Political Prisoners
Both the famous and the infamous were incarcerated in the Old Fort Prison Complex, commonly known as Number Four; war rebels, political, activist, notorious gangsters and criminals.
However, most imprisoned at the Prison Complex were ordinary people arrested in droves every day under the insidious Pass Laws that restricted movement of black people. Below you can read more about the political figures and icons that once were incarcerated at the Prison Complex.
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1900Boers and pro-Boer sympathisers, like James Thompson Bain, were imprisoned after the British took control of Johannesburg. Cornelis Broeksma, David Garnius Wernick and Burger Vermaak were executed in the courtyard of the Old Fort. |
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1908Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Passive Resistance Movement against the Pass Laws for Asians (Satyagraha), was jailed with many other Indians for refusing to carry a pass. |
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1913White Mineworkers were jailed for going on strike. |
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1914General Christiaan de Wet and his followers were jailed for leading the rebellion against the entry of the Union of South Africa into World War One on the side of Great Britain. |
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1922A group of white miners were imprisoned after they had armed themselves and seized most of Johannesburg during the 1922 miners' strike. |
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1942Members of the Ossewa Brandwag, a staunch Afrikaner nationalist and pro-Nazi group, were jailed for acts of violence and sabotage during World War Two. |
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1955Participants in the Defiance Campaign, led by the ANC to fight against apartheid laws, were jailed after signing the Freedom Charter. |
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1956Many of the 156 treason trialists, including Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli, Joe Slovo, ZK Mathews, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Helen Joseph, Moses Kotane, Lillian Ngoyi and Ruth First, were imprisoned in the Old Fort, the Awaiting Trial Block and the Women's Jail. |
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1958Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela were among the hundreds of women imprisoned for protesting against the pass laws. |
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1960Robert Sobukwe, leader of the Pan African Congress (PAC), as well as other anti-pass campaigners were arrested and imprisoned after marching to the Orlando Police Station. |
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1960Scores of activists were imprisoned under the State of Emergency, including Joe Slovo, Reverend Douglas Thompson, Rica Hodgson, Violet Weinberg and Rusty Bernstein. |
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1964A group of 'suspected communists', including Esther and Hymie Barsel, Ivan Schermbrucker, Eli Weinberg, Norman Levy, Constantinos Gazides, Paul Henry Trewhela, Lewis Baker, Jean Strachan, Anne Nicholson, Sylvia Neam, Florence Duncan, Mollie Irene Doyle, were imprisoned. |
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1976Tens of students were detained during the Soweto Uprising as well as leaders of organizations including Fatima Meer, Winne Madikizela-Mandela, Nomakhaya 'Kayo' Ethel Mafuna, Oshadi Mangena-Phakathi, Nikiwe Deborah Matshoba, Mapitso Lolo Tabane, Cecilie Palmer, Vesta Smith, Joyce Piliso Seroke, Jeannie Noel, Sally Motlana, Sibongile Kubeka. |
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1980Activists accused of treason in the early 1980s who were imprisoned included Alan Fine, Rob Adams, Barbara Hogan, Hanchen Koornhof, Lillian Keagile, Joe Thloloe and Reverend Cedric Mayson. |
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