1927 in South Africa

Incumbents

• Monarch: King George V.
• Governor-General and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: The Earl of Athlone.
• Prime Minister: James Barry Munnik Hertzog.
• Chief Justice: James Rose Innes then William Henry Solomon

  Events

• 4 - An organised diamond rush includes trained athletes who have been hired by major companies to stake claims.

• 20 - The restored manor house of Groot Constantia is reopened after a fire devastated it in 1925.

• The South African Railways begins to convert the couplers of its Cape Gauge rolling stock from the Johnston link-and-pin coupling system, which had been in use since 1873, to AAR knuckle couplers.

  Births

• 13 January - Sydney Brenner, biologist and Nobel Prize laureate, in Germiston, Johannesburg.
• 20 March - John Joubert, South African–born British composer.
• May - Dumasile Nokwe, first black advocate of the Supreme Court of Transvaal and politician.
• 10 June - Mizream Maseko, artist and Zion Christian Church deacon.
• 26 June - Ben Turok, activist, economics professor, former ANC member of parliament.
• 22 October - Allan Hendrickse, politician, in Uitenhage.

  Deaths

Railways

Railway lines opened

• 7 January - Cape - Sunland to Kirkwood,.
• 10 February - Transvaal - Solarvale to Mount Carmel,.
• 27 April - Cape - Landplaas to Bitterfontein,.
• 1 July - Transvaal - Makwassie to Vermaas,.
• 4 July - Natal - Candover to Golela, Transvaal,.
• 14 September - Cape - Imvani to Qamata,.

  Locomotives

• Ten Class HF 2-8-2+2-8-2 Double Mikado type Modified Fairlie articulated steam locomotives.
• Thirteen Class GCA 2-6-2+2-6-2 Double Prairie type Garratt articulated branchline locomotives.
• Thirty-seven Class GF 4-6-2+2-6-4 Double Pacific type Garratt locomotives.
• Ten Class U 2-6-2+2-6-2 Double Prairie type Union Garratt articulated locomotives.
• In December, the first of two Class 18 2-10-2 Santa Fe type locomotives.
• Two Class NG G12 2-6-2+2-6-2 Double Prairie type narrow gauge Garratt articulated locomotives. They are the smallest Garratt locomotives to see service in South Africa.
• The first three Class NG G13 2-6-2+2-6-2 Double Prairie type Garratt locomotives, on the Langkloof and Alfred County Railway narrow gauge railways.