Glen Grey - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

GLEN GREY, a division of the Cape province south of the Stormberg, adjoining on the east the Transkeian Territories. Pop. (1904) 55,107. Chief town Lady Frere, 32 m. N.E. of Queenstown. The district is well watered and fertile, and large quantities of cereals are grown. Over 96% of the inhabitants are of the Zulu-Xosa (Kaffir) race, and a considerable part of the district was settled during the Kaffir wars of Cape Colony by Tembu (Tambookies) who were granted a location by the colonial government in recognition of their loyalty to the British. Act No. 25 of 1894 of the Cape parliament, passed at the instance of Cecil Rhodes, which laid down the basis upon which is effected the change of land tenure by natives from communal to individual holdings, and also dealt with native local self-government and the labour question, applied in the first instance to this division, and is known as the Glen Grey Act (see Cape Colony: History). The provisions of the act respecting individual land tenure and local self-government were in 1898 applied, with certain modifications, to the Transkeian Territories. The division is named after Sir George Grey, governor of Cape Colony 1854-1861.