February
25 – Mahatma Gandhi is arrested at Volksrust for failure to produce a registration certificate and is sentenced to 3 months imprisonment.
June
15 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's Cricket Ground and form the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC).
Mahatma Gandhi embarks in Cape Town for Southampton, England.
November
30 – Mahatma Gandhi and the Transvaal Indian Deputation arrive back in Cape Town.
December
28 – The first manned heavier-than-air powered flight in South Africa is made by French aviator Albert Kimmerling by taking off from the Nahoon Racecourse at East London in a Voisin 1907 biplane.
Unknown date
South Africa becomes the first non-European country to join FIFA.
19 March – Louis Hayward, South African-born actor. (d. 1985)
5 September – Yusuf Dadoo, doctor and politician. (d. 1983)
5 December – Bobbie Heine Miller, South African tennis player. (d. 2016)
13 April – Sir Donald Currie GCMG, shipping magnate and donor of the Currie Cups for rugby and cricket. (b. 1825)
4 February – Natal – Creighton to Riverside (Cape), 12 miles 3 chains (19.4 kilometres).
1 April – Natal – Vryheid East to Hlobane, 17 miles (27.4 kilometres).
18 May – Cape Midland – Barkly Bridge to Alexandria, 54 miles 20 chains (87.3 kilometres).
Two new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Natal Government Railways (NGR):
The first five of thirty 4-8-2 tender locomotives, the world’s first true Mountain type locomotive. In 1912 it will be designated Class B on the South African Railways (SAR).
A single 2-6-6-0 Mallet articulated compound steam locomotive, the first Mallet type to enter service in South Africa. In 1912 it will be designated Class MA on the SAR.
The NGR begins to modify some of its Class C 4-10-2T Reid Tenwheeler locomotives to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement to make them suitable for yard work without the risk of derailing as a result of the long ten-coupled wheelbase. In 1912 these will be designated Class H2 on the SAR.
1909 in South Africa Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA