The Making of a Good White - E-thesis - Helsinki.fi

PARENTS
1942
CHILDREN
1942
PARENTS
1946
CHILDREN
1946
Subordinate
Commercial 116 4 % 15 % 4 % 30 %
Unskilled
Manual 117 33 % 18 % 23 % 3.5 %
Table 1. (CHL Survey: 1942, 1946.)
Between 1942 and 1946 the parents’ share of all the white-collar occupations
remained 5 per cent, whereas that of the children grew from 16 to
31 per cent. In 1946 these figures had thus become consistent with the
national average of the Afrikaners in white-collar jobs, which was 27.5
per cent in 1936 and 29 per cent in 1946 (Giliomee 1979b: 169; Bickford-
Smith et al. 1999: 122).
People who arrived in Epping Garden Village during this time were
often rescued from destitution. In its first survey the CHL found that
almost 26 per cent of families came from dwellings classified as ’not fit
for human habitation’, and 36 per cent from what was defined as overcrowded
118 conditions (CHL Survey: 1942).
The drought and economic depression of the 1930s had lead to many
subsistence white farmers being forced off their land and this was reflected
in the origins of the residents of Epping Garden Village, most of whom
were first generation city-dwellers. The Company ruled that everyone
moving to the Village had to have been resident in Cape Town for at least
for two preceding years. However, of the first 680 families, only 25 per
cent originated from Cape Town, whereas 63 per cent of these families
originated from the rural towns and villages of the Cape Province such as
Ladysmith, Worcester and Caledon (CHL Survey: 1942).
Four out of five residents spoke Afrikaans as their home language, and
one out of five spoke English. They were mostly members of the Dutch
Reformed Church (72 per cent), Church of England (11 per cent) or Apostolic
churches (8 per cent). (CHL Survey: 1942.)
Politically, they were known as supporters of the National Party.
116 Clerk, salesman, shop assistant, typist.
117 Bill poster, charwoman, delivery boy, dock labourer, sweeper, washerwoman.
118 At that time, the rule of thumb was that two adults and a child needed at least one
bedroom in a home with a living room.
126