Philip Qipu Vundla was born in Healdtown, Cape Province, South Africa in 1901. His father was one of the first registered African voters in Cape Province. After leaving school he worked as a domestic servant in East London for a short time, before he was recruited to work as a clerk in the gold mines in Johannesburg. He left the mines after giving evidence to a Commission of Inquiry into native mine wages and working conditions, and became a full time organiser of the African Mineworkers Union. After a strike in 1946 the South African Government passed a law prohibiting Africans from holding gatherings on mine ground, Vundla joined the Defiance Campaign, and the African National Congress. In 1948 he was Chairman of the Anti-Tram Fare Increase Committee, and organised a major boycott of tram system. He was later a member of the National Executive and Chairmman of the Western Region of the ANC, 1952-1955. He left active politics in 1953 and became a journalist. He died in 1969.
From the guide to the VUNDLA, Philip Qipu (1901-1969), 1958 (covers 1901-1958), (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)
