Nqamakwe is a town in Amatole District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.

As refugees from the Mfacane wars further north, they had relatively few links to their former rural tribal economy and, at a relatively early stage, came under the guidance of European missionaries.

Realising the need for an education in the colonial economy they were now attempting to enter, they began, on their own initiative, to collect funds and to lay down the groundwork for the establishment of a technical training institute.

[2] It was named Blythswood in honour of Capt MT Blyth, the Government Agent to Fingoland.

[3] It is also birthplace of South African activists Govan Mbeki, Annie Silinga and Dora Tamana as well as the cardiologist and professor Bongani Mayosi.