Last modified: 2019-08-06 by bruce berry
Keywords: matroosberg | cape province |
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image by Arthur Radburn, 22 Nov 2015
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The Matroosberg Divisional Council was a former local authority in the then Cape Province of South Africa. A divisional council was a local government body consisting of a council of elected members responsible for the provision of services outside municipal boundaries. They were introduced in 1855 and were superseded by regional services councils in the late 1980s, which in turn were abolished with the introduction of the new local government system in South Africa which created wall to wall municipalities in 2000. (A divisional council was thus the Cape equivalent of an English county council).
The flag of the Matroosberg Divisonal Council was designed by Dr Cornelius Pama,
and adopted by the council on 30 September 1981. It was simply a banner of the
coat of arms which Pama had designed for the authority's predecessor, the
Worcester Divisional Council, in 1973. The flag presumably went out of use
after the divisional council was absorbed into the Breede River Regional
Services Council in 1989.
The design is blazoned as : "Vert, a bend dancetty Argent in the shape of a
letter W between two bezants". Pama explained the bend as representing a river,
the 'W' for Worcester, and the bezants for prosperity.
The arms were registered at the South African Bureau of Heraldry in 1973. When
the council applied to register the flag in 1982, it was told that, as the
design was identical to the arms, it was already covered by the existing
registration (Source : Western Cape Archives : 4/MTB 4/1/25 (file 219C)).
Arthur Radburn, 22 Nov 2015