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The following lists events that happened during 1918 in South Africa.
Contents
Incumbents
Monarch: King George V.
Governor-General and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: The Viscount Buxton.
Prime Minister: Louis Botha.
Chief Justice: James Rose Innes
Events
An estimated 50 people die in the 1918 flu pandemic in South Africa, the fifth hardest hit country in the world.
January
8 – The Koöperatiewe Wijnbouwers Vereniging van Zuid-Afrika (KWV) is founded in Paarl.
April
2 – Victoria College becomes the Stellenbosch University.
May
14 – The Three Minute Pause, initiated by the daily firing of the Noon Gun on Signal Hill, is instituted by Cape Town Mayor Sir Harry Hands.
June
4 – RMS Kenilworth Castle, one of the Union-Castle Line steamships, collides with her escort destroyer HMS Rival while trying to avoid her other escort, the cruiser HMS Kent.
5 – The Afrikaner Broederbond, a confidential cultural organisation, is founded in Johannesburg.
November
14 – German East African troops are informed of the armistice on 11 November.
25 – General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of German forces in the German East Africa campaign, signs a ceasefire at Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia.
Births
14 January (in Mozambique) – Dimitri Tsafendas, assassin (d. 1999)
21 January – Frederick Guy Butler, poet, academic and writer. (d. 2001)
1 July – Ahmed Deedat, Sunni Muslim missionary. (d. 2005)
13 July – Larry Taylor, actor. (d. 2003)
16 July – John (Jack) Frost, Second World War fighter pilot. (d. MIA 1942)
18 July – Nelson Mandela, activist and President of South Africa. (d. 2013)
27 August – Alina Lekgetha, nurse, chairman of South African Nursing Association and politician. (d. 1992)
Deaths
5 December – Schalk Willem Burger, Boer officer, lawyer, politician and statesman. (b. 1852)
Railways
Railway lines opened
2 February – Cape – Kootjieskolk to Calvinia, 43 miles 47 chains (70.1 kilometres).
16 September – Cape – Kootjieskolk to Sakrivier, 27 miles 21 chains (43.9 kilometres).
Locomotives
Three new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the South African Railways (SAR):
The first batch of twenty Class 14C 4-8-2 Mountain type locomotives.
The first of thirty Class 15B 4-8-2 Mountain type locomotives.
Eight Class MJ1 branchline 2-6-6-0 Mallet articulated compound steam locomotives.