February 1873, alluvial gold was discovered and within 3 months the Lydenburg goldfields were proclaimed. The First Boer War broke out between Britain and the Transvaal Republic in 1880. A British garrison under Lieutenant Walter Hillyar Colquhoun Long (uncle of the 1st Viscount Long) occupied Lydenburg to control the goldfields. It was from here that the ill-fated 94th Regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther marched to Pretoria. The remainder of the garrison at Lydenburg was besieged from 6 January 1881, following Long's refusal to surrender the garrison on 23 December 1880. Land such as Boomplaats and Aapiesdoorndraai farms, near the town, was purchased by black South Africans in the early 1900s before the 1913 Land Act severely restricted black land ownership in South Africa. The communities here developed and irrigated the initially arid area into valuable and productive farms. By 1910 the railway reached Lydenburg. In 1927 Lydenburg became a municipality. Apartheid-Era History Forced removals from farms surrounding Lydenburg began in the early 1940s and continued through the 1960s. Residents on the farms, especially through the ICU, ANC and local chiefs, resisted the removals in different ways depending on local circumstances and allegiances. Often violently, the apartheid state removed the families to farms further from the town or to Sekhukhuneland. In 2001, in one of South Africa's first completed land restitution claims, Boomplaats farm was bought from Willem Pretorius and returned by the state to the Dinkwanyane community. Name change In June 2006, it was announced that Arts and Culture minister, Pallo Jordan, had approved the renaming Lydenburg to Mashishing, meaning "wind blowing through the grass". Education Marambane Primary School Lydenburg Primary School Höerskool Lydenburg Highschool Mashishing Secondary School Mashishing Campus Ehlanzeni TVET College Lesodi primary school, Mashingshing. Tourist attractions Lydenburg Museum Long Tom Pass Sterkspruit Nature Reserve See also Bapedi Lydenburg heads Mpumalanga Sekhukhuneland Jock of the Bushveld References Populated places in the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality Mining communities in South Africa Populated places founded by Afrikaners Populated places established in 1849 1849 establishments in Africa Former republics