Buccleuch is a suburb of

Sandton Sandton is an upscale commercial and residential district north of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. It forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The name of the city came from the combination of two of its suburbs ...

, in the

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

History

The suburb of Buccleuch stands on one of the old

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

farms called ''Waterfal''. The farmland had the

Jukskei River The Jukskei River is one of the largest rivers in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the southernmost river in the Crocodile River (West) basin. Course The Jukskei begins in Ellis Park in Johannesburg. Its original spring was on the former Doornf ...

flowing through it and after the creation of the city of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

the road to

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothi ...

, later known as the Old Pretoria Road, also passed through. The farm of 7,030 acres was purchased by John Alexander Gibson, a British immigrant, who owned a coach transport business. The farm was used as a rest area for his businesses horses and mules. When those animals were no longer used as transport the farmland was kept until his death in 1928 when it was divided amongst seven heirs and was sold. A son, Frederick Chapman Gibson, kept 1000 acres but would sell the eastern portion to

AECI AECI Limited () is a South African chemicals group and is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. History The company was registered as ''African Explosives and Industries '' (AE&I) in 1924, with its headquarters in Johannesburg. It was formed ...

the owners of the Modderfontein Dynamite factory in 1938 and the portion left, surveyed as a township divided into 170 stands of 3 to 5 acres with 50 stands on the

selling for £475 and up. The suburb itself was named after Frederick's family friend the Duke of Buccleuch and the street names after family and friends. Originally spelt Buccleugh it obtained its current name on 23 September 1992.

References

Johannesburg Region A {{Gauteng-geo-stub