Extract below taken from a SA Medals website.
SA Union: Voortrekker Centenary: Torch Bearers
|
| |
|
| Form: |
Circular |
|---|
| By: |
Koninklijke-Begeer, Utrecht, Holland |
|---|
| Date: |
1938 |
|---|
| Ref: |
AM2: 262; Laidlaw: 0135a; |
|---|
| Variations: |
| Size | Metal | Mass | Value |
|---|
| 60.0 mm |
Silver |
83.4 gm |
$125 |
| 60.1 mm |
Bronze |
74.0 gm |
$45 |
| 60.1 mm |
Silvered Bronze |
85.7 gm |
$55 |
| 60.0 mm |
Yellow Bronze |
89.2 gm |
$50 |
|
|---|
| Edge: |
Plain.
Silver medal stamped: “ZILVER” and KON. BEGEER / HOLLAND”.
Bronze medal stamped: “HOLLAND”.
Silvered Bronze medal stamped “BRONS” and KON. BEGEER / HOLLAND”.
Yellow Bronze medal not stamped.
|
|---|
| Obverse: |
Voortrekker Monument with wall of wagons. Legend: “VOORTREKKER-EEUFEES (Voortrekker Centenary)”.
In the exergue: “1838-1938”
|
|---|
| Reverse: |
Male and female torch bearers, in uniforms of the Voortrekker youth movement, running right.
Legend above: “KAAPSTAD – MGUNGUNDLOVU – PRETORIA” and below the ground line: “FAKKELLOOP”.
|
|---|
| Notes: |
The obverse shows the Voortrekker Monument, a massive granite structure located near Pretoria,
erected in honour of the Afrikaners who trekked north from the Cape Colony between 1835 and
1854 to establish Republics in the Orange Free State and Transvaal. Only the cornerstone for the
monument had been laid in 1938. The Second World War delayed construction and the monument
was finally inaugurated on 16 December 1949 (Dingane Day) by Prime Minister D.F. Malan.
The reverse of the medal commemorates the torch-relay by the Voortrekkers (the Afrikaner equivalent
of the Boy Scouts) from Cape Town to Pretoria in 1938, in celebration of the Great Trek Centenary.
The relay passed through Mgungundlovu in Northern Natal, the site of royal capital of the Zulu king Dingane.
The Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his party of about 100 people were clubbed to death there
on 6th February 1838 under the direction of Dingane. |
|---|
