the Boers entrenched themselves behind a stone wall surrounding the animal stockade, and wounded the colonel in the backside, who was standing upright in his stirrups.
Second Anglo-Boer War
During the Second Boer War the Irene Concentration Camp was established in 1901 on the farm Doornkloof, as part of the British scorched earth policy, where Boer women and children were housed under extremely poor conditions. At its peak the camp had 5,500 inhabitants, mostly women and children. Between February 1901 and the end of the war in 1902, 1249 lost their lives here, about 1000 of them children. The Irene Camp Cemetery is well preserved and contains 576 of the original slate tombstones that was carved by hand in the camp.
20th century
The town of Irene was established in 1902 when 337 plots were laid out on the farm Doornkloof. Jan Smuts later owned this farm, and died there in 1950. The original Smuts House is a museum today, and regularly hosts open air fleamarkets on its grounds.
Centurion developed from the initial Lyttelton Township that was marked out on the farm Droogegrond in 1904. Lyttelton Manor Extension 1 was established in 1942. These two townships initially resorted under the Peri Urban Board in Pretoria.
Centurion was granted City Council status in 1962 as Lyttelton. It was formed by combining the areas of Doornkloof, Irene and Lyttelton.
In 2000, the Centurion local government became part of the newly-created City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, which also includes Pretoria, and the town ceased to have its own Town Council
