Even though this book focusses on social development in the post-apartheid era, it is very important not to lose sight of the past, which gave birth to present-day social development endeavours as well as bequeathed democratic South Africa high levels of poverty, inequalities, unemployment and various social ills. This history is a long and painful one, and it is littered with all manner of human oppression, deprivation, exploitation, misery, humiliation and death. It is a history that cannot be treated perfunctorily but requires a sombre and critical type of approach. To this end, this chapter discusses the emergence of organised responses to human deprivation in South Africa in the colonial era and shows how voluntary and faith-based organisations were the first sectors to help people who found themselves in dire circumstances. However, such responses were only for indigent white people and were meant to eradicate the ‘poor white problem’ in the country. The chapter also explores the mechanisms which were used to mitigate the difficult situations people faced at the time. It also focusses on the genesis of social welfare in general and social work practice and social work education in particular. The former were inextricably linked to the political and economic developments which were unfolding in the country. Furthermore, the chapter sheds light on the apartheid era and explains how during this period social provision was strictly redefined along racial lines, notwithstanding the earlier colonial racial hierarchical classification that distinguished access to social services. The chapter provides the socio-political and economic antecedents that had informed and shaped social welfare provision, and which were inherited by the democratic government in 1994. This is the system that had to be transformed and reconfigured into a democratic developmental mechanism that approached social well-being from a holistic perspective, unlike the race-based and fragmented approach of the past.