The South African
In his annual report for 1974/75 the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Major-General J.C. Lemmer MC says, The most pleasing aspect, and probably the biggest step forward since th establishment of the Museum, was the lifting by the Johannesburg City Council of the restriction it had placed on the Museum’s functions when the present site was leased to the Board and which was later embodied in the title deeds when the City of Johannesburg and the township owners, Transvaal Consolidated Land and Exploration Company Limited, donated the site to the Board for the erection of a permanent building. For the benefit of those not familiar with the Museum's early history, this restriction limited the Museum's scope to the post—1910 period and this, in practice, proved to be a great handicap and, apart from the constant need of funds, the major obstacle in the way of the Museum’s fulfilling its role as South Africa's National Museum of Military History. I would, therefore, like to express the extreme pleasure of the Board of Trustees at the change and also to record sincere thanks and appreciation to the City Council of Johannesburg, the Transvaal Consolidated Land and Exploration Co ltd., and the Director of the Africana Museum Johannesburg, for their sympathetic understanding of the Museum’s difficulties and their co-operation in agreeing to waive the restrictive clause, thereby allowing the Museum to expand its scope to cover the entire field of military history.
A second step of note was the change of the Museum's name from S.A. National War Museum to S.A. National Museum of Military History, a change readily agreed to by the Minister of National Education, following representations by the Board to the effect that the new name would be more in keeping with the Museum’s educational role in the field of military history.
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