1897 in South Africa

The following lists events that happened during 1897 in South Africa.

Incumbents

 * Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa:Hercules Robinson then Alfred Milner.
 * Governor of the Colony of Natal: Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell.
 * State President of the Orange Free State: Martinus Theunis Steyn.
 * State President of the South African Republic: Paul Kruger.
 * Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Gordon Sprigg.
 * Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal:
 * until 14 February: John Robinson.
 * 15 February – 4 October: Harry Escombe.
 * starting 4 October: Henry Binns.

Events

 * April
 * 21 – Sir Alfred Milner becomes High Commissioner of South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony.


 * May
 * 5 – Port Elizabeth is flooded.


 * December
 * 30 – The Colony of Natal annexes Zululand.


 * Unknown date
 * Bergville is established in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains in Natal.
 * "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" ("God Bless Africa") is composed as a Xhosa hymn by South African teacher Enoch Sontonga.

Births

 * 3 July – Ludwig Wybren Hiemstra, Afrikaans linguist and editor of the Bilingual Dictionary, is born in Lydenburg.
 * 26 October – James Leonard Brierley Smith, ichthyologist, is born in Graaff Reinet.

Railway lines opened

 * 13 March – Cape Western – Mafeking to Ramatlabama at the Bechuanaland border, 16 mi.
 * 3 August – Transvaal – Frederikstad to Klerksdorp, 43 mi.
 * 1 October – Cape Midland – Rosmead Junction to Middelburg, 7 mi.
 * 1 December – Natal – Isipingo to Park Rynie, 27 mi.
 * 3 December – Natal – Verulam to Tongaat, 12 mi.
 * 15 December – Natal – Thornville Junction to Richmond, 17 mi.

Locomotives
Two new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the Cape Government Railways (CGR):
 * Cape
 * Six 4th Class 4-4-2 Atlantic type tender locomotives on the section from Kimberley southwards.
 * A third batch of fifty-five 6th Class 4-6-0 steam locomotives. In 1912 they would become Class 6B on the South African Railways.


 * Transvaal
 * The independent Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal Republic) purchases a 4-6-0 35 Tonner tank locomotive named Portuguese from the Lourenco Marques, Delagoa Bay and East Africa Railway in Mozambique.
 * Arthur Koppel, acting as agent, imports a number of Dickson-built 0-4-2ST narrow gauge saddle tank steam locomotives to mines on the Witwatersrand.