Porterville is a town in the Western Cape province in South Africa. Town at the foot of the Olifants River Mountains, 27 km south-east of Piketberg and 155 km north-east of Cape Town. It was laid out in 1863 on the farm Pomona, previously Willems Vallei, and became a municipality in 1903. It is situated 140 km north of Cape Town on R44 road at the base of the Olifants River mountains. Agriculture in the area is dominated by wheat production. The town was established in 1863 and named after William Porter, Attorney General of the Cape Colony from 1839 to 1866.

Porter arrived in the Cape Colony, bringing what he called “an unspeakable hatred of oppression of every kind”, and set about promoting equal rights and justice for all, regardless of race or class. The prominence of his position in the Cape helped to bring liberal principles into the mainstream in the conservative colony. Several progressive local leaders such as Saul Solomon, John Molteno and John Fairbairn soon surfaced and, taking advantage of their beliefs’ new acceptability, began to take control of the Cape’s politics.[1] When the Cape was granted its first Parliament in 1854, Porter was one of the primary drafters of the infant State’s constitution. The constitution prohibited discrimination on the basis of race and made provision for a franchise system where whites and blacks voted on equal terms and without distinction.