Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). It is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for its high levels of crime and poverty It is part of Greater Yeoville, a greater territory combining Bellevue, Bellevue East and Yeoville itself and its size, crime, poverty and population density levels is somewhat comparable to nearby Hillbrow. Yeoville is home to Yeoville Boys Primary School, Yeoville Market and Yeoville recreational centre. History Founding Yeoville was proclaimed as a suburb in 1890 (four years after the discovery of gold led to the founding of Johannesburg) by Thomas Yeo Sherwell, who came from Yeovil in the United Kingdom. The area was advertised as a 'sanitarium for the rich' in which the air was purer because it was up on a ridge overlooking the dirty, smoke-filled mining town that had sprung from nothing out of the (then) Transvaal bushveld. However, the rich did not buy into the suburb. Instead it became a multiclass area, one to which many poorer people living below the ridge in Doornfontein aspired. It was also a place which attracted many of the waves of migrants from abroad that came to South Africa seeking a new life.. 1970s By the 1970s, it had a predominantly Jewish character, with a number of synagogues in the area and Jewish delicatessens and bakeries in the main business street. Harry Schwarz, a well known Jewish lawyer and politician was Member of Parliament for Yeoville from 1974 to 1991. Over the years Yeoville, and its neighbouring suburb Bellevue, also attracted its fair share of artists, musicians, students and political activists. However, it was in the late 1970s that a process began which would change the nature of these two suburbs forever. The establishment of a small, discreet club by a well-known music producer called Patric van Blerk resulted in the main business street through the two suburbs, named Raleigh St in Yeoville and Rockey St in Bellevue, becoming the bohemian cultural centre of South Africa, with a number of night spots and restaurants moving from nearby Hillbrow, till then the night-time entertainment mecca of Johannesburg. Within two years, the high street was transformed from a quiet community street serving the local residents to an internationally-known cultural centre with restaurants, jazz bars, bookshops, arts and crafts