Gascoyne Bulwer.
• State President of the Orange Free State: Jan Brand.
• State President of the South African Republic: Thomas François Burgers.
• Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West: Richard Southey William Owen Lanyon.
• Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Charles Molteno.

  Events

• John Garlick started his first store on 3 May 1875, on the corner Bree and Strand Streets, in the central business district of Cape Town. This would later become Garlicks, a nationwide chain of department stores.

• 14 - The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners is formed at the home of Gideon Malherbe in Paarl.

• The Black Flag Rebellion is staged by white diamond diggers at Kimberley.
• The Molteno Government begins construction of two Midland railway lines from Swartkops in Port Elizabeth and from Uitenhage.
• The Verlatenskloof pass in the Roggeveld Mountains, begun the previous year, is completed.

  Births

Deaths

• 19 May - Christoffel Brand, politician,

  Railways

New lines

• Construction begins on the Swartkops-Alicedale line.

  Railway lines opened

• 11 May - Cape Western - Cape Town Docks to junction with mainline,.
• 26 July - Cape Midland - Port Elizabeth to Addo,.
• 22 September - Cape Midland - Swartkops to Uitenhage,.
• 3 November - Cape Western - Wellington to Ceres Road,.

  Locomotives

• The first eight of twenty-seven 2nd Class 2-6-2 tank-and-tender locomotives on all three newly established regional systems, the Eastern System from East London, the Midland System from Port Elizabeth and the Western System from Cape Town.
• Three 1st Class 0-4-0 saddle-tank locomotives on the Midland and Eastern Systems.
• The first seven of eleven 1st Class 4-4-0 tank locomotives on the Western and Midland systems.