he central episode in Rhodesian history took place on 13 September 1890 when the Union Jack was run up on the site of modern Salisbury. As the Pioneers had drawn near to their appointed destination, Mount Hampden, after travelling the 400 miles from the Shashi River in two months and without losing a single man, Colonel Pennefather, commanding the Column, rode on ahead to look for a site to make a settlement. Coming to the Gwebi flats, Pennefather considered that it would be expensive to make a road over them. Frank Johnson, however, reported that ground near a stream and a “good sized kopje” five miles short of Mount Hampden, was suitable for settlement, and when on 12 September the Pioneers reached this spot, Johnson’s Order Book recorded simply that “It is noted for general information that the Column having arrived at its destination will halt. The name of this place will be Fort Salisbury.”

ext day, 13 September, the Pioneers paraded at 10 a.m. on ground now occupied by Cecil Square. Lieutenant E. G. Tyndale-BiscOe solemnly hoisted the Union Jack on a msasa pole. Prayers were offered by Canon Balfour, a salute was fired by two field-guns which had been dragged all the way from Mafeking, and three cheers were given, first for the Queen, and then for the British Prime Minister after whom the place had been named.

t the end of the month the Pioneers were discharged with three months’ rations and most of them went off to peg their mining claims or to ride out the farms which were their due. Some remained in Salisbury, and one of them afterwards noted: “Messrs. Heany, Johnson and Borrow built some huts where McCullough and Bothwell’s building is (opposite Standard Bank), and between our laager and the kopje was a big black marsh which could only be crossed by jumping from tuft to tuft of grass, but it could be avoided by going up to where the Municipal Gardens are now. The first Police Quarters were erected by Major Forbes on the site of Meikle’s Hotel. I believe the first bakery was a small red house where the Standard Bank is, and its oven a great big antheap.”