In Africa, like elsehwere around the globe, Scottish clubs and societies were a common development soon after the first foot fall of Scots on the continent. Contrary to popular assumption, and while there was a strong concentration, such associations were not restricted to southern Africa. By the early twentieth century we find societies in Salisbury (now Harare) and Bulawayo, the latter Society’s activities firmly recognized on St Andrew’s Day in 1902, when it received telegrams from sister societies in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Salisbury, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Umtali, Gwelo, Mafeking, Kroonstad, Simonstown, Queenstown, Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Lourenço Marques (present-day Maputo) and East London; there was also a telegram from the Diamond Fields Scottish Association.
In 1898 the Chieftain of the Salisbury Caledonian Society was Dr Leander Starr Jameson. Born in Edinburgh in …