Westbury at a glance
Westbury is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in the province of Gauteng. It is situated west of the Johannesburg CBD.
Prior to the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, the suburb lay on farmland called Newlands that lay on the original farms called Waterval and Middlefontein. The suburb was established in May 1918 by the Johannesburg Town Council as an area for black residents and called it Newlands Location. The residents of Newlands objected to the name and during July 1919 its name was changed to Western Native Townships. It would undergo more name changes during Apartheid when it was declaimed as a black township on 2 January 1963 and proclaimed as the Western Coloured Township in July 1963 when forced removals were used to move coloured residents from Doornfontein and Pageview to this location. By 1967 it had its last name change when it became Westbury. Westbury is the first place black people could legally live in the City of Johannesburg.
It was built on a municipal landfill that discouraged whites from purchasing land on the adjacent Sophiatown, forcing the owner Herman Tobiansky to sell land indiscriminately to members of any race.