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Robert Godlonton
Robert Godlonton (1794–1884) ("Moral Bob") was an influential politician of the Cape Colony. He was an 1820 Settler, who developed the press of the Eastern Cape and led the Eastern Cape separatist movement as a representative in the Cape's Legislative Council. Early life Robert Godlonton was born in London on 24 September 1794. He was a weak and sickly child and after he was orphaned at the age of twelve he was apprenticed at a printing office. He emigrated to the Cape as part of the 1820 Settlers, taking with him a small printing press. However, Governor Somerset, fearing the impact of a free press, confiscated the press and compensated the price. Business career and printing industry After unsuccessful attempts at farming, he became a clerk at a landdrost's office and was gradually promoted over the next ten years. The Cape was finally given freedom of the press in 1828, due largely to the efforts of the journalist and politician John Fairbairn. In 1834 Godlon ...
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The Honourable
''The Honourable'' (British English) or ''The Honorable'' (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) (abbreviation: ''Hon.'', ''Hon'ble'', or variations) is an honorific Style (manner of address), style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of certain people, usually with official governmental or diplomatic positions. Use by governments International diplomacy In international diplomatic relations, representatives of foreign states are often styled as ''The Honourable''. Deputy chiefs of mission, , consuls-general and consuls are always given the style. All heads of consular posts, whether they are honorary or career postholders, are accorded the style according to the State Department of the United States. However, the style ''Excellency'' instead of ''The Honourable'' is used for ambassadors and high commissioners. Africa The Congo In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the prefix 'Honourable' o ...
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White South Africans
White South Africans generally refers to South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original settlers, known as Afrikaners, and the Anglophone descendants of predominantly British colonists of South Africa. In 2016, 57.9% were native Afrikaans speakers, 40.2% were native English speakers, and 1.9% spoke another language as their mother tongue, such as Portuguese, Greek, or German. White South Africans are by far the largest population of White Africans. ''White'' was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid. Most Afrikaners trace their ancestry back to the mid-17th century and have developed a separate cultural identity, including a distinct language. The majority of English-speaking White South Africans trace their ancestry to the 1820 British, Irish and Dutch Settlers. The remainder of the White South Afric ...
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Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020. About two-thirds of these inhabitants live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town, which is also the provincial capital. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province. The two largest cities are Cape Town and George. Geography The Western Cape Province is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about northwards along the Atlantic coast and about eastwards along the South African south coast ( Southern Indian Ocean). It is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape. The total land area of the province is , about 10.6% of the country's total. It is roughly the size of England or th ...
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Saul Solomon
Saul Solomon (25 May 1817 – 16 October 1892) was an influential liberal politician of the Cape Colony, a British colony in what is now South Africa. Solomon was an important member of the movement for responsible government and an opponent of Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme. Early life and background Saul Solomon was born on the island of St Helena on 25 May 1817. Although his family were St Helenan, they had close links to Cape Town. Saul spent his first years at a Jewish children's home in England, where he suffered from the malnutrition and rickets that physically affected him for the rest of his life. He then had a rudimentary formal education in South Africa before beginning work as an apprentice in a printing business. He later acquired the business and built it into the largest printing business in the country, founding the ''Cape Argus'' newspaper. He was also one of the founders of Old Mutual, today one of the largest insurance firms in South Africa. As repr ...
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Seven Circles Act
The Seven Circles Act, 1874, was an act of the Cape Parliament that divided the Cape Colony into seven provinces (or "circles") for the Legislative Council elections. Previously, the country had been divided into two large provinces, the Western and the Eastern Provinces, which had led to decades of polarisation and competition. The act was important in that it ended the bitter political schism that had divided the Cape for much of the 19th century. It formed part of the 1874 Constitutional Amendment Bill. Background The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope was bicameral, with a lower house (Legislative Assembly) and an upper house (Legislative Council). The latter had considerable power and influence on the lower house, and was elected according to two large provinces: * The Western Province, centred on Cape Town * The Eastern Province, centred on Port Elizabeth The Western Province The Western Province was larger, and was the seat of the country's capital city, Cape Town, ...
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Responsible Government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive branch) in Westminster democracies are responsible to parliament rather than to the monarch, or, in a colonial context, to the imperial government, and in a republican context, to the president, either in full or in part. If the parliament is bicameral, then the government is responsible first to the parliament's lower house, which is more representative than the upper house, as it usually has more members and they are always directly elected. Responsible government of parliamentary accountability manifests itself in several ways. Ministers account to Parliament for their decisions and for the performance of their departments. This requirement to make announcements and to answer questions in Parliament means that ministers must have the ...
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John Paterson (Cape Politician)
John ("Jock") Paterson (1822 – 1880) was a prominent politician and successful businessman of the Cape Colony, and had a great influence on the development of Port Elizabeth where he was based. He ran newspapers, established the Grey Institute and played a significant role in founding South Africa's Standard Bank. Early life and business ventures Born and raised in Aberdeen, Scotland, Paterson studied at Marischal university college and emigrated to Port Elizabeth in 1841 to take up a position as a school master. Later he successfully persuaded Sir George Grey, then the Governor of the Cape Colony, to take an interest in his proposals for new boys schools and Grey made land and funding available to Paterson for their founding. He had a notoriously volatile temperament. On 7 May 1845, he secretly started his first business, the '' Eastern Province Herald'' newspaper, with his partner John R. Phillip as the official owner. As he was still contracted by the state this was ...
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Cape Qualified Franchise
The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of non-racial Suffrage, franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamentary elections were applied equally to all men, regardless of race. This local system of multi-racial suffrage was later gradually restricted, and eventually abolished, under various National Party (South Africa), National Party and United Party (South Africa), United Party governments. In 1930 White South African, white Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930, women were enfranchised, and in 1931 Franchise Laws Amendment Act, 1931, property qualifications for white voters were removed. In 1936 Bantu peoples in South Africa, black voters were then removed from the common voters' rolls and Representation of Natives Act, 1936, allowed only to elect separate members in 1936, and subsequently Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act, 1959, denied all repre ...
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Penal Colony
A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location, it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority. Historically penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than a prison farm. British Empire With the passage of the Transportation Act 1717, the British government initiated the penal transportation of indentured servants to Britain's colonies in the Americas. British merchants would be in charge of transporting the convicts across the Atlantic, where in the colonies their indentures would be auctioned off to planters. Many of the indentur ...
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Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet, GCB (28 June 1787 – 12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander in the British Army of the early 19th century. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, he is also particularly remembered for his role in the Battle of Aliwal, India in 1846, his subsequent governorship of the Cape Colony, and as the husband of Lady Smith. Biography He was born in Whittlesey, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, the son of a surgeon and major in the Wisbech, Whittlesey and Thorney United Battalion. The east end of the south aisle of St. Mary’s church was at this time partitioned off and used as a schoolroom, the vicar or curate teaching. It was here that Harry Smith received his education from the Rev. George Burgess, then curate. During a review of the unit by General Stewart, he got into conversation with the youth and offered to procure him a commission. A short time later a commission as a second lieutenant ...
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John Molteno
Sir John Charles Molteno (5 June 1814 – 1 September 1886) was a soldier, businessman, champion of responsible government and the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Early life Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molteno emigrated to the Cape in 1831 at the age of 17, where he found work as an assistant to the public librarian in Cape Town. At the age of 23 he founded his first company, ''Molteno & Co.'', a trading company that exported wine, wool and aloes to Mauritius and the West Indies, and opened branches around the Cape. In 1841, he undertook Southern Africa's first experimental export of fruit, loading a ship with a range of fruits (necessarily dried, as no refrigeration existed yet) and sending it to Australia to test foreign markets. The experiment ended in disaster when his ship was wrecked in a storm – pushing Molteno close to bankruptcy. Disposing of the remains of his mercantile businesses, he immediately bought some land in the arid Beau ...
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