The ‘place of quietness and light’ was Baragwanath Hospital. Ironically, within a few years of its opening the hospital became so overcrowded that few patients had a bed to themselves and there was very little ‘space to move about freely’. Yet the early excitement about the opening of Baragwanath as a civilian hospital for black patients should be seen in the wider context. From the early debates about the establishment of Baragwanath as an Allied military hospital in the early 1940s to its subsequent acquisition by the Transvaal Provincial Administration (TPA), Baragwanath's history was deeply intertwined with arguments about the provision of urban African health care. The story of the birth and death of Baragwanath's first phoenix and its place within the context of urban African health care is important in itself. But the early years also saw the foundation of a specific Baragwanath ethos, for the staff in the early years were those who practised medicine in difficult under-resourced situations – military or civil – and thrived. They developed innovative solutions that they were proud of, and they often stressed the mutual support and assistance created by working in such conditions.

Soweto and its health services, pre-1948

The area today known as Soweto was given its name in 1963 – a composite, coined from the first two letters of each of the words South Western Township. The first of the sub-townships or suburbs was formed in 1905 when the Johannesburg City Council used an outbreak of bubonic plague as a stimulus to clear a Johannesburg slum where Africans and Indians had been living. Over one thousand Africans were moved to Klipspruit. At the same time it became illegal for Africans to live in the city unless they were living in compounds at one of the mines, or working as live-in domestic workers in homes in the white suburbs.