town to be occupied. Major General WAVELL and his British Troops occupied the Garfield Hotel in the town in February and March 1900 causing damage to the roof due to its use for Heliographing and flagsignalling between 16 February and 5 March 1900. Two days Cronje's men came under fire at Paardeberg Drift from French who was in pursuit of him and the battle of Paardeberg commenced. Cronje surrendered on 27 February after enduring 9 days of shelling by 40,000 British troops. 4,000 Boers surrendered and were taken off into exile at British prisoner-of-war camps around the world. During the British occupation, the occupiers were surprised by an attack by the Boers that resulted in the death of 23 British soldiers. The British retaliated by burning down twenty houses and interning all the town's women and children in a concentration camp in Kimberley. The men were sent to POW camps inside and outside South Africa. Later in 1900 the British erected a blockhouse near the town on the road to Paardeberg. Its rectangular shape is one of only 12 blockhouses with that shape in South Africa. Besides the cairn, there are other memorials to the war in Jacobsdal. A memorial to the dead from the Battle of Roodelaagte stands in front of the NG church. In 1968 a memorial was erected in the Jacobsdal cemetery which commemorates British and colonial men who were buried in the cemetery. The town has long had a well known Landbouskool, one of only three agricultural high schools in the province. During the Second World War, Italian prisoners of war were held near Jacobsdal and Koffiefontein. Their labour was used to construct the Riet River Irrigation Scheme which extended the existing water scheme. After the war, white war veterans were rewarded with the receipt of an irrigation plot of 24 morgen each. Agriculture The irrigation scheme is an extensive river irrigation settlement using water canals and the main crops are lucerne, potatoes, wheat, cotton, groundnuts, olives, maize and, since 1972, both table and wine grapes. The town claims to have the first wine cellar ever built outside the Cape Province. Wines of a good quality are produced by two wine cellars, Landzicht and Wilreza. In terms of livestock the focus is on sheep but there are also recently established large dairy establishments. Notable people Eric Louw - South African diplomat and politician References External links