 Initially dubbed "New Rush", the site was renamed after Lord Kimberley, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1873.It was respectively and from the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (or Transvaal), the latter of which had just had its independence restored following the First Boer War of 1880–81.Coghlan was admitted to practise as advocate in the courts of West Griqualand on 9 December 1886.